- Not a Cougar on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Stephen, this may not fall squarely on the path you have planned out, but it may be worth discussing what problems we think sealings solve. If I was to ask any fellow Latter-day Saint that question, he or she could readily rattle off an answer that would include the idea that, unless our marriages are sealed in a temple today, they are of no effect in the eternities. That of course raises the question of what we think “the eternities” look like. The idea of sealings as we have them today strongly suggests an ongoing sexual relationship between a male eternal being and a female eternal being to create spirit children using effectively the same sexual reproduction methods we have today to bring children into our world (perhaps other would disagree with that conclusion). I’m pretty confident that the methods by which spirit children are created is not settled doctrine, so I don’t feel uncomfortable asking the following question. If sex isn’t required or involved in the creation of spirit children, then exactly why is a marriage (carried over from a previous existence) needed at all? We might argue that the sealing binds us together, but, if we’re all present in the hereafter (assuming for the sake of argument that we’re in the Celestial kingdom), how much more binding is necessary? Or is marriage simply fundamentally required for creation in the eternities (or at least for spirit creation)? If so, has God clearly revealed that? These aren’t questions we ever really ask, but, if everything we do or should be doing on this earth is preparation for the world to come, it’s natural to ask for what conditions we’re preparing.” Oct 14, 11:55
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Jonathan, as I’ve posted previously, eternal marriage naturally brings up issues of “extra-monogamy” because of common deaths to spouses as you note. Thus the question the Sadducees asked Christ about the Platonic idea of eternal marriage in terms of a woman with seven consecutive husbands. DaveW, yes that is a good summary, and yes, clearly the leaders want to dodge those difficult issues. I get why they want to do that since those issues are genuinely difficult, and are thus something interesting to talk about on blogs like this.” Oct 14, 11:27
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Peter, yes, multiple sealings for men make the issue continually relevant. And yes, Kendall, I agree that allowing such sealings for women is the morally and doctrinally correct position (I’ll talk more about the doctrinal points in my next post). Restored, I won’t be able to get into all these details but will say a few things. A few points I agree with and some disagreements, but let’s call that position, the “JS renunciation” one. JS practiced polygamy, but then renounced it. Again, I’ll go over more of my historical position in my next post, but I’m arguing in my book that shared marriage (men AND women being able to have multiple spouses under the right and proper circumstances) was central to JS’s restoration from the beginning. I argue (and even mentioned it at Sunstone this year) that Jacob 2:30 hints at shared marriage (long story). So, no, I don’t believe that JS would renounce shared marriage any more than he would renounce all of Mormonism. He saw that as a central piece. However, JS was certainly willing make make lots of modifications to what he was doing. Utopian “all things in common” was central to his program as well, but he couldn’t make that work and thus made modifications. All things in common remained the ideal however. I’ve said this a lot, but I argue that JS switched from shared marriage to polygyny in early 1843 and that DC 132 is about that switch (with verse 41 hinting at the “old system” of shared marriage). So JS could and did make modifications. I still need to finish up my last chapter in my book which covers Nauvoo polygamy among other topics. I am aware that JS seemed to stop engaging in new marriage in late 1843 and the reports that he said he needed to stop. But there are some other layers to such claims. Plato (the basis for these practices, I argue) said that while the shared goods and marriages of his REPUBLIC was the ideal, Plato also said that a group of people being able to pull that off might not be possible ON EARTH and perhaps can only be achievable in heaven. So I can very much see the possibility of multiple modifications. Switching to polygyny from shared marriage because shared marriage made his close male followers angry, but I can also see him coming to the belief of needing to stop all “extra-monogamy.” Utah leaders from Woodruff to JS Smith seemed to have made a similar calculation of the need to stop polygyny.” Oct 14, 10:15
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “For me, concerns about polygamy are really a manifestation of a deeper issue: the church is unable or unwilling to clarify past practices and statements. I assume many here are familiar with statements about polygamy from Brigham Young (“the only men who become gods . . . are those who enter into polygamy”) or John Taylor’s 1886 revelation (“I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting”) which the church denied the existence for 100 years. There are two extreme paths here. One is to throw previous presidents of the church under the bus and repudiate past teachings as just plain wrong. The other is to embrace polygamy as an eternal principle, though perhaps one we have to forgo for the time being for practical reasons. The Church has instead opted for a middle path that, despite decades of trying, they don’t seem to be able to un-muddy. Polygamy was right then, but wrong now, and it wasn’t very common, or it was just to take care of widows, or to raise up a righteous seed, or for other reasons that history and data don’t support, and all those statements are best left alone, or were a product of their time. It’s a perpetual game of tap dancing around the issue trying to find any rational that will make the questioner stop asking the question right now. In this way, the temple/priesthood ban is, to me, exactly the same issue. 100 years of policy, thousands of statements about it over the entire time span, decades spent debating its repeal, and here we are with the official line being “no one knows why we did this, but all those explanations people did give at the time definitely aren’t the reason why.” For an institution that claims to be led by Prophets, Seers and Revelators, we sure seem to have a hard time even explaining our own actions.” Oct 14, 09:57
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Stephen, I’m looking forward to your posts. My current view is that polygamy comes with a lot of problems, but that it also is necessary to get several other things to work together theologically. With a concept of Restoration that reaches back into Genesis, it’s hard to make a concept of eternal marriage work without having a solution for Jacob, Leah and Rachel. Eternal marriage only works in the 19th century if it can accommodate the early death of spouses and remarriage. And that remains an issue in the 21st century, as Peter Ould points out. I have no opinion on the merits of any particular update to the theology or practice, but it isn’t possible to entirely renounce polygamy without destroying eternal families along with it. They’re all part of the package deal.” Oct 14, 09:40
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “ji, problematic theories certainly abound. E, I look forward to your thoughts on future posts. Instrument, that in-group/out-group dynamic is central to sectarian religion since the idea of being holy apart from the world is a powerful theme in Christianity and other religions. No doubt polygamy played a big role but here’s a couple of thoughts to problematize that claim a bit. 1) Mormons were seen a quite deviant early on before any word of polygamy. The Missourians kicked them out of Jackson County and polygamy wasn’t one of the reasons. Their communal millenarianism and gathering played a big role, and the Mormons quickly brought on antagonism in Nauvoo for similar reasons before people there were aware of polygamy. That is, we seemed to be able to generate the insider-outsider dynamic without polygamy. 2) I’m guessing many would say that while building group cohesion is useful for a group, if the group does something really bad for that cohesion, the bad this is still really bad. We can debate polygamy’s “badness,” but point number 1 brings up the issue of the Mormons being pretty successful at making themselves pariahs without polygamy. No doubt polygamy “helped” Mormonism maintain that pariah status for much longer, but again, point 2. If people see the antagonizing behavior as really bad, many will not see the resulting group dynamic as worth the problematic actions.” Oct 14, 09:28
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Looking forward to the series. There’s another ironic quandary at the center of us trying to wrestle with this issue. Specifically, a plausible chance that Joseph Smith Jr returned to recant polygamy. In a very private confession to the woman who made his calling and election sure through his second anointing, Joseph may have just confessed that his pursuit of women other his wife was simply the same vice of every other man in history who pursued women beyond their wife. For the Young faction of the LDS-movement’s great schism Occam’s razor is never allowed to ‘enter the chat.’ Sometime around 2 a.m. on June 23, 1844 Joseph and Hyrum had escaped. It was easily in Smith Jr’s ability to continue his escape definitively. His only surviving letter from those hours, titled “Safety” instructs her to liquidate all she can and flee as he flees. Joseph very declaratively knew going back to Nauvoo would end in his death. However, for contested reasons he ultimately returned to his and Emma’s home and then certain death. Something he did back in Nauvoo between his return and his recapture that evening led him to claim he finally had a clean conscience as he proceeded to martyrdom. If Joseph Smith Jr and Hyrum abandoned their escape so that Smith Jr could go back to Emma and repent for his infidelity, then abandoning polygamy and the extremely Emma-specific epistle giving male infidelity a theological endorsement becomes the easiest correction in our darkened path through the glass towards Christ. If Smith Jr being captured once again in his long history of life-threatening persecution led him to conclude that at some point his luck and cleverness would fail him, he would not escape, and he would be killed he may have had a change of heart as great or more so than the one in the sacred grove. Joseph centered his own self-story on his corruptibility and his need for repentance at any cost. We don’t have a declarative record of what sins made a teenage boy committed that made him so hyper-fixated on his damnation, but he declaratively thought they uniquely severe. That fear led to an exhaustive repentance so transcendent it emboldened him to risk damnation on another path. He rejected all organized religions before ultimately becoming a founding leader of a new one influenced profoundly by his image. As a man Smith made reversed from “Safety” in a deadly return to Nauvoo. Why? Was it a chance to meet with Emma briefly, and then go die. He’d already seen proven the hollowness of politicians promises. Accepting the most straightforward chain of events and root cause requires some interpolation because this group who wrote down every passing detail of their lives kept some incredibly crucial communications to themselves in this case. Yet more noticeably this group who made retaining records a de facto creed lost the most pivotal letters of Joseph’s actual motivations for return. Fortunately, a decade or so after the fateful witching hours of June 23rd others ‘helpfully’ recalled Emma’s statements to her husband and his statements and actions in response. Did all our tardy yet helpful addenda about Smith’s quest to prove he wasn’t a coward come from followers of Brigham Young? Were some fellow polygamists? At the time Joseph and Brigham were murdered our faith was organized around the patriarchal, strictly lineal, pattern of Priesthood for the office of Prophet/President exclusively reflected in our canon. In a kind of circular logic the Smiths claimed their Priesthood came from Smith Sr and Smith Jr was Prophet based on being one of his fathers sons. Smith Jr, his family, and all their LDS elite peer much more clearly declared that either Junior’s son Joseph III or (yet to be born) David would become Prophet/President after his death. There are strong indications Smith Jr favored David to become prophet given he was conceived within the covenant of polygamy. At a minimum all the elite leaders and members of the church believed in the strictly lineal Priesthood of the Smith family before Smith Jr and Hyrum died. After those deaths the leadership was unanimous that Hyrum would have ascended to be Prophet uncontested had he not been killed too. Since both the most respected adult sons of Joseph Smith Sr were killed the opportunity for schism was much greater. William had a theoretically claim, but was not sufficiently shrewd or respected to make it meaningfully. As a result, all the elite leaders and members reverted in agreement, at least expressly, to the other default succession: Joseph III or David would take the office of Prophet/President. The only open question, expressly, became who might serve as acting president in the interim until Joseph III or David were old enough to assume their Priesthood birthright. The competing answers of who also determined the how. The objectively more authoritatively empowered anti-polygamist faction (led by Rigdon, Emma, and Nauvoo Stake President William Marks) all agreed Joseph’s First Presidency remained remained in force, the death of Joseph and Hyrum had no impact on their rule, and Rigdon remained the sole surviving member of the First Presidency leading the church. However, polygamy had become a powerful binder among a cluster of Victorian men that had become sexual revolutionaries. In his own telling, the leader of that less authoritative and less powerful missionary Quorum for the wilderness saw an opening in the death of both Smith founders. If he and his Quorum could get to the center of Zion, inside the stewardship territory of William Mark’s Stake before anything was settled and concentrate their claims, then he had a chance to take control. Young and the other committed polygamists had learned from Smith that leading Saints required numbers, newspapers, and a compelling narrative. The traveling Quorum with no stewardship other than the missionary field quickly obtained all three. The reason Latter-day Saints descended from Young’s post schism movement cannot “settle” polygamy as an issue. Is that it unavoidably must remain our organizing core. It was and remains to be the engine of our faction.” Oct 14, 09:20
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Mary Ann Angells, Brigham’s first wife to consent to polygamy left this: “The burden of polygamy seemed heavier than the hand of death. It was nothing less than the potency of the “Thus saith the Lord,” and the faith of the saints as a community, that sustained them… the testimony which she gives to-day is that it has been the ‘Thus saith the Lord’ unto her, from the time of its introduction to the present.” (Women of Mormondom, 1877) For those who practiced polygamy, crushing demands needed no justification at all—only God’s decree. Expanding sealing opportunities to women in life honors our ancestors’ sacrifices _and_ the doctrine of eternal marriage while relieving women from the inequity that exists today.” Oct 14, 09:05
- on When Peace Is More Than Personal: “Last Friday, I watched Brotherhood: A Cinematic Musical. I think it lasted one day in the Arizona theaters. I thought it was a powerful Christian story of bridging the cultural gulf between Anglo and Hispanic families in an era of ICE deportations. I hope more people can see the film.” Oct 14, 08:57
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Sounds like a useful conversation. As a Nevermo, I’m fascinated that the last two Presidents (Oaks and Nelson) both served as practicing polygamists in that they were both sealed to two wives in the Temple and therefore expect to have both as their consorts in the eternities. That means polygamy is a live 21st Century issue of praxis in the LDS Church, not just a theological nicety.” Oct 14, 07:53
