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| Chapter 7 | A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: George D. Smith
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Claims made in "Chapter 8"
452
Claim
- The author notes that "Joseph Smith's diaries [are] silent on his courtships and marriages."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship
453
Claim
- It is noted that the only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842 and that "[t]he History of the Church deleted even that one citation."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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
- “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.”[1]
- Church history/Censorship and revision
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
473
Claim
- Author's quote: "…the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings…."
Author's source(s) - No source provided.
- 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 marriage in Joseph and others.
- Brigham Young and polygamy
- LDS histories over many years omit plural marriage
- Church history/Censorship and revision
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Censorship
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
513
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."
Author's source(s) - Williams, Radical Reformation, 3d. ed., 570; no reference for the LDS claims.
- 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.
532
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."
Author's source(s) - Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.
- 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
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Use_of_sources#.22wonderful_lustful_spirit.22
535
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."
Author's source(s) - Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2:522.
- It is not clear why Smith chooses to quote from Walker's diary.
- Use of sources: Second coming remark in Feb 1835
- Joseph Smith/Prophecies/Second Coming to be in 1890
535-536
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.
Author's source(s) - Lowell “Ben” Bennion, “The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: ‘Dixie’ Versus Davis Stake,” Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984): 27–42.
- 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
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
541
Claim
- ((AuthorQuote
ResponseFAIR WIKI EDITORS: Check sources
|response=
- 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." (emphasis added)
- Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage
- Full details: Wyatt, "Zina and Her Men."
- This is a reference to what other critics call "wife swapping." See: Wife swapping
- S. George Ellsworth, ed., The Journals of Addison Pratt (SLC: U of Utah Press, 1990), 515; Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 227n.
- CHECK THESE!! [ATTENTION!]
541
Claim
- [continued from above] "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples."
Author's source(s) - Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 37-46.
- Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 34, 442-44. ( Index of claims )
- Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, 2nd edition, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 100-01.
- 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."
- Brigham Young 8 October 1861 discourse on plural marriage
- Full details: Wyatt, "Zina and Her Men."
- This is a reference to what other critics call "wife swapping." See: Wife swapping
546
Claim
- Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground."
Author's source(s) - Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 247; citing Engel's manuscript, "The Book of Revelation," (1883, published in 20th century in Moscow).
- 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.
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
546
Claim
- Author's quote: "Tours of [Brigham Young's] Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives."
Author's source(s) - No sources given.
- The author's claim is false This claim is false as of the summer of 2008. A FAIR 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.[2]
547
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.'"
Author's source(s) - Dana Miller, "Celestial Polygamy," May 9, 2008, Public Forum letter to the Salt Lake Tribune.
- 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.
- [note] Gregory L. Smith, personal communication to FAIR, 22 December 2008 (used with permission).
Further reading
| Template code | Inserts this reference | Click to edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: 8: The Mormon Proposition}} | To learn more box:responses to: 8: The Mormon Proposition | edit |
| {{To learn more box:''Under the Banner of Heaven''}} | To learn more about responses to: Under the Banner of Heaven | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Robert Price}} | To learn more about responses to: Robert Price | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Ankerberg and Weldon}} | To learn more about responses to: Ankerberg and Weldon | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Ashamed of Joseph}} | To learn more about responses to: Ashamed of Joseph | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Beckwith and Moser}} | To learn more about responses to: Beckwith and Moser | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Beckwith and Parrish}} | To learn more about responses to: Beckwith and Parrish | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Benjamin Park}} | To learn more about responses to: Benjamin Park | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Bible versus Joseph Smith}} | To learn more about responses to: Bible versus Joseph Smith | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Bible versus Book of Mormon}} | To learn more about responses to: Bible versus Book of Mormon | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: ''Big Love''}} | To learn more about responses to: Big Love | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Brett Metcalfe}} | To learn more about responses to: Brett Metcalfe | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Bill Maher}} | To learn more about responses to: Bill Maher | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Bruce H. Porter}} | To learn more about responses to: Bruce H. Porter | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Carol Wang Shutter}} | To learn more about responses to: Carol Wang Shutter | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: CES Letter}} | To learn more about responses to: CES Letter | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Charles Larson}} | To learn more about responses to: Charles Larson | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Christopher Nemelka}} | To learn more about responses to: Christopher Nemelka | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Colby Townshed}} | To learn more about responses to: Colby Townshed | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Contender Ministries}} | To learn more about responses to: Contender Ministries | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Crane and Crane}} | To learn more about responses to: Crane and Crane | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: D. Michael Quinn}} | To learn more about responses to: D. Michael Quinn | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Dan Vogel}} | To learn more about responses to: Dan Vogel | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: David John Buerger}} | To learn more about responses to: David John Buerger | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: David Persuitte}} | To learn more about responses to: David Persuitte | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Denver Snuffer}} | To learn more about responses to: Denver Snuffer | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Dick Bauer}} | To learn more about responses to: Dick Bauer | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Duwayne R Anderson}} | To learn more about responses to: Duwayne R Anderson | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Ernest Taves}} | To learn more about responses to: Ernest Taves | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Fawn Brodie}} | To learn more about responses to: Fawn Brodie | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: George D Smith}} | To learn more about responses to: George D Smith | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Grant Palmer}} | To learn more about responses to: Grant Palmer | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Hank Hanegraaff}} | To learn more about responses to: Hank Hanegraaff | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Hurlbut-Howe}} | To learn more about responses to: Hurlbut-Howe | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: James Brooke}} | To learn more about responses to: James Brooke | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Jesus Christ-Joseph Smith or Search for the Truth DVD}} | To learn more about responses to: Jesus Christ-Joseph Smith or Search for the Truth DVD | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: John Dehlin}} | To learn more about responses to: John Dehlin | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: New Approaches}} | To learn more about responses to: New Approaches to the Book of Mormon | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Richard Abanes}} | To learn more about responses to: Richard Abanes | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Richard and Joan Ostling}} | To learn more about responses to: Richard and Joan Ostling | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Rick Grunger}} | To learn more about responses to: Rick Grunger | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Rod Meldrum}} | To learn more about responses to: Rod Meldrum | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Roger I Anderson}} | To learn more about responses to: Roger I Anderson | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Sally Denton}} | To learn more about responses to: Sally Denton | edit |
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| {{To learn more box:responses to: Vernal Holley}} | To learn more about responses to: Vernal Holley | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Walter Martin}} | To learn more about responses to: Walter Martin | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Wesley Walters}} | To learn more about responses to: Wesley Walters | edit |
| {{To learn more box:responses to: Will Bagley}} | To learn more about responses to: Will Bagley | edit |