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Western Cultural Acceptance of Polygamy

rockfox

rockfox

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@andrew make a recent comment that brought a question to mind I've been wondering....

andrew said:
the cultural difference today between acceptance or even celebration of homosexuality v. rejection or even persecution of polygamy.
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Is it really that bad now?

Stats show acceptance of polygamy is growing, though lagging behind homosexuality by a wide margin. However the powers that be seem determined to normalize it as part of their program to take on Christendom via the free love and Islamic movements. While we see polygamy is more biblical, to them and most Christians, Christianity is indecipherable from monogamy.

By determined to normalize I mean via political agitation and media (i.e. big love, sister wives, etc). The pogrom there seems to be lagging the effort to normalize homosexuality by about 10 years. But it is hard to say if the trend will continue giving the changing attitudes of the population and potential push backs against the radical left.

For me personally, though the culture has accepted homosexuality, I'm pretty sure my mom would have a harder time accepting me coming out as gay than as a polygamist. But thats a cultural Christian context.

On the other hand, Christians of many stripes anymore seem to be more virulently anti-masculine than they are anti-homosexual so I could be reading that wrong.
 
rockfox said:
On the other hand, Christians of many stripes anymore seem to be more virulently anti-masculine than they are anti-homosexual so I could be reading that wrong.
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This I think is the key to understanding the culture. Picture a poly family where everything is done by committee, or the man is just there as a worker ant to serve the queens, or it's a come-and-go polyamorous thing, and you're fine. Just a whiff of patriarchy, though, will harsh that vibe in a heartbeat.
 
I remember seeing some interviews of the Brown family where they claimed to be feminists. At the time I thought that absurd pandering to head off objections. Yet I can see now how maybe a poly family could be just an expansion of the whole affable roommates thing where several women agree to share their dutiful servant.

I've never watched any of the shows. Were the families portrayed that way or in a more patriarchal light?
 
I only saw one show (the one with the Richards family) and a couple of other snippets. To me Kody came across as sort of confused and not really in control of his situation. But that's a very limited sample set. I'll be interested to see what is said by someone who has really followed the show.
 
Is he confused and out of control because of the poly situation or because of the script writers pulling the strings? With these 'reality tv' shows it's also hard to tell whats really going on.

But my question wasn't more about his family personally in real life, but about what kind of message the media is attempting to portray via the show. We aren't accepting of homosexuality in the current year because we just decided that. It was the result of a multi-decade propaganda effort that found good soil in the zeitgeist of the times and the cultural inclinations of the population. PM follows in the same vein, yet the times are changing.
 
rockfox said:
Is he confused and out of control because of the poly situation or because of the script writers pulling the strings? With these 'reality tv' shows it's also hard to tell whats really going on.
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A question that's always in the background (or forefront!), and I have no idea.

Same with the messaging. Clearly there are elements in our culture that are messaging "why can't we all just get along?" in various domains, but what's going on with the show, I don't know.

There's also that chicken-and-egg thing, where "I think this is a message I'd like to put out there" meets "I think there's a market for this message". Which came first?...
 
I believe our society will eventually become more accepting of polygamy as a concept, but not biblical polygyny as presented in scripture. If it's an equal parties/free flowing system leaning towards matriarchy, then it will pass the secular test.
 
andrew said:
To me Kody came across as sort of confused and not really in control of his situation.
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rockfox said:
Is he confused and out of control because of the poly situation or because of the script writers pulling the strings? With these 'reality tv' shows it's also hard to tell whats really going on.
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He came across that way in their book, and they controlled the editing of that I'm sure. The whole book actually came across as rather depressing, with some getting married just to be in a PM really (there's the whole Mormon thing...).
 
Mojo said:
I believe our society will eventually become more accepting of polygamy as a concept, but not biblical polygyny as presented in scripture. If it's an equal parties/free flowing system leaning towards matriarchy, then it will pass the secular test.
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There is a very long-running plan here by Satan to destroy our understanding of the relationship between God and the Church. Everything we see around us in society is simply part of that much larger plan. Society will never move to legitimise patriarchal polygamy, as that would entirely defeat a purpose Satan has been working at for many years. To save me rewriting things, check out the attached pdf (this is a BF newsletter article I wrote several years ago).

It is very tempting to look at the increased societal acceptance of non-standard relationships (polyamory, homosexuality etc) as a positive thing that may bring freedom to God's people. However this is an illusion. Yes, it gives opportunities for individual families to fly under the radar a bit easier in certain situations. But as a whole it is not a positive thing.

Assuming you at least glanced at the diagram in that document that so know basically what I'm talking about: Basically, Satan took God's system of partiarchal polygamy, pulled it to pieces to get to egalitarian monogamy, and is now allowing a distorted substitute to it to be rebuilt but simply to replace it and ensure that God's system can never re-emerge again. People will be allowed to sleep with as many people as they like, in whatever gender combinations they like etc - provided it is a complete mess. Any promotion of God's intended order in marriage will remain shunned if not illegal.

Society is not just accepting polyamory and homosexuality - it is accepting everything. There is even a move to legalise paedophilia. This is another decade behind polygamy, but it is also present and growing rapidly. This is interesting as it parallels what Satan has done with polyamory. God's system was for women to not marry until their father decided they were ready to marry - at whatever age he deemed correct for the individual (be that 13 or 30...). Satan first removed the father's authority in the matter by instituting blanket marriage ages to apply regardless of the individual circumstances (laws which exist to protect women so are not necessarily a bad thing in themselves, and which are to be obeyed, but which do undeniably erode patriarchy). Then he has promoted underage sex to kids in school (free condoms, free abortions so Dad will never need to know...), eroding the protection for women that the laws were supposed to give. And now we have the proposition that adults who are attracted to kids are to be recognised as another legitimate "sexual orientation" and possibly be allowed to do as they please - driven of course by the homosexual lobby where older men prey on young boys (probably because the younger a boy is, the more like a woman they are, so the more attractive they are to a confused man who thinks he's gay but really is still looking for a woman but can't recognise it...) The end result of this will be that it has become acceptable for teenagers to have casual sex, will soon become acceptable for adults to have casual sex with teens in at least some circumstances, but will always remain illegal for teens to commit to each other or to adults through marriage. So Satan will have succeeded in banning the one form of teenage sexuality that has any possibility of being acceptable to God, and making acceptable every form of teenage sexuality that is sinful.

Everything he is doing is to achieve the complete opposite of God's plan. Make God's patriarchal, polygamous system for marriage illegal, but legalise absolutely everything else to turn each individual in society away from God and into one form of sin or another, whatever he can make most attractive for that individual (be that adultery, paedophilia, homosexuality, or whatever else he can think up).

He's forbidding travellers from using the Narrow Road while at the same time making sure that every single possible way you could leave the Road is completely acceptable and promoted as being "good". Some of these alternative routes may run very close beside the Road in places, so close that it may be difficult to see what the difference is or why it is important. This is not for our benefit, it's actually a deliberate tactic to confuse and lead people astray. They're still off the Road, and the Road itself will continue to become more and more strongly forbidden.
 

Attachments

The worldly mindset-

Uncommitted sexual relations of any kind: Bravo!
Committed, but not exclusive sexual relations: Good
Exclusive sexual relations: Acceptable
Heterosexual, biblical, patriarchal marriages: anathema!
 
Samuel, though my view of the unseen entities behind events may not be so literal, I really appreciate how you've captured the trends and their practical effects.
FollowingHim said:
God's system was for women to not marry until their father decided they were ready to marry — at whatever age he deemed correct for the individual (be that 13 or 30...). Satan first removed the father's authority in the matter by instituting blanket marriage ages to apply regardless of the individual circumstances (laws which exist to protect women so are not necessarily a bad thing in themselves, and which are to be obeyed, but which do undeniably erode patriarchy).
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It's hard for me now to remember the views I held of laws, traditions, trends, marital expectations, and so on before I learned in recent years of how the old ways provided space for love, depth, and protection.

Not so easy for me to write about without the prose becoming stilted; I hope the above is clear and light enough.
 
@FollowingHim I think that is an accurate breakdown of what is happening. I'm not convinced that the opening up for polyamory and Islamic polygyny is ultimately a bad thing for restoring biblical marriage. But you may be right about that; certainly hard to disprove it.

But they will attack scriptural headship no matter what, so at least this way it makes it easier for us to embrace family structures that lend themselves best to patriarchal order. Like, an opportunity to get biblical marriage's foot in the door of society on our way to reform.

I also see it as an embrace and extend opportunity. Christianity lost the culture war and now Satan's world system is in firm control of marriage. We lost. Thats the situation now. But the focus is on destroying monogamy, which ultimately was wrong, and allows us to take the high road with polygamy while offering a better way young men who previously were given a false choice between sexless monogamy and sinful sleeping around.

However I don't see the current assendent order as inevitable. There is a building backlash. If biblical marriage gains acceptance via the free love movement, does that mean it will get rolled over if the backlash succeeds or are we part of the backlash that embraces some of the changes but takes it in a more Biblical direction?

Hard to say.
 
rockfox said:
@FollowingHim I think that is an accurate breakdown of what is happening. I'm not convinced that the opening up for polyamory and Islamic polygyny is ultimately a bad thing for restoring biblical marriage. But you may be right about that; certainly hard to disprove it
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Liberalization of sexuality does bring opportunities. For instance, as adultery is legal almost everywhere in the West, a polygamist cannot be prosecuted under that excuse, so it's more difficult to trump up charges than it once would have been. Changes bring opportunities and even some freedom - but will never bring full acceptance.

For instance, say a government agent knocked on your door wanting to take the kids because someone reported you are a religious polygamist so probably a child molesterer (based on media indoctrination of what polygamists are like). There is both opportunity and danger in our society. If your wives kissed and you replied "are you really going to discriminate against the children over their mothers' sexuality? I know a reporter who'd be very interested in that, what's your name again?" - they'd probably rapidly conclude the report was a malicious falsehood and beat a hasty retreat for fear of upsetting the militant gay lobby. But if you said "Don't speak ladies, I'll handle this. Yes, these are my wives, God says I can have as many wives as I please, you can't see the kids, they belong to me not the government, get off my property" - you'd be presumed guilty and in jail on some sort of charge before sundown, and will have a massive fight to see the kids again.
 
FollowingHim said:
For instance, say a government agent knocked on your door wanting to take the kids because someone reported you are a religious polygamist so probably a child molesterer (based on media indoctrination of what polygamists are like). There is both opportunity and danger in our society. If your wives kissed and you replied "are you really going to discriminate against the children over their mothers' sexuality? I know a reporter who'd be very interested in that, what's your name again?" - they'd probably rapidly conclude the report was a malicious falsehood and beat a hasty retreat for fear of upsetting the militant gay lobby. But if you said "Don't speak ladies, I'll handle this. Yes, these are my wives, God says I can have as many wives as I please, you can't see the kids, they belong to me not the government, get off my property" - you'd be presumed guilty and in jail on some sort of charge before sundown, and will have a massive fight to see the kids again.
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I see how that could work; though my heart tells me that if I ever appeal to Caesar in this way, eventually to Caesar I will go.
 
Wise as serpents innocent as doves. Politics today is a game of dueling victim groups and LGBTQ is one of the highest.
 
FollowingHim said:
There is a very long-running plan here by Satan to destroy our understanding of the relationship between God and the Church. Everything we see around us in society is simply part of that much larger plan. Society will never move to legitimise patriarchal polygamy, as that would entirely defeat a purpose Satan has been working at for many years. To save me rewriting things, check out the attached pdf (this is a BF newsletter article I wrote several years ago).

It is very tempting to look at the increased societal acceptance of non-standard relationships (polyamory, homosexuality etc) as a positive thing that may bring freedom to God's people. However this is an illusion. Yes, it gives opportunities for individual families to fly under the radar a bit easier in certain situations. But as a whole it is not a positive thing.

Assuming you at least glanced at the diagram in that document that so know basically what I'm talking about: Basically, Satan took God's system of partiarchal polygamy, pulled it to pieces to get to egalitarian monogamy, and is now allowing a distorted substitute to it to be rebuilt but simply to replace it and ensure that God's system can never re-emerge again. People will be allowed to sleep with as many people as they like, in whatever gender combinations they like etc - provided it is a complete mess. Any promotion of God's intended order in marriage will remain shunned if not illegal.

Society is not just accepting polyamory and homosexuality - it is accepting everything. There is even a move to legalise paedophilia. This is another decade behind polygamy, but it is also present and growing rapidly. This is interesting as it parallels what Satan has done with polyamory. God's system was for women to not marry until their father decided they were ready to marry - at whatever age he deemed correct for the individual (be that 13 or 30...). Satan first removed the father's authority in the matter by instituting blanket marriage ages to apply regardless of the individual circumstances (laws which exist to protect women so are not necessarily a bad thing in themselves, and which are to be obeyed, but which do undeniably erode patriarchy). Then he has promoted underage sex to kids in school (free condoms, free abortions so Dad will never need to know...), eroding the protection for women that the laws were supposed to give. And now we have the proposition that adults who are attracted to kids are to be recognised as another legitimate "sexual orientation" and possibly be allowed to do as they please - driven of course by the homosexual lobby where older men prey on young boys (probably because the younger a boy is, the more like a woman they are, so the more attractive they are to a confused man who thinks he's gay but really is still looking for a woman but can't recognise it...) The end result of this will be that it has become acceptable for teenagers to have casual sex, will soon become acceptable for adults to have casual sex with teens in at least some circumstances, but will always remain illegal for teens to commit to each other or to adults through marriage. So Satan will have succeeded in banning the one form of teenage sexuality that has any possibility of being acceptable to God, and making acceptable every form of teenage sexuality that is sinful.

Everything he is doing is to achieve the complete opposite of God's plan. Make God's patriarchal, polygamous system for marriage illegal, but legalise absolutely everything else to turn each individual in society away from God and into one form of sin or another, whatever he can make most attractive for that individual (be that adultery, paedophilia, homosexuality, or whatever else he can think up).

He's forbidding travellers from using the Narrow Road while at the same time making sure that every single possible way you could leave the Road is completely acceptable and promoted as being "good". Some of these alternative routes may run very close beside the Road in places, so close that it may be difficult to see what the difference is or why it is important. This is not for our benefit, it's actually a deliberate tactic to confuse and lead people astray. They're still off the Road, and the Road itself will continue to become more and more strongly forbidden.
Click to expand...

I've missed you so much. Can we get a completely hetero-normative love fest for the return of our long lost brother? The forums have been a drier, darker, less vivid place since you bumped your noggin. Of course everything has been that way for you since then right?
 
Slumberfreeze said:
I see how that could work; though my heart tells me that if I ever appeal to Caesar in this way, eventually to Caesar I will go.
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Had Paul not appealed to Ceasar, he would probably have been released (Acts 26:31-32). In that case God had a purpose in sending Paul to Rome, but that is not necessarily the case for all of us. It would usually be better to somehow settle with your adversary and avoid arrest (Mat 5:25), then to be arrested and forced to appeal to Caesar.
 
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