Warren Jeffs, fugitive leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was apprehended last night near Las Vegas, Nevada. The Associated Press reports:
The leader of a polygamist Mormon sect, who’s been one of the country’s most sought after fugitives, is now behind bars…
Jeffs has been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list since May, with a $100,000 reward being offered. He’s wanted in Utah and Arizona on suspicion of sexual misconduct. Authorities believe he arranged for older men to marry underage girls.
For a detailed online article about Jeffs and his arrest see Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs arrested in Las Vegas in today’s Salt Lake Tribune.
What?!? You mean God allowed his prophet to be caught? I wonder how the “faithful” will explain that.
I see a contradiction in LDS opinions on Warren Jeffs. I understand their desire to distance the Utah LDS church from him, but I think it is inconsistent to say he is not mormon. After the national news referred to the FLDS church as a mormon sect, the president of the LDS church, Mr. Hinkley, was quick to retort that there were “no mormon sects”.
I feel this is inconsistent because mormons would not want to call the FLDS church mormon, yet there is the desire amongst mormons that they may be called christian. For me, it seems that the doctrinal differences between the LDS church and the FLDS church are not nearly as wide as the differences between mormon doctrine and historical christianity.
If a mormon has a claim to the name christian on the basis that he or she accepts Jesus as the son of God and salvation through him; then it would seem to me that someone who claims Joseph Smith as a prophet of God and accepts the book of Mormon as a testament of Jesus Christ would have have claim to the name mormon.
If a Salt Lake mormon would feel it incorrect for a mainline church to reject them as christian, would it not also be incorrect for one mormon to reject another’s use of that title on the basis of doctrinal differences? Can a mormon lay claim to the name christian while rejecting FLDS and other “mormon sects” the right to use the name mormon?
I think it’s hypocritical of the Mormon Church to actively pursue and prosecute the FLDS while holding to the doctrine of polygamy as a “spiritual” principle. Or did they recently change that as well? Another “revelation of convenience”?