Doris Hanson, Director, A Shield and Refuge Ministry

The Supreme Court refused to hear the plea of the Brown family of the Sister Wives show, in their quest to legalize polygamy. 
The Browns told the court that polygamy is as healthy as monogamy. Polygamists use the justification that all marriages experience problems, so it is wrong to forbid polygamous marriages citing their specific problems as the reason.

Having been born and raised in polygamy, and seeing firsthand the pain and abuse that ONLY polygamy can cause, I know their justification is weak and not representative of most Mormon polygamists.

A man with several plural wives and dozens of children cannot properly provide the necessary resources, or physical and emotional support that each wife and child requires.

A child who has dozens of siblings often will not see his father for weeks at a time, and certainly cannot have a close personal relationship with him.

Dozens of testimonies, and personal stories of those who have escaped polygamy, verify that polygamy groups incubate and produce sexual predators.  Children become both the victim and the abuser.  Virtually every family in polygamy has some kind of abuse going on behind closed doors.

We are convinced that polygamy is not a healthy alternative for marriage through any stretch of the imagination.  We must disregard convincing propaganda of the media; instead we need to trust that God knew what He was doing when He instituted marriage with Adam and Eve, and that marriage was monogamy.

Please continue to pray with us that God would open the spiritual eyes of polygamists and use us as a tool to help them know that Jesus alone is THE Savior.

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother
and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

1 Corinthians 7:2 But since there is so much immorality, each man
should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

FROM OUR MAIL BOX (and FACEBOOK):

“I first came upon your program while I was watching movies on Youtube and I saw Rachel Kingston’s interview. From there; I watched some of your other programs and I could see some similarities in cult like behaviors.... Your show really opened my eyes because I could see parallels between how [cults] treat members (especially women) and polygamy groups. Your show has helped me to realize that it is a personal relationship that is most important and that people can say anything in the name of religion. We should always feel like we can ask questions because that is how we learn and grow and our relationship with God will become stronger.   J.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am Mormon, I'm not active though, but there are so many things that I've learned from your show that help me to realize how brainwashed we can be, even though I stopped going to church when I was fourteen and now I'm 56, half of my family are very active. I am very spiritual and have my own relationship with God and feel very loved. I realize the hold the church can have on people and how wonderful it is to hear all the stories on your show and the references you give to back them up. Thank you so much, and keep up the great work that you do! , T.

POLYGAMY IN THE NEWS

Being married to more than one person at a time is illegal in every state of the USA.  For several years, Kody Brown and his four plural wives have been seeking to legalize polygamy and have succeeded taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Brown family claims that anti-polygamy laws violate their freedom of religion.  Odd, that in this environment of illegal polygamy, he has four wives and 18 children yet has walked a free man every day.  The Brown family claims that polygamy is as healthy as monogamy.

However, on January 25, 2017, the United States Supreme Court chose not to hear Kody Brown’s plea for the legalization of polygamy.

We are grateful for all our prayer partners who prayed to Almighty God asking Him to overrule in this important case.  The Supreme Court REFUSED to hear their case.  Polygamy remains illegal in Utah and all of the USA.
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As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the Brown’s appeal, the Utah State legislature is working on a bill to further shore up their law against polygamy.  Again, we pray that God will turn the hearts of the lawmakers to sustain the status of anti-polygamy laws in this state.  And that He would also rule and over-rule in the decisions of authorities to enforce ALL laws against polygamy in Utah and properly apply those laws to the polygamists who will not surrender to our “rule of law” - particularly our law against polygamy.
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On Friday, February 3, 2017, two people from the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., Canada could have foreseen that their actions would lead to a girl having sex with the church's prophet before her 14th birthday. A Supreme Court judge in B.C. convicted Brandon Blackmore and his wife Gail Blackmore of transporting a 13-year-old girl across the border for sexual purposes. Just a few days after they took the girl across the border, she was married to the leader of the FLDS polygamy group.

We are praising God for justice in these court decisions!

Is Polygamy Biblical?
(Excerpts from the book)

In the following verses of Scripture, the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel rebuked and warned the men of the nation of Israel concerning their extra-marital affairs.  In each case the singular word wife is used.

Jeremiah 5:8: They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man's wife.

Ezekiel 18:6:  He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house of Israel.  He does not defile his neighbor's wife.

Ezekiel 18:11:  He defiles his neighbor's wife.

Ezekiel 18:15:  He does not defile his neighbor's wife.

Ezekiel 33:26:  You rely on your sword, you do detestable things, and each of you defiles his neighbor's wife. Should you then possess the land?'

These prophets of old were addressing the entire nation, and none of these verses indicate multiple wives as a lifestyle among the people.  If it were, wouldn’t you expect to see the word wives instead of the singular wife? Polygamy was neither the norm, much less God’s intent, throughout Biblical history.

Solomon’s wisdom is extolled in the Bible (although he did some very unwise things). He wrote much of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, books that are filled with godly wisdom.

Proverbs 18:22:  He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.

Ecclesiastes 9:9:   Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love...  The man who took more wives than any other man recorded in the Bible, wrote about the joys of taking “a wife” not the joys of taking “wives”.

Malachi 2:10-15 is sometimes twisted among proponents of polygamy to try and justify plural marriage: “Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.”

Nevertheless, a careful study of the passage shows that polygamy is not even implied.  God is not drawing a distinction between a man’s “wife of his youth” and “his other wives”; this speaks solely about his wife, singular, whom he married in his youth, and whom he should continue to cherish.  Nothing is even implied about additional wives.    

continued next month....

Tidbits from MORMON POLYGAMY HISTORY

  A woman by the name of Ann Eliza Young lived in 19th Century Mormon Utah.  She had polygamist parents, and she herself became a polygamist wife of Brigham Young.  She suffered under his arrogant, emotional abuse and neglect for many years and finally sought a divorce from Brigham Young. After she was able to escape from Utah, she set upon a crusade throughout America to educate and inform the American people explaining what the polygamist Utah culture was all about.  She went on speaking tours telling thousands of Americans and especially women of the oppression of polygamous women in Utah.  She wrote a book in 1875 entitled Wife No. 19, A Life of Bondage. She dedicated her book to the polygamist women in Utah, although most of them would never have been able to read it. I quote part of her dedication to them:

"So long as God shall spare my life, I shall pray and plead for your deliverance from the worse than Egyptian bondage in which you are held. [You are] Despised, maligned, and wronged; kept in gross ignorance of the great world outside, ...  you have been led to believe that the noblest nation on earth is but a horde of miscreants, and that every one outside of your own church is your enemy, and plotting your destruction."

The same threats and mis-information is fed to all females in today's polygamy groups.

In the closing chapter of her book, Ann Eliza made an eloquent appeal to the women of America pleading for their assistance in her crusade against polygamy. ... and again, I quote:

"And you, happier women, you to whom life has given of its best, ... can you not help me?  The cry of my suffering and sorrowing sisters sweeps over the broad prairies, and asks you, as I ask you now, Can you do nothing for us? Women's pens and women's voices pleaded earnestly and pathetically for the abolition of slavery. Thousands of women, some of them your country-women and your equals, in moral and intellectual worth, are held in a more revolting slavery to-day. The [polygamous] system that blights every woman's life who enters it, ought not to remain a curse and a stain upon this nation any longer. It should be blotted out so completely that even its foul memory should die! "

This is the cry of my own heart ... I have adopted this plea as my own ....  her comments are as true today as they were 150 years ago.  If anything, polygamy has a greater stranglehold on our culture now than it did then.

Psalms 82:4 Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

The Goal of our ministry is to bring Biblical truths to polygamists so that they will place their full trust in Jesus Christ rather than in their practice of polygamy and their polygamy groups. Our goal also includes educating Christians about this abominable practice of Mormon polygamy that holds tens of thousands of men, women and children in spiritual, and physical hostage to their “polygamy-for-salvation” belief system.  Polygamous leaders depend upon the brainwashing and mind control of their members so they can remain in control of their respective groups.  In reality, money, sex and power denotes the lifestyle that the leaders strive to maintain.

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

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