FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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| − | |L1= | + | |L1=Response to claim: flyleaf - The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband |
| + | |L2=Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith proposed a "tryst" with his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney | ||
| + | |L3=Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith was age 36, versus Sarah Ann Whitney at age 17 | ||
| + | |L4=Response to claim: ix - The book presents Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney's parents as analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine | ||
| + | |L5=Response to claim: x - Did Joseph Smith have a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman?" | ||
| + | |L6=Response to claim: x - The author posits that Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose" | ||
| + | |L7=Response to claim: xi - "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion" | ||
| + | |L8=Response to claim: xii - The author discusses Joseph Smith's "quest for female companionship...." | ||
| + | |L9=Response to claim: xii - "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds" | ||
| + | |L10=Response to claim: xii - After the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed, Joseph Smith was arrested for "destroying a local press" | ||
| + | |L11=Response to claim: xii - The book claims that it is not known whether or not Joseph's wife Emma consented to plural marriages, and that this "remains a mystery" | ||
| + | |L12=Response to claim: xiii - None of Joseph's plural wives are mentioned in History of the Church | ||
| + | |L13=Response to claim: xiii - "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned" | ||
| + | |L14=Response to claim: xiv - It became "difficult to access" Church records regarding polygamy after the 1890 Manifesto was issued | ||
| + | |L15=Response to claim: xiv - "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered" | ||
| + | |L16=Response to claim: xiv - "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day" | ||
| + | |L17=Response to claim: xiv - Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife" | ||
| + | |L18=Response to claim: xiv - The author claims that the topic of polygamy was already on Joseph's mind as early as the 1820s | ||
| + | |L19=Response to claim: xv - "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family" | ||
| + | |L20=Response to claim: xv - The Church "suppressed" its history | ||
| + | |L21=Response to claim: xv - Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town" | ||
| + | |L22=Response to claim: xvi - Mormon grandparents considered polygamy "requisite for heaven" | ||
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==Response to claim: flyleaf - The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband== | ==Response to claim: flyleaf - The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband== | ||
Latest revision as of 14:14, 13 April 2024
FAIR Answers—back to home page
Response to claims made in "Preface"
| A FAIR Analysis of: Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage", a work by author: George D. Smith
|
Chapter 1 |
Response to claims made in Nauvoo Polygamy, "Preface"
Jump to details:
- Response to claim: flyleaf - The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband
- Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith proposed a "tryst" with his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney
- Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith was age 36, versus Sarah Ann Whitney at age 17
- Response to claim: ix - The book presents Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney's parents as analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine
- Response to claim: x - Did Joseph Smith have a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman?"
- Response to claim: x - The author posits that Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose"
- Response to claim: xi - "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion"
- Response to claim: xii - The author discusses Joseph Smith's "quest for female companionship...."
- Response to claim: xii - "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds"
- Response to claim: xii - After the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed, Joseph Smith was arrested for "destroying a local press"
- Response to claim: xii - The book claims that it is not known whether or not Joseph's wife Emma consented to plural marriages, and that this "remains a mystery"
- Response to claim: xiii - None of Joseph's plural wives are mentioned in History of the Church
- Response to claim: xiii - "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned"
- Response to claim: xiv - It became "difficult to access" Church records regarding polygamy after the 1890 Manifesto was issued
- Response to claim: xiv - "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered"
- Response to claim: xiv - "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day"
- Response to claim: xiv - Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife"
- Response to claim: xiv - The author claims that the topic of polygamy was already on Joseph's mind as early as the 1820s
- Response to claim: xv - "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family"
- Response to claim: xv - The Church "suppressed" its history
- Response to claim: xv - Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town"
- Response to claim: xvi - Mormon grandparents considered polygamy "requisite for heaven"
Response to claim: flyleaf - The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The book claims that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband.Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The spin: On the flyleaf and on page 345, we see a claim that Bishop Edwin Woolley married a plural wife without having her first divorce her legal husband. On page 333 we see that Parley P. Pratt's "last wife, Eleanor McComb McLean…was sealed to him without divorcing her legal husband, who fatally shot Parley near Van Buren, Arkansas…."The facts: The author does not note that practices regarding marriage and divorce differed substantially from the 20th or 21st century. The author also tells us nothing about McComb's tyrannical and abusive husband, making him appear the wronged party.Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
Question: Was it normal not to obtain a formal civil divorce in 19th century America?
To remarry without a formal divorce was not an unusual thing in pre-Civil War America
Some critics of Mormonism like to emphasize that some LDS members did not receive civil divorces before remarrying—either monogamously or polygamously. They either state or imply that this shows the Saints' cavalier attitude toward the law.
The Saints were often poor and spent most of their time on the frontier, where the legal apparatus of the state was particularly feeble. Women who had joined the church and traveled to Zion without their husbands were particularly likely to be poor, and also unlikely to be worried about property rights. Critics usually tell us nothing of all this—with the result that some credulous readers might be horrified by the “loose” marriage practices of the Saints. It also should be remembered that because Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other Latter-day Saint leaders exercised exclusive jurisdiction over celestial or plural marriages, marriages conducted under their supervision had as much (or more) formal oversight as many traditional marriages in America during the first half of the nineteenth century.
“From the standpoint of the legal historian,” wrote one expert who is not a Latter-day Saint, “it is perhaps surprising that anyone prosecuted bigamy at all. Given the confusion over conflicting state laws on marriage, there were many ways to escape notice, if not conviction.” [1]
Bigamy or, rather, serial monogamy (without divorce or death) was a common social experience in early America. Much of the time, serial monogamists were poor and transient people, for whom the property rights that came with a recognized marriage would not have been much of a concern, people whose lives only rarely intersected with the law of marriage. [2]
Nor, not incidentally, were their husbands available for a formal divorce.
Marriage in 19th century America was not a "free-for-all"
Does this mean that marriage in America was a free-for-all? Hardly, notes Nancy Cott:
When couples married informally, or reversed the order of divorce and remarriage, they were not simply acting privately, taking the law into their own hands. . . . A couple about to join or leave an intimate relationship looked for communal sanction. The surrounding local community provided the public oversight necessary. Without resort to the state apparatus, local informal policing by the community affirmed that marriage was a well-defined public institution as well as a contract made by consent. Carrying out the standard obligations of the marriage bargain—cohabitation, husband’s support, wife’s service—seems to have been much more central to the approbation of local communities at this time than how or when the marriage took place, and whether one of the partners had been married elsewhere before. [3]
Question: How were divorces formalized among Mormons on the frontier in the 19th century?
Some members of the Church remarried without obtaining a formal legal divorce
Some members of the Church remarried without obtaining a formal legal divorce. Was this adultery? Remarriage without a formal, legal divorce was the norm for the period, especially on the frontier and among the poor. These were the legal realities faced by nineteenth century Americans.
"Presentism" is an analytical fallacy in which past behavior is evaluated by modern standards or mores. Even worse than a historian's presentism is a historian exploiting the presentism of his readers. Critics do this repeatedly when they speak about legal issues. "Presentism," observed American Historical Association president Lynn Hunt, "at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation. Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior. . . . Our forbears constantly fail to measure up to our present-day standards." [4]
To remarry without a formal divorce was not an unusual thing in antebellum America
Louisa Rising married Edwin Woolley "without first divorcing her legal husband," the dust jacket of George D. Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy teases. We are reminded later that "though she was not divorced from her legal husband, she agreed to marry" (p. 345). Eleanor McLean also married Parley Pratt without divorcing her first husband. It appears that G. D. Smith hopes to capitalize on ignorance about nineteenth-century laws and practices regarding marriage and divorce. "From the standpoint of the legal historian," wrote one expert who is not a Latter-day Saint, "it is perhaps surprising that anyone prosecuted bigamy at all. Given the confusion over conflicting state laws on marriage, there were many ways to escape notice, if not conviction." [5] To remarry without a formal divorce was not an unusual thing in antebellum America.
Bigamy or, rather, serial monogamy (without divorce or death) was a common social experience in early America. Much of the time, serial monogamists were poor and transient people, for whom the property rights that came with a recognized marriage would not have been much of a concern, people whose lives only rarely intersected with the law of marriage. [6]
The legal apparatus for performing divorces was not always readily available
The Saints were often poor and spent most of their time on the frontier, where the legal apparatus of the state was particularly feeble. Women who had joined the church and traveled to Zion without their husbands were particularly likely to be poor, and also unlikely to be worried about property rights. Nor, not incidentally, were their husbands available for a formal divorce.
Does this mean that marriage in America was a free-for-all? Hardly, notes Nancy Cott:
When couples married informally, or reversed the order of divorce and remarriage, they were not simply acting privately, taking the law into their own hands. . . . A couple about to join or leave an intimate relationship looked for communal sanction. The surrounding local community provided the public oversight necessary. Without resort to the state apparatus, local informal policing by the community affirmed that marriage was a well-defined public institution as well as a contract made by consent. Carrying out the standard obligations of the marriage bargain—cohabitation, husband's support, wife's service—seems to have been much more central to the approbation of local communities at this time than how or when the marriage took place, and whether one of the partners had been married elsewhere before. [7]
It also should be remembered that because Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and other Latter-day Saint leaders exercised exclusive jurisdiction over celestial or plural marriages, marriages conducted under their supervision had as much (or more) formal oversight as many traditional marriages in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. Critics of the Church offer us none of this information or perspective—with the result that some readers might be horrified by the "loose" marriage practices of the Saints.
Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith proposed a "tryst" with his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Did Joseph propose a "tryst" with his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney?Author's sources:
- Joseph Smith to "Brother and Sister, [Newel K.] Whitney, and &c. [Sarah Ann,] Nauvoo, Illinois, August 18, 1842, Joseph Smith Collections, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Salt Lake City, Utah
- Full text of the letter may be viewed at Letter from Joseph Smith to the Whitneys (18 August 1842) (Wikisource)
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The spin: How does one have a "tryst" with someone to whom they are married?The facts: The letter referred to was written to Sarah Ann's parents, not Sarah Ann.Whitney "love letter" (edit)
Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
Question: Did Joseph Smith write a "love letter" to his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney to request a secret rendezvous?
On 18 August 1842, Joseph Smith wrote a letter to the parents of Sarah Ann Whitney, who had become his plural wife three weeks earlier, asking them to visit him while he was in hiding.
Critics of the Church would have us believe that this is a private, secret "love letter" from Joseph to Sarah Ann, however, Joseph wrote this letter to the Whitney's, addressing it to Sarah's parents. The "matter" to which he refers is likely the administration of ordinances rather than the arrangement of some sort of private tryst with one of his plural wives. Why would one invite your bride's parents to such an encounter? Joseph doesn't want Emma gone because he wants to be alone with Sarah Ann—a feat that would be difficult to accomplish with her parents there—he wants Emma gone either because she is opposed to plural marriage (the contention that would result from an encounter between Emma and the Whitney's just a few weeks after Joseph's sealing to Sarah Ann would hardly be conducive to having the spirit present in order to "git the fulness of my blessings sealed upon our heads"), or because she may have been followed or spied upon by Joseph's enemies, putting either Joseph or the Whitneys in danger.
The Prophet was in hiding as a result of the assassination attempt that had been made on Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs
On the 16th of August, 1842, while Joseph was in hiding at the Sayer's, Emma expressed concern for Joseph's safety. She sent a letter to Joseph in which she noted,
There are more ways than one to take care of you, and I believe that you can still direct in your business concerns if we are all of us prudent in the matter. If it was pleasant weather I should contrive to see you this evening, but I dare not run too much of a risk, on account of so many going to see you. (History of the Church, Vol.5, Ch.6, p.109)
It is evident that there was concern on Emma's part that Joseph's hiding place would be discovered because of all the people visiting Joseph, particularly if they were in the company of Emma
Joseph wrote the next day in his journal,
Several rumors were afloat in the city, intimating that my retreat had been discovered, and that it was no longer safe for me to remain at Brother Sayers'; consequently Emma came to see me at night, and informed me of the report. It was considered wisdom that I should remove immediately, and accordingly I departed in company with Emma and Brother Derby, and went to Carlos Granger's, who lived in the north-east part of the city. Here we were kindly received and well treated." (History of the Church, Vol.5, Ch.6, pp. 117-118)
The next day, while in hiding at the Granger's, Joseph wrote a letter to three members of the Whitney family inviting them to come visit him
The letter is addressed to "Brother and Sister Whitney, and &c." Scholars agree that the third person referred to was the Whitney's daughter Sarah Ann, to whom Joseph had been sealed in a plural marriage, without Emma's knowledge, three weeks prior. The full letter, with photographs of the original document, was published by Michael Marquardt in 1973, [8] and again in 1984 by Dean C. Jessee in The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith. [9] The complete text of the letter reads as follows (original spelling has been retained):
Nauvoo August 18th 1842
Dear, and Beloved, Brother and Sister, Whitney, and &c.—
I take this oppertunity to communi[c]ate, some of my feelings, privetely at this time, which I want you three Eternaly to keep in your own bosams; for my feelings are so strong for you since what has pased lately between us, that the time of my abscence from you seems so long, and dreary, that it seems, as if I could not live long in this way: and <if you> three would come and see me in this my lonely retreat, it would afford me great relief, of mind, if those with whom I am alied, do love me; now is the time to afford me succour, in the days of exile, for you know I foretold you of these things. I am now at Carlos Graingers, Just back of Brother Hyrams farm, it is only one mile from town, the nights are very pleasant indeed, all three of you come <can> come and See me in the fore part of the night, let Brother Whitney come a little a head, and nock at the south East corner of the house at <the> window; it is next to the cornfield, I have a room inti=rely by myself, the whole matter can be attended to with most perfect safty, I <know> it is the will of God that you should comfort <me> now in this time of affliction, or not at[ta]l now is the time or never, but I hav[e] no kneed of saying any such thing, to you, for I know the goodness of your hearts, and that you will do the will of the Lord, when it is made known to you; the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty: only be careful to escape observation, as much as possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater frendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I <will> tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it. one thing I want to see you for is <to> git the fulness of my blessings sealed upon our heads, &c. you wi will pardon me for my earnest=ness on <this subject> when you consider how lonesome I must be, your good feelings know how to <make> every allowance for me, I close my letter, I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont dont fail to come to night. I subscribe myself your most obedient, <and> affectionate, companion, and friend.
Joseph Smith
Some critics point to this letter as evidence the Joseph wrote a private and secret “love letter” to Sarah Ann, requesting that she visit him while he was in seclusion. Others believe that the letter was a request to Sarah Ann's parents to bring their daughter to him so that he could obtain "comfort," with the implication that "comfort" involved intimate relations.
Response to claim: ix - Joseph Smith was age 36, versus Sarah Ann Whitney at age 17
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The point is made that Joseph was age 36, versus Sarah Ann Whitney at age 17.Author's sources:
- No source provided
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The spin: The author commonly exploits the presentist fallacy in the matter of Joseph's wives' ages.Ages of wives (edit)
Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
Jump to details:
- Question: Was Joseph Smith a "serial practitioner of statutory rape" or a "pedophile"?
- Charges of statutory rape are inapplicable, since no such law or convention applied to any of Joseph's wives
- Large spousal age differences were not uncommon before and after Nauvoo, among members and non-members
- What is Presentism?
- Hitchens' attack on Joseph Smith for "statutory rape" is a textbook example of presentist history
- "Pedophilia" applies to children; Helen was regarded as a mature young woman
- Four Key Questions
- 1. The Age of Joseph's Wives
- 2. Were there marital relations?
- 3. Statutory Rape and the Law
- 4. Did Joseph violate societal norms?
- Why the modern world is different
Response to claim: ix - The book presents Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney's parents as analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The book presents Joseph's letter to Sarah Whitney's parents as analogous to Napoleon's passionate love letter to Josephine.
- Gregory L. Smith, A review of Nauvoo Polygamy:...but we called it celestial marriage by George D. Smith. FARMS Review, Vol. 20, Issue 2. (Detailed book review)
Author's sources:
- Author's opinion.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Whitney "love letter" (edit)
Womanizing & romance (edit)
Question: How do critics of the Church portray Joseph Smith's letter to the Whitney family as a "love letter"?
Critical treatments of the letter: Was this a "love" letter to Sarah Ann?
Did Joseph Smith write a private and secret “love letter” to Sarah Ann Whitney? Was this letter a request to Sarah Ann's parents to bring her to Joseph? Was Joseph trying to keep Sarah Ann and Emma from encountering one another? Certain sentences extracted from the letter might lead one to believe one or all of these things. Critics use this to their advantage by extracting only the portions of the letter which support the conclusions above. We present here four examples of how the text of the letter has been employed by critics in order to support their position that Joseph was asking the Whitney's to bring Sarah Ann over for an intimate encounter. The text of the full letter is then examined again in light of these treatments.
Critical presentation #1
Consider the following excerpt from a website that is critical of the Church. Portions of the Whitney letter are extracted and presented in the following manner:
... the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty. ... Only be careful to escape observation, as much as possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater friendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I will tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it. ... I close my letter, I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont, dont fail to come to night, I subscribe myself your most obedient, and affectionate, companion, and friend. Joseph Smith.
—’’Rethinking Mormonism’’, “Did Joseph Smith have sex with his wives?” (Web page)
This certainly has all of the elements of a secret “love letter:” The statement that it would not be safe if Emma were there, the request to “burn this letter as soon as you read it,” and the stealthy instructions for approaching the house. The question is, who was this letter addressed to? The critics on their web site clearly want you to believe that this was a private letter to Sarah Ann.
Critical presentation #2
Here is the way that Van Wagoner presents selected excerpts of the same letter. In this case, at least, he acknowledges that the letter was addressed to “the Whitney’s,” rather than Sarah, but adds his own opinion that it “detailed [Joseph’s] problems in getting to see Sarah Ann without Emma's knowledge:”
My feelings are so strong for you since what has pased lately between us ... if you three would come and see me in this my lonely retreat, it would afford me great relief, of mind, if those with whom I am alied, do love me, now is the time to Afford me succor ... the only thing to be careful is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safety.
—Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, 48.
Critical presentation #3
This version, presented by George D. Smith, presents excerpts from the letter which makes it sound like Joseph was absolutely lusting for the company of Sarah Ann. Smith even makes Napoleon Bonaparte a Joseph Smith doppelgänger by quoting a letter from the future Emperor to Josephine of their first night together:
"I have awakened full of you. The memory of last night has given my senses no rest. . . . What an effect you have on my heart! I send you thousands of kisses—but don’t kiss me. Your kisses sear my blood” (p. xi). George Smith then claims that a “young man of ambition and vision penned his own letter of affection to a young woman. It was the summer of 1842 when thirty-six-year-old Joseph Smith, hiding from the law down by the Mississippi River in Illinois, confessed:"
Smith then compares the excerpts from Napoleon's letter above to portions of the Whitney letter:
My feelings are so strong for you . . . come and see me in this my lonely retreat . . . now is the time to afford me succour . . . I have a room intirely by myself, the whole matter can be attended to with most perfect saf[e]ty, I know it is the will of God that you should comfort me.
—George D. Smith, “Nauvoo Polygamy: We Called It Celestial Marriage,” Free Inquiry [Council for Secular Humanism] 28/3 (April–May 2008): 44–46.
Critical presentation #4
Finally, we have a version which acknowledges the full contents of the letter...but only after presenting it in the manner described above numerous times. The author eventually provides the full text of this letter (150 pages after its comparison with Napoleon). Since there are no extant "love letters" from Joseph Smith to any of his plural wives, the mileage that the author of Nauvoo Polygamy..."but we called it celestial marriage" extracts from the single letter to the Whitney's is simply astounding:
- "[i]t was eleven years after the Smiths roomed with the Whitneys that Joseph expressed a romantic interest in their daughter, as well." (p. 31)
- "recommended his friend, whose seventeen-year-old daughter he had just married, should 'come a little a head, and nock…at the window.'" (p. 53)
- "Emma Hale, Joseph's wife of fifteen years, had left his side just twenty-four hours earlier. Now Joseph declared that he was "lonesome," and he pleaded with Sarah Ann to visit him under cover of darkness. After all, they had been married just three weeks earlier. (p. 53)
- "As will be seen, conjugal visits appear furtive and constantly shadowed by the threat of disclosure." (p. 63)
- “when Joseph requested that Sarah Ann Whitney visit him and ‘nock at the window,’ he reassured his new young wife that Emma would not be there, telegraphing his fear of discovery if Emma happened upon his trysts.” (p. 65)
- "Three weeks after the wedding, Joseph took steps to spend some time with his newest bride." (p. 138)
- "It was the ninth night of Joseph's concealment, and Emma had visited him three times, written him several letters, and penned at least one letter on his behalf…For his part, Joseph's private note about his love for Emma was so endearing it found its way into the official church history. In it, he vowed to be hers 'forevermore.' Yet within this context of reassurance and intimacy, a few hours later the same day, even while Joseph was still in grave danger and when secrecy was of the utmost urgency, he made complicated arrangements for a visit from his fifteenth plural wife, Sarah Ann Whitney." (p. 142)
- "Smith urged his seventeen-year-old bride to 'come to night' and 'comfort' him—but only if Emma had not returned….Joseph judiciously addressed the letter to 'Brother, and Sister, Whitney, and &c." (p. 142-143)
- "Invites Whitneys to visit, Sarah Ann to 'comfort me' if Emma not there. Invitation accepted." (p.. 147)
- "As if Sarah Ann Whitney's liaison were not enough…another marriage took place…." (p. 155)
- "summer 1842 call for an intimate visit from Sarah Ann Whitney…substantiate[s] the intimate relationships he was involved in during those two years." (p. 185)
- “his warning to Sarah Ann to proceed carefully in order to make sure Emma would not find them in their hiding place.” (p. 236)
- "Just as Joseph sought comfort from Sarah Ann the day Emma departed from his hideout…." (p. 236)
- "Elizabeth [Whitney] was arranging conjugal visits between her daughter, Sarah Ann, and [Joseph]…." (p. 366)
One must assume that this is the closest thing that the author could find to a love letter, because the "real" love letters from Joseph to his plural wives do not exist. The author had to make do with this one, despite the fact that it did not precisely fit the bill. With judicious pruning, however, it can be made to sound sufficiently salacious to suit the purpose at hand: to "prove" that Joseph lusted after women.
The full story
In contrast to the sources above, Compton actually provides the complete text of the letter up front, and concludes that "[t]he Mormon leader is putting the Whitney's in the difficult position of having to learn about Emma's movements, avoid her, then meet secretly with him" and that the "cloak-and-dagger atmosphere in this letter is typical of Nauvoo polygamy." [10]
What parts of the Whitney letter do the critics not mention?
As always, it is helpful to view the entire set of statements in content. Let's revisit the entire letter, this time with the selections extracted by the critics highlighted:
Nauvoo August 18th 1842
Dear, and Beloved, Brother and Sister, Whitney, and &c.—
I take this oppertunity to communi[c]ate, some of my feelings, privetely at this time, which I want you three Eternaly to keep in your own bosams; for my feelings are so strong for you since what has pased lately between us, that the time of my abscence from you seems so long, and dreary, that it seems, as if I could not live long in this way: and <if you> three would come and see me in this my lonely retreat, it would afford me great relief, of mind, if those with whom I am alied, do love me; now is the time to afford me succour, in the days of exile, for you know I foretold you of these things. I am now at Carlos Graingers, Just back of Brother Hyrams farm, it is only one mile from town, the nights are very pleasant indeed, all three of you come <can> come and See me in the fore part of the night, let Brother Whitney come a little a head, and nock at the south East corner of the house at <the> window; it is next to the cornfield, I have a room inti=rely by myself, the whole matter can be attended to with most perfect safty, I <know> it is the will of God that you should comfort <me> now in this time of affliction, or not at[ta]l now is the time or never, but I hav[e] no kneed of saying any such thing, to you, for I know the goodness of your hearts, and that you will do the will of the Lord, when it is made known to you; the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty: only be careful to escape observation, as much as possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater frendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I <will> tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it. one thing I want to see you for is <to> git the fulness of my blessings sealed upon our heads, &c. you wi will pardon me for my earnest=ness on <this subject> when you consider how lonesome I must be, your good feelings know how to <make> every allowance for me, I close my letter, I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont dont fail to come to night. I subscribe myself your most obedient, <and> affectionate, companion, and friend.
Joseph Smith
So, let’s take a look at the portions of the letter that are not highlighted.
Dear, and Beloved, Brother and Sister, Whitney, and &c.—
The letter is addressed to “Brother and Sister Whitney.” Sarah Ann is not mentioned by name, but is included as “&c.,” which is the equivalent of saying “and so on,” or “etc.” This hardly implies that what follows is a private “love letter” to Sarah Ann herself.
Could this have been an appeal to Sarah's parents to bring her to Joseph? In Todd Compton's opinion, Joseph "cautiously avoids writing Sarah's name." [11] However, Joseph stated in the letter who he wanted to talk to:
I take this oppertunity to communi[c]ate, some of my feelings, privetely at this time, which I want you three Eternaly to keep in your own bosams;
Joseph wants to talk to “you three,” meaning Newel, Elizabeth and Sarah Ann.
Response to claim: x - Did Joseph Smith have a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman?"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Did Joseph Smith have a "predilection" to "take an interest in more than one woman?"Author's sources:
- Author's opinion.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Romance
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
Womanizing & romance (edit)
Response to claim: x - The author posits that Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
*The author posits that Napoleon's Egyptian findings "lit a fire in Smith that inspired even the language of his religious prose."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: The author provides no evidence for this claim, aside from the Book of Mormon's use of the term "Reformed Egyptian."Egyptian influence? (edit)
Response to claim: xi - "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
* Author's quote: "Little did Napoleon dream that by unearthing the Egyptian past, he would provide the mystery language of a new religion."Author's sources:
- Author's opinion.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
This is simply the author's opinion.Egyptian influence? (edit)
Response to claim: xii - The author discusses Joseph Smith's "quest for female companionship...."
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "Beyond [Joseph's] quest for female companionship...."Author's sources:
- Author's opinion.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Loaded and prejudicial language
Womanizing & romance (edit)
Response to claim: xii - "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
* Author's quote: "...Smith utilized plural marriage to create a byzantine structure of relationships intended for successive worlds."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: There is no evidence that Joseph intended the relationship structure to be "byzantine."The facts: He did however, want all believers connected into one family.Response to claim: xii - After the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed, Joseph Smith was arrested for "destroying a local press"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
After the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed, Joseph Smith was arrested for "destroying a local press."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: The destruction of the press was a decision ordered by Joseph as mayor with the approval of the Nauvoo city council.The facts: Joseph was charged with riot because of the press' destruction, released on bail, and offered to pay a fine if necessary. He was rearrested on a capital charge of treason.Nauvoo Expositor (edit)
Question: Was the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor legal?
The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor led directly to the murder of Joseph and Hyrum
It is claimed by one critic of the Church that Joseph "could not allow the Expositor to publish the secret international negotiations masterminded by Mormonism’s earthly king." [12] Another claimed that "When the Laws (with others) purchased a printing press in an attempt to hold Joseph Smith accountable for his polygamy (which he was denying publicly), Joseph ordered the destruction of the printing press, which was both a violation of the 1st Amendment, and which ultimately led to Joseph’s assassination." [13]
The Expositor incident led directly to the murder of Joseph and Hyrum, but it was preceded by a long period of non-Mormon distrust of Joseph Smith, and attempts to extradite him on questionable basis.
The destruction of the Expositor issue was legal; it was not legal to have destroyed the type, but this was a civil matter, not a criminal one, and one for which Joseph was willing to pay a fine if imposed.
Joseph seems to have believed—or, his followers believed after his death—that the decision, while 'unwise' for Joseph, may have been in the Saints' interest to have Joseph killed. For a time, this diffused much of the tension and may have prevented an outbreak of generalized violence against the Saints, as occurred in Missouri.
The destruction of the first issue was legal, but it was not legal to destroy the printer's type
It is claimed that "When the Laws (with others) purchased a printing press in an attempt to hold Joseph Smith accountable for his polygamy (which he was denying publicly), Joseph ordered the destruction of the printing press, which was both a violation of the 1st Amendment, and which ultimately led to Joseph’s assassination." [14]
The destruction of the Expositor issue (i.e., the paper itself) was legal; it was not legal to have destroyed the type, but this was a civil matter, not a criminal one, and one for which Joseph was willing to pay a fine if imposed.
Joseph did not unilaterally order the action against the Expositor—it was the Nauvoo City Council (which included non-Mormons) which reached the unanimous decision. Having reached that decision, Joseph Smith then issued an order, as mayor, to carry out the Council's decision. As described in the Church's 2011 Priesthood/Relief Society manual:
On June 10, 1844, Joseph Smith, who was the mayor of Nauvoo, and the Nauvoo city council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and the press on which it was printed. [15]
History of the Church also describes this event [16]:
I [Joseph Smith] immediately ordered the Marshal to destroy it [the Nauvoo Expositor] without delay, and at the same time issued an order to Jonathan Dunham, acting Major-General of the Nauvoo Legion, to assist the Marshal with the Legion, if called upon so to do." [17]
The First Amendment is irrelevant to this discussion. In 1844, the First Amendment only applied to federal law; it had no application to state or local law until the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment after the Civil War.
Response to claim: xii - The book claims that it is not known whether or not Joseph's wife Emma consented to plural marriages, and that this "remains a mystery"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The book claims that it is not known whether or not Joseph's wife Emma consented to plural marriages, and that this "remains a mystery," although she is known to have "sent away" at least five of Joseph's plural wives.Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: This is not a mystery.The facts: We know Emma consented to at least four marriages.
Question: How did Emma Hale Smith react to Joseph's practice of plural marriage?
Jump to details:
- Question: How did Emma Hale Smith react to Joseph's practice of plural marriage?
- Emma was aware of Joseph's plural marriage and sometimes gave permission, but did much to try and thwart it
- Emma did teach her children that Joseph had never taught the doctrine of plural marriage, and blamed its introduction on Brigham Young
Response to claim: xiii - None of Joseph's plural wives are mentioned in History of the Church
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
None of Joseph's plural wives are mentioned in History of the Church.Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
Necessary for salvation? (edit)
Response to claim: xiii - "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "...today, in official Mormon circles, Smith's granting of favors to chosen followers, allowing them to take extra women into the home, is rarely mentioned."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author provides no information to support this claim.Censorship of Church History (edit)
Response to claim: xiv - It became "difficult to access" Church records regarding polygamy after the 1890 Manifesto was issued
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
It became "difficult to access" Church records regarding polygamy after the 1890 Manifesto was issued.Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author provides no evidence to support this claim.Censorship of Church History (edit)
Response to claim: xiv - "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "The cyclical nature of this suppression of information, first in Illinois and later in Utah, left a brief window in Mormon history from which most of the documentation has been recovered."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The author provides no evidence to support this claim.Censorship of Church History (edit)
Response to claim: xiv - "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
* Author's quote: "because the history of polygamy in Nauvoo was never officially rewritten, even during the period of openness, Joseph Smith's initiation of the practice has remained in an historical penumbra to this day."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
Censorship of Church History (edit)
Response to claim: xiv - Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Joseph "courted and eloped with his first wife."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is based upon correct information - The author is providing knowledge concerning some particular fact, subject, or event
Nauvoo Polygamy mentions that Joseph and Emma eloped whenever their marriage is mentioned. Perhaps this is intended to demonstrate Joseph's disregard for authority or propriety in all romantic matters.Emma and Joseph Eloped (edit)
Response to claim: xiv - The author claims that the topic of polygamy was already on Joseph's mind as early as the 1820s
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
The author claims that the topic of polygamy was already on Joseph's mind as early as the 1820s.Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim contains propaganda - The author, or the author's source, is providing information or ideas in a slanted way in order to instill a particular attitude or response in the reader
The spin: The author is attempting to read Joseph Smith's mind years after his death.- Early preoccupation with polygamy (edit)
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mind reading
Question: Is it possible to deduce Joseph Smith's thoughts and dreams years after his death?
Some critics of the Church attempt to discern Joseph Smith's motivations, thoughts and dreams, in order to explain the rise of the Church
Secular critics face a tough challenge when attempting to explain the foundational stories of Church—the primary sources from Joseph Smith and his associates do not provide them with any useful information. The only explanation left to them is that Joseph must have been lying about everything that he said. Authors then resort to fabricating Joseph's thoughts and dreams, and deducing his motivations based upon his surroundings. As one reviewer of Vogel's work puts it, "if no evidence can be gathered to demonstrate that a historical actor thought what you attribute to him or her, no conjecture can be beyond the realm of hypothetical possibility—just make things up, if you need to."[18]:326 This technique allows secular critics to quite literally create any explanation that they wish to account for Joseph's ability to restore the Church.
Creating a "psychobiography" by putting thoughts into Joseph's head
Secular critics, as a result of their inability to accept what they call "paranormal experiences," must come up with explanations for why Joseph Smith was able to create and grow the Church. Since many of the primary documents from Joseph and his associates accept evidence of spiritual experiences and angelic visitations as normal, secular critics look at Joseph's surrounding environment in order to deduce his thoughts and dreams, thus creating a "psychobiography" of the Prophet. A well-known critical work in which this technique is heavily employed is Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History. Consider the following:
But the need for deference was strong within [Joseph]. Talented far beyond his brothers or friends, he was impatient with their modest hopes and humdrum fancies. Nimble-witted, ambitious, and gifted with a boundless imagination, he dreamed of escape into an illustrious and affluent future. For Joseph was not meant to be a plodding farmer, tied to the earth by habit or by love for the recurrent miracle of harvest. He detested the plow as only a farmer's son can, and looked with despair on the fearful mortage [check spelling] that clouded their future.[19]:18
Brodie's prose is very readable, and would be well suited to a fictional novel. Unfortunately, nothing in the paragraph quoted above is referenced to any sort of a source. According to Dr. Charles L. Cohen, professor of history and religious studies, and director of the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
This habit of insinuating herself into historical actors' minds constitutes the second part of Brodie's method. "For weeks" after learning that Martin Harris had lost the 116-page translation of the golden plates, she stated, "Joseph writhed in self-reproach for his folly." Lucy Smith described her son's distraught reaction when Harris told him the bad news, but, though one can well imagine Joseph agonizing over what to do, there is insufficient evidence to say in an unqualified declarative sentence what he actually did.[20]
The speculation of one author becomes a later author's "fact"
Since Brodie's work is heavily referenced by critics, Brodie's opinions eventually become considered to be "fact" by those who wish to tear down the Church. Brodie's pronouncements regarding Joseph's motives are then passed along to the next anti-Mormon writer. Consider how the following claim evolves from speculation to "documented endnote," when Brodie states:
The awesome vision he described in later years was probably the elaboration of some half-remembered dream stimulated by the early revival excitement and reinforced by the rich folklore of visions circulating in his neighborhood. Or it may have been sheer invention, created some time after 1830 when the need arose for a magnificent tradition to cancel out the stories of his fortune-telling and money-digging. Dream images came easily to this youth, whose imagination was as untrammeled as the whole West (emphasis added).[19]:25
Now observe how author Richard Abanes treats this quote in his book Becoming Gods (retitled Inside Today's Mormonism):
Such a theory boldly challenges LDS apostle James Faust's contention that critics of the First Vision "find it difficult to explain away." His assertion is further weakened by yet another theory of Brodie's, which posits that Smith's story might have been "created some time after 1830 when the need arose for a magnificent tradition to cancel out the stories of his fortune-telling and money-digging" (emphasis added).[21]
Here we have an unsupported theory by Brodie being confirmed by another author to "further weaken" LDS claims about the First Vision. Brodie's speculation of "was probably" and "it may have been" now becomes a cited endnote in Abanes' work. The speculation of one author has become the documented fact for the next author down the line.
Deducing Joseph's thoughts from his environment
Another author who takes great liberties in deducing Joseph's thoughts and dreams is Dan Vogel. Vogel's book Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet liberally assigns motives to the Prophet which cannot be backed up with any primary source. Instead, the author must interpret the meaning behind second- and third-hand sources that agree with his point-of-view.
Frankly admitting his "inclination . . . to interpret any claim of the paranormal . . . as delusion or fraud" (p. xii), Vogel refuses to accept Joseph's and his supporters' autobiographical statements—most of which grant, either explicitly or implicitly, such "paranormal" phenomena as angels, revelation, visions, and prophecy—at face value. Vogel's Joseph opens his mouth only to lie and deceive; and whatever he might be experiencing, or trying to do, or thinking about, one can rest assured that it's not what any record generated by him or his sympathizers would have us believe.[22]:206
When an author disregards the primary sources—the statements made by Joseph Smith himself—it becomes possible to create any story, motivation, thought or dream which suits the author's purpose. Responding to Vogel's description of Joseph's prayers and thoughts on September 21, 1823 leading up to the visit of Moroni, BYU professors Andrew and Dawson Hedges note:
What more could a student of early Mormon history possibly want? Here, in a crisp three pages, is a detailed account of what Joseph Smith was thinking about, praying about, and hesitating about over 180 years ago during one of the most significant 24-hour periods in church history. And not just what he was thinking about, in general terms, but how and when, within this 24-hour period, his thoughts evolve! And Vogel gives us all this without a single source to guide his pen—indeed, in direct contravention of what the sources say! One might chalk up this ability to navigate so confidently and so deftly through Joseph's mind to some type of clairvoyance on Vogel's part—"clairvogelance," we could call it—were it not that he himself protests so loudly against anything smacking of the "paranormal."[22]:211
Again, as with Brodie, and freed from the constraint of having to use actual sources, the author can attribute any thought or motivation to the Prophet that they wish in order to explain the unexplainable.
Response to claim: xv - "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Author's quote: "...these same polygamists continued marrying to the point that they had acquired an average of nearly six wives per family. This model became the blueprint for forty years of Utah polygamy."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: The author gets the number wrong and contradicts himself: p. 289: "the typical Utah polygamist whose roots in the principle extended back to Nauvoo, had between three and four wives."The facts: The average of "nearly six wives per family" is incorrect.Statistical problems (edit)
Gospel Topics: "Although some leaders had large polygamous families, two-thirds of polygamist men had only two wives at a time"
"Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," Gospel Topics on LDS.org:
Still, some patterns are discernible, and they correct some myths. Although some leaders had large polygamous families, two-thirds of polygamist men had only two wives at a time. Church leaders recognized that plural marriages could be particularly difficult for women. Divorce was therefore available to women who were unhappy in their marriages; remarriage was also readily available. Women did marry at fairly young ages in the first decade of Utah settlement (age 16 or 17 or, infrequently, younger), which was typical of women living in frontier areas at the time. As in other places, women married at older ages as the society matured. Almost all women married, and so did a large percentage of men. In fact, it appears that a larger percentage of men in Utah married than elsewhere in the United States at the time. Probably half of those living in Utah Territory in 1857 experienced life in a polygamous family as a husband, wife, or child at some time during their lives. By 1870, 25 to 30 percent of the population lived in polygamous households, and it appears that the percentage continued to decrease over the next 20 years.[23]
Question: What was the prevalence of polygamy in Utah and how many wives did most polygamist males have?
Jump to details:
- Question: What was the prevalence of polygamy in Utah and how many wives did most polygamist males have?
- About 15-20% of families were polygamous, and most had only two wives
- The claim that seven wives represents some type of “mainstream” is erroneous
Response to claim: xv - The Church "suppressed" its history
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
"suppressed history"Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: The Church did not "suppress" its own history.The facts: All of the allegedly "suppressed" Church historical information is taken from Church sources.Censorship of Church History (edit)
Response to claim: xv - Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
Nauvoo was "a more or less insignificant river town"Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: This claim is false
The falsehood: Nauvoo was not an insignificant town.The facts: The author himself contradicts this claim on p. 2: Nauvoo was "a bustling Mississippi River town with several thousand inhabitants." And, ultimately only Chicago was a larger city in all of Illinois. [24]
Response to claim: xvi - Mormon grandparents considered polygamy "requisite for heaven"
The author(s) of Nauvoo Polygamy make(s) the following claim:
*Mormon "grandparents considered [polygamy] requisite for heaven."Author's sources:
- No source provided.
FAIR's Response
Fact checking results: The author has stated erroneous information or misinterpreted their sources
The mistake: Regardless of whether or not these grandparents believed this, such a belief has never been a doctrine of the Church.Necessary for salvation? (edit)
Question: Is plural marriage required in order to achieve exaltation?
Critics quote Brigham Young saying that "[t]he only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy"
Critics of the Church point to a statement made by Brigham Young to make the claim that Latter-day Saints believe that one must practice plural marriage in order to achieve exaltation (i.e. become like God not just be saved).[25]
The relevant text is as follows:
The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 11:269.)
This quotation is often used in anti-Mormon sources. They do not include the surrounding text which explains what Brigham Young had in mind on this occasion:
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 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 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.[26]
Brigham was stating that the command to practice plural marriage was from God, and it is wrong to seek to abolish a command from God.
It is clear from the quote that Brigham was making several points which the critics ignore:
- The command to practice plural marriage is from God, and it is wrong to seek to abolish a command from God.
- To obtain the blessings of Abraham, the Saints were required to be "polygamists at least in your faith": i.e., it was not necessary that each enter into plural marriage in practice, but that they accept that God spoke to His prophets.
- It was wrong to avoid plural marriage for worldly, selfish reasons, such as believing the Church would fail, and hoping to have political or monetary rewards afterward.
- Faithful Saints cannot expect to receive "all that the Father has" if they willfully disobey God. When the people have "had blessings offered unto them," and if they refuse to obey, God will withhold blessings later because of that disobedience now.
Finally, it must be remembered that Brigham Young is speaking to a group who had been commanded to live the law of polygamy. There is no basis for speculating about what he would have said to a group who did not have that commandment given to them, as present-day members do not.
Question: Did Brigham Young believe that one could not enter the Celestial Kingdom unless they were a polygamist?
Jump to details:
- Question: Did Brigham Young believe that one could not enter the Celestial Kingdom unless they were a polygamist?
- Wilford Woodruff: "President Young said there would be men saved in the Celestial Kingdom of God with one wife with Many wives & with No wife at all"
- Wilford Woodruff: President Young...said a Man may Embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart & not take the Second wife & be justified before the Lord
Notes
- ↑ Beverly J. Schwartzberg, “Grass Widows, Barbarians, and Bigamists: Fluid Marriage in Late Nineteenth-Century America” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001), 51–52.
- ↑ Hendrik Harlog, Man & Wife in America: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 87
- ↑ Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 37.
- ↑ Lynn Hunt, "Against Presentism," Perspectives 40/5 (May 2002); available online at http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2002/0205/ (accessed 2 December 2008).
- ↑ Beverly J. Schwartzberg, "Grass Widows, Barbarians, and Bigamists: Fluid Marriage in Late Nineteenth-Century America" (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001), 51–52.
- ↑ Hendrik Harlog, Man & Wife in America: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 87.
- ↑ Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 37.
- ↑ Michael Marquardt, 1973 pamphlet "The Strange Marriages of Sarah Ann Whitney to Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, Joseph C. Kingsbury, and Heber C. Kimball," George Albert Smith Family Papers, Manuscript 36, Box 1, Early Smith Documents, 1731-1849, Folder 18, in the Special Collections, Western Americana, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah (source). The original is in the Church Archives.
- ↑ Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, [original edition] (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1984), 539–540. ISBN 0877479747. GL direct link
- ↑ Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 350. ( Index of claims )
- ↑ Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 349. ( Index of claims )
- ↑ Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 16. ( Index of claims )
- ↑ John Dehlin, "Questions and Answers," Mormon Stories Podcast (25 June 2014).
- ↑ John Dehlin, "Questions and Answers," Mormon Stories Podcast (25 June 2014).
- ↑ "Chapter 46: The Martyrdom: The Prophet Seals His Testimony with His Blood," Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith," The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (2011), 528–40.
- ↑ It should be noted that History of the Church was begun after Joseph's death, and was written in the "first person," as if Joseph himself had written it. For further information on this, see Question: Who is the author of ''History of the Church''?
- ↑ History of the Church, 6:432. Volume 6 link
- ↑ Alan Goff, "Dan Vogel's Family Romance and the Book of Mormon as Smith Family Allegory (Review of: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet)," FARMS Review 17/2 (2005): 321–400. [{{{url}}} off-site]
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945). ( Index of claims )
- ↑ Charles L. Cohen, "No Man Knows My Psychology: Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith, and Psychoanalysis," Brigham Young University Studies 44 no. 1, 68.
- ↑ Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 44, note 135. ( Index of claims )
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Andrew H. Hedges and Dawson W. Hedges, "No, Dan, That's Still Not History (Review of: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, by Dan Vogel)," FARMS Review 17/1 (2005): 205–222. [{{{url}}} off-site]
- ↑ "Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," Gospel Topics on LDS.org (2013)
- ↑ Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints, 2nd ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House/University of Illinois Press, [1979] 1992), 69. ISBN 0252062361. off-site
- ↑ The following critical works use this quote from Brigham to claim that Latter-day Saints must accept polygamy as a requirement to enter heaven. Contender Ministries, Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves. Answers; Richard Abanes, Becoming Gods: A Closer Look at 21st-Century Mormonism (Harvest House Publishers: 2005). 233, 422 n. 48-49. ( Index of claims ); George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), xiv, 6, 55, , 356. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)); Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), 29, 258.( Index of claims )
- ↑ Brigham Young, "Remarks by President Brigham Young, in the Bowery, in G.S.L. City," (19 August 1866) Journal of Discourses 11:268-269. (emphasis added) See Quote mining—Journal of Discourses 11:269 to see how this quote was mined.