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CES Letter

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 29

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Part 29: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section C]

by Sarah Allen

 

Today, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite weird/controversial topics of Church history, Blood Atonement and the way it was so badly misconstrued. You can see a highly biased approach to the topic here for an example of what I’m talking about. It’s such a caricature of the actual teaching, I honestly thought it was facetious satire at first before I realized the author was serious. To be honest, on its own, Blood Atonement is just not that interesting or even very strange. It’s basically just exaggerated rhetoric to make a point.

In my free time, though, I like to write fiction. I love stories: watching them, reading them, writing them, imagining them. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy history so much, because it’s just a compilation of a million different stories. Because of that, I love the larger mythology of Blood Atonement and the way something so simple could become so exaggerated and ludicrous and take on a life of its own. It’s fascinating to me. This is why, later in the post, I also want to touch on the stories of the Danites and also Mountain Meadows, and how they both tie into the folklore surrounding Blood Atonement. I’m going to try to put it all into some historical context for you guys so that it all makes sense. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 29

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 28

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Part 28: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section B]

by Sarah Allen

 

Last week, I focused heavily on the words of Brigham Young. I did this because he’s often seen as a stumbling block to members of the Church today due to some of the comments and policies we’ll be discussing in this set of questions/concerns. I wanted to point out that he frequently exhorted the Saints to pray to receive their own revelation concerning the things he said, and to reject the things he taught if they felt they didn’t come from God.

There are some other things we all need to know and understand about “Brother Brigham” before we can put these subjects in context, though. The first is that he had a very theatrical style, sort of like today’s televangelists. He was fond of the old “fire and brimstone” style of preaching that was so common in his day, where he’d exaggerate and threaten damnation and the Saints going to Hell if they turned away from the Gospel, that kind of thing. He would also often act out the things he was saying—like if he was talking about searching for something, he’d stand there at the pulpit, checking all of his pockets like he couldn’t find what he was looking for. The people loved it; it was like going to a show every time they watched him preach. It was very entertaining, and he would play up the theatrics while he was preaching in response to their reactions. But things like that don’t always translate very well when you’re reading them over a century later, so it’s hard to tell when he was being serious and when he was playing to the crowd or exaggerating for effect.

President Young was also very blunt. He did not beat around the bush, and he could be abrasive and somewhat authoritative, especially in his later years. He sometimes went off on rants when he felt he wasn’t being listened to. He had a notoriously contentious relationship with Emma Smith, among others, and used to claim she was going to Hell and that Joseph would have to go there to get her back. He was fiercely loyal to Joseph and to the restored Gospel, however, and he did not take criticism of them lightly.

He seems to be much like Peter as he tried to step into the Savior’s shoes to lead the Church after His death—they had many of the same personality traits (brashness, impetuousness, stubbornness, loyalty, etc.), they both made clear and obvious mistakes that their predecessors never did, and they were both willing to defend to the death the things of God.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 28

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 27

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Part 27: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section A]

by Sarah Allen

 

In this section of questions/concerns, we’ll be talking about prophetic fallibility. Jeremy Runnells apparently has some set ideas about what it means to be a prophet that he won’t budge from. Yet again, as we’ve seen over and over throughout this Letter, when something doesn’t fit his very narrow definition of what “it’s supposed to be,” he throws the entire concept out the window instead of admitting that maybe his assumptions were wrong.

As we go through these items one by one, it’s becoming abundantly clear that he has a fundamental lack of understanding of many of these different concepts and doctrines. I don’t know if he became confused as he fell away from the Church or if he was always confused. D&C 76:5-10 teaches us that when we serve God in righteousness, He will teach and enlighten us with all of the mysteries of His kingdom and the wonders of the eternities. However, 2 Nephi 28:30 and Alma 12:9-11 state that when we fall away from the Gospel, even the light and knowledge we already had will be taken away until there’s nothing left. At that point, we become like those described in 1 Corinthians 2:14, who view the things of God as foolishness because they don’t have the Spirit needed in order to discern their truthfulness. So, it’s possible that’s what happened in this case. Or, it’s possible that Jeremy always had a poor understanding of these concepts, and that’s why he fell away from the Gospel. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

The reason behind the misunderstandings aren’t important, but the things he claims as fact due to those misunderstandings are. When we listen to those who don’t have the Spirit of Truth and can’t discern the things of God from the things of man, our own understanding begins to falter alongside theirs. We’re putting our own souls in jeopardy by letting them have any sway on our testimonies.

Brigham Young taught the following: [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 27

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 26

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Part 26: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section G]

by Sarah Allen

 

We’re at the close of the Polygamy and Polyandry section of questions/concerns from the CES Letter, so I wanted to take a week to talk about some of the amazing women who lived this law. Since the Letter focuses exclusively on Joseph’s personal practice of plural marriage, I’ll focus only on his wives as well. However, there’s only room for a handful of stories and there are many other wonderful examples of these faithful, strong women who lived this practice, both married to Joseph and to others. I encourage everyone to read about them and their experiences.

One of the themes that comes up over and over and over again in these stories was that initially, people learning of the doctrine allowing for plural marriage were repulsed by the idea, only to have an incredible witness that later changed their minds. Some saw angelic visitors, others had revelatory dreams or visions, and still others had deeply spiritual confirmations that resonated with them throughout their entire lives.

One of these was a woman named Sarah Studevant Leavitt. She was not one of Joseph’s wives, so I’ll only briefly recount her experience here before moving on, but I’m highlighting her revelation because it’s both incredible and also not atypical for the time. The following is taken from her autobiography: [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 26

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 25

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Part 25: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section F]

by Sarah Allen

 

For this week’s entry, Jeremy Runnells offered us another lengthy-but-useful recap of all of his objections toward polygamy and the way that Joseph personally practiced it. It’s a lot to cover, but I think we can get through the entire thing today.

Jeremy begins like this:

D&C 132:63 very clearly states that the only purpose of polygamy is to “multiply and replenish the earth” and “bear the souls of men.” Why did Joseph marry women who were already married? These women were obviously not virgins, which violated D&C 132:61. Zina Huntington had been married seven and a half months and was about six months pregnant with her first husband’s baby at the time she married Joseph; clearly she didn’t any more help to “bear the souls of men.”

No, D&C 132:63 very clearly does not state that. That verse alone gives four different reasons for polygamy: to multiply and replenish the earth, according to the Lord’s command; to fulfil the promise which was given by God the Father before the foundation of the world; for the exaltation of the Saints in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; and to continue the work of the Father, that He may be glorified. Verse  51 gives us a fifth reason: to prove us all as He did Abraham, by covenant and sacrifice. Actually, verse 51 splits that into separate reasons, even, so it’s technically six reasons. It says, “…for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.” It was both a test and a sacrifice. Brian Hales added an additional two reasons: to restore all things, the way the Lord has declared, and to allow all worthy women to be sealed to a worthy husband for eternity. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 25

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 24

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Part 24: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section E]

by Sarah Allen

 

Today, we’re talking about Fanny Alger, the nature of her relationship with Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery’s reaction to the whole thing, William McLellin, his relationship with the Church and with Emma Smith specifically, and maybe more. It’s a lot to cover, so I’m just going to start without a prolonged introduction.

An illegal marriage to Fanny Alger, which was described by Oliver Cowdery as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair” – Rough Stone Rolling, p.323

All plural marriages for time or time and eternity performed in Kirtland and Nauvoo were illegal from a secular stance, so I’m not sure why Runnells is singling out this one as being so. As the Church’s essay on Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo states:

Polygamy had been permitted for millennia in many cultures and religions, but, with few exceptions, was rejected in Western cultures. In Joseph Smith’s time, monogamy was the only legal form of marriage in the United States. Joseph knew the practice of plural marriage would stir up public ire. After receiving the commandment, he taught a few associates about it, but he did not spread this teaching widely in the 1830s.

The Algers were some of those associates. We don’t know much at all about Joseph’s relationship with Fanny, the daughter who worked in the Smith home, and most of what we do know is from later accounts. Eliza R. Snow, who was well-acquainted with Fanny and the Smith family, listed her among Joseph’s plural wives for Andrew Jenson’s affidavits, so some people were directly aware of the union. However, most of what we have is rumors, innuendo, and other second- or third-hand sources. Many of those accounts are contradictory as well, which means there is very, very little we actually know and most everything else is just guesswork. We have to weigh the sources and decide which ones we think are the most trustworthy.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 24

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 23

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Part 23: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section D]

by Sarah Allen

 

There are some heavy, complicated topics on the agenda for today, so I’m just going to dive right in. Again in big red letters, Jeremy Runnells continues:

JOSEPH’S POLYGAMY ALSO INCLUDED:

Dishonesty in public sermons, 1835 D&C 101:4, denials by Joseph Smith that he was practicing polygamy, Joseph’s destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor that exposed his polygamy and which destruction of the printing press initiated the chain of events that led to Joseph’s death.

First, it’s not as simple as just Joseph and some of the other early Church leaders lying, the way Jeremy tries to make it seem.

It’s incredibly difficult to boil down 15 years’ worth of religious, historical, political, and societal events down into something that makes sense for the average person who isn’t familiar with any of it, so I’m not even going to try. But we have to understand the climate these people were living in—they’d been shunned by family members for joining the Church; they’d been prevented from voting; they’d been driven from their homes at gunpoint without anything, more than once; they’d been blamed for all of the local unrest simply because they moved into an area and built a farm or city; they and their friends and family members had been starved, robbed, beaten, raped, and murdered; they were held under siege by the state militia; they’d had an extermination order placed against them; and their current situation was beginning to mirror that of Kirtland and Missouri. They were terrified of what might happen to them next. And Joseph and the Twelve were responsible for keeping all of them safe. They knew that if they publicly announced the plural marriage doctrine before they were in a position of relative safety, the Church would be destroyed—literally. The members would all be massacred and the Church would die out because there was no one left to carry it forward. That’s what they were facing, and they knew it.

In this article, Gregory Smith tries to put it in some context by giving an analogy: [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 23

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 22

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Part 22: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section C]

by Sarah Allen

 

Before we dive in, I want to talk about something personal. When I originally wrote this post, it was with a very heavy heart. A few days before I sat down to write it, a woman who was a former acquaintance and coworker of mine—a part of my larger friend group at that job but not someone I was particularly close to personally—was abducted and murdered by a man we vaguely knew, another coworker of ours from a different department. Obviously, I was pretty shaken by all of that, and that friend group and I were shocked and devastated. She was a very kind, generous woman, and she will be missed.

The reason I’m sharing this personal information is because this is the part of the Letter that starts getting a little more vicious with its allegations of mistreatment and abuse of women. As a woman myself, I find these accusations particularly offensive when compared to actual violence toward women, such as what my old coworker suffered that week.

I have been sexually harassed in the past at school and at work. Over the years, I have been catcalled. I have had multiple customers hitting on me while I’m just trying to do my job. I have had men get mad at me when I declined to date them. I have been followed by strange men on the street, all the way up the block to a corner market and then all the way back down into my hotel, to the point where I had to get the front desk clerk to get rid of them for me. I had a complete stranger fixate on me over a Facebook post, find my personal information, and call me at all hours of the day and night. I have been forcibly kissed and groped in an elevator by a stranger in a foreign country where I had no way to fight him off. And I am no supermodel. I am an introvert who blends in with the crowd. Most of you wouldn’t look twice at me if you saw me walking past because I don’t stand out. Even my name is so blandly generic that you can’t Google it without further information. But even I’ve had my fair share of mistreatment, and I know many other women who have had similar experiences.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 22

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 21

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Part 21: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section B]

by Sarah Allen

 

Polygamy is probably the single biggest issue that people have with the Church, more than the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, other aspects of Church history, living prophets today, the rejection of the common model of Trinity, the lack of allowances for LGBTQ+ relationships, etc. It is, without a doubt, the #1 topic of jokes relating to the Church and to Utah in popular entertainment. It is a big stumbling block for a lot of people…including the early Saints who were taught it and who lived it.

That was by design. The idea of polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice to test the early Saints is a fairly common one, and for good reason. Sacrifice is the ultimate test we’re called to give on this Earth, because that’s how we exercise faith. It’s how we grow. It’s how we prove to God that we know what’s truly important. It’s the refiner’s fire that purifies us and sanctifies us. The Savior was sacrificed for us at His Father’s behest, because that what was necessary to bring about salvation, and the Savior was devoted to fulfilling His Father’s work. Can you imagine what that must have been like for Him, knowing what was coming and what He would have to do? And yet, He did it anyway. The courage, faith and love that must have taken is astronomical. And that same courage, faith and love is what is required of us, only on a smaller scale.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 21

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 20

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Part 20: CES Letter Polygamy & Polyandry Questions [Section A]

by Sarah Allen

 

I have to admit, of all of the different sections in the CES Letter, polygamy is the one I’ve been dreading. It’s such a messy subject, and there are going to be high emotions over it no matter what. The “questions” are angrier and more slanted, and everything is twisted to such a degree that it’s just not going to be particularly pleasant. I’m also not as well-read on this subject as I am on some of the others that interest me more, but I’ve still done a fair amount of research and I do have a testimony that plural marriage was instituted by God. That might be controversial to some people, but it’s true. I got my answer on that a long time ago. Regardless, this should be an interesting set of questions/concerns for all of us.

One of the things that also truly disturbed me in my research was discovering the real origins of polygamy and how Joseph Smith really practiced it.

So, right away, this is an interesting comment. We hear online all the time that people had no idea Joseph ever engaged in polygamy until they finally learned the truth. I assume that’s at least similar to what Jeremy means here when he says he discovered “the real origins.”

That’s honestly something that I just don’t get, particularly when those people further claim that the Church was hiding it from them or lying to them. It’s in the D&C, it’s in multiple fiction and nonfiction books published by Deseret Book and the Church itself, it’s been discussed in Church magazines and manuals, it’s been on Joseph’s Wikipedia page for twenty years, etc. I realize that not everyone has the same experiences growing up, and some people are taught more than others. It happens with a lay ministry. And it’s true that during parts of the 20th century, this aspect of Church history was deemphasized and some sources were harder to find before the internet was a thing. But even then, it was always available information. I understand that discovering something you didn’t know can be a blow. I really, truly do. However, you can’t accuse a church of hiding something from you when it’s in multiple public, official publications up to and including their canonized scriptures.

Just some quick background on this, at least as far as my experience goes: like a lot of us whose ancestors were early members of the Church, I have polygamists in my family history. I was also taught in Primary that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both had multiple wives. Again, I realize that wasn’t the case for everyone, but it was for me. Additionally, I am a single sister who has never been married and who has no children at this time. In at least two of my neighborhoods growing up in Utah, there were polygamists living nearby, both several blocks away on my same street.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 20