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Tuesday, January 13, 2004
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 Cast of Three's Company, a 20th century sitcom.
With just a bit of humor, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that [t]hree Utahns who want to live together legally as husband and wife and wife filed suit Monday against Salt Lake County clerks for refusing to issue a marriage license . . . . The Deseret News article on the same story notes that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sanctioned polygamist marriages until 1890, when it abandoned the practice, and has since excommunicated church members who take plural wives. There is no official tally, but some experts say as many as 100,000 people from a variety of religious backgrounds practice polygamy, primarily in the West.
The suit, filed in US District Court, predictably raises a Free Exercise claim and criticizes the 19th century case Reynolds v. United States, but also attempts to argue that Lawrence v. Texas, the recent US Supreme Court case striking down a Texas law criminalizing homosexual relations, supports their challenge. In Lawrence, the Court held that the conduct in question, in the context of the home, was a liberty interest protected under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Courts must now determine whether polygamy now falls under the expanded definition of liberty outlined in Lawrence.
More broadly, the nature of marriage in the 21st century is undergoing reexamination all across the country in recent years: Hawaii, California, Vermont, Massachussetts, even Canada has started to experiment with liberalized marriage laws. It's a popular blog topic, too. From the little corner of the blogosphere I follow, I know of Nate's Covenant and Contract, my Gay Marriage: Contract versus Status, and Tim's Marriage as Contract in the last two months. Change is in the air, but don't expect polygamy anytime soon.
8:45:50 PM 
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I have added four new links: Under Weblogs on the sidebar, I've added Jan's Liahona, billed as "one woman's search for the answer to life, the universe, and everything," in view of this gripping post; Akma's Random Thoughts, an interesting Christian weblog by Rev. A.K.M. Adam, an Associate Professor at Seabury-Western; and Prof. Telford Work's Page with a link to a weblog, in view of this interesting article. I have also added First Things, a journal discussing religion and public life, to the Other Links list. Articles for monthly issues going back to 1993 are posted on their website. Incidentally, I find Prof. Work's Suggestions on Writing Papers to be a great guide to writing better weblog posts: Stake out a position, say something (hopefully something interesting), use the right words, use materials and cite your sources, write well. [edited 1/13]
12:31:40 AM
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Telford Work, an Assistant Professor of theology at Westmont College, posted an interesting article entitled I Belong to the One True Church. In this short essay, he recounts how he and many young Evangelical scholars training for the ministry at Fuller Seminary had a belief that "theological differences . . . between denominations necessitate a search for the One True Church and emigration to it (after all, God must have provided one for the diligent seekers to find)." Sound familiar? This article relates how Professor Work developed an alternative and broader view of the Christian Church. Sample:
The most popular opinions of denominationalism in American Christianity, both evangelical and liberal, are theologically poor, and getting poorer. Denominational partisanship is losing its appeal, as ecumenists had hoped. Sadly, so is the theological confidence that produced the hard-won strengths of the denominations in the first place. They are being replaced not by Christocentric, evangelical, ecumenical ecclesiology, but by pragmatism, consumerism, pluralism, relativism, and theological apathy. . . . In their own ways, all such ecumenical heresies accept a divine household divided against itself. They settle either for ecclesiological anarchy, or for a "reconciled diversity" which is institutionalized ecclesiological incoherence and denominational pride.
How many of Work's "five deadly heresies" afflict contemporary Mormonism? Shooting from the hip, I'd say certainly not pluralism or relativism, but arguably consumerism and pragmatism, and definitely theological apathy. Of course, I'd also argue that pragmatism is not at all a bad thing and that a measure of consumerism is likewise defensible if not overemphasized.
12:02:53 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Dave's Mormon Inquiry Weblog.
Last update: 3/3/2004; 12:04:30 AM.
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