FAIR

Joseph Smith

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 26

by

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

FAIR Conference Podcast #66 – Mike Ash, “Rethinking Revelation and the Human Element in Scripture: The Prophet’s Role as Creative Co-Author”

by

Podcast: Download (11.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Mike Ash, Rethinking Revelation and the Human Element in Scripture: The Prophet’s Role as Creative Co-Author

Mike’s book is available from the FAIR bookstore.

Michael R. Ash, a FairMormon member for more than twenty years, has been featured in nearly 90 podcasts and 30 videos. In more than two decades of writing LDS-themed material, and as a former weekly columnist for Mormon Times (owned by the Deseret News), his works include over 160 on-line articles, as well as articles in periodicals such as the Ensign, Sunstone, Neal A. Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

Michael is also the author of four LDS books. In 2008 FAIR published his book Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt (which is available in English, German, and Italian). Mike quickly followed this publication with his second book, Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith. In 2015 Michael published Bamboozled by the CES Letter: An honest response to the .pdf pamphlet entitled “Letter to a CES Director”, and this year he has introduced his newest book, Rethinking Revelation and the Human Element in Scripture: The Prophet’s Role as Creative Co-Author.

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 25

by

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

by

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

Come, Follow Me Week 46 – Doctrine and Covenants 129-132 (additional post)

by

What Do We Do with Section 132?

By Brian C. Hales

Doctrine and Covenants section 132 is undoubtedly the most controversial of all of Joseph Smith’s revelations because it mentions the practice of plural marriage. Ironically, it is also one of the least discussed of all of Joseph’s official teachings for the same reason.

The 2014 Gospel Topics Essay discussing plural marriage encourages a new transparency on this subject and the historical and doctrinal references within the revelation. Yet, talking about polygamy more frequently does not necessarily make it any easier to understand or accept. Why? Because it favors men and is impossible to defend it as being fair.

Not only is polygamy here in mortality very difficult to practice, an associated fear involves the possibility of eternal plural marriage, which from our current view might be considered eternal unfairness. I have a daughter who has harbored the anxiety that if she dies before her husband (to whom she is sealed) passes away, he might remarry in the temple and she would become an eternal polygamist without her choosing. Here’s a few thoughts on the subject: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 46 – Doctrine and Covenants 129-132 (additional post)

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 23

by

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

by

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

Come, Follow Me Week 45 – Doctrine and Covenants 125-128

by

By Cassandra Hedelius

It’s difficult to write this post, because the subject is baptism for the dead, and my grandpa is dying, and I love him, and he’s never accepted the gospel. His death from old age isn’t tragic, but it would be if we didn’t have so much revelation from God about His plan. For this, I thank God for prophets.

When Joseph’s older brother Alvin died, a minister preached at his funeral and “intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member.”[1] This was obviously a tactless thing to say to a grieving family, but based on the knowledge that minister had, he wasn’t really wrong! The Bible is pretty clear that baptism is an eternal necessity. What that minister needed wasn’t sensitivity training, but more revealed truth. Let’s take the charitable view that he would have been ecstatic to learn that Alvin was not in fact damned, and that God is perfectly able to overcome paltry obstacles like people dying before having a chance to accept the truth.  [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 45 – Doctrine and Covenants 125-128

Come, Follow Me Week 44 – Doctrine and Covenants 124

by

By Cassandra Hedelius

In 1840, John C. Bennett was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. His wife and children didn’t come with him to Nauvoo, and it’s not clear what his original motive was for posing as a bachelor instead of being truthful about his family status. His eventual motive was extremely clear: as Bennett ingratiated himself to Joseph and other leaders, and gained high religious and civic positions, he lied to women in order to take advantage of them sexually. Bennett is one of the earliest and most egregious cases of a conundrum we’re each likely to sometime face: if the church is guided by revelation, how do bad people fool its leaders? [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 44 – Doctrine and Covenants 124

Come, Follow Me Week 43 – Doctrine and Covenants 121-123

by

By Cassandra Hedelius

It was the first time in my life I felt real terror.

On a lovely spring day in 1999, I was a high school sophomore eating lunch. My school was about twenty miles from Columbine. I vaguely overheard some snippets of conversation about something frightening. We finished lunch and went to class, and the vague murmurs coalesced into rumors–murder. Shooting. We were locked down in our classrooms. The teacher told us there was an attack at another school and a possible threat at ours. Finally they said to go straight outside, do not stop at your locker, get on your bus and go home. I watched the news, horrified, all evening. I didn’t sleep well, and imagined armed killers in the hallway.

The next morning in Seminary, it was my turn to choose a scripture for the devotional. I hadn’t prepared ahead of time, and I was still upset and afraid. I aimlessly opened the Doctrine and Covenants and read: [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 43 – Doctrine and Covenants 121-123