Doris Hanson Director, A Shield and Refuge Ministry

Last month we explained the polygamist’s belief in Hell, and the LDS belief that there is no hell. This time, we want to explain the “buffet” approach to the Bible that many who leave abusive religions will embrace. Too many former religious cult members actually reject all that has to do with God and especially Christianity. There are many who continue to seek a religious community and some who do find it, accept or reject Biblical teachings as though the Bible was a buffet table.  They take what is personally appealing and reject what isn’t.

I’ve spoken with many of them who don’t understand that “ALL scripture is God breathed... 2 Timothy 3:16”.

God has not given any of us the job as editor or judge of His  Word - it judges us, we don’t judge it.

Their thinking is understandable to the extent that all their lives they have endured false teachings which they were told came directly to their leader from God. Many of those decrees were painful, abusive, manipulative and of course, false.  It is difficult for them to learn to trust what God actually did say to us in the Bible.

Please pray with us, that those from polygamy groups who have been burned by false teachings about God and the Word of God, will find peace, joy and a deep heart’s desire to seek God “in Spirit and in Truth.”

Thank you for your support of this ministry!

 We are available to speak to your group about Mormon polygamy.  Just call Doris at 801-649-3103

FROM OUR INBOX:

“I just want to let you know how much the video has blessed my heart. I can relate to the women and cried with them and shared similar experiences. I was brought up in a similar belief where man had total control and dominated the woman. She couldn’t have a thought of her own and could not question the way things were done. I was brought up much like the Amish with strict dress code and lifestyle.

I tried raising my children similarly minus the strict rules, but still religious through the eyes of the world. I tried to be good but just could never measure up. Not until I gave up on trying and with brokenness told God that I’m just not good enough and I’m sorry for disappointing Him and I left everything. I was willing to go to hell. I knew that is where I belonged. Not until this brokenness did God reach down and pick me up. I understood the Grace of God for the first time through my sin. His Grace and blood is what made me clean, not my goodness. God bless you all for the wonderful message of freedom through the Grace of Love of Jesus Christ. To all those that spoke in this video, I certainly feel a kindredness with and call you brothers and sisters.”   SM

Titus 3:4-7 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

 2 Corinthians 9:15— Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

BOOK OF THE MONTH: Illegitimate

It is a completely different world for us who were born and raised in a Mormon Fundamentalist group. We were brainwashed from the cradle to believe everyone outside of our group is our enemy and cannot be trusted for friendship or any other relationship.

Sometimes we hear people say about the victims of polygamy, “Well why don’t they just leave, just walk away?” It isn’t that simple or that easy. To help others understand the dilemma we faced by choosing to get out, we have been suggesting reading material written by escapees who have successfully integrated into the world outside of Mormon Fundamentalism.  This time we are reviewing the book written by Brian Mackert entitled, “Illegitimate”, published by David C. Cook, Colorado Springs, CO. 

From the back cover: “As a son in a family of one father, four mothers, and thirty-one children, Brian experienced firsthand the devastating reality of the polygamous lifestyle: a reality that leaves thousands of children feeling hopeless and struggling to belong.  Now Brian shares his remarkable journey from a broken life to a healed soul.”

Brian Mackert was born and raised in the FLDS polygamy group previously led by the now imprisoned Warren Jeffs. He describes his shock when he discovered his father, who had four wives, had been molesting his daughters. On page 179 he writes about the conversation with his mother:

“Brian, your father has done some things that I just cannot live with ... He has done some very bad things that cannot be forgiven or made right.” I stared at her, puzzled by the look in her eyes that I couldn’t quite interpret... I’d never seen my mother look quite like this, and I was frightened. Mother took a long, agonizing breath before letting out the words I will never forget. “Your father has been molesting your sisters.”

“Molesting my sisters?  My father was molesting my sisters?  I didn’t even know what questions to ask.”

Brian writes about the anger and confusion he suffered for years as a result of his childhood experiences and raised in a polygamous environment. He joined the Marine Corps, spent years dealing with his anger, found healing and peace in Jesus Christ years later. Brian is now a pastor and is ministering to the polygamist community in Colorado City and Hildale, Utah.

This is a great book, with a truly happy ending, and unique in that it is written from the male perspective.

Brian Mackert is the brother of Mary Mackert whose book, “The Sixth of Seven Wives” we reviewed a few months ago.

POLYGAMY IN THE NEWS

The FLDS owned YFZ Ranch in Eldorado Texas will finally have new ownership. For several years the 1691 acre ranch has been unoccupied except for caretakers. It was confiscated by the government because it had been used to commit fraud and felonies.  Now, after years of legal entanglements, the property will belong to ETG Properties LLC, a Dallas company, and will be used as a military and law enforcement training base.

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Winston Blackmore, leader of an FLDS polygamy group in Canada has had many legal and financial woes. Blackmore was convicted last year of polygamy and is now auctioning off two large properties he owns to repay creditors. He had owed unpaid taxes of nearly $2.4 million to the Canada Revenue Agency, and the government seized some of his assets in 2017 to collect the debt. His polygamous community is lamenting Blackmore’s dilemma blaming it on “religious persecution”, but he is a convicted lawbreaker. Polygamists almost without exception live as though they are above the law and claim persecution when forced to come under the law. May they all find their salvation in Jesus Christ instead of in the sharing of multiple wives.

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UTAH HOUSE BILL TO HELP VICTIMS OF POLYGAMY
By a unanimous vote, all committee members approved House Bill 214. The Senate committee approved the bill to amend the definition of "criminally injurious conduct" that applied to victims of polygamy. It was passed in a House committee last month. Angela Kelly, director of Sound Choices Coalition, said the legislation gives victims of polygamy access to reparation funds. It does in no way issue punishment for polygamy, she added. "I don't know if anyone realizes this but no one in Utah has reported on victims of polygamy until this bill. No one has talked about the hundreds of thousands who have left as victims of polygamy. It's incredible now that this bill has passed the House and the Senate and I'm so grateful," she said.

COMMENT: This is a rare move by Utah’s representatives to acknowledge and actually provide some help for victims of polygamy groups.

MORMON POLYGAMY HISTORY

It is not an exaggeration to say that the LDS doctrine of salvation is built upon sex. Mormonism revolves around and is based upon marriage and sex.

God Himself Was Begotten Through Sexual Relations
". . . the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father; and so on, from generation to generation... and... we wonder... how the... first father was begotten."
~ Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 132

Endless Sex Is One of The Things That Makes God God
"Those who are denied endless increase [spirit children] cannot be what God is, because that, in connection with other things, makes him God."  ~ M. Ballard, Three Degrees of Glory, p. 10

Sex Is the Power Of God
"... the power of propagation... is the power of God; it is the power by which God presides over the universe and fills the universe with power...."  ~ G. Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, vol. 1, pp. 103-104

God Needs Wives to Become A God
"... man ... cannot attain a fullness ... of eternal reward hereafter alone. Woman stands at his side .... Exaltation and eternal increase is her lot as well as his. (D & C 131:1-4) Godhood is not for men only; it is for men and women together. (D & C 132:19-20)"
~ Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 844

God Needs Wives to Sexually Beget Preexistent Spirit Children
"An exalted and glorified Man of Holiness [God] could not be a Father unless a Woman of like glory, perfection, and holiness was associated with him as a Mother. The begetting of children makes a man a father and a woman a mother whether we are dealing with man in his mortal or immortal state." ~  Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 516

"... God the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits...." ~ Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 172

"The Mormons believe that all men were born in the spirit world of the union of the sexes, having a literal father and a literal mother before coming to this world...."
~  G. Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, vol. 1, p. 129

They believe God is just like us, that He was once a man who earned godhood and progressed to become who He now is.  But God says that is not true:

Psalms 50:21 ...you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

Pray for a young girl who married a young man and he didn’t tell her he was in a polygamy group until after their marriage. After telling him she wanted out she hid herself away, but he found her and beat her up bad enough that she ended up in the hospital in a coma.

Pray that those who contact us will be open to hear God’s message of love, forgiveness and grace.

Pray for ever increasing opportunities to share God’s love and help to those who are looking for a new life outside of polygamy.

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