'Prophet' of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, Warren Jeffs, Guilty

After DNA evidence confirmed his sexual acts with minor children, Jeffs made an attempt to defend his reprehensible behavior claiming "We are not a fly-by-night religious society. We are a community of faith and principles, and those principles are so sacred. They belong to God, not to man and the governments of man."

P>SAN ANGELO, Texas (Catholic Online) - The Fundamentalist Church of the Latter day Saints practices and promotes polygamy. It broke from the mainstream Mormon Church which renounced the practice last century when what is viewed by church members as a new revelation eradicated early practices of polygamy accepted in the founding and earlier years of the Church.

In an article which he wrote on the sect in 2008, Associate Editor Randy Sly explained: "The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and other similar groups began to take prominence during the 1920's and 30's as the main body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (aka the Mormons) continued to repudiate their earlier teaching concerning polygamy which it refuted in 1904.

"Settlements of Mormons in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah were two major expressions of polygamy in the church at that time. Upon excommunication in 1935, led by John Y. Barlow, a group of Mormon Fundamentalists re-formed and continued to the practice of multiple marriages.

"The subsequent years were not peaceful as contentions arose on how polygamy should be practiced. Multiple schisms left the groups fractured, with one of them being the FLDS, which now numbers somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 followers. The recent leader of the FLDS was Rulon Jeffs who assumed the role of "Prophet" in 1986. With declining health in more recent years his son, Warren, began to emerge as the leader. Following Rulon Jeffs' death in 2002, he proclaimed himself the Prophet and assumed complete authority.

"Members of the sect continue to practice polygamy. They teach that the doctrine of plural marriage, where a man has multiple wives, is ordained by God. They also believe that a man must live in this state to receive the highest form of salvation. The common practice in the FLDS is for a man to have a minimum of three wives in order to fulfill this requirement. The wives are taught that they must live in a "subordinate" (Read - subservient) way with their husbands.

"When she reaches a marriageable age, young women are assigned a husband according to a "revelation" from the leader (the Prophet) of the church. This is called "the law of placing." The prophet can also choose to take wives from one man and give them to another who has been deemed more worthy."

On Thursday, August 4, 2011, Warren Jeffs, the self proclaimed 'prophet" of the FLDS sect was found guilty of sexually assaulting both a 12 year old girl and a 15 year old girl. He claimed to have taken the minor children as his "wives" and sought to justify the behavior with religious claims. It took the Texas jury only 3 ½ hours to return a guilty verdict. The testimony presented by the State of Texas was disgusting, distressing and shocked the conscience. Warren Jeffs will be sentenced over the next few days. He could receive life in prison.

Throughout the trial Jeffs represented himself. In his closing argument he was allotted the 30 minutes, during which he stayed eerily quiet until the very end and then said "I am at peace". In the course of the trial he sought to claim that the practice of polygamy and choosing these children as 'wives' was a part of his deeply held religious beliefs. Because he claimed to rely on the Book of Mormon, he sought to have it admitted into evidence, along with other materials. He presented only one witness at trial in a failed effort to cloak his criminal behavior with a "religious" covering. 

After DNA evidence was presented which confirmed his sexual acts with minor children, Jeffs went into what some observers called a tirade in an attempt to defend his reprehensible behavior. He spoke for 55 minutes. Included in his remarks, this claim, "We are not a fly-by-night religious society. We are a community of faith and principles, and those principles are so sacred. They belong to God, not to man and the governments of man."

The FLDS claims to have 10,000 members. Other polygamous offshoots of the Mormon Church of a similar nature immediately renounced Jeffs behavior after the verdict was announced. They claimed that his alleged 'marriage' of children did not comport with their fundamentalist LDS beliefs. However, they did not renounce polygamy - which mainstream Mormonism has renounced for over 100 years.

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