To say that this was just a concession to civil authority is pretty
demeaning to the church, I think, suggesting that they would so greatly
compromise their religious beliefs to this degree to civil authority.
Perhaps they would accept the law as against their beliefs but if those
beliefs are sincere they would not aggressively enforce the law. The law
certainly didn't require that they excommunicate those who practiced polygamy.
First, I don't think there is any question that the mainstream Mormon Church has changed its religious beliefs regarding polygamy. Having said that, I do not think it is necessarily demeaning to a religious organization to say that they changed their beliefs in response to civil authority. It is a fact that religious organizations' beliefs change over time, and that most mainstream religions counsel obedience to the law. The law may well pose a question to a church about its beliefs, which the church has the capacity to reorient, consistent with its underlying theology. There is a constant dialectic between churches and civil authority, each of which is informed by the other, and each of which is capable of changing in response to the other. Some churches try to live an autopoietic existence, but that is a very small number; the vast majority live in the world and participate in the world. I suppose my core objection to Frank's characterization here is that it assumes that civil authority is the enemy to religion. For most theologies, that is not true.
Marci
