View source for Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 8

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|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 8
|H=Response to claims made in "Chapter 8"
|S=
|L1=
|T=[[../../|Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage"]]
|A=George D. Smith
|<=[[../Chapter 7|Chapter 7]]
|>=
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<onlyinclude>
{{H2
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 8
|H=Response to claims made in Nauvoo Polygamy, "Chapter 8"
|S=
|L1=Response to claim: 453 - the only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842 and that the "History of the Church deleted even that one citation"
|L2=Response to claim: 473 - "the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings"
|L2=Response to claim: 513 - Munster Anabaptists' practices are claimed to be "reminiscent of Brigham Young's policies," and "over hundred women were allowed to divorce the men they had been forced to marry"
|L3=Response to claim: 532 - Orson Hyde "might have been sensitized by Joseph Smith's 1831 suggestion of plural marriage to Native Americans and therefore judged the Cochranites less harshly than otherwise"
|L4=Response to claim: 535 - The author suggests that Joseph Smith had predicted the return of Jesus Christ
|L5=Response to claim: 535-536 - "67 percent in Orderville, Utah" were polygamists
|L6=Response to claim: 541 - "The leaders in Salt Lake…failed to comprehend how unsavoury it appeared for a man of high priesthood rank to claim the wife of someone of lower status"
|L7=Response to claim: 541 - "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples" of wife swapping
|L8=Response to claim: 546 - Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground"
|L9=Response to claim: 546 - Tours of Brigham Young's Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, "notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives"
|L10=Response to claim: 547 - "Dana Miller of Idaho Falls was told by his church leaders that 'men will have more than one wife in the celestial kingdom"
}}
</onlyinclude>

<!-- ====452====
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author notes that "Joseph Smith's diaries [are] silent on his courtships and marriages."	
}}
*The ''History of the Church'' was largely based on Joseph's diaries.  It is therefore not surprising that Joseph's polygamy is not treated in the ''History'', when not detailed in the main primary source.
*[[Church history/Censorship and revision]]
*[[../../Censorship]]
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Censorship}} -->

==Response to claim: 453 - the only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842 and that the "History of the Church deleted even that one citation"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=It is noted that the only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842 and that the "History of the Church deleted even that one citation."
}}
{{propaganda|A lone citation might make little sense without context. If the author can think of no reason to exclude an entry besides malicious intent to deceive, perhaps he can explain ''his own'' editing decision when he published the William Clayton diaries. Jim Allen observed that 
<blockquote>
“in his abridgement, however, Smith kept only about one-sixth of the total entry. . . . By including only the somewhat titillating material and leaving out the much more important information about Clayton and what he was doing as a missionary, this ‘abridgement’ does little but distort the day’s activity.”<ref>{{BYUS|author=James B. Allen|article=[https://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=7457 review of An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton], by George D. Smith, ed.|vol=35|num=2|date=1995}}</ref>{{Rp|166}}
</blockquote>
}}
*[[Church history/Censorship and revision]]
*[[../../Censorship]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}} 
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Censorship}}

==Response to claim: 473 - "the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"…the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings…."}}	
}}
{{propaganda|There is no evidence provided of this assertion. Plural marriage simply isn't a normal topic of discussion among Latter-day Saints. It is difficult to understand why those attending modern "LDS gatherings" would be discussing the topic. The ''Encyclopedia of Mormonism'', institute manuals, and LDS historians also discuss plural marriages for Joseph and others. 
}}
*[[Brigham Young and polygamy]]
*[[Censorship_and_revision_of_LDS_history/LDS histories over many years omit plural marriage|LDS histories over many years omit plural marriage]]
*[[Church history/Censorship and revision]]
*[[../../Censorship]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Censorship}}

==Response to claim: 513 - Munster Anabaptists' practices are claimed to be "reminiscent of Brigham Young's policies," and "over hundred women were allowed to divorce the men they had been forced to marry"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Munster Anabaptists' practices are claimed to be "reminiscent of Brigham Young's policies," and "over hundred women were allowed to divorce the men they had been forced to marry."
|authorsources=<br>
#Williams, ''Radical Reformation'', 3d. ed., 570; no reference for the LDS claims.	
}}
{{misinformation|The historical comparison is inaccurate on virtually every level. Mormon women were never forced to marry (unlike the Munster Anabaptists), and Mormon women always had the right of divorce (though Brigham was much stricter with men about divorce). This is not a parallel, but a contrast.	
}}

==Response to claim: 532 - Orson Hyde "might have been sensitized by Joseph Smith's 1831 suggestion of plural marriage to Native Americans and therefore judged the Cochranites less harshly than otherwise"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author suggests that Orson Hyde "might have been sensitized by Joseph Smith's 1831 suggestion of plural marriage to Native Americans and therefore judged the Cochranites less harshly than otherwise."
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=8}}
}}
{{propaganda|This is a reference to the idea that Native Americans were to be made "white and delightsome" through plural marriage. See: [[Polygamy/Lamanites to become "white and delightsome" through polygamous marriage]]
}}
*[[../../Use_of_sources#.22wonderful_lustful_spirit.22]]
*{{GDS-See also|5|327}}	

==Response to claim: 535 - The author suggests that Joseph Smith had predicted the return of Jesus Christ==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=
The author suggests that Joseph Smith had predicted the return of Jesus Christ when he said that "fifty-six years should wind up the scene and the Saviour should come to his people."
|authorsources=<br>
#Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2:522.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:Second coming}}
}}
{{misinformation|The author does not acknowledge that Joseph was uncertain regarding what the revelation actually meant. Also, it is not clear why the author chooses to quote from Walker's diary.
}}
*[[../../Use_of_sources#Second_coming-Walker_diary|Use of sources: Second coming remark in Feb 1835]]
{{:Question: Did Joseph Smith prophesy that Jesus Christ would return in 1890?}}

==Response to claim: 535-536 - "67 percent in Orderville, Utah" were polygamists==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=It is claimed that before 1890 “the number of [polygamy] practitioners had expanded exponentially.” In support of this, we are told that  "67 percent in Orderville, Utah" were polygamists.
|authorsources=<br>
#Lowell “Ben” Bennion, “The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: ‘Dixie’ Versus Davis Stake,” ''Journal of Mormon History'' 11 (1984): 27–42.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo_Polygamy:See_also:Stats}}
}}
{{misinformation|The author leaves unmentioned the study’s observation that Orderville was somewhat unique because “one suspects that membership in Mormondom’s most successful attempt to establish the United Order may have required a commitment to plural matrimony. Unlike the pattern that usually prevailed in Mormon towns, many young men of Orderville entered the celestial order when they first married or soon thereafter.” Nearby Kanab was less successful in its communal economy and had less than half as many polygamists.  Furthermore, all of southern Utah was more likely to be polygamist than Utah as a whole, for similar reasons.
}}
*[[Polygamy/Prevalence of in Utah]]
*{{GLS-Nauvoo Polygamy-FARMS}} 	

==Response to claim: 541 - |"The leaders in Salt Lake…failed to comprehend how unsavoury it appeared for a man of high priesthood rank to claim the wife of someone of lower status"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"The leaders in Salt Lake…failed to comprehend how unsavoury it appeared for a man of high priesthood rank to claim the wife of someone of lower status if a missionary's wife was loaned to someone else during the husband's absence."}}
|authorsources=<br>
#S. George Ellsworth, ed., ''The Journals of Addison Pratt'' (SLC: U of Utah Press, 1990), 515; Smith, ''Intimate Chronicle'', 227n.
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:October 8 1861}}
}}
{{misinformation|The author grossly mischaracterizes the doctrine on this point.  He omits key parts of Brigham's recorded discourse: "…if a man magnifies his priesthood, observing faithfully his covenants to the end of his life, all the wives and children sealed to him, all the blessings and honors promised to him in his ordinations and sealing blessings are immutably and eternally fixed; '''no power can wrench them from his possession'''. You may inquire, in case a wife becomes disaffected with her husband, her affections lost, she becomes alienated from him and wishes to be the wife of another, can she not leave him? I know of '''no law in heaven or on earth by which she can be made free while her husband remains faithful and magnifies his priesthood before God''' and he is not disposed to put her away, she having done nothing worthy of being put away." {{ea}}
}}
*[[Primary sources/Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage|Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage]]
*{{Wyatt-Zina}}
*This is a reference to what other critics call "wife swapping." See: [[One Nation Under Gods/Use of sources/Wife swapping|Wife swapping]]

==Response to claim: 541 - "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples" of wife swapping==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=[continued from above] "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples."	
|authorsources=<br>
#{{CriticalWork:Van Wagoner:Mormon Polygamy|pages=37-46}}
#{{CriticalWork:Brodie:No Man Knows|pages=34, 442-44}}
#{{CriticalWork:Newell Avery:Mormon Enigma|pages=100-01}}
{{CriticalWorks:Smith:Nauvoo Polygamy:See also:October 8 1861}}	
}}
{{misinformation|The author omits key parts of Brigham's recorded discourse: "…if a man magnifies his priesthood, observing faithfully his covenants to the end of his life, all the wives and children sealed to him, all the blessings and honors promised to him in his ordinations and sealing blessings are immutably and eternally fixed; no power can wrench them from his possession. You may inquire, in case a wife becomes disaffected with her husband, her affections lost, she becomes alienated from him and wishes to be the wife of another, can she not leave him? I know of no law in heaven or on earth by which she can be made free while her husband remains faithful and magnifies his priesthood before God and he is not disposed to put her away, she having done nothing worthy of being put away."
}}
*[[Primary sources/Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage|Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage]]
*{{Wyatt-Zina}}
*This is a reference to what other critics call "wife swapping." See: [[One Nation Under Gods/Use of sources/Wife swapping|Wife swapping]]

==Response to claim: 546 - Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground."	
|authorsources=<br>
#Hill, ''World Turned Upside Down'', 247; citing Engel's manuscript, "The Book of Revelation," (1883, published in 20th century in Moscow).
}}
{{propaganda|Using an author of the ''Communist Manifesto'' may serve to prejudice readers. Latter-day Saints (despite the efforts of their critics like the author to convince modern readers otherwise) never taught or endorsed "free love."  The relevance of Engels to LDS history, then, is unclear.
}}
*[[../../Loaded and prejudicial language]]	

==Response to claim: 546 - Tours of Brigham Young's Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, "notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim={{AuthorQuote|"Tours of [Brigham Young's] Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives."}}
}}
{{disinformation| This claim is false as of the summer of 2008.  A FairMormon member went on the tour, and Brigham's many wives and children were mentioned frequently, especially in the family "store" from which goods were distributed. <ref>Gregory L. Smith, personal communication to FairMormon, 22 December 2008 (used with permission).</ref>}}

==Response to claim: 547 - "Dana Miller of Idaho Falls was told by his church leaders that 'men will have more than one wife in the celestial kingdom"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=Nauvoo Polygamy
|claim=The author claims that "Dana Miller of Idaho Falls was told by his church leaders that 'men will have more than one wife in the celestial kingdom.  It's doctrinal.'"
|authorsources=<br>
#Dana Miller, "Celestial Polygamy," May 9, 2008, Public Forum letter to the ''Salt Lake Tribune''.
}}
{{propaganda|Who were Miller's "church leaders"?  A bishop?  A stake president?  An elders' quorum president?  High priests' group leader?  Did he interpret what he was told correctly? There is, of course, no way to say. Members may believe whatever they wish about such matters.  In a work of serious scholarship, however, this tells us little about official LDS doctrine, or even what most members believe. Non-members, however, might well be confused, and the author does nothing to lessen the confusion.	
}}

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