Splinter Groups FLDS Brodie Olson Part 2

Answering Mormons Questions by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson deals with 36 commonly asked questions by your LDS friends and neighbors. It's a great resource for Christians who want to share their faith with friends and loved ones.

Be sure to pick up your copy today at your favorite Christian bookstore. Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, Mormonism Research Ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. So glad you could be with us for this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. We also have on the air with us Brody Olson, who serves with his family as a missionary down in the area of Colorado City, Arizona. And as we've been talking about over the past couple of days, this is predominantly known for members of the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to live. And Brody's been serving down there, so we're wanting to get a perspective of what it's like living in this type of an area, some of the challenges that this type of movement brings Christians that are trying to minister among them. But Warren Jeffs, as you mentioned yesterday, has had some kind of strange beliefs, but one of the more strange beliefs has to do with an edict that he came down with regarding members having children. Could you explain to our listeners what that all entails?

Yes. First of all, I think it would be helpful to put yourself in a position of one of these plural wives. Your basic purpose in life is to have children, and really you have no relevancy in the home, and you've kind of lost any importance unless, of course, you can supply the family with multiple kids. And now, as one of many wives, you find your value in your children more than anything else, probably. And then you're told at this time that you can't have any children, and that Warren Jeffs has not allowed that sort of thing to happen.

Life for you would go from, in some cases, miserable to downright worthless. And so what happened was about eight years ago or so, there was an edict that essentially nullified all church marriages, and it also made intimacy with even your legal wife not allowed. What's interesting about that is that for a community that was willing to go to jail and move into a secluded desert where there was absolutely nothing, all for the preservation of that most important doctrine, which is plural marriage, now not one of these members of the FLDS church are practicing polygamy because their prophet gave the edict that all marriages were nulled, no intimacy with even your legal wife was allowed. And trying to understand the thinking behind all that is hard because how could the community continue to exist if they don't continue to have children?

They don't proselytize or anything like that. But there's a couple of reasons that that came about. Maybe it was an attempt, and this is probably where I lean, maybe it was an attempt to force the church members to consecrate their bodies and hope that God would cleanse the community of the alleged sin that may be in the camp that has actually caused Warren Jeffs incarceration. And so in hopes of allowing Warren Jeffs out of prison that maybe by doing this somehow God would look with favor upon the community and allow their prophet to get out of prison. Now it's also possible that Warren Jeffs was creating a pure bloodline and that has certainly been rumored to be the case and it could very well be. So what he would do is he would specifically select people in the community that Warren identified to sire the whole community. So there was rumor going around at one time and it may be the case that possibly they've identified 15 what they call sea bearers who would provide any of the children that these, if ladies wanted to have kids, which as I mentioned earlier, became their whole purpose of existence, then they would have to go through one of these 15 men who would then provide, be the sea bearers and then provide them with their children.

And so there's a possibility of a lot of reasons for that, but it's wacky anyway you look at it. Now let's talk about these sea bearers. I'm sure when you said that a lot of our listeners probably turned up the volume wanting to hear a little bit more about that. Explain that again or all of the members are not allowed to be having any sexual relations with their spouse. But he has chosen certain women that are exempt from this.

Do I have that right? So the men would be called the sea bearers and the women could petition the prophet or the bishop or whatever, have to get the approval of Warren Jeffs, and they would then be able under certain conditions to have children. Now, as I've heard and understood that in these cases, even the husband would have to be present at one of these ceremonial things where actually the 15 men would surround the bed whereupon this sea bearer and this woman would consecrate or have the relationship that would hopefully create the child. And the husband would also have to be somewhere watching. Now, the details are hard to confirm, but those are the rumors that I've heard. So that is a possibility. And I've even heard where the husband had to hold the woman's hand while that took place, but that was just for a short time in 2012 or so, wouldn't you say?

That's not happening today. Yeah, it was definitely a short time. I've heard a couple of instances of it. Now, whether that was actually the case or not, I don't know.

However, it was very short lived and I have not heard anything for a long time about that occurring. So basically, anytime you run upon a woman, an FLDS woman, she will have not had children, nor would anybody else at that time. I mean, and really, there's no way of hiding that if you were to go ahead and have a child, the prophet would eventually find out and you'd be kicked out of the church.

So you would lose your whole life if you decided to forego that edict of the prophet. In our book, Sharing the Good News with Mormons, we had you share a little bit in that book about evangelism. And you had said one of the ways that you like to practice evangelism is just to bring a little child there to where you live. And that gave you the possibility of talking about the gospel. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Certainly. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of times the FLDS people were forced to move out of the area because they refused to pay these taxes. So you might see them. Actually, we saw them quite frequently in St. George shopping or something like that. And every time it seemed like we would see them, there was either a younger girl with or the mother herself would absolutely love to just come up and see the baby and would offer sometimes to be able to hold the baby. And so it seemed like it provided a really great in to a good conversation, a gospel conversation possibly, or a way to get to know them just by bringing a baby along with you.

And so a lot of times they so loved and coveted those things. I mean, they grew up with that as their greatest desire and their hope from being a little girl. And so I don't see this much anymore, but I think it's a really great way to reach out to the FLDS people is just bring a baby. And some of these mothers have had 20 plus kids of their own. And so you have these mothers who I would say average in our community of the mother is 10 children. And oftentimes I've heard of 17, 18, 19, 20 children. So now no longer having the ability to have children would be just utter devastation for them.

So having to see these little babies, they just love it. In the church, they do hold to the four scriptures, just like the LDS, the King James Version of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Now, how well do you think the average member of this church knows their scriptures, uses their scriptures? How well do they know the Bible? Well, I would say, first of all, the doctrine in the FLDS church is really fluid.

It's really determined by the sitting prophet. The sitting prophet has the ability to nullify past prophets, even Joseph Smith. So what happened a lot of times was scripture and memory, scripture understanding was highly dependent on the family because scripture could change moment to moment. But I've heard of a number of families whose the father would feel it very important to be able to take the kids through some of the scriptures, whether that's Bible or Book of Mormon. And in fact, in our community, I would say I hear more people that take their kids through the Bible than even the Book of Mormon, which is interesting.

So it's just possible that some of those fathers in the community encouraged the study of one of the standard works for that particular family. But proficiency in scriptures didn't seem to me to be much of an interest of the church, but more of a personal decision, I would say. And it seems like any opportunity I've had to share with a member of the FLDS, it was quickly met with an obstinate belief that the prophet is the prophet and that's all I care about. But any other particular doctrine was really useless in their mind, unless it maybe touched on the doctrine of polygamy or something like that. So I'd say, no, the people in our community were not, as a rule, well versed in any of those standard works of Mormonism. What was most important to them was their willingness and ability to retain and follow whatever the prophet says.

So they may not go through books or scripture. They would actually listen to hours upon hours of audio of sermons from Warren Jess or some of the previous prophets. That's where they would get most of their theology. Brody, you've suggested that perhaps in five to 10 years that the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may even no longer exist.

What makes you think that and where do you think a lot of these people are going to end up? Well, at this point, there are no meetings, there's no prophets, there's no plural marriage, there's no doctrines, there's no community, and there's no buildings. So all of the elements that made the religion have all been abandoned at this point.

So what in the world would they talk about when they meet? They have nothing. So you think about it, before this time, people would gladly be thrown in jail. They'll move to a forsaken desert. They'll create a community, live in poverty, bear 20 children, all so that they can retain the practice of plural marriage throughout the ages. All of this has been stripped away by their sitting prophet right now. So I think it's just simply a matter of time when the idea of God just no longer becomes relevant in their lives and they turn either to atheism or become agnostic. So to me, the future of this community, they have no desire.

I think they'll eventually, just like the rest of them who have been either forced out or have chosen to leave, is basically getting rid of the idea of God who has not been there for them over the past couple of years in their estimation. If somebody wants to know more about what you are doing specifically, how can they find out more about your ministry down there? Yeah, that would be great. We have a website, two of them actually. Our ministry is called Grace Rains, G-R-A-C-E-R-E-I-G-N-S, GraceRains.org. That's our ministry of our community center, youth center, and thrift store.

But we also have a church, and our church is Community of Grace Church. You can find that at CofGChurch.org. That's our website. If you want to check that out, or you might just want to send me an email, it's Brody.Olson.Gmail.com. Or stop in on a Sunday at 11 a.m. We're located at 45 West Johnson Avenue in Colorado City. Any of those outlets are opportunities for us to be able to connect with you, and I'd love to give you as much information as I can.

That'd be great. Now, Brody.Olson, that's B-R-O-D-Y dot O-L-S-O-N at Gmail.com. We've been talking to Brody Olson.

He's with Grace Rains, working among the members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints down in Colorado City. Thank you, Brody, for this insight. I'm sure it's opened a lot of eyes regarding what's going on down there. Again, thanks, Brody, for coming on. It's my pleasure. Thank you. Have you ever wondered what life is like for women and children who are trapped in polygamy?

If so, you're invited to hear from ministries aimed at reaching those in polygamy, as well as testimonies of former polygamists who are now Christians. This event will be held in Sandy, Utah, on Saturday, September 19th from 830 to 2.30 p.m. Registration is $20 per person and includes a continental breakfast and lunch. For questions or to register, call Chris at 801-754-3636. Again, that's 801-754-3636.