Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 8


Chapter 7
A FAIR Analysis of:
Criticism of Mormonism/Books
A work by author: George D. Smith
Page Claim Response Author's sources

452

 "Joseph Smith's diaries [are] silent on his courtships and marriages."
  • No source provided.

Censorship of Church History (edit)

453

 The only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842; "The History of the Church deleted even that one citation."
  • A lone citation might make little sense without context.
  • If G. D. Smith 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]
  • No source provided.

Censorship of Church History (edit)

473

 "…the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings…."
  • No source provided.

Censorship of Church History (edit)

513

 Munster Anabaptists' practices were "reminiscent of Brigham Young's policies," and "over hundred women were allowed to divorce the men they had been forced to marry."
  • 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.
  • Williams, Radical Reformation, 3d. ed., 570; no reference for the LDS claims.

532

 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.
  • Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.

535

 Joseph Smith had offered a time frame for Jesus' return, deciding that 'fifty-six years should wind up the scene and the Saviour should come to his people.' He made this assessment in February 1835."
  • Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2:522.

Predicting 2nd Coming (edit)

  • See also ch. 1: 6 and 9
  • See also ch. 8: 535

535-536

 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.
  • G. D. Smith 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.
  • Incidence of polygamy
  • 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)
  • Lowell “Ben” Bennion, “The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: ‘Dixie’ Versus Davis Stake,” Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984): 27–42.

Statistical problems (edit)

  • See also ch. Preface: xv
  • See also ch. 4: 253 and 289
  • See also ch. 8: 535-536

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 if a missionary's wife was loaned to someone else during the husband's absence."
  • 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."
  • S. George Ellsworth, ed., The Journals of Addison Pratt (SLC: U of Utah Press, 1990), 515; Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 227n.
  • CHECK THESE!! [needs work]

Brigham Young's 8 October 1861 talk (edit)

  • See also ch. 2: 78
  • See also ch. 8: 541

541

 [continued from above] "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples."

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's 8 October 1861 talk (edit)

  • See also ch. 2: 78
  • See also ch. 8: 541

546

 Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground."
  • 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
  • Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 247; citing Engel's manuscript, "The Book of Revelation," (1883, published in 20th century in Moscow).

546

 "Tours of [Brigham Young's] Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives."
  • 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]
  •  History unclear or in error
  • No sources given.

547

 "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.'"
  • 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 G.D. Smith does nothing to lessen the confusion.
  • Dana Miller, "Celestial Polygamy," May 9, 2008, Public Forum letter to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Endnotes

  1. [note]  Gregory L. Smith, personal communication to FAIR, 22 December 2008 (used with permission).

Further reading

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