Apostolic United Brethren

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The Apostolic United Brethren , AUB, “Apostolic United Brethren”, are a fundamentalist, polygamous denomination of Mormon fundamentalism within the movement of the “Latter-day Saints” (also. “ Rocky Mountain Saints ”). Since the 1990s it has a temple in the Mexican Ozumba which 50 km southeast of Mexico City is, and since the 1980s a talent house in Utah  - as the main church called her makeshift temple in the period 1846-1877, as no official Temple existed. The term Apostolic United Brethren is not generally used by the members; some prefer “the work”, “the priesthood” or “the group”. Outsiders used to use “Allred Group”, as two of its leaders bore this name.

membership

The AUB has between 5,000 and 8,000 members, most of them in Utah and Mexico. The headquarters are in Bluffdale, Utah, which has a church, school, archive and sports facilities.

United Order communities exist in Rocky Ridge , Harvest Haven, which is part of Eagle Mountain , Cedar City and Granite , all Utah; other communities and gatherings consist Pinesdale ( Montana ), Lovell (Wyoming) , Mesa (Arizona) , Humansville ( Missouri ) and Ozumba (Mexico).

The AUB maintain at least three private schools; many families homeschool their children .

Some members also stayed with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , LDS, and kept their affiliation with the AUB a secret, as promoting, maintaining, or living in a plural marriage constitutes a reason for exclusion from the LDS.

organization

The AUB is presided over by the president of the priesthood. The next highest authority is the council of priests, which also includes the president. This is followed by the presidents of the Seventy, the high priests, the elders, the Aaronic Priesthood , the Relief Society , Sunday School , the young women, the Scouts and primary organizations, which may vary from region to region. At the local level there are bishops, priest council representatives and patriarchs.

Meetings

Sacrament meetings and Sunday school meetings, as well as some privately organized Sunday schools and quorum meetings, are held on Sundays. The Relief Society, Young Women, Primary, and Scout meetings take place during the week.

In the meeting houses there are dance and music events, games and family home evenings; sometimes the different classes meet there too.

Doctrines and customs

The AUB consider the Articles of Faith of Joseph Smith to be a valid summary of the Mormon faith. They believe that through the spread of the Book of Mormon and family history research , the LDS continues to play a role in God's plan of salvation today. The brothers are best known for adherence to Mormon polygyny , the United Order, the Adam and God doctrine, and for the meeting of 1886. Child abuse, sexual coercion of the wife, and inbreeding are considered the most serious sins. Members who are repeatedly convicted of these acts will be expelled. Victims are free to report such crimes to the police.

Because of the state prohibitions, polygamy is lived in such a way that only the first marriage is entered into by the state, the further marriages are considered "spiritual".

history

The AUB's claim to authority is based on stories from John Wickersham Woolley, Lorin Woolley and others who participated in a conversation in September 1886 between LDS President John Taylor (1808-1887), the Woolleys and others. According to stories, Taylor met with church founder Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ prior to this encounter . He received a revelation that polygamy should not be given up; Communities that separated from the LDS should keep this doctrine on earth. The following day, the Woolleys and Taylor's attorney, George Q. Cannon, were chosen to keep this principle alive.

Members trace their histories back to Joseph Smith and the statements of faith he spread and the practices he lived. Because the AUB is convinced that the LDS has changed its doctrines and orders, they see their responsibility in preserving the original revelations and obeying all God-given laws.

Until the 1950s, fundamentalists were essentially a group. But with the ordination of the not-so-conservative naturopath Rulon C. Allred by Joseph W. Musser in 1951 and Allred's subsequent presidency over the fundamentalists in Short Creek (now Colorado City in Arizona) and other areas, it came in only a few Years of alienation from each other, so that the even more conservative believers of Short Creek eventually formed their own group under the name " Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ".

When in 1977 Rena Chynoweth shot and killed Rulon C. Allred at the instigation of the head of the "Church of the Firstborns of the Abundance of Time", another very small fundamentalist Mormon group, Ervil LeBaron, the AUB came into the limelight. His successor was his brother Owen Allred, who headed the AUB until 2005. J. LaMoine Jenson then headed the AUB until his death in 2014. He was followed by Lynn A. Thompson.

In 2009 the AUB compiled a compilation of its beliefs, with a focus on questions of polygamy, which it made available to state authorities. The text is intended to help authorities deal with members of the AUB and similar fundamentalist groups to get to know their views.

In 2011 the Brown family, known from the television series All My Wives and Members of the AUB, brought a constitutional lawsuit against the state of Utah's ban on polygamy. They referred to the decision of Lawrence v. Texas of the Supreme Court of 2003, after the age citizens have the right to be left alone by the state in their consensual exercise of sexuality. The district court agreed with them in 2013, insofar as living together with more than one partner is also a criminal offense. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dropped the case in 2016 because Utah did not pursue consensual polygamy. The Browns appealed against this to the Supreme Court .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jonathan Turley: One Big, Happy Polygamous Family , New York Times, July 20, 2011
  2. ↑ Nate Carlisle: J. Jenson Lamoine, Utah polygamist leader, this at 79 . The Salt Lake Tribune , September 4, 2014
  3. ↑ Mark Shurtleff, Terry Goddard: The Primer: A Guidebook for Law Enforcement and Human Services Agencies who offer Assistance to Fundamentalist Mormon Families. (PDF, 808 kB) Utah Attorney General's Office, Arizona Attorney General's Office, August 2009, archived from the original on August 20, 2009 ; accessed on January 4, 2017 (English).
  4. ↑ Ronald D. Gerste: Condemnation of a cult leader causes debate about polygamy: Americans discuss polygamy . Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 12, 2011, page 16, accessed on January 4, 2017.
  5. ^ 'Sister Wives' family appeal polygamy ruling to US Supreme Court . AP article on Foxnews , September 13, 2016, accessed January 4, 2017.