The History of the "Movement"

The history of "Christian Polygamy" as a term and as a movement could best be said to have "begun" (or to have been "born") on Independence Day (July 4), 1994.

Even so, it must also be added that there were certainly centuries of gestation prior to the "birth" of the movement. Various remote Christ-centered (and not Mormon-based) individuals throughout history, unconnected with each other, had, of course, also come to the realization that polygyny is Biblical.

But the concept of "Christian Polygamy" did not and could not have become a bona fide movement until the following happened, which defines the "birth" of a movement.

A movement begins (is "born") at the time of the first and consistently bringing forth of the usable and duplicatable rhetoric that unstoppably propels it forward without retreat.

For the movement of Christian Polygamy, that happened on Independence Day, 1994.

It was July 4, 1994.

The Standard Bearer

A young man (at the end of his 20s) started publishing a newspaper in Southern Maine, called, The Standard Bearer. He was a very happily married, born-again Christian. The newspaper reported news and events from a decidely conservative, Constitutionalist, and Christian perspective, but with a very special "something extra".

Namely, a lengthy Scripture-quoting "Truth Tract" was included. Often, the "Truth Tracts" were far lengthier than most of the other articles or reports in each issue. In no less than every other issue, the particular "Truth Tract" for that issue would lay down the usable and duplicatable rhetoric of what would grow to be Christian Polygamy.

In that very first issue, published and distributed on Independence Day (July 4), 1994, the very first "Truth Tract" appeared. It was titled, "How Do You Know TRUTH?"

In that one little "Truth Tract", it identified and revealed something in the Scriptures about which few people had ever, ever realized. Namely, the Moses of the Bible had married two different wives! The very man who had written the first five books of the Bible, himself, had, in absolute Scripturally-proven fact, been married to ---not one, but--- two different women.

That "Truth Tract", "How Do You Know TRUTH?", provided the revelation of the very clearly separate ancestries of the two different wives of Moses. It revealed the proof that the two wives, beyond a doubt, were not the same woman. Moses was a polygynist!

The significance of that one tiny-but-huge revelation is its impact upon all marriage-related doctrine which come from those first five books of the Bible. The meaning of "adultery" (Exodus 20:14). The Adam and Eve story (Genesis 2-3). "One Flesh" (Genesis 2:24). These and other similar arguments, all of which which had been at the core for thinking that polygyny was a "sin" according to the Bible... all those particular arguments (i.e., those which specifically come from the first five books of the Bible) had their origin as written by polygynist Moses.

Clearly, the significance of this can not be overstated!

While it had long been understood that many other men in the Bible had had more than one wife, this was powerfully different. For Moses to have been a polygynist too, that changes everything. Moses had written the "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14) in the Ten Commandments. And surely, he would not have broken that commandment if polygyny was a "sin"!

And likewise, the historical significance of the impact of this one tiny-but-huge revelation also cannot be overstated.

With this very first Truth Tract, published in that Southern Maine (U.S.) newspaper, The Standard Bearer, on Independence Day (July 4), 1994, there is no doubt:
    the "birth" of Christian Polygamy had just occurred.

The very course of history had been changed! There would be no turning back.

But it would be far from easy!

Truth Tracts Get Reactions

Over the next couple of years, new "Truth Tracts" would each lay down more of the argumentations for various other exegetical proofs that Christian Polygamy is wholly Biblical.

And there would be, from time to time, various bursts of opposition. Both Christians and others would do things to hinder the newspaper.

Christian radio entered into and then subsequently broke their covenant with the newspaper. Likewise with a Christian telephone directory. When a new Christian newspaper entered the market, their announcement knowingly lied to the public by referring to themselves as the "first Christian newspaper" in the market, even after they had "stolen" (as it were) one of the newspaper's advertisers by describing their own new newspaper as "less fanatical" (while genuinely saying that in a positive context about The Standard Bearer).

People would make anonymous phone calls to the newspaper's advertisers, to "scare" them away from advertising anymore. And entire stacks of the newspaper were often stolen.

In October, 1995, after one very important and powerful particular "Truth Tract", titled, "The TRUTH and the PARADOX", a group of people organized to anonymously get the newspaper banned from all the stores of a huge supermarket chain. This was successfully accomplished by such people, at each local store, making "complaints" to each local store manager. Once each store manager responded with removing the newspaper, the would-be "complainers" then disappeared. After a number of weeks of being banned, and the stores realizing the game which had been played upon them (and also not wanting the publicity of having actually "banned a newspaper"), the newspaper was allowed back in the supermarkets again.

But during all that, all of the local media, including Christian media, refused to report the news that the newspaper had been banned. All the otherwise "great defenders" of the 1st Amendment's "freedom of the press" had stayed decidely silent about this newsworthy event of a newspaper being banned.

But that particular "Truth Tract", "The TRUTH and the PARADOX", had also had a powerfully positive impact, as well.

As that particular "Truth Tract" had laid down some very crucially important usable and duplicatable rhetoric of Christian Polygamy, such as addressing the "one wife" passages for bishops, elders, and deacons, one of the newspaper's readers there in Southern Maine was quite emboldened. A few months later, that same reader of the newspaper, being so emboldened, brought what they had learned from The Standard Bearer to some "new thing" at that time which was called "the internet".

It was February, 1996.

From Newspaper to Internet

The usable and duplicatable rhetoric was being learned by others. And it was being passed on.

Throughout the year and into the next one, The Standard Bearer continued to publish more "Truth Tracts", laying down more usable and duplicatable rhetoric of Christian Polygamy.

Just before the Summer of 1997, a new modern computer system was given to the publisher of the newspaper from another reader who had said that the gift was "from God". With that new blessing and an internet access connection, The Standard Bearer was brought "online".

But it was quickly realized that a larger purpose was in store...

TruthBearer

In August of 1997, rather than build up an entire online newspaper, a subsidiary web-site was instead created. In those days, it was common for entire web-sites (even business web-sites) to be hosted as subdirectories on an ISP or other web-site domain.

And so, a long URL was established for the new web-site:
http://www.thestandardbearer.com/Acts2414/Exodus2110/TruthBearer/.
The verses in that web-address were strategically chosen, in order to communicate a further "message".

But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets.
(Acts 24:14)

If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
(Exodus 21:10)

Those verses in the URL rather clearly expressed a conviction to believe all the Scriptures, including the truth that polygyny is indeed Scriptural.

The new web-site at that long URL would be for printing out the "Truth Tracts" and for the laying down the usable and duplicatable rhetoric for the continued advance of Christian Polygamy.

The name of the new web-site was called, TRUTH BEARER. That name was an obvious spin-off from the name of The Standard Bearer, reflecting the TRUTH part in the reference to all the "TRUTH Tracts".

A couple weeks later, the new web-site, TRUTH BEARER, was officially online.

It was September 1, 1997.

A Ministry Grows

At that time, there were not even a half-dozen web-sites which had sprung up about the topic of polygyny from a non-Mormon or non-Muslim perspective. And except for one or two of them, just about all of those sites, themselves, would eventually "go dead", disappear, go "inactive", or go in completely new and different directions, entirely away from Christian Polygamy.

But TRUTH BEARER was, as they say, "in it for the long haul".

As the web-site grew, it became a full-blown ministry.

With the growth of the new online ministry reaching a far greater expanse of readers, the world over, something had to give. The Standard Bearer newspaper ceased to be published with its last major issue on January 4, 1998.

Other than that, things went fairly smoothly until the beginning of that Summer. An anti-polygamy group "went public".

It was June, 1998.

Anti-Polygamy (but actually only Anti-Mormon)

By the beginning of that Summer, an anti-polygamy group emerged. It consisted of former Fundamentalist Mormon women who had left their Fundamentalist Mormon polygamous situations. They were offering their help to other women in similar circumstances.

They obtained the domain Polygamy.org, and called themselves, "Tapestry of Polygamy" (later changing it to "Tapesty Against Polygamy"). In trying to become an organization, however, these former Fundamentalist Mormon women began employing the tactics of propaganda. They unfortunately ended up transferring their often-understandable hurts and wounds into mistakenly maligning "all polygamy". They focused their political attacks by defining polygamy as if it is solely defined as "Mormon Polygamy". Despite the fact that polygamy does not equal Mormon Polygamy (and Christian Polygamy is not Mormon Polygamy anyway), these hurting women perceived they could gain more "support" for their cause by employing the false propaganda tactics.

Understanding how these women had been hurt, and since Christian Polygamy was NEVER about hurting women anyway, the TruthBearer ministry reached out to them, seeking to work in common cause to mutually oppose abuse and to bring healing where abuse had occurred. But the group would not accept any such kindheartedness or agreements in common ground. They instead decided that they could obtain more "support" by insisting on maligning "all polygamy".

In the long term, that mistaken decision would prove to de-legitimize the group.

They would also later splinter. One of their group's key women left in December, 1999, creating her own anti-polygamy web-site, "The Principle". She, too, employed the same propaganda tactics of maligning "all polygamy" (even using the exclusively Mormon-created term, "The Principle", in referring to polygamy). And she also likewise refused the open-arms offered by the TruthBearer ministry to work together in common cause to oppose abuse and to bring healing where abuse had occurred.

A False Doctrine Emerges

Unfortunately, though, during this same period of time leading up to the Summer of 1999, a number of men had begun advancing a rather cruel viewpoint of the way in which they (incorrectly) defined Patriarchy. And worse, they were doing so in the "name" of Christian Polygamy.

Some men began rallying around a false doctrine that they could self-justifiably "force polygamy" on their wives as long as they professed that, supposedly, "God had told them to do it".

The increasingly-growing ministry of TruthBearer repeatedly spoke out against such cruelty and false doctrine.

But, for some carnal men, there was no reaching them. As the occasional example of a man among them might have appeared to have indeed been able to successfully "force polygamy" on his wife and to not lose her, other men tried to copy such cruel examples in the false doctrine.

Obviously, though, a number of such men lost their wives due to the tragic cruelty of these men's delusions in false doctrine.

But this is not the definition of genuine Christ-going-to-the-cross-in-selfless-love Patriarchy. And it was NEVER what true Christian Polygamy had ever been "about".

And on top of the tragedy of all the devastated families who suffered the consequences of such false doctrine, the timing of all this happening could not have been worse! It was something which could play right into the hands of the propaganda tactics of the newly-formed anti-polygamy group!

With all this as the backdrop for the start of the Summer of 1999, the founder of the quickly-growing TruthBearer ministry foresaw the potential peril this posed. Christian Polygamy, and all the truth and selfless love about which it had always been, faced the truly real possibility of coming to an end. If such cruel and false doctrine continued forward, more and more hurt wives would understandably leave their cruel husbands, and join the anti-polygamy forces! Because of the evil of such deluded men, Christian Polygamy could sink into the abyss, to soon be forgotten as but a supposedly foolish idea of cruel men that was defeated "from within itself".

It was July 13, 1999.

"Love-Not-Force"

The founder of TruthBearer knew, even though he was "on vacation" that week, that something had to be done. And done soon. After some time in deep prayer, he came to understand both, what the problem was and what needed to be done. He identified the false doctrine by the term, "force polygamy". And, in following the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he discovered what would be the antedote. It was thus termed, "love-not-force".

With that revelation of the matter, he sat down and wrote,
      "The TruthBearer Vision of love-not-force -
         Our Place in History Requires Our Testimonies of Faith."

That important writing was then disseminated throughout the growing ministry of TruthBearer. Drawing from his own personal testimony in the way in which his own "first wife" had been able to joyfully and willingly embrace Christian Polygamy, this teaching explained how a husband following Christ's example would selflessly love his wife, not force her. If God called a family to more than one wife, God must be trusted to help the wife embrace it too, as the man focuses his only "actions" as that of walking in Christ's love toward her, trusting God.

Over the ensuing months, there would be vast debates and discussions as to just what this "new thing" called "love-not-force" entailed.

There was fierce opposition by many men. Many of such men misunderstood what was taught and simply thought they could dismiss it out hand.

But there were also gentle and sincere Christians who rejoiced in seeing the profound love of Christ toward wives taught ever more deeply. Indeed, in cases where some men had allowed themselves to fall into that delusion of the false doctrine of "force polygamy", only to obviously hurt their wives, when they, instead, humbly allowed their ears to hear and learn of "love-not-force", they were empowered to bring healing to, and happily restore, their wounded marriages.

An Organization is Solidified

With such a message of profound love as taught by "love-not-force", the TruthBearer ministry began to grow into a full-fledged organization.

With the teachings of "love-not-force", the standard had been set for defining genuine and true Christian Polygamy. An organization had become built and grounded. There had become no doubt:
Not only would Christian Polygamy survive, now it would thrive! God had protected what He had started.

Over the years, various web-sites would come and go. Some would do so for purely capitalistic attempts. Others would do so for expressing their individual denominational viewpoints about various issues of doctrine pertaining to Christian Polygamy.

By the year 2000, the media had begun taking more notice of Christian Polygamy, requesting interviews, etc., from the TruthBearer organization.

As word spread of the teachings of "The TruthBearer Vision of love-not-force", more and more sincere Christians joined and rallied around the TruthBearer organization, working together to advance the Cause. With increasing growth, the organization offered more and more services, from web-hosting and design services to goods and services to Memberships. More and more Christians would (and continue to) bring more and more growth to the Cause of Christian Polygamy!

With the "Standard of Christian Polygamy" set ("love-not-force"), and with an organization of fellow Christians with which to advance the Cause (TruthBearer.org), the movement of Christian Polygamy was secured. Christian Polygamy simply and steadily continued and still continues to grow.

Truly, Christian Polygamy is "here to stay", changing the very course of history!

Glory to God!