Stake President Response Part 3

Previous Entries:

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2

Here is the audio clip for part 3, and here is its transcript.


The next thing the Stake President brings up is Joseph Smith and the lies/rumors that people have told about him. Right at the end of part 2, he says that sometimes some of the information one hears about Joseph Smith is taken out of context. One of the favorite things for apologists to say is that it was taken out of context, and that should we read the whole account in the right frame of mind, it would be easy for anyone to see how great of a guy he was.

One example given to me in Sunday School when I was a youth was that someone had taken the words of Korihor (or one of the other anti-Christs listed in the BoM) and put them out for the world to see. “This is what the Mormons believe!” my teacher said. We all thought how ridiculous this guy is because if he would have read just 5 more verses, he would have seen Jacob refuting him, etc. “Man, anti-mormons are dumb. All they do is take things out of context,” was basically the message. (This is known as a Straw Man Argument)

Here's a nice little essay (well, more of a rant, really) by RfM poster JiminyCricket about the context of the First Vision and Moroni visit that is an interesting read. It fits better in part 1 because of the topic, but I've decided to include it here because of the "context" aspect of it.

So now the Stake President jumps to the topic of polygamy and asks if anyone is surprised, and nobody is (shocking, I know). But this is Utah. Everyone knows about polygamy here. It’s part of the local history. But it turns out that’s not the case at all in most foreign countries. In fact, that is one of the biggest issues that the people in Sweden are having because they are just finding out about this, which inspired the church to do the “Swedish Rescue,” mentioned in the link to JiminyCricket’s rant. It’s practically unknown in the foreign church. I can personally testify that Japanese members of the LDS church had no idea about it.

Anyhow, he cautions the audience to not judge 19th century actions through 21st century eyes. That’s a valid point. It’s well documented that women were frequently married and/or having sexual relationships with older men while in their mid-teens in past human history or marrying cousins – something we’d call statutory rape and incest according to current US law.

But there’s a lot about polygamy that most members of the church, even Utah members, don’t know. But to further obfuscate some of the details, he brings up something Gordon Hinckley and Nephi both said: that they don’t know everything. This is the great fallback answer to almost everything that is hard to explain: it’s some form of “we don’t know the mysteries of God,” “that hasn't been revealed,” “it will be sorted out in the next life,” etc. He’s basically hinting that since we don’t have a really good answer, we shouldn't really pursue the issue. And he’s right to keep the members in the dark - it is really an indefensible issue so he uses a thought-stopper.

He pulls out the explanation that there were far more single women than men. This is not true at all. Census record from Utah show that were there more men than women for many, many years.

Year	Total Population	Males	Females
1850	11,380	6,046	5,334
1860	40,273	20,255	20,018
1870	86,786	44,121	42,665
1880	143,963	74,509	68,454
1890	210,779	111,975	98,804
1900	276,749	141,687	135,062

Those figures cover the main era of polygamy. For what it’s worth, there weren't more women than men in Utah until the 1960 census. Not surprisingly, this is one of the topics covered by the LDS church’s recent essays. Notice in the linked essay how it doesn't say that there were more women than men.

He says a lot of people get stuck on the logistics of polygamy – which wife does he sleep with on what day of the week, etc. Then he tells everyone to get their 21st Century mind out of the gutter. But here’s why critics have a big problem with this: it says specifically in the BoM, in very clear terms, that men should only have one (1) wife, and that what David and Solomon did was an abomination. But then there’s a little loophole that makes it OK if the Lord command it for the purpose of raising up seed (population propagation).

So the only reason polygamy should be used is to build up the population. Therefore, if Joseph Smith took on additional wives, he SHOULD have been trying to have kids with them.

One of the things that apologists will say is that there’s no evidence that Joseph Smith ever slept with his plural wives. After all, they never produced any known children through those marriages. This is the reason the Stake President tells them to get their minds out of the gutter (i.e., stop thinking about it): because if they consider both claims at the same time, it won’t make sense. If Joseph Smith obeyed by marrying additional wives because he was commanded to raise up seed, he failed on the raising up seed part. If he HAD produced children with these women, then we would know he slept with them and they couldn't claim they were sexless marriages.

One of the other problems that critics of the church have is that the “rules” for polygamy are clearly stated in D&C 132. They include (among other things) having to get the first wife’s permission, and that the plural wife must be a virgin. Fair enough. Let’s suppose that the BoM is true, JS really did talk with God, and what it says in the D&C are the real guidelines for plural marriage in God’s eyes. It’s pretty well documented that 11 of Joseph Smith’s wives were already married. Not women who had been divorced, and not widows. All 11 had living husbands at the time they were married (illegally) to JS, two of which were actually out on missions. So even if we accept the premise that what is set forth in the BoM and D&C is correct, JS still didn't follow the rules. All 11 of those wives were practicing what’s known as polyandry with Joseph Smith. UPDATE: LDS.ORG confirms Polyandry and teen-brides with a newly released essay. 

Another apologist claim is that polygamy wasn't illegal back when the church was practicing it. That’s utterly false. Most of Joseph Smith's polygamous marriages occurred in Illinois in the early 1840's. The Illinois Anti-bigamy Law enacted February 12th, 1833 clearly stated that polygamy was illegal. It reads:

"Sec 121. Bigamy consists in the having of two wives or two husbands at one and the same time, knowing that the former husband or wife is still alive. If any person or persons within this State, being married, or who shall hereafter marry, do at any time marry any person or persons, the former husband or wife being alive, the person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned in the penitentiary, not exceeding two years. It shall not be necessary to prove either of the said marriages by the register or certificate thereof, or other record evidence; but the same may be proved by such evidence as is admissible to prove a marriage in other cases, and when such second marriage shall have taken place without this state, cohabitation in this state after such second marriage shall be deemed the commission of the crime of bigamy, and the trial in such case may take place in the county where such cohabitation shall have occurred."
Revised Laws of Illinois, 1833, p.198-99

That kinda goes against the whole belief in honoring and sustaining the law, doesn't it? John Taylor, the third president of the church, claimed that he believed in keeping all the laws of the United States "except one"--i.e., "The law in relation to polygamy." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 20, page 317)

If polygamy is such a non-issue, why isn't it discussed more in the manuals? The recent RS/MP Teaching of the Prophets manuals mention almost nothing about it. In fact, the manuals go out of their way to say that the topic won’t be discussed in the introduction. There are numerous cases where the quotes are changed from “wives” to “wife.” In fact, if you were someone who knew nothing about Mormons at all, and read about Brigham Young from the manual, you would probably get the picture that he had two wives, having remarried after his first wife died, but never at the same time. Is it any wonder foreign members have no clue about this aspect of the LDS church's history?

There’s so much that can be said about polygamy, but I've said enough. He uses another thought-stopper by citing a reference when Jesus was teaching a hard doctrine that caused some to leave him. This is sort of a “doubling-down” technique by essentially stating that 'you've been with me so far, but here’s something that’s going to be harder, and some of you are going to turn away.' (This gives us yet another fallacy - the Loss Aversion Fallacy or related Sunk Cost fallacy)

It works really well if you start with the premise that what god/church leader/etc. says is the truth, and this is going to be the thing that divides the cream of the crop from everyone else, most people want to be considered the cream by their leaders and peers and so they’ll accept this new hard concept. It’s very similar to the way people will begin a Facebook post with some variation of “Haters are gonna hate, but I’ll say it anyway.”

But I guess I shouldn't too surprised that the leaders of the church try to cover up, hide, and obfuscate this. The Stake President is just following the example of Gordon Hinckley when he lied on national TV about polygamy (recently contradicted by the more truthful essays), or when Jefferey Holland lied about how the temple used to have penalties.

Continued in Part 4

(Authored by Joseph)