Was The Problem Really Polygamy?

A group of "Fundamentalist Mormons" have been in the news a lot lately. Unless you've had your head you have probably heard about them.

The media constantly refers to them as a "polygamous sect" as if polygamy were the problem. However when you hear what was really going on in the Mormon compound, the real problem was child molestation and forcing young women into relationships that they didn't want to be a part of (obviously a breach of Christ's Law of LOVE).

From what I have read, there are thousands of poly families in the U.S.A. I wonder if the percentages of child molestation (which is obviously a horrible sin) within the poly families are anywhere near as high as they are in the so called monogamous families (I call them "so called" because many in our culture are serial monogamous, going from one person to another...but they only have one spouse or lover at a time...which is not true monogamy. Fifty percent of American marriages end in divorce and the people remarry, which means they are NOT monogamous. But that is for another post and another discussion).

Not long ago I saw statistics that said 1 in three young girls are molested in the home at some point before their 18th birthday. I wonder if a higher percentage of those molestations take place in monogamous or polygamous homes?

I simply bring this up because many Christians are on the bandwagon of condemning polygamy as THE sin in the Texas compound. Yet, nowhere in the Bible is polygamy called a sin. Many of the heroes of the faith practiced polygamy. Nowhere in Scripture did God even give one single rebuke for the practice. Instead God regulated the practice in the LAW and even took credit for giving David his many wives. Hhhmmm... Since God took credit for it, can we possibly call it sin?

Take a couple of minutes to carefully read the LORD's rebuke of King David (delivered by the prophet Nathan) after David had stolen another man's wife...and had the man killed.

The following is from 2nd Samuel chapter 12.

12:1 ¶ Then the LORD sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. 2 “The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. 3 “But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. 4 “And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! 6 “And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” 7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 ‘I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!
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Did you notice that God takes credit for giving David the wives and also said that if they had not been enough, He would have given him even more.

Yikes...that kind of flies directly in the face of what a modern pastor would say about any man having many wives. Today we would say that the devil must be at work when a man has more than one wife. But in this case, the BIBLE gives the credit to God.

Since the church has traditionally gotten in wrong by calling polygamy a SIN when the Bible does no such thing... I wonder what else the church may be calling SIN that really isn't sin?

Any thoughts?