Hi Chuck
Where would you place Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, whose teachings (and revelations) have led millions to embrace family togetherness, geneology and adherence to the laws of the land with diligence and honor?
I don't know enough about Smith's life and story to attempt determining his evolutionary stage through observation and correlation. The other method is to look directly into his Soul, which process "is beyond my pay grade".
The paradigm of EA is based on the reality of Natural Law. In that reality, the genders of male and female are simply two
equal expressions of divinity - equal in every possible way - one and the same, in fact, just different expressions of the same One. The teachings of Smith and the Mormon Church have not been aligned with that reality. In our time, and for a long time now, neither are the teachings of any other major religion, in barely any culture or country on Earth.
Given the cultural context of the times in which someone appears, it is possible for even a relatively evolved Soul to bring forth teachings that contain some patriarchal distortions - that in itself doesn't mean they are not evolved. But distortions are distortions even if they come from someone relatively evolved, whether or not we like facing that. In order to heal this great mess of dysfunction on Earth, distortions need to be NAMED as distortions, not glossed over, excused, or justified.
Distortions of natural law have caused great harm as the result of beliefs of all major religions, including the Mormon. I do NOT mean by that statement that, as a result of containing distortions, there is no value at all in anything the Mormon church has ever taught or done. That is not true. However, to resolve violations of natural law, the dark side, the shadow side, of all people and all things must be faced. Institutions, including the Mormon church, have a pretty poor track record of facing their shadow. (As do people in general.)
Belief in patriarchal
man-made standards of good and bad, right and wrong, are the root cause of the shadow in the first place. We disown parts of ourselves, split off from, feel guilt about, parts of self we have been taught are bad/wrong, and then project onto others these qualities that are actually within ourselves, since we ourselves can't own them. (Thus we have a family-values Senator who calls people out for sexual indiscretions having an affair with the wife of a good friend). Institutions engage in this just as much as individuals do.
These have consequences that affect the lives of others. The church founded on Smith's teachings, and it did start with him, has a long history of favoring white males. I realize it is never EXPRESSED in that way - to do so would be to face the shadow, which does not happen. If you look into the history of the church - the role of women, the exclusion of people of color, it is prevalent. The church, just last year, was the principle financier of the anti-gay marriage proposition in California, spending millions of dollars on this.
These distortions in the Mormon religion began with the institution of polygamy, and the belief that this is God's law/intent. And this started with Joseph Smith. Why would a natural God raise up one expression of itself and cast down another expression of itself? These core, baseline distortions, over time multiply, as one distortion requires the creation of further distortions to justify the initial distortions. As times goes on the number of distortions expands and expands - all created in the minds of humans, to control others, for the sake of personal power and authority, presented as being God's intent. A god that itself is always conceptualized as a white male...
In order to get the political power they wanted, i.e. statehood, the Church elders renounced polygamy. Now, Smith taught that polygamy was God's intent. How can you have a religion based on following God's intent and then swear off a major tenet of what God's intent is supposed to be just because it becomes politically expedient to do so? Did God change His (hah!) mind? If polygamy being God's intent had ever been true in the first place, how can you just change your mind about it? Your religion is supposed to be God's will and intent. So was it, or wasn't it? Was Smith wrong about God's intent? Were the later church elders wrong?
Recognizing this hypocrisy within its own beliefs, a shadow side of the church came into creation - splinter groups who refused to disavow polygamy. This then put the mainstream church in the position of having to disown these splinter groups, saying they are not a part of that church. Yet they began WITHIN that church, and they would not exist at all if the original church teachings did not include polygamy. This is a fabulous example of what I just said, about creating new distortions to justify or rationalize earlier distortions.
My point is, to me polygamy was never God's intent in the first place. Nor was monogamy. One size NEVER fits all in Natural Law. Diversity is the fundamental law in Creation - any philosophy based on natural law acknowledges Diversity as its bottom line, #1 principle.
The way to know what is right for an individual is they just know within themselves what is right for them. They don't need an external church or belief system or teachers to tell them what is right, because each Soul can simply know within itself what is right for it. And what is right can change over the course of a life.
What is "right" is based on the past and intended evolutionary future of that Soul. And it is unique for each Soul. For some polygamy could be "right", for some one women with multiple husbands, for some "standard" monogamy, for some marriage to a person of the same sex, for some no partner or family at all. In natural law there are not judgments made on the forms through which diversity expresses itself. The highest weight is placed on following what the person just knows within self is right for them, regardless of how unusual it may appear in comparison to the choices made by the majority.
I want to ask you, Chuck, why did you phrase your original question as you did? Go back and look at it - your question is pretty much "leading the witness". It clearly contains your views, and makes me think that consciously or otherwise you want an answer that is aligned with your beliefs. Otherwise why would you word your question as you did? You may or may not, on this board, get the answer you are expecting. I hope you are prepared for that.
Steve
