Podcast: Download (41.3MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Brian C Hales – Dissenters: Portraying the Church As Wrong So They Can Be Right Without It
Brian C. Hales is a board-certified anesthesiologist in Layton, Utah. He graduated from Utah State University with a B.S. in biology and from the University of Utah, College of Medicine.
He authored Setting the Record Straight: Mormon Fundamentalism (2008) and The Priesthood of Modern Polygamy: An LDS Perspective (1992). Hales has published articles in Mormon Historical Studies, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and the Journal of Mormon History. Brian Hales is also webmaster of www.MormonFundamentalism.com and www.JosephSmithsPolygamy.com.
Brian has also served as president of the Utah Medical Association and as president of the Medical Staff at Davis Hospital and Medical Center. He is the father of four adult children and author of the 3 volume set, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy.
Brian has always been a pleasure to listen to. He tells all and has created a balance between what the critics say and what the evidence says. I have often talked about polygamy to my Muslim friends and they are not averse to the idea. It’s seems to be more of a problem in the West, particularly Western women. Many of the critics apply presentism to enhance the shock value and Brian does a good job in discussing this in his articles. Craig Foster has also done some great work on explaining the cultural milieu. I was impressed by the recent book released by Jeff Olsen, Beyond Mile Marker 80, in which he felt intense guilt for falling in love with a women so soon after the loss of his first wife in a car accident. In a moment of intense grief, while at her graveside, his first wife comes to him to explain that she actually had sent this new woman into his life. The key thing she said was that in heaven, “there is only wisdom and all earthly traits of jealousy, envy and so forth do not exist there” (paraphrasing). There may be different ratios of men to women in certain parts of the celestial kingdom, but no one will be bothered by it, How do you explain this to mortals without offending them? The early prophets probably knew this, but it’s dangerous ground when viewd through mortal eyes.