The Church has a problem.
We are caught between the Scylla of our long history of practicing — and strongly defending — plural marriage, and the Charybdis of having given up that practice and now having to disassociate ourselves from modern polygamous groups.
From the standpoint of defending the Church, how should we navigate that strait?
The Church has clearly taken the position that they aren’t going discuss it, except to say “yes, we did practice it; no, we don’t practice it anymore.” Here are some of the few statements that can be found on the Church web site and in recent Church publications:
The brief primer “Polygamy: Latter-day Saints and the Practice of Plural Marriage” in the Newsroom section is probably the most comprehensive statement available. (You have to use the search feature to find it; the “Polygamy” link under “Background Information: History of the Church” is broken.) This document is as interesting for what it says as for what it does not say:
Plural marriage is described as “an important part of the teachings of [the Church] for a half-century” and the Church members today “honor and respect the sacrifices made by those who practiced polygamy in the early days of the Church.” With reference to modern polygamous groups, it offers President Hinckley’s October 1998 General Conference statement.
It explains that “the practice [of plural marriage] began during the lifetime of Joseph Smith,” without mentioning that Joseph himself entered into the practice with nearly 40 women, some of whom were already married, and a few of whom were quite young by modern marriage age standards.
It mentions the discomfort and foreignness that most early converts must have felt about the practice, but avoids discussing what percentage of Church members entered the practice, or how how common it was to have two or three wives (as it was among the general membership) versus five or more (as it was among general authorities).
It (correctly) separates the revelation to end plural marriage from Wilford Woodruff’s 1890 Manifesto, which was more of a political/public relations document. It does not mention post-Manifesto plural marriages or Joseph F. Smith’s 1904 “Little Manifesto.”
The only lesson in the four-year Gospel Doctrine curriculum cycle that mentions polygamy is Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31. The lesson plan covers only the parts of D&C 132 that relate to eternal marriage; polygamy is relegated to a supplemental section that may be used “if class members have questions.” The instructor is admonished, “It should not be the focus of the lesson.”
This year’s Priesthood/Relief Society study is Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith. The manual focuses on “teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that have application to our day” (p. xii). It briefly mentions Joseph teaching plural marriage, but does not mention his own participation in the practice or the extent thereof.
I don’t bring this up to be critical of the Church. We clearly have a public relations problem, and the Church is doing their best to deal with it. A 2007 Gallup survey asked Americans, “What comes to mind when you think about [the Mormon] religion?” The number one response — among those who view us unfavorably and those who view us favorably — is “polygamy.” That response was given by nearly three times as many people who said “good people” or “strong morals,” and nearly four times as many who said “family-oriented.” No matter how we think of ourselves, the fact is that many non-Mormons think of polygamy when they think of us. The Church’s public relations arm is trying to change that.
But the problem with downplaying polygamy is that many faithful Church members don’t hear about the more difficult issues — Joseph Smith’s involvement in particular — in a faithful Church setting where it can be put into context with the rest of Church history.
FAIR solicits questions about criticisms of the Church; FAIR volunteers try to respond to all of them. In 2007 we received more questions about polygamy than any other topic. Many of these people were just finding out about Joseph Smith’s polygamy, polyandry, and marriages to young women. We don’t talk about it in church, so they usually end up finding out about it on unfriendly web sites.
How do we solve this problem? We’re not likely to see Sunday School lessons on polygamy anytime soon. Outside of that, what can Latter-day Saints who know about these things do to “inoculate” your average Mormon in the pews?
FAIR volunteers have some ideas. We’d like to hear yours.
We can teach people the difference between principles (or doctrines) and practices. Principles never change. They are eternal. Practices of those principles do change, and are variable according to God’s will.
We believe in the doctrine of celestial marriage. One of the particular practices of this doctrine is plural marriage. Do we believe in the practice of plural marriage? Yes. It was and is a revealed practice that was given to the prophet Joseph Smith by God, as it was to ancient patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob who also clearly practiced it. To believe that it was not a true revelation and God-given practice would be to believe that Joseph was not a true prophet (the same goes for Abraham and Jacob). Today, God has commanded us not to practice it through revelation to His prophet on earth. It was the same during the dispensation of the meridian of time. Indeed, to practice such when God has forbid it is against His law, and those found practicing it will be excommunicated. The practice of the principle of celestial marriage has changed. Today, the practice is monogamous marriage.
There are parallels in many other practices of the Church. God has revealed the law of consecration. This is a principle or doctrine. It is eternal. But the practice of it varies. In the early days of the Church, the United Order was set up as a Church program to practice the law of consecration in a particular way. Today, the practice has changed. We no longer practice the United Order. We now practice tithing, offerings, and the Church welfare program, as well as sacrificing our time and talents in other ways. The practice of the law has changed.
Another example could be the doctrine of the gospel. The gospel itself is eternal and never changes. The practice of it has changed through time. The practice of it before the time of Christ was through the law of Moses, all in similitude of Christ’s coming. But when Christ came, he fulfilled and supplanted the law of Moses with the gospel of repentance and baptism. The practice of the gospel changed significantly. Was the law of Moses wrong? No. Was it wrong to practice it after Christ fulfilled it with the New Covenant? Yes. The practice changed.
Principles or doctrines are eternal and never change. Practices of those doctrines can change according to God’s will for His people.
I appreciate you bringing this up…
I recently started a website (www.graceforgrace.com) and I encounter people daily who have questions that I can’t answer about polygamy…I personally don’t know the extent of how polygamy was practiced and I’ve always sort of skirted around the issue.
Here’s a question I have. In the Book of Mormon Christ says salvation comes through faith, baptism, repentance, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end…nowhere does polygamy come into play as a means to salvation or even eternal marriage.
How do you respond to questions about this?
I would even go so far as to say plural marriage is not an eternal principle. I think the Lord appointed the practice of plural marriage for a time.
As it is not an eternal principle, the fact the church says little about it is entirely appropriate.
Johnna,
Joseph Smith taught, “Every principle proceeding from God is eternal and any principle which is not eternal is of the devil.”
If you are correct that plural marriage in not an eternal principle, and if Joseph Smith is correct that non-eternal principles come from the devil, then wouldn’t that have to mean the revelation providing for eternal marriage is actually of the devil?
Aaron said:
Here’s a question I have. In the Book of Mormon Christ says salvation comes through faith, baptism, repentance, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end…nowhere does polygamy come into play as a means to salvation or even eternal marriage.
Neither polygamy nor eternal marriage is necessary for your salvation (see D&C 131). Eternal marriage is necessary for your exaltation. Contrary to most of our 19th-century brethren, I do not read D&C 132 as requiring polygamy for our exaltation.
Brent Hartman said:
If you are correct that plural marriage in not an eternal principle, and if Joseph Smith is correct that non-eternal principles come from the devil, then wouldn’t that have to mean the revelation providing for eternal marriage is actually of the devil?
Please read Bryce Haymond’s response more carefully. Plural marriage was a temporary practice in fulfilment of the eternal principal of celestial marriage.
Perhaps Pres. Hinckley response on the Larry King Show sheds some light on the issue of polygamy:
“I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal.”
“I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal.”
I think that’s taking President Hinckley’s words somewhat out of context.
What is not doctrinal is practicing plural marriage without authorization from the President of the Church.
I think Jacob 2:30 holds a key to understanding this.
Hey, Last Lemming, please read my response more carefully. I was responding to Johnna.
I completely disagree with polygamy– in practice and doctrine. I don’t believe that polygamy was of God. Something that caused so much heartache and strife and tried to ignore jealousy, unfairness and, yes, misogyny and virtual slavery of women, cannot (I believe) be of God. So, to answer the question… and I know this will get me flamed and then some… about if it is of the devil, I believe that (well, I just won’t put this in writing here lest someone accuse me of being a troll, which I am not. You can say that polygamy was necessary to protect women who, at the time, did not have many rights and opportunities. Well, the same can be said of all other women in society and the US society as a whole wasn’t practicing it and it was met with revolsion by society in general. Why did a man have to marry a woman in order for him (or the community at large) to help her and her family? You can say that the marriages were dynastic and nature and many never involved se*. But, by far, most of them were. I believe that God loves his sons and daughters equally and there is nothing equal about polygamy.
And to the question about how the church should respond to polygamy? With total and absolute transparency. Ignoring polygamy looks like they’re white-washing it and that serves no one. It makes me severely disappointed that in the entire Joseph Smith book that we’re studying over the next couple years, I can fine one single sentence referring to polygamy. If that doesn’t look white-washed, I don’t know what does. Being able to honestly and openly discuss our history, whether or not it is comfortably, makes us look like we’re hiding. When we hear of large corporations hiding relevant data, it doesn’t gain them more credibility– it gives them much less.
–I know there are probably lots of typos above. Sorry, I’m at work and don’t have time to edit my ramblings.–
“For it is not meet that men who will not abide my law shall preside over my priesthood.” (1882 revelation to John Taylor)
“If we do not embrace that principle soon, the keys will be turned against us. If we do not keep the same law that our Heavenly Father has kept we cannot go with him. A man obeying a lower law is not qualified to preside over those who keep a higher law.” (John Taylor, Life of Wilford Woodruff, p. 542)
“What would be necessary to bring about the result nearest the hearts of the opponents of Mormonism, or properly termed the Gospel of the Son of God? Simply to renounce, abrogate and apostatize from the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage in its fulness. Were the Church to do that as an entirety, God would reject the Saints as a body, the authority of the Priesthood would be withdrawn, with its gift and powers and there would be no more heavenly recognition of the administrations among the people the heavens would permanently withdraw themselves and the Lord would raise up another people of greater valor and stability…” (Deseret Evening News, April 23, 1885)
The President of the LDS church cannot preside over that which he has rejected. President Hinckley stated that plural marriage was not doctrinal, which prevents him from presiding over those in the priesthood who have abided by the law. The President of the Church lost all authority over plural marriage.
D&C 132:4-6 is clear. To receive the blessings promised in 132, we must live the laws in which those blessings are predicated. The whole law.
The Lord revealed to John Taylor the following, “…It is more pleasing unto me that men should use their free agency in regards to these matters. Nevertheless, I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not. And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph: all those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory, they must do the works of Abraham? I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting, and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions therof; Even so, Amen”
Perhaps John Taylor was a false prophet, along with all the other leaders that taught plural marriage was necessary for exaltation, as would have to be the case for the position of the LDS church to work today.
Lulubelle,
How do you feel about eternal marriage? You can’t reject plural marriage without rejecting eternal marriage.
I’m always amused when the members of the Church today adopt the same language as the persecuters of the church in the 1800’s.
You might want to read “The Women of Mormondom” to find out how plural wives were really viewed and treated in the early days of the Church.
Brent,
You are, of course, endorsing the fundamentalist/polygamist line of reasoning that the LDS Church presidents lost their priesthood authority when they put an end to polygamy.
The fatal flaw in this logic is that God’s commandments override everything:
The revocation of plural marriage was in accordance with D&C 124:49:
Endless quibbling and justifying seems to be the FAIR solution. Maybe Joseph was just wrong to practice polygamy. Maybe other leaders were wrong to follow it. Could we admit that? Or do we have to keep parcing definitions of ‘principles’ ‘doctrines’ and ‘whoredoms’
tiredmormon:
I think your wish would be up for debate if polygamy wasn’t part of a canonized revelation.
So, no — that’s not on the table for those who accept Joseph Smith as a prophet.
Getting back on topic…
I return to my original question: Your average Latter-day Saint isn’t aware of some of the messy details of polygamy, especially Joseph Smith’s practice of it. How do we get that historical information out to them in a faithful context?
tired.
I think polygamy (in its ideal Celestial form) is a beautiful principle. And I see ZERO need to apologize for it.
While my great great grandfather was providing for somewhere around 20 wives, across the border in Wyoming, good God-fearing monogamists were busy raping prostitutes and good Christians in Boston were cheating on and beating on their wives.
As soon as you are willing to apologize for the horrific and ugly institution of MONOGAMY, I might consider apologizing for polygamy. Yes, I’m being sarcastic, but honestly, I’m just tired of putting up with this crap. We didn’t do anything particularly more wrong than any screwed up group of human beings. Marriage has always had potential for a lot of abuse, no matter what form you are practicing it under.
Maybe it’s time our critics took a sniff of what they are shoveling.
So Joseph is right, the canonized revelation is right, and modern prophets are right. Got it. Let the parcing continue. We will admit no mistake. Onward!
Mike Parker: In a completely open and transparent way with just the facts. I was shocked when I discovered the truths about polygamy in our history– and it wasn’t in church or church-approved reading materials or at BYU. I found it on the Internet, was shocked and didn’t believe it, then did fact checking on my own and, wow, that was a realy eye opener. We should be able to talk about this in church but the church does everything possible to ignore the elephant in the room. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, though.
Seth,
Kind of a hot head today, aren’t you? When you see tiredmormon do you just go blank and type unconnected nonsense? I never trashed polygamy. Although your trashing of monogamy (sarcastic of course)seems reminiscent of Parley.
Why don’t you re-read my post and comment on something I said instead of using my post as a spring board for your own rant.
Mike, actually telling our kids in Sunday School that Joseph practiced polygamy might be a good start. It would also help if we would quit acting embarrassed by it. We still practice it in fact. Guy’s wife dies, he remarries… viola! Celestial Polygamy! There is absolutely nothing weird, wrong, or immoral about it.
For the record, I am not a supporter of practicing polygamy in mortal life. I have no desire to do so either. But I am sick of being ashamed about it.
Maybe Parley was onto something (and I do think I know which quotes you are talking about).
I did respond to you tired. You said we ought to admit polygamy was wrong. My response is “why should we?”
Or are you simply trying to make the point that Joseph was mistaken in his execution of polygamy. If so, I’ve actually thought that (personally) for a long time.
Brent Hartman,
I believe in eternal marriage but I don’t believe in polygamy. At all. I believe that those who are/were sealed to more than one wife, well, God will figure it all out.
I don’t believe polygamy will be mandatory in the hereafter. But if people wish to practice it there, why not? What is particularly wrong with it once you take away the inevitable abuses and inequities that accompany its flawed mortal application?
Mike,
Whose line of reasoning did the “fundamentalist/polygamist” adopt? Did they just come up with that on their own, or did the early prophets and apostles of this dispensation teach that very thing? Were the prophecies that Brigham Young, John Taylor, Heber C. Kimball, etc., who stated that if the Church were ever to abandon plural marriage that the priesthood would be taken away from the church, were all those prophecies false? Does the Church today descend from a line of false prophets?
You mentioned D&C 124:49.
Charles W. Penrose (refers to D&C 124:49 and states):
“. . . Quotations sometimes referred to by the weak-backed who need a ramrod fastened parallel to their spinal column. . .It is a little singular that some people will persistently refuse to see the difference between a certain special work and a principle or law. The consistency of the Lord relieving a people from any such obligation as the building of a house when prevented by enemies from accomplishing it is self-evident. When it comes to the abrogation of a law, a principle, a truth, the matter is entirely different. The revelation does not apply even remotely. . .” (Deseret Evening News, Editorial, June 5, 1885)
Saying that polygamy was a mistake is better, in my opinion, than running around in circles trying to reconcile 170+ years of inconsistent discourse on the subject by making unpersuasive arguments that it was a principle rather than a doctrine. How is that for a run-on sentence?
Now, you can argue that there really is a distinction between doctrines and principles or that all of the prophets made perfect sense of the subject or whatever. But to hold, as Parker does, that Joseph, the scriptures, and the modern prophets are all 100% correct on the issue creates a lot of cognitive dissonance.
In my view, if Hinckley says, or said, r.i.p., that it was not doctrinal, case closed. Name it a mistake and move on.
Brent Hartman does reveal one valid point here and that is that if were are going to disagree with him, we have to admit that somebody in authority in the 19th-century Church made a big mistake. Personally, I do not believe that mistake to have been polygamy per se (although like Seth R, I readily acknowledge the flaws in its execution). Instead, I believe the mistake was to insist that polygamy was not situational but was foundational, and therefore necessary to one’s exaltation. We should be upfront that such was the teaching back then and that it was wrong.
Martin Luther, the father of protestantism, found nothing wrong or immoral about polygamy, and counseled Philip I that it was acceptable before God. If one were to reject the teachings of polygamist, then one would also have to reject a good portion of the Bible. Every Christian religion, whether they like it or not, has polygamy in it’s past. By condemning the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage, the are also condemning the early patriarchs of Christianity. The Church, in it’s rush to fit in with the rest of the Christian world, has started to do the same thing. They’ve adopted the teachings of the apostate Christian church by stating that polygamy is not doctrinal, and not of God. Too bad for Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Brigham. Now they haven’t just been rejected by modern Christianity, but by modern Mormons as well.
Brent Hartman: How can you feel we can compare our society and its mores, practices, and morals with those of thousands of years past? They also stoned women, had very different dietary practices, and … well I could go on and on, Should we say that they are equal or superior in thoughts and actions to how we believe today? Gosh, if we’ve evolved and have, in that time, provided better rights, protections, and assumptions for humans (not just men), let’s acknowledge that (overall), it’s a good thing. Slice it or dice it any way you like but polygamy is not equal or fair. If it’s OK to practice polygamy in the next life, how is that fair to women? How is that equal? Do you really think my personality is going to change that radically in the next life? Do you think I’ll be OK with knowing that my husband is having se* with my sister wife? Or that I’ll think it’s ok to for him to share his affections, love and emotion with other women? That I’ll not wonder who his favored wife is– me or the other wife(s)? Polygamy, at its core, is unfair, and is akin to slavery.
Tiredmormon: I agree with you. It would be nice to have the church admit that it was just a mistake and move on. I am really, really, really tired of the church ignoring polygamy, never ever talking about Joseph practicing it (and not just practicing polygamy, but practicing polyandry and marrying very young girls, and lying to Emma about it), or just trying to sweep it under the rug. Face it, open, honestly, transparently, talk about it in church or wherever– Whatever, just not hide from it. Grrrrr.
Incidentally Lulubelle, I think it will apply both ways. Women will be able to be sealed to more than one person. Not doctrinal at all, but that’s how I see it.
Also, you have to make a distinction between the different terms:
Polygyny = one man with more than one wife
Polyandry = one woman with more than one husband
Polygamy = any system in which one person has more than one spouse.
So although polygamy has become synonymous with polygyny, it really encompasses more than that.
Polyamory is the desire, practice or acceptance of having more than one loving intimate relationship at a time with full consent of all involved. It is characterized by a lack of structured and ritual associations that characterize both monogamy and polygamy.
I consider polyandry and polygyny to both be fundamentally unequal and don’t personally believe that either represents the Celestial order (I’ll admit I could be wrong). Polygamy, under its official definition, I have no problem with. Symbology and ritual seems to be a little too important in the eternities for me to think that polyamory is going to be the arrangement.
I agree it’s better to just have this out in the open and let people either cope with it or not than continually hiding it. But perhaps a graduated approach would be best.
Seth R: Thanks. And I can’t disagree with a single thing you said.
The fundamentalist aspect of polygamy is not in following the 19th century assertion that members who were commanded to practice polygamy needed to do so in order to be right with God.
The fundamentalist aspect is to deny God the right to change that command, as Jacob 2 anticipated, and as Brigham Young alluded to:
Polygamy was never about polygamy per se (though doubtless some so interpreted it). It was about obedience and demonstrating whether one believed in real prophets with real revelation as an ongoing, continuing reality. Brigham made this quite clear:
Thus, it was the acceptance of God’s will as revealed to his prophet which was key, not the actual fact of whether one practiced or did not practice plurality.
That principle applied in starting polygamy (which was difficult) and in ending it (which was also difficult). Those who wanted to cling to old sureties or assume that God could not speak further did not weather the storm well.
Those who did believe in and experience revelation did just fine. We ought to be cautious about assuming that plural marriage was a “mistake” when so many women reported profound spiritual witnesses to allay their concerns.
Lulubelle,
The scriptures don’t teach us that mankind naturally evolves. The scriptures teach us that apostasy is the norm, or in other words, the scriptures teach of devolution. God establishes the gospel on earth, and then man screws it up. Your postition, if I understand correctly, is that the Gospel is restored in a flawed state by the dispensational head, and then man eventually rejects those flawed portions of the gospel.
You speak of plural marriage being unfair to the woman, but I think it’s unfair to tell a woman who she can, or can’t marry. If a woman finds a righteous and honorable man, who happens to be married, and all parties agree with the marriage, who is the one standing up for the right of the woman to marry the man of her choice? Who’s the one who views the woman of being incapable of making a decision for herself? Every plural wife I’ve ever met entered into polygamy on her own volition. How insulting to these women to think of them as being nothing but virtual slaves. People accuse the polygamist of viewing women as slaves, but in reality that is the position of the anti-polygmaist. Like I said earlier, read “The Women of Mormondom”. It may change your perspective.
By the way, if plural marriage is unfair to anyone, it’s the man. His workload just doubled. He has less time for himself, while the wives have more time to do as they wish.
Greg,
Where did God revoke plural marriage? Where can I find that revelation?
The authority to perform plural marriages was revoked by Joseph F. Smith. One could argue about times and dates, but by 22 October 1904 the following letter was sent out (from Raymond, Alberta, Canada):
Given that only one holds the keys and controls them (D&C 132:7, and given that Pres. Smith was sustained by the 1st Pres and Council of the Twelve in this action, that is sufficient. The authority to practice plural marriage was vested in Pres. Smith and the others, and they exercised it. Plural marriage did not need to be “revoked,” merely the practice of it.
In harmony with D&C 42: “11 Again I say unto you, that it shall not be given to any one to go forth to preach my gospel, or to build up my church, except he be ordained by some one who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority and has been regularly ordained by the heads of the church.” (emphasis added)
This is why fundamentalist claims based on “secret” ordinantions (which are historically dubious anyway) don’t hold theologic water either. (To say nothing of them being a veritable rats’ nest of competing spaghetti-like authority and ordination claims.)
I don’t expect you to accept either of those premises, but there they are.
But, this is getting far afield from Mike’s question.
Greg,
Too bad, for the sake of your position, that plural marriages took place well after this letter.
I repeat my previous questions. Where did God revoke plural marriage, and where can I find that revelation?
Brent Hartman said: How do you feel about eternal marriage? You can’t reject plural marriage without rejecting eternal marriage.
I’m always amused when the members of the Church today adopt the same language as the persecuters of the church in the 1800’s.
———–
The First Presidency disagreed with you.
“Celestial marriage–that is, marriage for time and eternity–and polygamous or plural marriage are not synonomous terms. Monogamous marriages for time and eternity, solemnized in our temples in accordance with the word of the Lord and the laws of the Church, are Celestial marriages.”James R. Clark, Messages Of The First Presidency, 5:329.
Heber J. Grant
Anthony W. Ivins,
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
We are a church of living prophets. What we need to see are quotes from a modern prophet that says polygamy is going to be reinstituted at any time. Please provide quotes from modern prophets. We are no longer living in the 19th century.
Juliann brings up an important point — it’s always easier to believe in dead prophets than in living ones. Virtually every prophet in the scriptures encountered this. The Savior encountered it.
There is a desire among a small faction of apostates to want to “freeze dry” the Church to prevent any further will of the Lord from intruding.
Juliann,
You just quoted Heber J. Grant. Is he still alive? 🙂 Heber J. Grant apostatized from the teachings of his predecesors. If you look at the teachings of the prophets before Heber J. Grant, you would find that they agree with Joseph F. Smith’s take on the issue.
“Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity, or non-essential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind. In other words, some of the Saints have said, and believe, that a man with one wife, sealed to him by the authority of the Priesthood for time and eternity, will receive an exaltation as great and glorious, if he is faithful, as he possibly could with more than one. I want here to enter my solemn protest against this idea, for I know it is false…The marriage of one woman to a man for time and eternity by the sealing power, according to the law of God, is a fulfillment of the celestial law of marriage in part… But this is only the beginning of the law, not the whole of it. Therefore, whoever has imagined that he could obtain the fulness of the blessings pertaining to this celestial law, by complying with only a portion of its conditions, has deceived himself. He cannot do it.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 20, p. 28)
Moderator stepping in:
The comments on this blog have gone far afield of the original question I asked.
I’m not one to shut off a good conversation, but I would appreciate it if we could get back to the subject at hand.
Brent: I fully realize that nothing said here will satisfy you with regard to the cessation of plural marriage by the mainline Church. If water-tight arguments could be made then there would be no “fundamentalist” Mormons. Let’s just all agree that we disagree on this subject. Please.
Now, speaking to Latter-day Saints in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, short of reinstituting plural marriage, how do we communicate the historical difficulties to them in a faithful context?
Mike,
True prophets speak the word of God. We know from D&C 3:2 that God does not “vary from that which he hath said”, nor does he “walk in crooked paths”. This goes along with what Bishop Heber Bennion said:
“We are told that the living oracles take precedence over all other authority, living or dead. We agree that the living oracles take precedence, PROVIDING THAT THEY DO NOT CONFLICT WITH THE DEAD ORACLES. …If it is true that the living oracles take precedence over all others regardless of their disagreements with the dead prophets, then the Saints must necessarily CHANGE THEIR FAITH every time there is a change in the presidency, to conform to the views of the new president. We must believe in Adam-God so long as Brigham Young lives, but so soon as a president arises differing with Brigham Young, we must disbelieve this doctrine and adopt the views of the new oracle. The mention of such an attitude is so absurd as to border upon the ridiculous.” (Gospel Problems, p. 6)
Greg, polygamy was never revoked as a doctrine.
The only thing the revelation did was forbid the mortal practice of it. It’s still an active, though ignored, doctrine in our church.
Juliann,
Your James R. Clark quote is more troubling than anything else. Technically, you might say he isn’t denying the idea of Celestial polygamy. But if he is, you say, his words take precedence over what Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, George Q. Cannon and others were saying on the subject because he’s more recent correct?
So what’s guaranteeing that Elder Clark isn’t going to be overruled 20 years from now? The idea of obeying “living prophets” over dead ones is a useful tool of convenience and handy for compartmentalizing your life as long as you don’t care to think too much about things. But theologically, it tends to be a bit messy.
Brent:
Going by Bishop Heber Bennion’s reasoning, the early Christian Church should have never given up circumcision.
Now, can we please get back on topic?
Moderator,
The comments on this topic reflect the problem that the LDS church has in regards to polygamy. It’s the change of doctrine, along with the cover-up, that allows the anti-Mormons to lead so many away from the church. The church needs to take the lead in starting these discussions. Instead, the church discourages any discussion of topics, like plural marriage, or Adam-God. I was born and raised in the church and I’d never heard anything about Adam-God until I was 25 years old. I know a lady in my ward, who’d been a member for 15 years, that didn’t know Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage. This isn’t new. I was just discusing this topic with my grandmother over Sunday dinner, and she said that when she joined the church over 50 years ago, that they actively taught Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy.
I’ve discussed plural marriage with many people, LDS, and non-LDS, and the only people that are really uptight about the issue are the LDS people. Like I said in an earlier post, all of Christianity has polygamy in their past. Why are we so embarrased by it? It makes the Church look foolish.
Actually, we (people) get a bit messy in our wording of thoughts, but here is the bottom line: We are not to obey prophets, we are to obey God. If, in the act of obeying God, we also obey prophets, then that is great.
The “don’t care to think too much about things” comes in if we choose to presume that any given prophet is speaking directly for God, and therefore we don’t need to ask God ourselves.
Fact of the matter is, polygamy never would have gotten off the ground if people–independent of Joseph–had not sought verification from God. Only when they received that independent witness of the Spirit did they obey, as should be.
Presuming, in the first place, that Elder Clark was speaking according to God’s will, there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that he won’t be overruled in 20 years or 25 or 26.5. It doesn’t matter, because God is capable of overruling whomever He desires.
If one doesn’t accept Elder Clark, fine; their choice. They can choose to or not. If one thinks that all thinking was set in stone with the advent of Joseph F. Smith, fine; that is their choice. But that doesn’t excuse anyone from discovering God’s will for themselves and then acting accordingly.
If I discover, through revelation from God, that a living prophet is telling me God’s will on a particular matter, and what he is telling me is inconvenient and may not comport with what I understood from a previous prophet, whom do you think God will expect me to follow?
Brent, I respectfully disagree. I’m certainly not embarrassed by the polygamists in my past. The Church leadership is not embarrassed. The only ones who are embarrassed are those who don’t understand it and find it personally repugnant. That is one of the unfortunate consequences of not having taught our own history, something which the Church is doing because they need to distinguish themselves from pedophile groups like the FLDS.
So, acknowledging that things are as they are, how do we move forward to protect those who are learning about it from unfriendly sources?
(No, Brent, we’re not going back to polygamy. Please drop it. Future comments by you that attempt to demonstrate the Church is off course on this matter will be deleted.)
Mike,
Are you talking about the law of circumcision, or the token of the covenant? One was of man, and one was of God. You might want to look up “gospel” in the index of the Teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Sorry about the multiple threadjacks!
Mike,
I have no doubt that you are not embarrassed by the polygamist in the past, but the actions and statements of the church seem to indicate otherwise. Where is the mention of polygamy in the teachings of the presidents manuals? How can you discuss John Taylor and Brigham Young and not explore their teachings on plural marriage? Did President Hinckley ever do anything but distance the church from polygamy? Just look at some of the comments by church members on this thread. The LDS people, in general, despise plural marriage. They are afraid to discuss it, and when they do, they don’t do a very good job. How could they? How much knowledge does the average member have on the subject? When the anti-mormons are doing a better job at educating people about our history than we are, that’s a huge problem.
Brent,
If you’ll re-read my original post, you’ll see that I give reasons for the exclusion of polygamy from the manuals. It has nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with relevancy to modern Mormons’ lives and a public relations attempt to distinguish ourselves from polygamist cults.
I fully realize that there is “blowback” to this action — in fact, that’s what my original post was all about. My question is how we defenders of the Church can help minimize that blowback under the current circumstances (which do not include affirming polygamy as an authorized practice today).
Sigh. The point is that Joseph F. Smith and the twelve revoked any authority given previously to perform plural marriages. Pres. Smith certainly could have given other permission for marriages on a case-by-case basis after the Raymond letter (and I’d have no problem if he did) but given that no ordinations with authority to solemnize marriages were made publicly, and it is not known to the church (as per the requirement of D&C 42) that pretty much puts the kibosh on anyone existing in the present day who has the authority, short of the heirs of Pres. JF Smith.
And, since Pres. Hinckley has said we aren’t doing it right now, voila, quoi.
You don’t need “a” revelation to stop plural marriage, any more than Joseph needed D&C 132 written down before he started it. If the prophet is told to do something, he does it. That’s revelation; you don’t need a written document to somehow sanctify his official acts done in concert with the twelve. (Where’s the written, canonized revelation saying where the Salt Lake Temple should be built?)
But, to return to Mike’s question
Why don’t we teach the matter?
1. The only relevance that plural marriage has at present (theologically) is if someone has an issue with Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling (or his successors’) because of it. Simply put, if you want to believe that Joseph simply “mesed up” on plural marriage, but was still a prophet and those keys persist to the present day with Pres. Hinckley/Monson, I don’t think it really matters.
2. The Church’s efforts to “distance” itself from plural marriage are due, I believe, to the following factors (which are not exhaustive):
a) the Church does not wish to give even tacit support to polygamist offshoot groups;
b) the Church does not wish to leave itself vulnerable to having those who advocate present-day polygamy use benign discussion of it as a “backdoor” to convince vulnerable LDS members that the Church “really” approves of polygamy in the present day, and can only say so in oblique terms [we’ve seen examples of that tendency on this thread already]
c) the issues which concern most people (polyandry, Joseph’s early sealings, etc.) are those about which we know the least. We simply don’t understand how Joseph or others saw these things; it is not very satisfying to many people to teach things without some degree of closure. People generally are not comfortable with the ambiguity of real history.
d) There are, frankly, far more important issues. Most of the Church is first generation. Time is limited.
So, how ought we to deal with this?
Frankly, I think teaching about polygamy requires other groundwork. Members need to know their scriptures better. They need to get better at understanding personal revelation and enlightenment–hence the constant admonitions to scripture study, to understanding our doctrine, to focus on the basics, etc.
When one does these things, scriptures become a conduit for revelation. When members generally become better at doing this, they will understand the matter of personal revelation and direction better. They will, ironically, by immersion in the scriptures come to better understand that revelation begins (rather than ends) at the scriptures. (Elder Bednar has spoken repeatedly about this idea).
As we increase our ability to do that, we will be in a better position both to understand the personal revelation which drove plural marriage, and to receive the revelation for ourselves that will reassure us if we are troubled.
Thus, there is no need to wait on the Church. Such things can happen, and do happen, as soon as we are ready and willing to expend the energy and effort.
In a related note, part of the problem is that there is no good history of plural marriage without serious defects in fact and/or interpretation. Almost all treatments are hostile to the idea as being based on revelation.
I do not think the Church is in a position to produce a proper history–partly because there is just too much we don’t know, and if the Church endorsed or printed a history of plural marriage, then there would be a hue and cry when the historical data changed (which it inevitably will). The Church does not, by and large, endorse matters of history, save for a very few: the founding narratives of the restoration, like the First Vision, translation of the Book of Mormon, the priesthood restoration, restoration of keys, etc. But, aside from insiting on their “historicity” the Church doesn’t take a position. (Nothing would change, for example, if it was discovered that the Church was restored April 7 1830 instead of April 6.)
So, I think we need a faithful history of plural marriage that is both historically informed and which avoids some of the philosophic defects of previous treatments.
But, that must come from outside the institutional Church.
Mike,
When the number one response to what people associate with the LDS church is polygamy, and when that response was given by nearly three times as many people who said good people or strong morals, and nearly four times as many who said family-oriented, then I’d say that plural marriage IS relevant to the modern church, whether you like it or not. Section 132 is still in the Doctrine and Covenants, and will always be, as that’s where the doctrine of eternal marriage stems from. You can’t hide that.
The church has been trying to seperate itself from it’s polygamist past for a hundred years. What were the results of that Gallup survey again? Obviously, it’s not working.
You want to know how to deal with the problems the current policy creates, and I’m saying that the current policy is the problem.
The fundamentalist “cults”, as you put it, aren’t loosing membership to the anti-Mormon propaganda machine. Why? Because, if an anti-Mormon tries to tell a polygamist cult-member about one of the shocking teachings of the early brethren, they already know it. They’ve studied it, and they can defend it. Their knowledge diffuses any argument the anti’s may make. It works. The policy of never discusing plural marriage in church, does not.
I am curious as to what solutions FAIR volunteers have. How do you deal with these issues without discussing them in church?
Greg:
Are you serious about your statement that time is limited so, therefore, we don’t have the time to teach polygamy in official church avenues? I beg to differ. What other church spends 3 hours on Sunday in various classes, has dedicated magazines and newspapers, and so much more? We have loads of time. As it stands, most of our Sunday topics are the same bland ones Every Single Sunday– fasting, prayer, reading scriptures, personal preparedness and regurgitated. Adding variety would be a weclomed change.
And are you really advocating that the church not have a responsibility to talk about polygamy and that members just study it on their own? Now how realistic is that? And if there aren’t credible sources in the church, members will find it elsewhere– and from far less credible (and sympathetic) sources who have their own agenda and ability to spin.
History on any subject changes constantly. That is certainly no excuse to ignore it. The same stands true with polygamy.
I have to admit that I learned about Joseph Smith’s practice of polygamy and polyandry from a non-church source about a year ago and it literally pulled the rug from under my feet. I started questioning Joseph Smith entirely– many of his teachings and revelations that were given to him at the time he was taking multiple wives and lying to Emma about it. I started questioning if he had fallen out of favor with God and, if he had, if the other revelations could possibly be true. I truly wish that I had learned about these uncomfortable aspects of church history in church or in church literature or at least in my religion classes at BYU. If I had, I believe things would be much different for me right now in regards to how I feel about the church (right now, it’s a love-not love relationship and I’m struggling). I guess I’ll compare it with the adoption of my daughter. From day one, I’ve always openly discussed how she was born and how she came to be my daughter. I felt that if I waited until she was older and then laid it on her, it would make it seem that the adoption was embarassing or something to be hidden (which it isn’t– it’s a cool story). By telling her from day one, it was never shocking, it was normal, and it was something that didn’t need to be hidden or kept confidential because it is what it is. I wish the church would take the same approach about polygamy and other not-so-comfy issues in its history.
–again, sorry the above isn’t written better. I’m at work and on limited time.–
Lulubelle,
If you don’t mind me asking, how long were you a member of the Church before you found out about Joseph’s plural wives?
I also agree that there is plenty of time to discuss this in Church. They could even have a special class like the temple prep. class. I know that my wife and I took a voluntary class on parenting that met during Sunday school. Why not do the same thing for plural marrige? Let those that are interested take the class, and those that are not interested can go to gospel doctrine.
I actually agree with Brent here. I think a weekday evening class, taught on a stake level, with a vetted instructor, covering some of the more difficult issues in Church history would be an excellent idea.
Brent: I was born and raised a member of the church, born in the covenant, with very (emphasis on VERY) active parents. Well, dad is definitely more “into” it than mom, who more goes through the emotions. My entire extended family is LDS. My ancestors were the pioneers who made it to Utah with Brigham. I went to BYU for four years. Graduated from seminary. The whole nine yards.
I love the idea of an extracurricular class on church history (which fascinates me, if it’s not white-washed, which pretty much all of it is), and other doctrine, and REAL teachings of the prophets– not just the faith promoting kind. It makes me resent the church sometimes and wonder what else is out there that they’re not telling us. I’ll never leave the church, though. Not ever. It’s who I am, my family, my heritage. But it doesn’t mean that I haven’t become quite cynical about some of it.
Actually, what I said was:
And, this was only one prong of a series of issues, which make things difficult. A far more serious issue to doing it formally in Church is, as I indicated, a fair degree of historical uncertainty.
I think faith in Christ, the ordinances, grace, mercy, charity, repentence, etc. are all more important. Plural marriage is a particular area of interest of mine. I would be thrilled to discuss it for hours. But, what interests or inthralls me doesn’t necessarily for everyone. It is common to think that whatever is preoccupying us should be important/interesting to everyone.
Is has been my experience that any lesson topic and any discussion can be made worthwhile and meaningful when tied to the atonement of Christ. Any discussion of Our Lord does not become boring. Most attempts to add “variety” fall short of that, in my experience.
I’m not sure why the Church has a “responsibility” to talk about any historical topic. The Church’s responsiblity is to teach the gospel and provide the ordinances.
As I said in my previous post, I agree that we need better sources. But, I’m not convinced that the CHURCH is the one to provide those sources. Unlike some break-off groups and others, the Church is fairly reticent about what it will assert. Given that historical data is fragmentary, any conclusion drawn in an official, correlated manual on this topic would immediately be pounced on as evidence that the Church was “hiding history” or “changing its story.” They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Thus, I agree we need better sources, but they will likely come from outside the institutional Church. And, the production of those materials will, of necessity, have to come by those who learn by themselves.
How realistic is it? Well, at present, I don’t have much hope for most of North America, given that over half the population hasn’t read a book since high school, and when they do read they probably don’t pick works of history. Even fewer get into primary sources.
Thus, the topics you dismiss as bland: “fasting, prayer, reading scriptures, personal preparedness [which includes spiritual self-reliance],” are exactly those topics which must be emphasized so that those with the skills, interest, aptitude, and calling to produce the materials we need will do so.
For the future, I would definitely like to see some kind of “extra-curricular” teaching on this point. Again, the need for reliable materials and sources comes to the fore. It’s something of a Catch-22 until we can get better materials more widely available.
Even now, if the Church had a lesson or two on it, where do you send people for “further information”? There isn’t a book out there that I could in good conscience recommend.
I certainly sympathize with how Lulubelle experienced her discovery, and I agree that helping people not to be “ambushed” by information is a good thing.
But, as I’ve attempted to point out, there are interlocking problems that are not easily solved in isolation–all the pieces need to be in place (I believe) for an effective strategy. And, that takes time.
I most certainly did not mean to imply that the topics I mentioned were boring. But let’s face it, there are very few really great teachers out there who can consistently bring up new and interesting ways of thinking about the same topics. Usually they are, sorry but it’s true, trite examples of oft-heard topics. I would love for at least GD classes to delve into really meaty topics. I’m not saying that let’s study polygamy for an entire year is appropriate but not talking about it at all? Well, the silence is deafening. And it really sucks to learn about polygamy from outside sources. I oftentimes don’t know if the author has an ax to grind against the church or if the info presented at least attempts to be fair and balanced. It would be great for the church to be more forthcoming. The fact that they don’t leaves in question what else they’re trying to sweep under the rug. From a PR perspective (and I am a PR profssional), it’s a disasterous approach.
Lulubelle,
Much of the blame for the condition you describe can be laid at the feet of correlation. Correlation is a lot like McDonald’s — you get the same thing everywhere you go (high consistency), but that thing doesn’t taste very good (low quality).
For people whose palates are tired of Big Macs and Happy Meals, there are other restaurants to eat at; for people who are tired of questions like “what does Nephi’s example teach us about the importance of Family Home Evening?”, there aren’t any options other than (a) finding a different church or (b) studying at home.
Option (b) is problematic because it’s hard to determine which sources are reliable. And starting one’s investigation with a Google search of “Mormon polygamy” is fraught with danger (try it and see what kind of links you get).
So back to my question: The Church is unlikely to start up “Advanced Church History” classes anytime soon. What can we lay members do to help uninformed Mormons?
Yes. Hence my insistence that if all members immersed themselves in the scriptures, our classes would improve.
I would like that too. I taught GD for 5 years, and my class did talk about plural marriage. And, probably any other topic that anti-Mormons bring up. I told my class they were being vaccinated. No one complained, nor did my bishops or stake president (all of whom attended the classes) have anything bad to say.
But, that’s the problem with lay teachers in a lay church. The best you can get is what each member, as it were, is prepared to give. So, I repeat, if we all study these things more, we’ll be in a position to teach them responsibly if we’re called to do so and the spirit so dictates, and we’ll be useful in class if it becomes necessary and we’re the students.
With religious topics, “fair and balanced” probably exists mostly in the eyes of the beholder. 🙂 And, virtually all treatments of polygamy have an axe to grind AGAINST POLYGAMY, if not the Church per se. The best one is probably Kathryn Daynes’ More Wives Than One. There’s also Bachman’s 1975 Purdue thesis, which I think remains the best introduction. He at least gives Joseph the benefit of the doubt, which few authors seem willing to do.
I agree it can be made to look bad. Again, I think the Church needs a good history; by the same token, I don’t think the Church can be seen as having solicited or produced said history.
So, get writing. 🙂
Plural marriage was always in many was an Abrahamic test, putting one utterly at odds with surrounding culture. It remains so for us, I suspect. It is not meant to be comfortable, or easily wrapped into a neat package.
That said, the more I learn about it, the more impressed I am. I have become convinced (I wasn’t initially) that it was a vital part of the restoration, an inspiring story, and one of the great tales of religious liberty. And, I suspect we will eventually see more clearly (within our lifetime) some of the value in the way the Church and its members handled those difficult decisions.
I have not (yet?), however, figured out how best to transmit that sense to others. Perhaps it cannot be.
In the meantime, I think the stakes are certainly able to teach such things in outside classes if they want. Despite the critics’ caricature of the Church being dictated to in a “top down” fashion, stake presidents are being encouraged to take greater and greater latitude in how they do things, and how they solve problems which they perceive in their stakes.
A stake president is in a far better position to decide that this needs dealt with, and to find someone qualified to help, and find the means and forum to do so, than the Church heads in SLC are to find a fit for everywhere from Boston to Botswana.
Greg: I’m glad you feel better about polygamy the more you’ve studied it but the more I’ve studied it, the more it repulses me. My dad, though he said he doesn’t understand it and would never practice it, defends it because some of my pioneer ancestors practiced it (ick). Mostly, it goes against everything I believe in to more core– that marriage is two people becoming one. The only way that can happen is for those two people to be devoted to each other with no other distractions, to put all their energy into strengthening the relationship and building a family. For me, it’s about equals, about fairness, about fidelity, about love. When the male in the relationship is given free reign to find other sweeties out there, date them, marry them, have sexual relations with them, and have children with them, that destroys the primary union. (And if only the male gets to practice polygamy, how is that even fair??) Sister wives don’t necessarily get along. There is competition to be favored wife. There is jealousy. Of course there is– it’s human nature. (And not all wives were happy– not even Brigham’s wives all thought polygamy was such a great thing.) Anyway– total threadjack. Sorry, I know this isn’t about debating polygamy, but how the church should deal with it (which, as I’ve stated, should be openly, honestly, transparently)
Brent: So eloquently said. And you are absolutely correct here– there is absolute fear, bordering on paranoia, about approaching certain topics or talking about beliefs or ideas or even questions outside the mainstream. My dad, bless his heart, whenever I bring up polygamy or MMM or other topics, absolutely panics, gets shrill, defensive, angry, and accusatory. Some of the comments range from:
1. “You’re on the road to apostasy.”
2. “Your intellect will get in the way of your testimony.”
3. “You’re reading anti-Mormon literature again.”
4. “How dare you critisize the religion of your ancestors– your grandparents, your family?”
5. “You need to pray more and read the scriptures.”
6. “Where did you get this information? If it didn’t come from the church, then it’s false. Everything you need to know about the church comes from the church.” (Really? Seriously, dad? If I want to know everything about a Honda, do you really think I’m only going to get answers from Honda Corp? Or maybe others who’ve owned Hondas, consumer reports, Kelly Blue Book, etc? Good heavens!)
In seminary, if I ever brought up different thoughts in class, my seminary teacher would call my dad and tell him to keep me in line. There were two weeks where my dad had to come to seminary and sit next to me to ensure I would keep my mouth shut or my teacher wouldn’t let me into class. I’m not kidding here. I graduated. Barely. And not because I didn’t go to seminary or do the homework and tests either.
I’ve taught Sunday School and Relief Society and I would never even approach sensitive topics lest I get a bad reputation as an apostate or get removed from my calling.
I will never understand such fear of learning, questioning, debating, and sharing opinions on any topic.
Lulubelle:
I appreciate this perspective. But please understand that it represents a view of marriage held by a minute fraction of people who happen to live in Western society in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Billions of people have — and continue to — see marriage much differently than you do.
Peterson’s First Rule for the Study of Other Religions has application here: “If a substantial number of sane and intelligent people believe something that seems to you utterly without sense, the problem probably lies with you, for not grasping what it is about that belief that a lucid and reasonable person might find plausible and satisfying.”
Mike,
While I don’t agree with Lulubelle’s position on marriage, isn’t her position the official position of the Church? What happens when the missionaries go to a culture in which polygamy is accepted, and convert a polygamist? Doesn’t he have to renounce his views on marriage to comply with the Church’s view on marriage in order to get baptized? If the majority of the world’s cultures accept polygamy then how does Peterson’s First Rule for the Study of Other Religions apply to the Church? You apply that rule to Lulubelle when her posistion is the same as the Church. Am I wrong?
Brent,
You are confusing an individual’s feelings about a practice with an institution’s policy on that practice.
I don’t really want to participate in most of what this discussion has become, but I do have a question.
It appears to me that we acknowledge Fanny Alger as a wife of Joseph Smith. But who performed the ceremony? When/Where was it performed? It doesn’t seem that we know the answers to those questions, but is there any evidence that a ceremony was performed? Who was Joseph preaching plural marriage to before this first one.
I think this aspect is one of the most difficult to address.
You’re right about the difficulty rating, spencer. We have so few details, and most of what little we know comes from antagonistic sources.
Of course, it’s quite possible that there was no ceremony performed, in the sense that we now think of a sealing ordinance. It’s not even clear if Joseph saw this as a “time and all eternity” sealing vs. a “time only” marriage. We need to be very careful that we don’t look back with our institutional eyes on that time before everything was doctrinally organized.
Joseph’s first inkling of plural marriage appears to be in a comment he made in Missouri in July 1831 to a group that included Oliver Cowdrey, Martin Harris, Ziba Peterson, W. W. Phelps, Joseph Coe, and Joshua Lewis that “in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and Just, for even now their females are more virtuous than the gentiles.” (source)
(This revelation is problematic, however, in that it’s based on W. W. Phelps’ recollection decades after the event.)
Spencer,
I am sure someone else is working on a response as I type.
I consider the evidence to very strong that Joseph had a revelation about polygamy in early 1831 and that he discussed polygamy with members of the Johnson family that he was staying with at the time. Orson Pratt heard about polygamy from Lyman Johnson while the two were on a mission. There was also another revelation in 1831 that Phelps recalled in Utah and apostate Ezra Booth wrote about in his Dec. 1831 letters to the Painsville telegraph that suggested polygamous marriages with Lamanites.
I recently posted on M* about Annie Lyman, who historians disagree whether she was Oliver Cowdery’s plural wife. My contribution to the subject was to narrow the time frame this marriage would have occurred to when Joseph Smith was away with Zion’s Camp and Oliver was absent from his first wife for over a year. However this remains conjectural.
Levi Hancock performed the Alger marriage according to his son Mosiah. There is some debate on when it happened between 1833-1835. Greg Smith has created a more thorough chronology for it than I. Even some apostates considered it to be a “sealing” or “celestial” union. Benjamin Johnson reported that the Alger family consented to the marriage and we know most of her family (but not her) went with the Church to Utah.
The FAIR wiki covers these things better.
Thanks for the responses. I kept looking a bit and came across Compton’s article on Alger in the JMH, spring 1996. I haven’t finished reading it yet.
I think the lack of documentation probably and early time frame make it difficult. As Compton points out, the marriage is typical of others that took place later that don’t seem as difficult to accept.
spencer,
Glad we can help. I liked Compton’s treatment of Fanny Alger in In Sacred Lonliness, so I imagine that the JMH article is helpful as well. He was the one that discovered the material in the Mosiah Hancock journal.
Lulubelle,
I really appreciate what you bring to the discussion. The fact that most members don’t know how to answer your questions certainly makes most defensive. The institutional instruction of difficult topics is something that the Church History Department recently decided to address. Thus you saw the MMM article in the Ensign last year. I believe that the best materials will be written by historians who are faithful members of the church.
You may want to check out his thread at MormonMatters.org regarding what benefits the church found from the practice of polygamy.
Have you been studying the primary documents, or various people’s treatments of it? In my experience, the documents tell a somewhat different story than the slant often put on things. I’ve found that the closer I can get to the original stuff, the better the story becomes.
As Mike as pointed out, this is a fairly presentist view of marriage. This is not to say that it is not a valuable, or even ideal state. For most of history, though, marriage was seen far more as an economic and social arrangement. The answer of “What’s love got to do with it,” was “Nothing, usually.”
Believers in every age must make the marital practices or traditions work for them in a gospel context.
Interestingly, Mormons managed to resacralize marriage just as it was becoming more secularized in the west than anytime since the time of Christ, at least. This was a good counter-current to the American culmination of a long series of changes dating back to the Reformation.
We have joined the mainstream to a degree, but we have maintained a sacralization and seriousness for marriage that would not stand out much in the Victorian era, but does in the 21st century, especially outside of the USA (see: Europe).
A good book on this change is From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Family, Religion, and Culture) by John Witte Jr.
For a social history, see: Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz.
For further background on the American development of things, see: Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation.
And, Mormon polygamists did not, by and large, buy into the Victorian view of how marriage should be. (Some have argued that the Victorian backlash against polygamy says a great deal about the dissatisfaction with Victorian marriage felt by many. In fact, anti-polygamy works tell us a lot more, I think, about 19th century authors and their issues than they do about the Mormons.)
See: Cannon, Charles A. “The Awesome Power of Sex: The Polemical Campaign against Mormon Polygamy.” The Pacific Historical Review 43, no. 1 (February 1974): 61–82.
So, if you’re wanting 19th century Mormon polygamy to be a model for a 21st century monogamy, romance-based marriage, you will be consistently disappointed. But, this was not how they felt it was intended to be for them. Nor, I think, was that the point.
This is one point that will be absolutely neccessary for members to “get” if we hope people to understand plural marriage.
I don’t think you should extend how your father reacts to how everyone else does or would react. This is an extreme reaction, and probably doesn’t reflect the “mean.”
I think people’s reaction will often be determined (or at least exaggerated) by how we present things. If you present an issue like MMM, or plural marriage, or whatever, in the negative tone that you’ve taken here, people are going to get defensive.
This is not to say that you are not entitled to your feeling or reaction–or even that such a reaction is not the proper one (that would be determined on a case-by-case basis). It is simply to point out that if you go into a discussion about plural marriage being something that “repulses” you, or “goes against everything I believe in,” you’re going to get a defensive reaction.
Mormons have a long history of having our beliefs mocked, misunderstood, and caricatured. We also have a long history of much of the fodder for such thing coming from former members of the Church–apostates, as it were.
It is easier, I think, to deal with opposition from outside than someone who was once inside. We can take being misunderstood or misrpresented by those who do not know us. But, it cuts deeply to have someone who was inside, who we hoped knew us and our hearts, come to a different conclusion about such things and attack that which we hold dear.
(As an example, witness the Muslim reaction to Salmon Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. I’m not saying Rushdie deserved the treatment they dished out–no one does. But, Rushdie was also not the holy innocent in all that–as a lapsed Muslim, he knew all the buttons to push to outrage, offend, and denigrate Muslim belief–and he pushed them, knowing full well, I suspect, how the “Muslim in the street” would feel.)
We also have a long and painful institutional memory of society using plural marriage as a political club to achieve ends that had nothing to do with plural marriage per se. It has been used as a tool by religious enemies. And, it has been distorted and caricaturized beyond recognition repeatedly.
Like a whipped child, some of us have an almost instictual reaction to try to head off what appears or feels like efforts to do the same thing. (Again, this is hardly unique to Mormons. One can see the same thing in other groups with race issues, the Holocaust, etc.)
The fear is not learning; the fear, I suspect, is what people think you are doing when you try to engage in those things.
I think the forum matters a great deal. Seminary class, to use your example, is not the place for such things. I will certainly grant that seminary can be deadly boring, and teach false doctrine on occasion. Been there, done that.
But, to bring up “tough questions” can often look like an effort to showboat, or get attention, or sow discord, or stir the pot. (Not that they were such things in your case, but I think we can all think of cases where that impression seemed overwhelming.) And, in such cases, people’s motives are not often pure or admirable.
As I said earlier, I’ve taught SS, and never had problems, and no one has ever thought me apostate. But, I suspect this hinges on how one approaches such things. Do we have an affirmative way of doing things? Are we there to help people and bring them to Christ through that discussion? If not (and I am not at that place with every topic; I thus don’t touch those topics) we ought, I think, to go elsewhere in our discussion.
Boyd K. Packer gave a fascinating account of how he views such matters, and I think it speaks to this issue (as well as putting the lie to the caricature of him as someone trying to “suppress the truth”):
Too often (and I do not say this about you, but about us in general) we are too interested and excited by the process of searching for answers, that we do not much care if we have no answer forthcoming.
As Elder Maxwell warned:
Sigh. I miss him.
Greg
Greg,
I’m a little suprised by your comment in which you said, “if you go into a discussion about plural marriage being something that “repulses” you, or “goes against everything I believe in,” you’re going to get a defensive reaction”.
I believe that any defensive reaction in church would come from not being repulsed by polyamy, or stating that polygamy is something that you do believe in. I didn’t hear any defensiveness from people at church when Mitt Romney said, “I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy”. I just don’t see a member of the Church receiving any kind of grief for being against polygamy. Who’s more likely to be called to the Bishop’s office, the person who speaks up in Gospel Doctrine and says, “I hate polygamy!”, or the person who says, “I support polygamy!”?
The defensive reaction comes when the implicit or explict stand is that polygamy was a mistake, uninspired, or driven by base motives on the part of Joseph, Brigham or others.
No one will have a problem with the expression (as with Romney’s remark) that we are glad not to have polygamy now, or that it was filled with difficulties. Brigham Young, John Taylor, and many others were equally clear about that. Few people were keen on the idea.
The question is not opposing or supporting the practice of polygamy. The question is about the source, purposes, and goals of plural marriage, and whether it has a revelatory basis or not.
That’s the rub, as any review of scholarship and polemic on this topic (e.g., Todd Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness or the Tanners’ subsequent treatment of the information Compton included). Compton argues that polygamy was a mistake. That’s the issue.
It’s like crossing the plains. That it was difficult and we’re glad we don’t have to do it is easy. To argue that moving to SLC was an uninspired MISTAKE (using the challenges experienced in the trek as evidence) would be quite another matter.
It is, in a sense, the position with the most tension.
Brent,
I’ll openly confess that I was offended by Mitt Romney’s remark. I’m the descendant of polygamists, and I’m honored to be the descendant of people who sacrificed so much and were so obedient.
(My great-great-great grandfather, Mads Christian Jensen, was married to four women. He died 11 July 1898 in Brigham City, Utah. President Wilford Woodruff sent a letter to his family, writing, “If any man understood the proper meaning of polygamy, and lived it correctly, it was Mads Christian Jensen.”)
I can imagine a lot of things more “awful” than polygamy. Romney made that statement to score political points with non-Mormons, plain and simple. (One reason among many that I’m not voting for him).
There is a difference, however, between being grateful and honored to be the descendants of polygamists, and stating, in the the present tense, “I support polygamy.” The key word support is a red flag for someone who is headed down the road to apostasy.
I have publicly stated in church meetings that I would have no problem if the Church returned to practicing polygamy. But I would never use the phrase you did.
I appreciate everyone’s perspectives and comments on my posts– and they’ve been respectful responses, too! Food for thought. I try not to purposely push buttons when I’ve had questions on these topics or have just wanted to discuss them. But when someone gets shrill on my, I have to admit, I get shrill back. I’m not sure where the proper venue is to discuss anything so, in fear, I just shut my mouth in church, with my HT, Bishop, you name it– most everyone. I’ve even learned to shut my mouth around my dad )(most of the time). But when I feel like I’ve been lied to and misled about pieces of our past– important pieces, mind you, as they are the words of our prophets– then I get really angry and feel decieved (not a good feeling to have about the church that, apparently, is the One and Only True Church and Who God Would Never Lead Astray or Allow Mistakes in Doctrine To Be Made Especially When His Prophets Speak. I’m trying to reconcile it all in my mind but it’s not easy since many of these topics seem to be off limits. It’s why I love these message boards most of the time (when I’m not getting flamed). So, thanks for all your input. I’ll look into some of the suggested reading. But I doubt I’ll ever see polygamy as inspired, Godly, and right.
PS: I, too, am a descendent of polygamy and while I’m grateful to be born and I’m sure my ancestors were pretty fascinating, resilient, obedient and faithful people, I’m not proud that they practiced The Principle. I’m ashamed of it, actually, and would never admit it to anyone if I didn’t have to. If the church brought back polygamy,Mike, I think that would finally push me over the edge. I’m pretty dang sure I’d leave the church over that one (and I have a feeling I’d have a lot of company on my way out). Maybe I’ll change some day. I doubt it, though.
Again, sorry about all the typos and poorly written comments above. I’m actually a writer/PR Vice President with a degree in English but you’d never know it by the way I write on these boards!
This is certainly a difficult subject.
One thing that I have had to come to terms with as I have looked into apologetics and understanding the mass of information surrounding LDS polemics is that sometimes people are wrong… and it’s okay. We have a terrible information problem in the church, we have many speakers with different opinions emerging from different time periods saying different things. Often we know (or at least are shown) little of the context and rationale behind their words. Those who burrow deep into these things soon find it to be a maze.
I truly and wholeheartedly believe Bruce R. McConkie was an Apostle. I also strongly disagree with some of the things he said during his lifetime, perhaps going so far as to say he was wrong on multiple occasions. It is Ok. I needn’t attempt to harmonize every piece of data that I receive.
Church leaders misspeak. It happens. I suspect this is why speeches over the pulpit in conference have the tendency to become more and more “vanilla”. As our leaders are learning from the mistakes of their very opinionated forbears they are trying to prevent further confusion.
Anyone who wants to ponder matters of salvation should start by reading the scriptures and praying. As they deal personally with many great and difficult questions, including polygamy, they will certainly seek guidance from the writings of prophets and other sources (i.e. fair, ensign etc.) But the conclusions they come to should generally be private and should rely deeply on the power of revelation. Not having all the answers is OK.
What I am saying is, These are not simple matters, and are therefore not simply resolved. But las time I checked my testimony was rooted in (first and foremost) Christ’s atonement, and then in the scriptures and my faith in Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling and subsequent prophetic calling of his successors. All of this pertaining to salvation and the Christlike life. All other matters, however deep, interesting, or troubling will be secondary. Polygamy never left me feeling washed of my sins, nor has the doctrine of Calling and election being made sure filled my mind with light. Just saying. The church has made my life stronger and better. This I know.
I too would appreciate some openness on difficult subjects from church leaders.
I guess that was a really long was of saying that discrepancies in statements by church leaders ought not to testimony breaking issues, and that Church Leaders have said things that weren’t true in the past. While we may be unable to explain everything the scriptures are clear that we follow the living prophet and the teachings of the gospel on the path to salvation. Therefore I press forward despite the fact that I don’t have the full picture.
Did any of this make sense? or did I just ramble. I can handle the truth.
I encounter new information about Mormonism all the time in my personal studies. The discovery process makes the experience rewarding. I find it hard to get others excited about the subjects I am interested in, so I imagine if I ever got a Sunday School teaching gig, my class size would whittle down in a hurry.
When I find new information that counters some of the erroneous folk doctrine taught by ignorant, yet well meaning teachers, I find that cause for rejoicing. I don’t think it is wise to cast things in terms of deception and people lying to me, because a) they did not do so knowingly and b) I like to take responsibility for what I choose to believe.
In my engineering profession I frequently simplify reality by creating models. Those models provide good enough description of observations and predictions of behavior under some range of conditions, but breaks down outside of that range. When models break down, I feel free to switch to a more complicated one. Even so the more nuanced model is not always preferable to the simpler one. There is less of a learning curve, fewer calculations involved, etc.
So when I encounter new information that goes beyond what my well meaning seminary teacher’s speculation, rather than setting Christ and his prophets for “things of naught” I just give thanks that the Lord has blessed me to be more wise than they.
So even in our scriptures, our prophets have not claimed to be error-free in matters of doctrine. However they have pleaded with us to be charitable to them when we do discover such imperfections.
I think this is a common feeling, and I think many do not do a good enough job of clarifying this doctrine. What you express here is, no doubt, how some Mormons think about the matter, but it is not Church doctrine.
The issue is not _God_ leading people astray, but whether God will allow _his prophets_ to lead the Church astray.
Boyd K. Packer (not, I think we will agree, a doctrinal “liberal”) makes this very clear:
Prophets can make mistakes. But, God doesn’t let the Church drift in a way that is permanently harmful. But, He gives us a fair amount amount of leeway. The point, after all, is to learn to exercise our native capacities more and more as He would; it is not to become simply good marionettes. That plan was vetoed long ago…
And, Brigham Young and others have long insisted that they MIGHT make mistakes teaching doctrine, and that the only guard against that was revelation–which each individual in the Church has a right and duty to get, and keep.
I particularly like this one: vintage Brigham. Earthy, funny, good spirited, warm, and comforting:
There are, of course many, many similar statements throughout Church history.
This is not to argue that I don’t think prophets ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. My first reaction ought not to be, “Huh, I’ll bet that’s not true.”
As Trevor and Keller have so eloquently put it, only revelation can resolve these issues. It was all that solved it for the people who lived it–their accounts are crystal clear on that scope. Yet, we somehow want all the historical pieces to “mesh” for us without that. Why? If the record is clear about anything, it is that they weren’t able to do it without revelation.
After the fact, they came up with what they thought were good reasons, explanations, etc. But, that’s all whistling in the dark without the revelation which undergirded it. I feel to embrace their revelation; their explanations I think less vital.
Plural marriage was, and remains, fundamentally a question about revelation. We are too accustomed, I think, to a pattern that people sometimes fall into–of looking for the “external proofs,” or the “good things” that come out of obedience, as proof that we’re doing the right thing.
We like that we don’t get cancer from cigarettes, or STDs when we keep the law of chastity, or better marriages when sealed in the temple. (This is not to say that there are not fruits of obedience, but they are–in my experience–far more likely to be internal. I know them, but they are not on display, nor can I–or should I–parade them.)
All these are (in a sense) to trust the Gift more than the Giver of the Gift. Do we want what God offers us because it will do good things for us? Or, do we want what He wants because HE wants it? Can we give our will to Him?
Early Christians didn’t get a lot of perks. Being a Christian would shorten your lifespan, get you fed to lions, get you tried for treason by the state, separate you from your family, etc. There was no good REASON to believe, other than that it was true.
Early Mormons would be vilified, attacked by at least two state militias and the U.S. army, have legislative attacks waged on them, vilified in the press, caricaturized in novels, taken from the comfortable east and stuck in a desert fighting grasshoppers.
Can we, as C.S. Lewis was wont to remark, cease advocating Christianity because it is useful, and start advocating it because it was true?
Only revelation makes that possible. Without it, polygamy or something else will ultimately be too hard to swallow.
Greg,
You said, “God doesn’t let the Church drift in a way that is permanently harmful”.
Is that the lesson we learn from the scriptures? It seems to me that one of the primary lessons of the Book of Mormon is ‘apostasy happens’. The message is ‘learn from our mistakes, or you will fail as we did’. Tell me, which of the previous churches, established by God, did not fail? The only example I can thing of is the city of Enoch, and I don’t think we’re even close to that level today. The city of Enoch was built upon celestial laws. The very same laws we gave up due to persecution. When we take the prideful position that the Church cannot fail, then the Church already has.
Brent,
Although your warnings about pride are important, you’re ignoring a vast body of revelation that refers to this as the last dispensation of the gospel, and that the priesthood “shall never be taken again from the earth” (D&C 13:1, cf. 27:13; 112:30).
Mike,
You’re ignoring a vast body of revelation that says that apostasy is possible, and you confuse the church with the gospel and priesthood.
To be more clear, I ought to have said God doesn’t let _the prophets_ direct the Church in a way that it drifts beyond permissible limits.
And yes, the scriptures teach that doctrine repeatedly. Every group that we have record of which fell into sin and apostasy was warned repeatedly by the prophets. It was not the prophets that caused the apostasy, but the members who failed to heed the warning words of the prophets, which were given repeatedly and unequivocally. Mormon and Moroni were still giving the message when their whole civilization collapsed. The prophets were the only ones, in the end, who DID get it right to the end, which again illustrates my point–thank you!
One sees this repeatedly in the Bible too, of course (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.) and elsewhere in the Book of Mormon (e.g. Abinadi to the Noachians, Alma the Younger to Nephites, Nephi to Nephites in 3 Nephi, etc.).
Plus, as Mike has pointed out, there is ample scripture in LDS canon which rules out a whole-sale apostasy of members as in the past.
Members of the Church can fail. But, revelatory guidance to both prophets and members who heed it will not.
Actually, your attitude here is more reminiscent of Joseph Smith’s warning than anything else:
So, you’d best take your rather idiosyncratic reading up with Joseph. 🙂
Brent,
That is, of course, a distinct minority viewpoint held by apostate polygamous groups in order to justify their breaking off from the true line of authority.
“The Church” is, of course, a legal entity, but as described in the scriptures, it is the organization for carrying out the work of the priesthood. The Church cannot be taken from the earth because that would require removing the priesthood.
But, as I’ve stated publicly and privately to you, I’m not really interested in arguing this point, nor in giving you a pulpit here to preach your views on why the Church is out of line.
Greg,
I’ve never found fault with the gospel that Joseph established. I’ll defend it to my death. It’s not me who’s rejected the fulness of what Joseph restored. I’m not the one who says that the doctrines of the gospel that so many sacrificed everything for where not necessary. It’s not me who’s found fault with the teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Eliza R. Snow, Heber C. Kimball, etc… I’m not the one who’s rejected their prophecies. Remember, remember, the apostate is the one who rejects the fulness of the gospel, not the one who accepts it.
Mike,
J. Reuben Clark:
“The Priesthood is essential to the Church, but the Church is not essential to the Priesthood.” (Improvement Era, p. 134, March 1936)
George Q. Cannon:
“We are asked, Is the Church of God and the Kingdom of God the same organization? And we are informed that some of the brethren hold that they are separate. This is the correct view to take. The Kingdom of God is a separate organization from the Church of God. There may be men acting as officers in the Kingdom of God who will not be members of the Church. . .” (Doctrinal History of the Church, Vol. 7, p. 382)
B. H. Roberts:
“Joseph Smith when speaking strictly recognized a distinction between the Church of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, and not only a distinction but a separation of one from the other.” (Rise and Fall of Nauvoo, p. 180)
Brigham Young:
(Spoke of the Church structure and said:) “This is what we are in the habit of calling the kingdom of God. But there are further organizations. The Prophet gave a full and complete organization to this kingdom the Spring before he was killed. . . The kingdom of God will protect every person, every sect and all people upon the face of the whole earth, in their legal rights. I shall not tell you the names of the members of this kingdom, neither shall I read to you its constitution, but the constitution was given by revelation. The day will come when it will be organized in strength and power.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 17, pp. 156-157)
Times and Seasons:
“There are men here, brethren, who have got authority, but we don’t want to mention their names, for the enemy will try to kill them.” (Vol. 5, p. 663)
George Q. Cannon:
“Joseph Smith set the pattern; he taught the brethren who were with him better ideas; you well-informed Latter-day Saints know that there are two powers which God has restored in these the last days. One is the Church of God, the other is the Kingdom of God.” (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 20, p. 204)
I guess the Lord didn’t realize that law of agency no longer applies to the leaders of the Church, and that they are infallible in their leadership of the church. He could have just put all His eggs in one basket, as all is well in Zion.
Except, of course, Brigham, George Q. Cannon, all the apostles they called and ordained, et al.’s teachings about Church government, apostolic succession, etc.
We get it. “The church is in apostasy, the entire leadership that held the authority is corrupt, etc.” It’s the standard schismatic polygamist splinter group schtick. (Were Elder Maxwell alive, I would submit that last sentence with its s’s and sch’s for his consideration. ;-))
And, your answer to what should be done about teaching members regarding historical plural marriage in the LDS Church is “embrace and practice it.”
But, that ain’t gonna happen. And FAIR is not going to advocate it.
And, you’ve been told this. How long is the one note symphony going to go on? Please, give it a rest, or find a forum where that sort of discussion will actually contribute something, rather than derailing the thread.
I am Community of Christ/RLDS. I alway’s felt the LDS Church should do an educational history DVD. I doubt the LDS Church would do it, so i thought FAIR should do one. Show pictures of husbands and the plural wive’s. Maybe a picture of D.& C.132.
I think it should have a list of resources on the internet people can go to like FAIR.
If the film would get into polyandry it will need to explain why it was done. And most people consider an affair with a married woman adultury. So if the DVD take’s the position he was sexually involved with married women that will have to be explained. It’s nice to educate people, but the more education bring’s more tough question’s.
And some people get upset when they hear new information.
With polyandry I would like to see critic’s prove Joseph Smith Jr. had adulterous relation’s with 11 married women. So i treat these as marriages for eternity, and deny Joseph Smith lived with them as wive’s. I am not convinced Sylvia Session’s daughter was Joseph Smith’s so i place her relationship with Joseph Smith in the platonic category.
Even with the most worked out explanation people can get upset. I think polyandry is a topic a person should hear something about. I am convinced people need to hear the information from friend’s before critic’s hit them. And if they detest Joseph Smith’s polyandry no answer will help them much.
Greg said, “Members of the Church can fail. But, revelatory guidance to both prophets and members who heed it will not.”
I believe that a prophet can lead the people astray by revelation. That’s what we learn from the prophet Samuel.
“Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah. And said unto him, Behold thou art old, and they sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.
And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” (1 Samuel 8:4-7)
Did the LORD give Samuel a revelation to give the elders of Israel a king? Samuel warned the people, just as early leaders of this dispensation warned us, but if the people don’t want to live God’s law, then God will give the people what they want.
Remember what Brigham Young said at the dedication of the St. George temple? He said, “Hear it ye Elders of Israel and mark it down in your logbook, the fulness of the gospel is the United Order and Plural Marriage, and I fear that when I am gone this people will give up these two principles which we prize so highly, and if they do this, the Church cannot advance as God wishes for it to…”
Did the LDS people want to live Celestial Laws? No, Celestial laws are difficult to live, and bring persecution. Did the Lord have His prophet give the people what they wanted? He always does.
I’m sorry that I kept bringing up polygamy on a polygamy related thread. I’m also sorry that I didn’t “contribute” anything to this thread. One thing we have learned from this discussion is just how tolerant the Church and it’s members are in discussing plural marriage. Obviously, the problems that were raised in the original post have no basis in fact. The Church has nothing to worry about. We can all rest easy tonight. 🙂
The “people” did not give up plural marriage, in the LDS view. Prophetic guidance gave it up. (This presumes your cite is both accurate and in context. Without a citation to a printed source, it’s pretty hard to know.)
Brigham was quite clear that acceptance of the doctrine was the necessity “at least in your faith,” not the actual practice of the doctrine, even in his day. (JD 13:268-269).
And he anticipated a possible discontinuation if commanded by the Lord. (See my cite above on January 29th, 2008 at 3:37 pm.)
Don’t be dense. You keep advocating the practice of polygamy on a thread dedicated to deciding how best to teach LDS members about plural marriage, who by definition do not practice plural marriage, do not want to, and would consider it a grave sin to do so. This has been explained to you before, and you have been asked not to do it.
Why are you being so discourteous? You’ve been asked to stop multiple times, and you have not.
I have difficulty believing you’re not able to understand this.
I can assure you that the Church will not (and should not) “tolerate” the advocation of that stance within the LDS Church in the present day.
You’re free to believe whatever you want; you’re not free to use others’ resources and forum (this is FAIR’s blog, not yours) to continue to ride your hobbyhorse when you’ve been asked not to, especially when there’s no reasonable grounds for expecting that advocating the practice of plural marriage will contribute anything substantive to the discussion. That’s not an option. So, please quit bringing it up.
Suggestions that we convert to Hinduism are likewise not germane. And, that’s about as likely as the current Church embracing the practice of plural marriage for modern members.
This is a perspective that really interests me. It was (as you know better that I do, probably) long a virtual article of faith for RLDS/CoC that Joseph Smith did not teach or practice plural marriage. (I’ve never understood how this could fly, given that people like Austin Cowles were in the RLDS leadership, and yet he had heard the D&C 132 revelation read in the high council.)
But, at any rate, that was certainly the position of many of Emma/JS III’s family for quite a while.
Even today, one sees the “conservative” arm of the RLDS (I don’t know what best to call it; if there’s an acceptable term please tell me) represented by people like Richard Price, who is still insisting (in a truly erudite display of missing the forest for the trees) that Joseph didn’t teach or practice plural marriage, and that there’s no evidence that he did.
If the LDS have to expand their vision of the history, surely the RLDS had an even BIGGER task before them, cognitively and spiritually. The LDS need to learn new facts and perhaps unlearn some “folk history.” The RLDS needed to reject major points of emphasis.
At any rate, my question is–how, do you think, did the RLDS/CoC membership cope with the realization that what they had been taught and thought about JS (no polygamy) actually wasn’t the case? (Obviously, one reaction would be Price’s almost “young earth creationist” insistence that he DIDN’T, but that seems to not be a viable approach for most of the members.)
I’m inclined to sympathize with this, simply because the data are so scanty. Sylvia Sessions Lyon is the ONLY evidence for sexuality in the polyandrous marriages. I would dearly like to see DNA data on the Josephine line to settle the issue.
But, other than that, there is zero evidence that I’ve seen. Most people presume (e.g., Compton) sexuality in all/most marriages, but that really oversteps the data. If you’ve convinced Joseph was in it for the sex, then OF COURSE they were consummated, but that’s circular reasoning.
And, Emma got far too upset about things for them to ALL have been “platonic.” But, so far as I know, there’s no evidence of her getting worked up about the polyandry. Nor did an angry husband enter the picture. Nor did a tearful wife “confess all” to Nauvoo and husband. It’s curious.
It’s interesting too that the polyandrous marriages were the FIRST. You’d think they’d be the hardest, yet Joseph did them almost exclusively first. I wonder if they weren’t, ironically, “easier” for him and Emma because consummation was not anticipated.
The counter-argument to what I’ve sketched here would be the Sarah Pratt episode, one of the most clouded tales of the whole story. But, on balance, I’m inclined to think that Sarah was not lily white in that whole tale…
Greg,
You said:
“Brigham was quite clear that acceptance of the doctrine was the necessity “at least in your faith,” not the actual practice of the doctrine, even in his day.” (JD 13:268-269).
I looked up that reference in the Journal of Discouses and I could not find that quote. Could you double check that reference and give a little more context? Thanks! The only thing I found in that sermon that was close was this:
“…where is the difference between the Latter-day Saints and the various Christian sects that dwell on the earth? The difference is that we believe enough to obey; while they believe just enough to acknowledge but not to obey.”(JD 13:268-269)
I don’t think that was the quote you were refering to, but it’s a great quote! 🙂
Greg-Joseph Smith 3rd in his Memoirs acknowledged Joseph Smith was married to or sealed to Melissa Lott willis. But he doubted she was involved with her father. He felt these were platonic agreement’s to or asociation’s for world’s to come that got later misrepresented. I doubt her claim myself. I have In Sacred Lonliness on that i just was not impressed by his case. Joseph Smith 3rd felt such a platonic practice should not be confessed as his father practicing polygamy.
With Richard and Pamela Price they know of the Melissa Lott Willis family Bible marriage notation. They know Melissa showed Joseph Smith Jr. a note by her father Cornelius saying he had married her to Joseph Smith. They publish his memoirs themselve’s. But i think they play dumb most of the time.
I once e-mailed them to ask them about William Clayton’s Nauvoo Journal. And she said she had not had the time to do an in-depth study so could not comment on them at the time. Some traditional RLDS doubt the authenticity of the document.
Jame’s Whitehead said in the Temple Lot case that he briefly saw the original copy of D.&C. 132 at Winter Quarters. And said the one published in the LDS D.&C. had been altered to sanction Joseph Smith Jr. supporting mortal polygamy. This is what they think about D.&C.132.
Basically they think the revelation had to do with ancient polygamy, and not with the present time. Which was the early Churche’s response to William Law’s afidavit’s. So they don’t i think trust Austin Cowles. And William Marks said a revelation on it was read in the High Council not D.& c. 132. He said it was a fake in other statements. So with Jame’s Whithead, William Mark’s, and Emma Smith saying D.&C. 132 was a fake we had no reason to trust William Law.
They have a copy of In Sacred Lonliness they just take the no comment approach. They do not want to get into teaching the idea Joseph Smith was in some kind of polygamy marriage speculation in Nauvoo.
With Sarah Pratt she admitted to Joseph Smith 3rd her story was untrue. I think myself she was approached for a platonic polyandrous sealing, but misrepresented what happened. Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy is online to read with an article on her case. I won’t link to it here as it contain’s what LDS would find to be some Anti-Mormon polemic.
With Emma Smith she was said to have had personal knowledge of i think four to six wive’s. I am not sure she would have agreed to Maria and Sarah Lawrence being sealed to her husband unless it was a platonic arrangement. I think William Law was full of it when they brought out the legal indictment that Maria and Joseph Smith were living openly in adultury. Emily and Eliza Partridge had stopped seeing Joseph Smith. So Emma Smith may have thought her husband got out of the earthly polygamy business.
Our member’s react differently to the information. Some reject it and some accept it. The idea Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet in Nauvoo was a common reaction. I do not see our tradtional case against the affidavit’s or D.&C. 132 weak. It was just that documents came forth like William Clayton’s Nauvoo Journal that contradicted some of our case. I see a lot of traditional and non-traditional view’s on Joseph Smith and polygamy in my church.
Our Church website has a Frequently Asked Questions article. It handles the new scholarship by not fighting it. The church has moved away from trying the clear Joseph Smith of polygamy. But the article gave a taste of the type of information out there. It supports the scholars. And our leading historian’s put out book’s that are in agreement with other polygamy book’s i own. I am not sure the LDS Church has a similar article at it’s website. It might help them to do that.
Sorry, should be Vol 11:268-269, not Vol 13. Slip of the keys.
You may also have trouble finding it in some digital forms, since I have one JoD (put together, I think, buy a polygamist break-off group adherent) who has a typo in this line. Thus, rather than reading “you will be polygamists at lest in your faith,” rather than “at LEAST in your faith.
That’s a non-starter historically, I suspect, but I can see the appeal.
Well, that was JS III’s version, anyway. Sarah reacted quite negatively to this claim of JS III’s, and said:
Mind you, I don’t trust Sarah—I think she’s a crappy witness on a number of fronts (Van Wagoner’s attempt to rehabilitate her, notwithstanding). There’s also details in surrounding material that she gets wrong.
But, given that she was actively teaching her children (in secret) to deny and disbelieve Mormonism (in any flavour), I find it hard to believe that she would exonerate Joseph Jr. as JS III claimed she did, especially since she had left Orson by 12 March 1868, and JS III didn’t interview her until the 1870s.
Thus, I’m not sure I believe EITHER of the statements of Sarah, certainly not in their entirety. At least in Wyl’s case, we’re getting her own words to an interviewer, and which match statements she made to newspapers in the east. JS III’s version is second hand.
I still think, though, that Sarah was having an affair with John C. Bennett. This explains, I think, how Bennett is always appealing to Sarah to back up his stories, and Sarah does so, even in things that are very implausible. I’m hoping that examination of their later textual claims can help sort out the maze of claim-and-counterclaim at Nauvoo.
Greg-I think Sarah Pratt had a repentant moment when she talked to Joseph Smith 3rd. It’s a lot different when she talking to Anti-Mormons wanting to hear her story and another when she talked to Joseph Smith’s son. Somebody was lying either her or Joseph Smith 3rd and i think she lied. i think she said Joseph Smith was a gentleman. I was aware she contradicted Joseph Smith 3rd’s side. After she got in cahoot’s with Wyl she had to support her exiting from Mormonism story.
I met Ed Decker once. I asked him about the volume of They Lie In Wait To Decieve book on the Godmakers once. He said his ex-wife’s claim’s was slander. and he claimed that he caught his ex-wife in an improper situation with an LDS missionary. Sarah Pratt strike’s me as an Ed Decker type.
If by that you mean an inveterate distorter of the truth, I’d agree. Ed Decker is much more of a loon, though. 🙂
The problem, though (and I mean no offense by this), but Joseph Smith III seemed to have A LOT of trouble accepting any evidence at all that JS, Jr. taught plural marriage. Members of the RLDS even complained about this.
JS III was not above ignoring, avoiding, or even manipulating the gathering of evidence to support that perspective.
He was in a tough spot. Emma was an honorable woman, but she repeatedly lied about plural marriage, told her kids that Brigham Young was lying when he said Joseph taught plural marriage, etc. I think JS III was simply unable to reconcile his mother’s over-all sterling character, and the fact that she was lying about plural marriage. Since his mother and everyone around him would have considered polygamy to be a stain on Joseph’s memory, he certainly had motive to avoid being persuaded.
If JS III really talked to Sarah, and she really said what he claimed, I’m suprised he didn’t get an affidavit. Why no signed statement, in her own words? Why no witness? Why not notorize it? It was a VITAL interest to the Reorganization, and to JS III personally. I’m surprised we didn’t get more than an after-the-fact, “This is what Sarah told me,” especially when it is all portrayed by JS III as very frank, matter-of-fact, and with no attempt to “spin” things in a pro-LDS direction. It just doesn’t wash…but, I think, nor does the Bennett/later Sarah Pratt version either.
But, to get back to the point–would you say the majority of RLDS/CoC:
* still think Joseph didn’t teach plural marriage
* think Joseph taught it, but in the abstract or in olden times, with no modern application
* think all the sealings were merely platonic
* think Joseph did plural marriage, and was justified (i.e., the LDS view)
* think Joseph did plural marriage, and was sinful or fallen as a result
* don’t think about it at all.
Do you have a sense?
Greg i have been re-reading through my stack of polygamy book’s. As i got my book’s marked up i tend to skim. A lot of statements are made by person’s that someone said something. They reported it and it ended up getting into my book’s. I don’t see these statement’s witnessed to, or affidavit’s being made. I don’t think a lack of the statement’s being made legal mean’s historian’s can’t use them. What Sarah Pratt said was after the fact to.
Emma Smith could have lied she was human. I am not sure all the plural wive’s told the truth also. In Sacred Lonliness page six estimate’s Almira Johnson was sealed to Joseph Smith between April 2-22 1843. (pg.6) I think because Almira, and Benjamin Johnson lived in different cities than Joseph Smith that was the only date it could have happened. Her and Benjamin claimed Hyrum Smith told them the new doctrine was ok and for her to go ahead and be sealed to Joseph Smith. My copy of Mormon Enigma has Hyrum Smith not in the know about polygamy, or a believer in it in the middle of May.(pg.141) So this is either perjury about Hyrum Smith on their part or Todd Compton need’s to re-figure his date.
I am not sure myself D.&C. 132 is authentic. I am open to the idea it was tampered with prior to it’s publication in 1852. I would like to see the original copy if it still exists. I am not sure i trust Emily and Eliza Partridge. Like Richard and Pamela Price i distrust Eliza R. Snow. The only time i am open to trusting any of what they said is if a contemporary document dating back to Nauvoo back’s them up.
I don’t think it likely William Clayton’s Nauvoo journal was an edited version of the original. I only have the George D. Smith published edition from Signature Book’s. My distrust of William Clayton is great enough i looked for places where he could have interlopated polygamy material. I decided he would not have had the room so if they were fake he would have had to have later creatively re-copied them.
I don’t think i or Joseph Smith 3rd have doubt’s about the polygamy information based on Emma Smith. I just don’t trust the people that wrote the affidavit’s year’s later in Utah. I came to feel they were out to discredit Emma Smith so much they wern’t above fabricating stories. One of my favorite is from In Sacred Lonliness. In it Emma was purportedly acting as a midwife for one of Joseph Smith’s pregnant wive’s.(In Sacred Lonliness pg.12) I feel Apostle George A. Smith invented the story to discredit Emma’s platonic explanation for the wive’s she had knowledge of.
If i am wrong about my feeling’s toward’s them it’s a character flaw i share with Joseph Smith 3rd. I came myself mostly to agree with him.
I cannot give you an estimate on percentage who doubt Joseph Smith taught plural marriage. I just know our leadership is not traditional as they used to be on the subject. I run into lay member people and priesthood of both point’s of view. In my small congregation we have both point’s of view.
I think a lot of the Fundemental RLDS think sealing had nothing to do with being married and sealed to wive’s. I myself know that it did. I don’t know absolutely that the original involved allowing Joseph Smith to live with the wive’s. And i am open to the high probability it did only because of William Clayton’s Nauvoo Journal.
I don’t see any Fundemental RLDS as taking the sealing’s as all platonic. They take the total innocent approach. Maurice Draper a former member of our First Presidency had a book called Marriage in The Restoration. I think his position on John C. Bennet was that he could have been distorting some kind of marriage speculation by Joseph Smith. Those who don’t hold to the older position’s see him more like Todd Compton does.
I myself feel any number of Joseph Smith’s sealing’s could have been platonic. If a specific claim of sexuality exits i acknowledge it when discussing the wife in question. If i think i can’t disprove the claim i honestly admit it. I admit i don’t know a lot. If Todd Compton make’s a weak case for sex i deny the sex.
Those RLDS who feel Joseph Smith was guilty feel he repented of it before his death and said it was of the Devil. I lean towards this position myself. He is seen like David.
The position he was fallen is common. President Stephen Veazey the president of my church feel’s that way. I don’t have his statement, but he admitted Joseph Smith’s flaws.
I think a lot of our member’s have thought’s about Joseph Smith and polygamy. But like the LDS i see a lot of our member’s who have never been exposed to the issue. This make’s them vulnerable to losing faith when they run into tough stuff. I honestly don’t care if the person is staunch Fundementalist, or liberal as long as they have been exposed to what they need to.
I read a book like In Sacred Lonliness, or Mormonism Shadow or Reality? and i am not bothered at all. But about 20 year’s ago i was devestated. When i was an LDS kid i heard barely anything of polygamy. I doubt i had read D.&C. 132, or i forgot i once read it. And i found Anti-Mormon material, and book’s like Mormon Enigma. I ran into stuff i never heard. I became more anti-polygamy in my view’s. I found the local RLDS Church in high school in the phone book, and i was finally baptized in 2005. I graduated in 1989.
LDS apologetic’s is way to watered down at time’s. I know of nothing good on the Book of Abraham or polygamy that’s as tough as what the critic’s write. So it doesn’t prepare them to sit down with a copy of Mormonism Shadow or Reality? What i have is missionary type stuff not advanced apologetic’s.
Yes, I know the statement you’re referring to, and it always struck me as a bit…odd.
Even if it was a plural wife, and even if Emma and Joseph were helping, this doesn’t prove much. All of the polyandrous marriages were to dear friends of Joseph’s, and usually their husbands were too. Emma was often a midwife, and why wouldn’t a member have wanted the prophet there, given the Mormon belief in priesthood blessings?
If Emma did help, it might if anything argue AGAINST Joseph being the bio father of such children. Given her pretty consistent antagonism, I can’t see her really getting into this as Compton reads it.
You I can see, but JS III? He consistently cited his mother’s testimony as one pillar for his belief that JS, Jr. had been slandered. It wasn’t the only reason, I’m sure, but surely Emma’s raising and repeated witness was worth something?
I just wondered even what your ”gestalt” was, if things were equally balanced or if the tide was turning, etc. But, I can see that would be hard to tell, perhaps.
Yeah, Compton way over-called this. I think there are only about 6 cases where consummation is probable, or even likely, based on the evidence. Everything else is silence.
This was, IIRC, Cowles’ position.
Are there any tending to the view that he taught it, practiced it, and it was actually OK (i.e., essentially the mainstream LDS version)? Or, does that strike too close to RLDS/CoC theology and institutional history to be viable?
I agree that these are the two weakest areas–partly because one must master so much material, and so much of what we know is spotty or incomplete. (With Book of Abraham, for example, one needs 15 years of graduate training to evaluate everything in a truly independent manner, otherwise we are ultimately trusting which expert(s) we want to believe.)
What was it that was the tipping point for you with RLDS vs LDS? Was polygamy the key issue? Or, were there other spiritual, intellectual, theological issues you found more compelling on the CoC side?
(I’m not trying to turn this into an LDS vs. RLDS debate–I promise my plan is not to argue these points with you. I’m just curious, since that kind of switch strikes me as relatively rare nowadays. Most people who leave LDS seem to become agnostic/atheist, save the few who get into fairly fundamentalistic protestantism. Do you know of many other RLDS/CoC who were once LDS?)
(And, what’s the prefered abbreviation? “RLDS” comes most naturally to me, particularly for historical discussion, and “CoC” worries me if only because it could seem like I’m trivializing Christ’s name, which is the furthest thing from my mind. So, be my black friend, and tell your white honkey friend from the suburbs how I’m supposed to do the labeling!)
Greg,
Here’s some context for that quote you posted.
“Now, we as Christians desire to be saved in the kingdom of God. We desire to attain to the possession of all the blessings there are for the most faithful man or people that ever lived upon the face of the earth, even him who is said to be the father of the faithful, Abraham of old. We wish to obtain all that father Abraham obtained. I wish here to say to the Elders of Israel, and to all the members of this Church and kingdom, that it is in the hearts of many of them to wish that the doctrine of polygamy was not taught and practiced by us. It may be hard for many, and especially for the ladies, yet it is no harder for them than it is for the gentlemen. It is the word of the Lord, and I wish to say to you, and all the world, that if you desire with all your hearts to obtain the [p.269] blessings which Abraham obtained, you will be polygamists at least in your faith, or you will come short of enjoying the salvation and the glory which Abraham has obtained. This is as true as that God lives. You who wish that there were no such thing in existence, if you have in your hearts to say: “We will pass along in the Church without obeying or submitting to it in our faith or believing this order, because, for aught that we know, this community may be broken up yet, and we may have lucrative offices offered to us; we will not, therefore, be polygamists lest we should fail in obtaining some earthly honor, character and office, etc,”—the man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory. The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessings offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.”
“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of the world, upon which all blessings are predicated–And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.”
Have you obeyed the law of Celestial Plural Marriage as Abraham, Joseph, and Brigham? Will you receive the same blessings that they received for living the law? Will you obtain all that they obtained? Are you one of those who was spoken of by Brigham Young above, in the reference you provided, when he said, “it is in the hearts of many of them to wish that the doctrine of polygamy was not taught and practiced by us…”?
Remember when you said:
“And, your answer to what should be done about teaching members regarding historical plural marriage in the LDS Church is “embrace and practice it.”
But, that ain’t gonna happen. And FAIR is not going to advocate it.”
What did Brigham say about those who adopted that postition? “—the man that has that in his heart, and will continue to persist in pursuing that policy, will come short of dwelling in the presence of the Father and the Son, in celestial glory.”
“The difference is that we believe enough to obey; while they believe just enough to acknowledge but not to obey.”(Brigham Young, JD 13:268-269)
Robert,
You and I discussed the Almira Johnson situation on the old FAIR boards. I think I agree with you that Almira married Joseph in April and Hyrum did not convert to the polygamy principle until May 23. Hence the account that William Clayton married Almira to Joseph, while Benjamin Johnson’s recollection of Hyrum Smith being involved is suspect. I think the most plausible explanation is that Joseph had a second ceremony because his brother’s sealing keys as Patriarch and Associate President were considered to William Clayton’s delegated authority. Besides Hyrum needed some training on how to conduct eternal marriages. It wouldn’t be the only time Joseph married the same wife on multiple occasions as the ceremony could be made more complete.
Brent,
The fuller context supports Greg’s point rather well. It was not strictly necessary for an individual to practice polygamy in an era where polygamy was commanded. Merely accepting polygamy as a matter of faith was all that was necessary when there were practical limits to how many men could actually enter in polygamy.
Brigham Young is not saying anything new, in fact he is restating the commandment following ethics found in the Doctrine and Covenants, which I have written about elsewhere:
* promised blessings are predicated by obedience (D&C 130:20-21)
* commandments and their promised blessings can be revoked due to disobedience (D&C 58:30-31 D&C 56:4)
* we need not “run faster or labor more than you have strength” (D&C 10:4)
* if circumstances render one unable to perfectly keep a commandment, it is sufficient to have good intent (D&C 124:49-51 see also Mosiah 4:24-27)
* if men use agency to be “anxiously engaged” in good acts, they won’t “lose their reward” (D&C 58:27-28)
* the mere presence of a commandment does not guarantee success, prayer is also needed to “come off conqueror” of Satan’s opposition. (D&C 10:5)
* if a person in an important calling can no longer fulfill important responsibilities due to apostasy or death, the Lord can appoint a replacement (D&C 114:2 D&C 118:6 D&C 124:30)
* a person can be released from a calling or responsibility to attend to more important matters (D&C 126:1-3)
So if the practice of polygamy was not strictly, on an individual level, required for exaltation then it is quite a bit less required in eras where polygamy has not been commanded. Notice that in times past there have been times where polygamy was sanctioned and times when it was. Mormon fundamentalists are just as guilty as those Jacob rebuked in his second chapter.
Keller,
From your perspective, in times when polygamy was not sanctioned, what was the reason?
Greg-I like Community of Christ. The longer name the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was to close to the LDS name. It confused us two denominat’s way to much. I use RLDS, but havn’t quite felt right about saying i am CoC.
I don’t know of more than a few LDS who went Community of Christ. I read a lot of Anti-Mormon material’s the last 20 year’s. I developed a testimony of the Restoration. I didn’t want to be without religion. I feel i need God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, scripture, salvation, ect. I might have had my doubt’s and question’s, but i tried not to let it make me an total unbeliever. I found book’s that helped me like If I Really Believe Why Do I Have These Doubt’s by Lynn Anderson, and For Those Who Wonder by Jeff Burton.
I feel my denomination’s leader’s were right in getting out of the Joseph Smith was innocent of polygamy business. I do at time’s use it on certain Evangelical’s who try and witness to me. I do it mostly to show some of this trivia is not as unquestionable as they think. I can also throw in many in my denomination feel he was involved and see no reason to defend him.
With Joseph Smith i do think resting your whole faith on whether he was or was not a polygamist is a mistake. I have maybe three, or four area’s where i might doubt him on and many more areas i agree with him on. I could not think the same about Evangelicalism, or atheism. So i am going to keep my Book of Mormon belief.
Emma Smith only kept the denial’s in place her husband as president of the church supported. Her husband supported the claim the revelation had nothing to do with polygamy in the modern time’s. He and she denied he had any other wife than her period. Emma Smith only repeated the official church polemic that was given in official response to John C. Bennet and William Law’s accusation’s.
In private she said to a few that he was married to them for eternity, but was not supposed to live with them. One of my disagreement’s with Todd Compton is that if the time and for eternity phrase was used in the ceremony that mean’s Joseph Smith lived with them. He weakened his argument when he expressed openess to the idea Joseph Smith’s relationship with Patty Session’s and Helen Mar Kimball was platonic. These ceremonies no doubt were not just for eternity, but for time and eternity as well.
One of the concern’s i run into frequently is Joseph Smith lied to Emma, and did not tell her sooner. D.&C. 132 ask’s Emma to forgive her husbands trespasses. I just point to that as an answer to that. If Joseph Smith had lied to Emma it’s possible he told her he had gotten out of the earthly polygamy business. So from her perspective her husband had no other earthly wive’s than her. But i more than that think Emma supported her husband’s denial’s of polygamy policy.
With Emma Smith she did not have knowledge of 33 wive’s. I recall she was said to have let her husband have four wive’s. And she perhap’s had knowledge of maybe two or three more. I have known women that were abnormally jealous. But i am not sure Emma Smith had much knowledge of sexuality if any in Nauvoo regarding her husband. Her main reputed conflict with Joseph Smith was over Emily & Eliza Partridge. And Joseph Smith’s relationship with them ended.
One of the younger women Emma Smith got jealous over was Flora Woordworth. All the documentation that i can tell involve public, or private situation’s in the presence of witnesses. So i am not sure if Joseph Smith’s relationship with her was more than platonic is clear based on the evidence. Could be Emma Smith had specific knowledge, but i don’t know.
I am also aware of Emma finding letter’s from Eliza Snow in one of his pocket’s. Without reading the letter’s i don’t know if they were love letters. I don’t know if Emma Smith’s knowledge was so specific that she knew Eliza Snow was Joseph Smith’s earthly wive’s. Perhap’s she felt Eliza had only been sealed to her husband for eternity.
I think Richard and Pamela Price do a masterful job showing Emma Smith never assaulted Eliza Snow. So i doubt she ever lost Joseph Smith’s child via a misscarriage.
With Emma Smith’s last testimony it has polemic value to RLDS. Joseph Smith 3rd would have been a fool not to use it.
William McLellin’s report of an 1847 conversation is used to contradict the value of her testimony. But i am not sure his account is that good. He ran stories he had heard past Emma. It’s unlear to me if Emma Smith confessed her husband had an affair with Fanny Alger or was married to her. I don’t think the story of the revelation being burned came until after 1852. So if he asked Emma about that story i would like to know who was informed enough around him to tell him that story.
I also see him as inserting the stories he had heard as if Emma Smith used those words. Unlike Richard Howard our former church historian i don’t see Joseph Smith 3rd’s failure to take his 1862, 1872 letter challenges until 1879 as weakening the value of Emma’s last testimony.
I don’t mean to be getting into polygamy to much. It is a favorite topic of mine.
——-
Keller your idea of a second ceremony for Almira Johnson is interesting. Todd Compton worked with only a certain number of date’s the sealing could have been performed. You explanation would allow for Hyrum Smith’s involvement. But he got her and Benjamin to accept polygamy, and her future sealing to Joseph Smith. Almira in her affidavit mention’s Hyrum Smith.
My copy of Mormon Enigma in the back suggested an August date. Unlike Todd Compton the author’s did not to make a case. If the date were ever proved that would resolve my concern’s for me. I don’t think April as a date works for me other than Todd Compton made a great case.
I have had person’s try and bully me with copies or reviews of In Sacred Lonliness. I point to flaw’s, because the book is overstated as being well documented. Like any other book the book has it’s flaw’s. It’s my most important Mormon polygamy book in my library though. I take out that book more than i do my other book’s.
———–
With polygamy the audience should be a religious target audience. If i were FAIR i would go after answering every Anti-polygamy Bible, and Book of Mormon verse. I would pick out every anti-polygamy argument i could find and provide an answer.
FAIR Wiki for example has the typical LDS response to Jacob 2:30. My RLDS Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy book has an answer to that. Since Richard and Pamela Price’s response is the best one out there i would modify the answer to take that into account.
FAIR Wiki should have a polyandry article.
I think the FAIR brochures printouts was a good idea. I see a need for short answer’s to such concern’s. I was alway’s hoping for a FAIR tract pack. Until FAIR can flood cheap tract’s like Anti-LDS flood their cheap tracts they will be at a disadvantage. Anti-LDS are in a propeganda war with LDS and they get their message out.
I agree. I think the falling down the stairs story had already been dealt with by Newell, Avery, and Beecher(?)’s paper on “Emma, Eliza, and the Stairs.” The Prices’ addition of the physical lay-out confirm this story.
(The Prices are myopically blind to the forest for the trees, though, on evidence that Joseph WAS a polygamist. I realize this is an article of faith for them, but it’s interesting to watch fairly sophisticated textual and evidentiary analysis in some things and the blinders they’ve got on others.)
Besides, Eliza R. Snow wasn’t shy about saying Emma was lying, or insisting she was one of Joseph’s plural wives in every sense. A miscarriage would have been the perfect evidence, yet she never used it.
I’ve come to think that McLellin’s tale isn’t all complete fabrication, and not from Emma at all. He was friends with John C. Bennett later in life, especially during their Strangite association. I doubt VERY MUCH that Emma would have told McLellin, of all people, about Fanny. (McLellin looted the Smith household when Joseph was put in Liberty Jail, leaving Emma sobbing because she could not provide bedding for both her children and Joseph. When asked why he did it, McLellin told Emma, “Because I can.”)
Somehow, I doubt this is the man to whom Emma is going to spill what was doubtless a painful and embarassing experience if it happened as McLellin described it. And, McLellin was not above completely lying and fabricating evidence (cf. the Strangite affair).
Really? I thought their analysis horribly forced, and required an almost ad hoc redefinition of vocabulary and grammar. (I appreciate it as the only option they have, really, but it seemed very forced….)
[For others who don’t know the argument I quote it below:]
Unfortunately for this rather creative reading, “shall” does not mean “will”–it is an imperative when applied in the second and third person, not a simple future. [See Webster’s 1828 dictionary, “shall,” definition #2.]
It also makes no sense for the Lord to say simply that He will be “their comamnder,”–the verse is clearly talking about commanding SOMETHING. And, it involves the Lord “will”[ing] something that He might not will in other situations.
As I said, seems pretty shakey, and one has to do a fair amount of violence to the text, and presume some awfully non-typical/standard readings of several words.
Do you find this reasoning persuasive, or not?
Greg-Your argument sound’s ok. I already decided the LDS view of the verse is one way to look at it.
I myself see Deut. 17 as allowing a king to have some wive’s, some gold, some horses. Multiplying out of greed was what was forbidden not the king being a polygamist. Deut. 21 has rule’s for treating wive’s in such household’s. The Lord certainly tolerated it if not condoned some of it.
Jacob 2 can’t be read to conflict with that. With all the Old Testament polygamist’s i just don’t buy into the idea God never raised rightious seed to himself via any polygamists.
The real issue is not Jacob 2:30, but whether D.&C. 132 is such an true authorization. It was authorized under the law of Moses. So i don’t see Jacob 2:30 as forcing me to accept the revelation. I feel however that people should read such religious text’s of other faith’s for themselves and ask God.
Brent.
I think Jacob provides a number of reasons why polygamy wasn’t right for the Nephites. God’s marriage policies are designed to raise up a righteous branch of people. That is an agricultural metaphor that feeds right in to Jacob’s olive tree allegory. God doesn’t use the strategy at all times, somes times he adds dung, some times he burns unfruitful branches, some times he grafts in wild branches, and some times he transplants trees to isolated parts of the garden.
I see the Nephites non-practice of as a way producing a society that made clear breaks with some of Jerusalem’s excesses and stopped them from being totally assimilated into indigenous Meso-American culture. We see in Jacob’s sermon a decrying of Jerusalem’s wickedness, resistance against an elite wealthy class monopolizing wives and riches, some concern about the well-being of females (no doubt polygyny creates additional trials for women), a concern that taking many foreign wives of a different faith and race might corrupt the Nephites (the Solomon corollary) and the need for Nephites to be obedient to a living prophet relaying God’s message even when it trumps the permissiveness of a dead prophet like Moses.
So I see the command to practice polygamy relayed through Joseph Smith, even though it was the opposite policy of that employed by the Nephites, as serving the same basic purposes. It helped the early Mormons form their own ethnicity and helped isolate then from the corrupt, ambient society. However its time came to an end and the growth of a righteous seed became better served by grafting in wild branches or going through a phase were Mormons became better assimilated into the ambient society.
Robert,
Benjamin Johnson indicates he was already converted to the principle by the time he discussed things with Hyrum. After Johnson’s conversion story, he writes:
Here is another version from Benjamin Johnson
I agree with “Fields” above. I think it would be valuable to have a fair wiki article on polyandry. There are many members who are unaware of assertions of such things. It could be helpful to them to have a fair treatment of such material.
I still occasionally hear people assert that Joseph Smith never had Plural wives, mostly out of ignorance I think. It is interesting that the info doesn’t get passed around more.
I have a tendency to want to discuss the history of polygamy way to much. I will try to keep myself on topic. Not that i don’t enjoy reading other’s thought’s on the topic.
I do not see many people interested in persuing advanced matter’s of history. So it’s hard to prepare them for tough source’s or quote’s they have never seen. Reading book’s like Mormonism Shadow or Reality? was a real shock for me on the topic. I wasn’t prepared for the content of book’s like Mormon Enigma, or Mormon Polygamy A History. It took me a long time to work through the material so i could become innoculated to the content.
What is needed is advanced plural marriage apologetic. A watered down missionary apologetic won’t be a match for such book’s. I had one LDS book for missionary’s that said don’t even bring the topic up unless the investigator brought it up. I wonder how many person’s got baptized LDS, and never heard anything about polygamy as a result. It was year’s ago and i can’t recall the author, or book name.
I also see the problem that church library’s tend to not have tough stuff in them. And they tend to be smaller. Some folk’s also might feel they have to protect other’s so might remove them even if you donated them. But the content of library’s can educate the intellectual type’s.
The LDS leadership would have to do an education apologetic DVD on polygamy. Without them authorizing it’s use for missionaries, member’s, investigator’s it would be hard to educate million’s of typical LDS member’s. This is the only way i could see every LDS becoming innoculated.
I wish my denomination would do an education set of DVD’s. DVD’s, the internet is a great way to share belief’s. I think working with leader’s through proper channel’s is a good way to sell them on such idea’s.
I hate to ever do a double post. But i watched again Living Hope Ministries Lifting The Veil Of Polygamy. I think FAIR should consider doing an extensive review of the film’s content from it’s perspective. It’s review of the Jesus Christ/Joseph Smith film should be a model. The film raises all the tough polygamy concern’s that are floating around out there.
The Fundemental Mormon’s may not be the same denomination as LDS. But they presented testimony of women that had a variety of bad experiences in such grop’s. This was done to say that women in 19th century Mormonism who had polygamist husband’s suffered the same. I sense they were trying to scare women on the evil’s of Mormonism. That’s why they put so many women in the film.
I was reading many of the comments, but did not read them all. I also saw many different views and theories on polygamy. I understand many of of the reasons people have believing that “it is not of God” but we must remember that the Lord commanded it to prophets in the Old Testament and if we believe the Bible to be the word of God we should acknowledge that he could have commanded Joseph Smith also to this practice.
In the “Temple Lot” case more than one woman came forward to say that she had “slept” with Joseph Smith. This was under oath.
I believe that Emma was aware of Joseph’s marriages she had been convinced that they were for eternity only and that the marriages were platonic.
Helen Mar Kimball left writings in which she stated she, herself, that that “her time would be her own.” And that if she had known completely was was involved, she would have never married Joseph. She stated she was “tricked.” She also said it was pretty hard for a young girl to have the salvation of her family on her shoulders.
More than one plural wife was threatoned with eternal damnation if they refused plural marriage.
I’m wondering how the apologists get past the “virgin” portion of the revelation when the “powers that be” were marrying women who were already married and were living with their husbands.
One of the greatest problems with polygomy is that one has no right to be mad or unhappy if your husband courts and marrys another; that you are selfish; that you do not have the correct spirit if you object!
Polygomy is completely against inherent feelings. The only way a person could handle such a situation is to stifle caring and love. Polygomy destroys one’s soul.
Mariah
Unfortunately for your position, there is evidence to argue against this.
So, Emma had her own witness about Joseph’s calling. And, she knew that at least some of the wives were wives in every sense. There were times that angered her, but times it didn’t.
IIRC, this is from a second-person anti-Mormon account. Do you have a cite? I suspect this is relying on Catherine Lewis, Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons (Lynn, MA: n.p., 1848), 19, which strikes me as dubious given what we have from Helen in the first person.
Helen indicates that her decision to marry was willing, and she didn’t see the difficulties that would later come:
Helen remained a staunch defender of plural marriage.
She got quite irritated with those who would presume to interpret her experience for her:
Helen doesn’t agree with your reading of her experiences, it would seem.
Leaving aside the issue of “threatening damnation,” those same wives were equally willing to tell Joseph to stuff it unless they got their own witness. Which they repeatedly reported that they had.
See: http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Plural_marriage_spiritual_manifestations
The issue, of course, is one of obedience–will you get revelation and obey the prophet? These women repeatedly witnessed that they did, and they would.
The D&C tends to be written in a Biblical idiom. “Virgin” in that idiom does not necessarily mean “sexually inexperienced,” it can also mean “unmarried” or “young woman.” (See, for example, the famous Isaiah “a virgin shall conceive” passage, which doesn’t necessarily mean a _virgin_ in the Hebrew.) So, I would see it as meaning “woman unattached in celestial marriage.”
I know of no evidence for polyandrous sealings for any of the “powers that be” except Joseph. Do you? The polyandrous sealings didn’t seem to bother anyone, including the husbands and Emma.
There is no question that plural marriage was a great challenge. And, like all great challenges, we often fall short of coping ideally.
Given that polygyny is the most common marital arrangement in human history, this probably isn’t true.
You may mean that the only way you could handle this is to stifle caring and love. That may be true. It may be true for some others.
But, it is and was not true in all cases, as the participants bore witness. We ought not, I think, seek to define their experience by our reaction, but seek to understand their experience in their own terms. Sometimes that will be negative. But, it was not always.
Often, the trial and difficulty were prelude to something greater. For one example among many, see:
So, neither the wife nor husband crushed love and affection. The woman bore witness of the blessing their arrangement was on her faith and interpersonal relationships.
These things are more complicated than slogans or sweeping generalizations can make them. That’s partly why it’s so fascinating.
Best,
Greg