Plural Marriage in Primary

Ian and Jim greet the New Year with a discussion about plural marriage being included in this year's Primary manual. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Hello and Happy New Year! My name is Jim Bennett and

(00:19):
I am joining Ian Wilkes foranother year of Inside Out
Podcasts.
Ian concluded last year with apodcast where he was in charge,
flying solo, but not solo,because James Burnham joined him
for another magnificent visit.
Ian, well done.

(00:40):
What was that experience like,just you and James?

SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
Yeah.
Happy New Year, Jim.
Hope you had a great time overthe holidays, you and your
family.
The conversation, the podcast wedid with James Burnham end of
last year was excellent.
He is a wonderful man.
He has a big heart.
He's living in Hiroshima inJapan, writing a new album.
As you know, he served hismission in Japan and he's there

(01:06):
for a year or so on this newadventure.
It was a wonderful conversation.
He led us into the podcast witha great song that is written and
he had one at the end.
So I really enjoyed it.
He's got a great story.
And yeah, it was wonderful andvery spiritual.
There was a great spirit in theconversation.
So yeah, great to have him backon.

SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
Well, yeah, I agree.
I thought his songs, it would benice.
He sent us actually studiorecordings of the songs.
And so I'm wondering if maybe Ishould tack those on either to
that podcast or to this podcast,because it's really difficult to
get the audio effect of just howgood they were.

(01:49):
from what we're doing here.
But we're moving on to adifferent topic here.
This is a new year, which meansit's a new subject for Come
Follow Me.
And the church has standardizedits lessons, not just in Sunday
school, but just across theboard.
And the Come Follow Me subjectthis year, every year, it's a

(02:12):
different volume of scripture.
Last year, it was the Book ofMormon.
This year, it's the Doctrine andCovenants and Church History.
And one of the things that'sbeen very interesting about this
is that the Come Follow Metopics are not just covered in
Sunday School, in Priesthood, inRelief Society.
They are also covered in Primaryas well.

(02:36):
And the Primary releases amanual, a children's manual
that's illustrated.
And it's been a long time sinceI cracked open a physical manual
of any kind.
They used to, at the beginningof the year, they would pass
out.
I remember during the wholeteachings of the prophets, you'd
have a different manual everyyear for priesthood with a

(02:58):
different prophet on the coverbecause you were covering the
teachings of Wilford Woodruff orthe teachings of David O.
McKay.
But very quickly, that becamesort of an online thing.
I stopped picking up thosephysical manuals because I could
read the manuals online, andpretty much everything has moved

(03:19):
online.
And so has the children'smanual, the primary manual for
church history.
And one of the things that hasattracted a great deal of
attention is the fact that thisyear's church history primary
manual includes an article or asection about plural marriage,

(03:44):
which is not something...
I know, Ian, you never went toprimary.
You joined the church...
past your primary years, butyour children went to primary,
did they not?

SPEAKER_01 (03:54):
They did.
Yes, they went through the wholeprimary program.
I joined at 16, you know, butthey went through the entire
church primary youth curriculum.

SPEAKER_02 (04:04):
And how many times did they come back and say, hey,
dad, today we learned aboutplural marriage in primary?

SPEAKER_01 (04:11):
Big fat zero.

SPEAKER_02 (04:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did not learn about pluralmarriage in primary growing up.
Back in my day, primary, you hadall these cutesy little names.
I remember being a targeteer andbeing a blazer.
All the classes had their ownnames.
The blazers, we even had a song.
Light the torch, light thetorch, blaze the way to the

(04:36):
priesthood of God.
Because the blazers were blazingthe trail to the Aaronic
priesthood.
So I still have goofy memoriesof all of that.
What I don't have are anymemories of plural marriage even
coming up?
And in fact, every time, even inthe adult curriculum, every time
we get to section 132, theinstructions in the manual,

(05:01):
because I taught seminary forthree years and I taught church
history in seminary for threeyears.
No, I taught church history.
I taught the Old Testament.
I taught the New Testament.
I taught church history.
I never taught a year of theBook of Mormon when I was a
seminary teacher.
But in all of the manuals whereI've taught church history,
there was always a disclaimer,always a, please don't focus on

(05:24):
plural marriage.
If plural marriage comes up,here's how you might want to
deal with it.
But it always struck me asdisingenuous and somewhat
misleading to discuss section132 and presume it was about
anything other than pluralmarriage.
And in fact, There are elementsof it that I think are wonderful

(05:45):
and beautiful.
And the whole idea of bringing,binding the whole human family
together through the sealingordinance, that's all in section
132.
And that becomes the focus ofthe lesson.
And there's usually a great dealto talk about there.
So it's not hard to do to sortof sidestep plural marriage.

(06:06):
But I really...
This I...
The idea of putting it in theprimary manual is getting a lot
of criticism.
And I want to say at the outsetthat I think this is a good
thing, or at least the impulsebehind it is good.
Because throughout my life, thestrategy with regard to plural

(06:29):
marriage has been to pretend itdidn't happen.
Or if it did happen, to pretendit was this tiny little
aberration.
I remember...
Did you read, it was part of themissionary library.
Do you remember the book TruthRestored by Gordon B.
Hinckley?
I do.
It has a chapter on pluralmarriage, but it just says, oh,

(06:53):
this was just something that wasdone very temporarily.
It really, it very quicklydismisses it.
It says this was done as areligious principle and it was
gone fairly quickly and let'snot talk about it anymore.
And that really was the extentto which plural marriage was
addressed in official churchmaterials for years and years

(07:14):
and years.
But here we have the primaryplural marriage.
It's short enough.
Would you mind if I were just toread the whole thing?
It's not very long.
Go ahead.
All right.
It says, and there are pictures,and the pictures are really kind
of fun.
While the prophet Joseph...
I want to stop there.

(07:38):
Because the Lord didn't saythat.
I mean, the Lord did say that tosome degree in the Book of
Mormon.

(07:59):
But in section 132...
Well, actually, okay, I'm goingto give that a little more...
If you go back and look at it,it talks about the fact that
David and Solomon were notjustified in the plural wives
they took beyond the ones thatwere authorized.
So I guess you could...
Right there, I have a problemwith that statement.
All right, but I'm going to keepgoing.

(08:20):
The Lord said that usually a manshould have only one wife, but
sometimes the Lord commanded hispeople to be in marriages of one
man and more than one woman.
This was called plural marriage.
The Lord told Joseph that hispeople should only be in plural
marriages if he commands it.
Again, that's a little skittish,but okay.

(08:40):
A few years later, the Lord toldJoseph to marry other women.
Joseph didn't want to marryother wives, but he knew it was
a commandment from the Lord.
When Joseph asked a woman tomarry him, he told her to pray
about it.
He wanted her to know from theLord that it was right.
The picture on this is just somuch fun.

(09:01):
It's just Joseph with his faceand his hands like, oh no, all
is lost.
I'm so miserable.
I have to have sex with so manyother women.
Anyway, sorry.
This commandment was also hardfor Joseph's first wife, Emma.
Sometimes Emma helped Josephdecide who he should ask to
marry him.
Other times, Emma did not wantJoseph to marry other women.

(09:27):
That's...
That's as big an understatementas you can possibly make.
I mean, there was a very narrowwindow in which Emma was open to
plural marriage and said, okay,fine, you can marry the
Partridge sisters.
But the problem was Joseph hadalready married the Partridge
sisters without telling Emma.
And so he staged a secondwedding ceremony.

(09:50):
where he married the Parkersisters all over again and said,
please don't tell Emma that thisis the second time we've done
this.
So there's really a whole lot offinessing is the kindest word I
can use.
Sweeping things under thecarpet, understating.
I mean, just saying other timesEmma did not want Joseph to
marry other women.

(10:11):
Yeah, all other times andincluding the entire rest of her
life where she denied thatJoseph ever practiced polygamy.
I mean, she was just a vehementopponent to plural marriage from
the outset.
When Doctrine and Covenantssection 132 was written, it was

(10:32):
first written to give to Hiramso that Hiram could go, because
Hiram said, hey, if you give mea revelation, I can take it to
Emma.
And I can convince her.
And Joseph says, yeah, you don'tknow Emma like I do.
But he dictated the revelation.
Hiram wrote it down, took itinto Emma.

(10:53):
Emma threw it on the fireplaceand burned it.
And so the version we have nowlater was dictated later.
And there's debate as to—Whether or not it was actually
dictated or whether it's aforgery by Brigham Young, I
don't know that we want to getinto that here.
We've talked about that before.
Anyway, finishing this article.

(11:14):
So Joseph taught the 12 apostlesabout plural marriage.
It was a hard commandment forthem too.
Okay, again, this is not tellingthe full story.
Joseph taught the 12 apostles,but he taught them onesie
twosie.
There were some apostles thatknew, there were some apostles
that did not.

(11:34):
And there was a lot ofcontention behind the scenes as
to whether Joseph was reallyauthorizing plural marriage.
I think eventually all 12apostles found out about it.
I'm not sure if they found outabout it directly from Joseph.
It may have been after Josephdied.
But anyway, and to say it was ahard commandment for them to,

(11:56):
again, that's finessing thingsbecause I think Certainly,
Brigham Young, I mean, BrighamYoung is on record as saying
that he envied the dead when hefirst heard about it.
But Brigham Young clearly,throughout the course of his
life, came to embrace it to thepoint where saying it was a hard

(12:19):
commandment for him really didnot describe Brigham Young's
experience.
Anyway, Brigham Young and hiswife, Marianne, prayed a lot.
Okay, Marianne was his secondwife, but his first wife had
died.
Anyway.
Okay.
Okay.

(12:58):
In 1890, the Lord told WilfordWoodruff, the president of the
church, that men should notmarry more than one wife
anymore.
Okay, I want to stop therebecause that, I think, is just
not accurate.
Because the manifesto now, inhindsight, we look at it and we

(13:20):
say, yeah, okay.
The Lord told that was arevelation.
When you read the language ofthe manifesto in Official
Declaration 2, and there is nohint of a revelation in it.
It is, I've just told everybodyto stop performing marriages
that are contrary to the laws ofthe land.

(13:41):
And the idea that this was theend of plural marriage because
the Lord revealed to WilfordWoodruff that plural marriage
had to end in 1890 is belied bythe facts, facts that got D.
Michael Quinn excommunicated,because the legacy of

(14:03):
post-manifesto polygamy is verywell documented.
And the manifesto essentiallyjust ended polygamy in the
United States, and leaderssent...
members of the church to Mexico.
That's where the Mexicancolonies began because you had
people saying, okay, if we can'tdo this in the United States,
we'll continue practicing pluralmarriage elsewhere.

(14:26):
A number of members, a number ofapostles entered into plural
marriage after 1890.
So if there had been arevelation to Wilford Woodruff
ending plural marriage, wewouldn't have had to have the
second manifesto which tookplace, I mean, you could even
argue there was a thirdmanifesto.

(14:47):
It wasn't until 1910, 20 yearsafter 1890, you can do the math,
that plural marriage became anexcommunicable offense, that the
church no longer toleratedplural marriage.
If you entered into pluralmarriage after 1910, you could
be excommunicated.
But if you entered into pluralmarriage for a full 20 years,

(15:11):
between 1890 and 1910, There wasno revelation from Wilford
Woodruff that denied that.
Or if there was, we've neverseen it.
Anyway, so it then says, theleaders of the church shared
these commandments with thesaints.
This is still the Lord'scommandment today.

(15:31):
A man should be married to onlyone wife.
Now, all of these have links.
That's the end of the article.
They all have links to not onlyscriptures, but to pages in
saints.
which is the new church history,which I think is a very good
church history, that does, Ireally think, a very good job of

(15:55):
confronting difficult, hardfacts.
And I think the way polygamy isdescribed in Saints is fairly
consistent with this, but Ithink Saints also obviously gets
into more detail and gets intosome of the nuances that I
brought up here.
So there's the article.
This is what we're now teachingour children in primary.

(16:18):
You don't have children inprimary.
I don't have children in primaryanymore.
But I'd be very interested tohear your reaction to this.
What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
It's quite an extraordinary development, I
think.
You said at the outset that youthought, I think you said you
thought this generally was apositive thing.
Yeah.
in respect to bringing this toprimary children and youth.
And broadly, very broadly, Iagree.

(16:53):
You've gone through the article.
I have real issues with thearticle.
Before I get into some specificshere, because I want to touch on
some of the specific points inthat, I just want to remind us
and our listeners of a...
An important lesson, which wasin the old gospel principles

(17:15):
manual that we used to teachfrom, if you remember those,
when our investigators wouldjoin the church, when they'd
just been baptized, they wouldget a copy of the gospel
principles.
These are the fundamentalprinciples that the church
taught going back.
These books were written in the70s, and we gave them out in the
80s.
The church has still got thismaterial.

(17:38):
His lesson is still on itswebsite.
I just want to share somethingthat I think is really, really
important.
So the lesson is chapter 31, theold gospel principles book, and
it's titled Honesty.
And in the lesson, it says herethat lying is intentionally

(18:00):
deceiving others.
Bearing false witness is a formof lying.
The Lord gave this commandmentto the children of Israel.
Thou shalt not bear falsewitness against thy neighbor.
Jesus also taught this when hewas on the earth.
There are many other forms oflying.
When we speak untruths, we areguilty of lying.
We can also intentionallydeceive others by a gesture or a

(18:23):
look or by silence or by tellingonly part of the truth.
Whenever we lead people in anyway to believe something that is
not true, we are not beinghonest.
And the lesson does not pull anypunches in regards to the
importance and the value ofbeing honest.

(18:46):
It's also in the 13th article offaith, which says we believe in
being honest.
There's many references in thatlesson to the Book of Mormon.
There's a number of othermaterials which were written by
General authorities arereferenced by general
authorities.
There's also a talk by Neal A.
Maxwell, which talks extensivelyabout the importance of being

(19:08):
honest, which he makesreferences to that lesson, I
understand.
So going back to the articlehere, whilst I agree with your
comment that the decision by thechurch to include this in the

(19:28):
children's material is broadly apositive thing.
The church, in my opinion, fallswell short, frankly, and I want
to give some examples there thatyou've kind of touched upon
them, of still, even now, can'tbe completely honest, still
withholding some importantelements of the facts.

(19:49):
And just for context, we knowwhy they're doing this.
It's a very intelligentdecision, again, by the church
in terms of retaining primaryand, you know, dealing with
these issues early on in thelife of a child.
And I would call that, it's likea form, or it actually is

(20:09):
inoculation.
You know, when we inoculateourselves, we're preparing
ourselves for a potential riskof, you know, virus or disease.
You know, when I was young, Igot the measles jab.
I got the chicken pox jab.
I don't think I got measles, Ithink, when I was younger.
I still had the jab.
You

SPEAKER_02 (20:25):
didn't have a chicken pox vaccine when you
were younger.
I don't think.
I think that's fairly recent.

SPEAKER_01 (20:30):
Is it?
Right.
Well, I remember getting twojabs as a kid in school way back
now, and it was to inoculate youfor these things.
That's right.
And so it's a very smart move bythe church to address these
issues early on in a child'slife, because when a child gets
to 10, 12, has got the internet,et cetera, and will discover all

(20:50):
these issues online.
And so the church is trying toinoculate the primary.
So when they do have When theseissues come up, they know that
they were taught these things toan extent, you know, early on in
primary.
So I understand that.
The churches, someone told meover the holidays, somebody very

(21:11):
senior that we hope to get onthe podcast.
They're very high up in thechurch.
They're at the temple presidencylevel.
We'll talk about this later.
The church has a strategy toinoculate.
youth and primary, which makessense, to deal with these issues
and slowly kind of open up theseissues early on in order to

(21:32):
retain and hang on to theprimary and hang on to the
youth.
You said several times that thechurch is hemorrhaging
significant numbers of youth whoare not bothered about religion,
not just about whether it's trueor not.
And so the church has to contendwith all these different
challenges.
How does it hold on to itsfuture?

(21:52):
Well, you invest in the primary.
So just getting into thechildren's material here, I
agree with you.
I couldn't find anything whereGod...
He read about prophets likeAbraham and Moses who had been
married to more than one wife.
Joseph wondered about that.

(22:12):
And then where the Lord saidthat usually a man should have
only one wife.
I couldn't find anything that...
was explicit in respect to that.
So that is not true.
Where I'm going with this isthat the church is still falling
short on the facts and thecontext in teaching the children

(22:38):
here.
And I find that if we go by thatstandard that we just read, by
that logic, by that principle,those lessons on honesty, by not
telling the...
the full truth, you know,withholding a little, actually
quite a lot, that's, bydefinition, dishonest.

(23:00):
And the other point as well, wetalked about this, if you're
teaching, if you're not, by thatdefinition, if you're not being
honest when you're teaching thislesson, you know, to children or
youth or whoever, is the HolyGhost present?
If you're deliberatelywithholding information,
withholding the facts, we taughtthat the Holy Ghost teaches

(23:21):
truth and if you speak a lie itwon't confirm that lie as a
truth that was fundamentalthat's the bedrock of the gospel
that's the fundamental principleof the gospel that the holy
ghost testifies of truth itdoesn't testify of lies or
deception um so and then theother thing which i find very

(23:45):
disturbing in this material isum you know he says here that uh
Joseph decided to ask the Lord,which is fine.
The Lord said that usually a manshould only have one wife, etc.
And he talked about pluralmarriage there.

(24:05):
The Lord told Joseph that peopleshould only be in plural
marriage if he commands it.
And then a few years later, hetold Joseph to marry other
women.
Joseph didn't want to marryother women.
There's so much missing there.
There's other relationships thatJoseph had with other women that
Emma didn't know about.
And you've mentioned that aswell.

(24:27):
There's no reference to thatanywhere in this material.
You know, when Joseph asked tomarry, she says, but a few years
later, the Lord told Joseph tomarry other women.
Joseph didn't want to marryotherwise, but he knew it was a
commandment from the Lord.
When Joseph asked a woman tomarry him, he told her to pray
about it.

(24:47):
Which woman are we talkingabout?
Which woman are they referringto here?
The details are so important.
You know, children like stories.
They like detail.
And when my kids were growingup, I was pretty good at telling
stories.
In fact, I was too good.
I used to inadvertently, onetime, one story got a little bit

(25:09):
scary.
And Debbie said, oh, that's abit too much because the kids
are probably a little bit scaredof that story.
I was pretty good atstorytelling.
Kids love stories.
They like the details.
So, you know, when he says here,when Joseph asked a woman to
marry him, who is that, Jim?
He told her to pray about it.
Is that...
No, let's get specific here.

(25:30):
Who is the material talkingabout?
We don't know that, do we?
He wanted her to know from theLord that it was right.

SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
Well, I mean, if you look at the timing of plural
marriage...
Joseph had his relationship withFanny Alger long before plural
marriage became what it becamein Nauvoo.
So Fanny Alger, we're looking atabout 1835 or 1836, probably

(26:06):
before the Kirtland Temple, andthen no other plural marriages
for another five years.
So critics generally say, okay,Joseph had an affair with in
1835 with Fanny Alger.
Oliver Cowdery called it anaffair.
It's one of the reasons OliverCowdery left the church.
And it's one of the reasons Idon't have a lot of patience for
people who say, oh, geez, Josephnever practiced plural marriage.

(26:30):
I mean, I think the fact thatOliver Cowdery was concerned
enough about what happened withFanny Alger suggests that.
So, I mean, in this article,that doesn't seem to be a
reference to Fanny Alger.
because the revelation on pluralmarriage as we have it wasn't
dictated until Nauvoo, untilvery late in Joseph Smith's

(26:53):
life.
So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 (26:55):
So, yeah, I was thinking of Fanny Alger when I
was reading this, but there's nospecific reference to who this
person is.
But he knew it was a commandmentfrom the Lord.
Joseph asked a woman to marryhim.
Did Emma know about that?
I suspect she didn't.
She didn't know about FannyAlger.
We know that.
No, I don't know if I know theanalogy, but whoever this woman

(27:15):
is that is referencing thematerial, did Emma know about
that?
And probably she did not knowabout that.
And again, by that logic, bythat church same standard, is
that honest?
How do you reconcile that wholesecret marrying, having these
physical relationships, etcetera?
How do you reconcile that withnot telling Emma?

(27:38):
I just can't get past that.
Okay, plural marriage, let'sgive him a little bit of benefit
here.
Let's say he didn't want apractical plural marriage.
He couldn't stand the thought ofit, let's say, for argument's
sake.
And why not go to your wife andsay, look, God has commanded me,
as soon as the revelationhappens, you and I would do
this.

(27:59):
If we got a revelation from Godwho told us to, right now, we're
married, he told us to have morethan one wife, the revelation
was clear, And what would we do?
We would go to our wives and wewould share the experience,
explain the revelation, describewhat happened, and we would lay

(28:21):
it all out in front of ourwives, wouldn't we?
We would do that, wouldn't we?
Whether it's 2024 or 1835 or1832, it doesn't matter.
Principles of honesty anddecency and integrity never
change.
The fundamental principles ofthe gospel, like Christ taught,
And the prophets taught havenever changed.

(28:42):
Honesty has been an internalprinciple, has it not?
From the very beginning, thevery foundations of the church,
from the time of the war inheaven, from the very beginning,
it's the thing that holds up theuniverse, right?
Is integrity and honesty andlaws of physics and laws of

(29:03):
these fundamental principles,which are eternal, are they not?
They are.
And so...
We can't argue that this was adifferent time.
It was different back then, sowe could be dishonest back then.
But why not, after therevelation, go to your wife and
sit down and say, have I done arevelation?
It's disturbing.
It's making me sick and ill.

(29:24):
I don't want to do it.
This is what happened.
This is what the Lord said.
Why not involve Emma from theoutset?
Why go to a woman, whoever sheis, and ask her to marry him and
tell her to pray about itwithout talking to Emma?
It just doesn't make sense.
Where's the honesty in that?
To me, that's the act ofbehavior of a very dishonest

(29:44):
person that's trying to conceal.
It's trying to hide.
Where's the transparency andaccountability?
Where's the principles in thatlesson, 31, on honesty, which is
a great, great lesson, by theway?
And then it goes on to say, andyou talked about this, you read
this, this commandment was alsohard for Joseph's first wife,

(30:06):
Emma.
Sometimes Emma helped Josephdecide who he should marry,
asked to marry him.
Other times Emma did not wantJoseph to marry the women.
So your knowledge of thishistory is better than mine.
Again, getting specifics here,who did Emma help Joseph decide
to marry?

SPEAKER_02 (30:26):
Yeah, that was the Partridge sisters.
Okay, so the Partridge sisterswere essentially Joseph's foster
children.
They've been described that way,although I don't know that
that's entirely accurate.
I don't know if their parentswere dead or what it was, but
they were living in the Smithhousehold.

(30:47):
And the Smiths, but they werealso sort of, just like Fanny
Alger, they were also sort ofservants to some degree.
I mean, they...
helped take care of the house.
They helped Emma.
So Emma had a relationship withthem.
And so the way I've alwaysenvisioned it is, okay, well,

(31:10):
fine.
If you have to marry somebody,you can marry the Partridge
sisters.
I know them.
I like them.
They already live in our house.
I mean, I think that was a hugeconcession on Emma's part.
I mean, if I went to my wife andsaid, you know, pick who my next
wife is going to be.

(31:31):
We don't have anybody living inthe house, but I can't imagine
her saying, well, I likeso-and-so.
I wouldn't mind if she werearound.
So that's who I think that's areference to.
I don't know of any otherspecific marriage that Emma
would have approved.
I think there's some evidencethat she knew of some of the
others, but there's a great dealof evidence that she didn't know

(31:56):
about the vast majority of them.
And when you talk about honesty,if you read the Gospel Topics
essays on polygamy, they talkabout the idea that many of
these marriages happened.
I think that's the word theyuse.
Without Emma's knowledge, manyis understating it.

(32:17):
Yeah.
Overwhelming.
I mean, Joseph married nearly 40women.
And Emma may have known aboutthe number Emma knew about was
in the single digits.

UNKNOWN (32:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (32:27):
So you've said this is a good move on the church.
And again, I said generallythat's, again, very broadly,
that's probably strategicallyit's a good move.
And generally it's good thatthey're talking about this.
But it's clear Joseph Smith liedabout his relationships to Emma.
He lied.

(32:48):
He didn't tell her.
He didn't involve her.
He didn't involve her right fromthe outset.
He did things behind her back,Jim.
Agreed?
Agreed.
Well,

SPEAKER_02 (32:59):
the reason I say it's a good thing, and I want to
qualify this, because polygamy,I think, other than perhaps race
and the priesthood, polygamy isthe biggest obstacle for people
who join the church and forpeople who discover it who are
in the church to be able toreconcile it with the idea that

(33:23):
Joseph was a prophet.
and that this is in fact God'schurch, because there really is
no way to look at the historicalrecord and conclude that Joseph
entirely conducted himselfhonorably in this, which is what
essentially apologists try todo.

(33:45):
Or you have the Michelle BradyStone approach, which is, no,
Joseph didn't practice polygamy.
It was entirely an invention ofBrigham Young.
And for some people that solvesit.
For me, I think that makes itfar worse because that means

(34:08):
that Brigham Young completelyand fraudulently, Brigham
Young's lies, Joseph lied toEmma, Brigham Young in that
scenario would have lied to theentire church.
and would have lied to all ofthe apostles and said, okay,
yeah, Joseph invented this, eventhough I'm inventing this.

(34:29):
I don't think people who believethat should be kicked out of the
church.
I mean, that's the conversationthat Michelle Brady Stone and I
had on her podcast that got alittle bit heated.
But I also don't see, in mymind, how anyone would be able
to reconcile that.
If I believe that...

(34:51):
I don't know how I would be ableto stay in the church.
So yeah, you have to confrontthe reality that for all of
Joseph Smith's accomplishments,all of Joseph Smith's clear
inspiration, which I thinkevidence for is plentiful.

(35:12):
I think the Book of Mormon isplentiful evidence that Joseph
had contact with the divine.
and that was an instrument inGod's hands to bring about all
kinds of wonderful stuff.
For all of the good of JosephSmith, you also have a Joseph
Smith who lied to his wife.
And you also have a Joseph Smiththat handled polygamy.

(35:35):
I mean, the way this articletries to massage, I mean, the
Joseph's approach to women thathe would marry.
It says, okay, he'd ask them topray about it.
Well, yeah, he would.
But the power differential inall of those conversations was

(35:55):
enormous.
And it was, here I have aprophet of God telling me I need
to marry him.
And he would, the critics, Ithink, very often go too far
because they say, oh, he wouldsay, okay, if you don't marry
me, an angel's going to cut offmy head.
And that's really not what hedid.
But he did say things like, if Idon't enter into plural

(36:18):
marriage, not if I don't marryyou specifically, but if I don't
enter into plural marriage,there's an angel that's going to
cut off my head.
I mean, he would, the amount ofpressure that he applied either
intentionally orunintentionally, and I think
it's the unintentional pressure,just the fact of Joseph, of a

(36:42):
prophet of God walking into you,That's an interesting choice of
words.
Prophet God walking in to talkto you and say, hey, God wants
you to marry me.
Even if he does that in themost, and please, please, you
know, go ask yourself, even ifhe does that in the most

(37:03):
gracious and unpressured waypossible, which I think he did
in several of thesecircumstances, not all of them.
I think in others he appliedmore pressure than that.
But even if that's all he does,the amount of power this man has
and the amount of pressure thewoman would feel is just

(37:27):
enormous.
It's just overwhelming.
And it's impossible to look atthat and not be troubled by it,
I think.
Intellectually, honestly, tolook at that and say, well,
there's really nothing wrongwith that.
And really God's hand is in allof this.
I think the only way you canland in a way that preserves

(37:47):
your faith is to accept, again,and this is the overwhelming
theme of everything that I'veever said on this podcast, but
you have to accept the realityof prophetic fallibility.
You have to accept that, okay,there may have been some sort of
divine core to what Joseph wasdoing, but he did it very badly,

(38:09):
that he botched it.
that he did not implementpolygamy in a way that kept
faith with Emma, that was honestto the world.
I do think a lot of thecriticism about polygamy, it's
easy to overstate it, but that'sonly because at its core, it's

(38:31):
so troubling.
It's so troubling to have a manlike this marrying multiple
women.
Now, and I'm aware and I havemade a lot of the apologetic
arguments for this, and some ofthem, I think, do hold water.
For instance, I think theevidence is overwhelming that

(38:52):
Joseph Smith was a believer,that he believed in his own
revelations, that by the timepolygamy was implemented, that
whatever experiences he washaving with the divine, they had
convinced him that he was aprophet and that this was a
religious principle.
Even if you read Fawn Brody, forinstance, No Man Knows My

(39:15):
History, which was thedefinitive biography of Joseph
Smith up until Richard Bushmanwrote Rough Stone Rolling.
She introduces what Dan Vogelhas come to call the pious fraud
model.
That is that Joseph Smith beganas a fraud and fraudulently
wrote the Book of Mormon, but atsome point, sort of was

(39:36):
transformed, at least in his ownmind, into a prophet.
That at some point he started tobelieve, yes, he is a prophet.
Now, the difficulty with thatmodel is that you don't have any
sort of historical documentwhere that took place.
You don't even have historicaldocuments that show that kind of
an evolution.

(39:56):
We don't have any historicaldocuments where Joseph isn't
completely and totally sincereabout in his announcements, even
in his private writings.
Joseph clearly, if he was afraud, he had convinced himself.
He had defrauded himself.
And so I begin with the ideathat Joseph Smith is a believer.

(40:21):
And so Joseph Smith goes forwardwith plural marriage, believing
it is a religious principle.
If plural marriage were solelyan excuse for Joseph Smith to
bed as many women as he could,it was a really poor mechanism
for doing that.
The guy who did that really wellwas a guy I am not related to,

(40:43):
but I share his last name, JohnC.
Bennett, who was a member of thefirst presidency who went about
convincing women that they werehis spiritual wives.
And so they could have sex.
and they didn't have to telltheir mortal wives because
spiritually they were married.

(41:03):
This was a different thing thanfrom what Joseph Smith was
doing.
And I think Joseph Smithjustified a lot of his public
statements against polygamy byframing them as condemnations of
John C.
Bennett's spiritual wifery.
And so he would get people whowere married to him, who were

(41:24):
entered into plural marriage, tosign affidavits saying spiritual
wifery is an abomination.
And historians now look at thator just lay members look at that
and go, he was lying.
And I say, well, it's not quitethat simple because in his mind,
he was condemning a practicethat was different from what he

(41:44):
was doing.
But those distinctions are loston most people who look at
plural marriage and say, really,what's the difference?
And part of the difference, too,is that, yes, Joseph was married
to, the estimates vary, theyalways say up to 40 wives.
He was married to that manywomen.

(42:06):
Most of these women, the vastmajority of these women, got a
marriage ceremony and littleelse, and nothing else, really.
Joseph did have sexual relationswith his plural wives, but only
a handful of them.
not 40 women.
He was not, uh, in doing whatJohn C.

(42:27):
Bennett was doing, which is justtrying to find any woman he
could and using some spiritualpretext to convince them to go
to bed with him.
Uh, so I look at that and I, Ilook at plural marriage and I,
the, the grace I can give toplural marriage is grace that
comes from the idea that, um, Itry to put myself in the mind of

(42:51):
the people who were asked topractice this principle.
And for many of them, it washard.
It was difficult.
And it was difficult for thewomen more than the men,
obviously, on an exponentialscale.
But the family dynamic of pluralmarriage, in some ways...

(43:13):
was, well, no, I don't want tosugarcoat this.
I don't want to soft coat it.
It was a huge burden on women.
It was hugely anti-feminist inmost ways.
And I don't want to say anythingthat would undermine that idea.
Where it was difficult for menwas in the idea that they were
strangers in their own homes.

(43:35):
And if you look at pluralmarriage as it was practiced
after Nauvoo, because RichardBushman makes the distinction.
He says, Joseph Smith did notpractice domestic polygamy the
same way Brigham Young did.
He practiced sealing polygamy.
He had all these wives sealed tohim and felt no obligation to
take care of them, no obligationto even acknowledge them after

(43:59):
the sealing, except for thehandful with whom he had sexual
relations.
Whereas domestic polygamy, as itwas practiced in the Utah
Territory, in the Deseretterritory, involved men going
and visiting the households inwhich their plural wives and

(44:19):
children lived.
And if they had more than one ortwo wives, they were essentially
visitors in these households.
They would go and visit them,and they didn't run the show,
and they didn't know theirchildren very well.
I mean, Brigham Young...
There's a story of Brigham Youngmeeting somebody on the street

(44:40):
and him asking, who's yourfather?
And they said, you are.
I mean, he had close to 60children and all these
households, and he didn't knowany of them.
I mean, he knew a handful ofthem that were close to him, but
polygamy, the dynamic ofpolygamy was just a mess from
beginning to end.

(45:00):
It didn't allow a certain amountof latitude to For the Relief
Society, I just finished readinga book called American Zion by
Dr.
Benjamin Park.
It's a brilliant history of thechurch.
I think the best concise historyof the church I've ever read.
And it pointed out, it'ssomething that I didn't realize,

(45:22):
that up until really the early20th century, the Relief Society
was almost entirely autonomous.
The Relief Society did notreport to the first presidency.
The Relief Society chose its ownofficers, had its own meetings,
had its own agenda.
And it wasn't until J.
Reuben Clark in 1938 said theRelief Society needs to be a

(45:43):
handmaid of the priesthood.
Those were his exact words.
That we get the Relief Societyas it is now, which is really it
is.
It's a handmaid of thepriesthood.
The priesthood chooses the org.
I mean, the Relief Society doesnot function with any degree of
autonomy.
compared to the way they didbefore.
And plural marriage largely madethat possible because women were

(46:07):
able to sort of sharehouseholding with other women
and so had more freedom to takeon more leadership roles in
these sort of pluralarrangements.
And the presidents of the ReliefSociety, Emmeline B.

(46:27):
Wells, for instance, is probablythe most famous one.
She was married to the pluralwife of Daniel H.
Wells.
And she was a woman ofconsiderable influence and power
in the Utah Territory.
And plural marriage gave her alittle more autonomy to be able
to do that.
So the dynamics of polygamy aremessy.

(46:50):
They're difficult.
And there's no way to reconcileit unless you can allow for the
possibility that the JosephSmith who lied to his wife, the
Joseph Smith that entered intothis messy, difficult practice
whose legacy continues to hauntus today, is also the Joseph

(47:11):
Smith that was chosen by theLord to restore the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And if you can't do that, thenyou end up having to leave the
church.
And a lot of people do.
I have made that sort ofreconciliation in my own mind.
Does that hold any water withyou?
I mean, am I copping out bymaking that reconciliation?

SPEAKER_01 (47:35):
That's a question obviously for you.
It's hard to, you know, youunderstand your thoughts and
feelings about polygamy.
You've reconciled it to anextent.
You've acknowledged that, JosephSmith.
I mean, the two questions.
Well, listen to you.

(47:55):
I've got two questions for you.
Is it true that Joseph putpressure on some women to marry
him or have a relationship withhim in return for extending
blessings to that woman'sparents?
Because I've read thatsomewhere.

SPEAKER_02 (48:09):
Yes.

SPEAKER_01 (48:11):
Is that true?

SPEAKER_02 (48:13):
Yes.
That, well...
That is essentially the, notFanny Alger, the Helen Mark
Kimball story.
Right.
I thought so.
It was criticized for brides,and it was actually Heber
Kimball, Helen's father, whoproposed the idea as a sort of

(48:35):
dynastic ceiling.
I think the evidence is fairlystrong that this was not a
sexual relationship.
This was a dynastic ceiling thatwas going to give Heber Kimball
and his family great blessingsby being sealed to the prophet.
And in fact, for generations,even after Joseph's death, the

(48:56):
model was women were sealed toJoseph, to Brigham, even after
Brigham's death, up until themanifesto, that the sealing to
prophets, the law of adoption,as it was called, would give you
great blessings in theafterlife.
So yes, that is absolutely true.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (49:17):
I heard and I've read that he did put pressure on
some women to have a physicalrelationship or some kind of
spiritual marriage sealing slashphysical relationship in return
for extending or promisingblessings to the woman's parents

(49:37):
and also referencing or sayingthat there will be potential
penalties or that the woman'sparents or relatives could be at
risk if she doesn't accept.
The second question I've got, isit true that Joe Smith denied
practicing polygamy at any time,publicly?

SPEAKER_02 (49:58):
Again, this is the way Richard Bushman describes
it.
I mean, the answer is yes.
The way Richard Bushmandescribes it is they are
carefully worded denials, whichdoesn't necessarily excuse
anything.
What it does is demonstrate, Ithink, that in Joseph's mind, he

(50:20):
was justifying himself.
I mean, if Joseph's purpose andintent with polygamy, again, was
entirely sexual adventurism,there would be no need for
carefully worded denials.
There would just be the, no, I'mnot doing this, forget it.
I mean, you read them.
He says things like, what athing to be accused of I was

(50:42):
having seven legal wives and Ican only find one.

SPEAKER_01 (50:46):
Yes, I remember that

SPEAKER_02 (50:46):
quote.
Well, that's kind of true inthat Emma is his only legal
wife.
And it's not even a denial thatyou have seven wives.
It's just saying what a thing.
I mean, this is the thing isthat Joseph tried very hard to
just, you can see, I think, thesort of mental gymnastics Joseph

(51:08):
himself was doing.
to try to justify it in his ownmind.
So he did not overtly, flatlydeny polygamy so much as try to
change the subject, try to pinit on John C.
Bennett's spiritual wifery,which he insisted was not the
same thing as plural marriage.

(51:30):
But, I mean, the short answer toyour question is yes,
absolutely.
The longer answer, I think, atleast allows me to give Joseph a
bit more grace.

SPEAKER_01 (51:39):
And my third question is, if we look at, you
know, by all accounts, allreliable accounts, based on what
we know, what the church hassaid, what it hasn't said, other
reliable sources, RichardBushman, the other materials
that are out there on thechurch, including the website,
is it safe and honest andreliable for us to surmise that,

(52:04):
again, by the standards of thechurch, the definition of
honesty and the logic behindthat, that the church teaches
very clearly, is it accurate,reliable to say that Joseph
Smith actually lied aboutpracticing polygamy and the
relationships he had behind hiswife's back?

SPEAKER_02 (52:27):
Yes, and it's also, I think, safe to say, to go even
much further beyond that, to saythat the church institutionally
since the time of Joseph Smith,has not been honest about
polygamy.

SPEAKER_01 (52:48):
Yeah, and again, I'm applying the same standards in
Lesson 31, right?
If we're going to use thatlesson as it's intended, I
think, partly to criticize theworld and dishonesty out in the
world, which is fair criticism,sure.
we should apply that samestandard and those same

(53:10):
definitions to us.
Yes?
To the other.
I mean, the only true churchupon the face of the earth,
right?
We've talked about the role ofthe Holy Ghost briefly, you
know, in teaching truth.
Joseph Smith, it's clear, again,that he lied about polygamy.
It was a complete mess.

(53:32):
I agree with you.
I think he set out maybe hedidn't say this.
I think he set out to createsomething, a movement, a
religion.
He had questions about himself,repentance.
There's all this religiousactivity going on.
He had his own spiritualexperience.

(53:53):
I believe that.
I believe he prayed in a groveof trees.
He had a, in his mind, aprofound spiritual experience.
Some vision in his mind, whetherChrist or Heavenly Father
appeared to him in person is, inmy mind, up for question.
But he had a profound spiritualexperience.

(54:16):
He took pieces of other aspectsof the religious revival at the
time, etc., had his ownChristian upbringing with his
parents, pieces there, createdthis organization, this church,
Well, this organization looksvery different now than when it
did back then, by the way, asyou know, right?

(54:37):
This is a very differentorganization to when Joe Smith
set this up.
Nevertheless, he set this up,organization, he had some
objectives, probably financial,spiritual for sure, political
probably as well.
He had political aspirations.
There was the sexual desire, Ithink, that existed in him.

(54:58):
I can't, I don't, I'm not whereyou are.
I believe there were otherselfish objectives that Joseph
had, certainly Brigham Younghad.
And I think he thought that thepolygamy was one way, not the
only way, but one way ofachieving those selfish

(55:20):
objectives.
There were other objectives withpolygamy, I get that.
But I think there was definitelya selfish...
gratification objective that hehad in those thoughts that he
had of how does he achieve thatand polygamy he thought helped
achieve that amongst otherobjectives for sure.

(55:42):
The whole thing turned out to bea disaster.
I mean that question bringing upsomebody who's your father and
they said you is justextraordinary.
I think there's two morethoughts as we kind of roll this
up here.
I think This decision by thechurch to address this in the

(56:03):
primary material is, again,broadly positive because it
brings it to light.
However, it's a missedopportunity to get into some of
the detail, but therein lies theproblem.
Once you start getting into thedetail, Jim, that's where the
problems arise, and that's whatgenerates more questions.
And so this is a limited window,and the reason why I say that is

(56:26):
that the church...
can only go so far on this withthis audience, with these
children.
Because if it goes into too muchdetail, it generates confusion.
I mean, the kids who are intraditional conventional
families, you know, mom and dad,right?

(56:49):
Siblings, that's the traditionalmodel.
To them, they'll find this justpeculiar and odd.
And then the other principle isthe articles of faith, which
talks about in point number 12,we believe in being subject to

(57:13):
kings, presidents, rulers, andmagistrates, and being in
honoring and sustaining the law.
Polygamy back then, pluralmarriage, having physical
relationships, I don't thinkadultery was illegal, but having
plural marriages back in the1830s was illegal.
And even more so when theauthorities got more details of

(57:37):
this, they really came downpretty hard on the church and
actually forced the church,let's face it, forced the church
to change its position on pluralmarriage, which it did.
Privately, I think some, well,you've said this before, they
were practicing plural marriage.
Even now today, I believe thechurch still believes in plural

(58:00):
marriage and actually practicesplural marriage.
Elder Oaks is married to Seald,the two women.
And I think if the church couldhave its way and the law allowed
it, the church would bepracticing plural marriage
today.
Nevertheless, I think this isthe best that the church can do

(58:24):
to inoculate the children.
What they've got here, it's thebest.
I mean, great minds will havepoured over this.
Every word, every sentence,every line.
They'll have thought about thisfor two years before they put
this together and put this out.

(58:44):
And I agree with them.
This is a strategic move.
This is the best they can dogiven the complexity of and the
darkness, and keeping in mindthe pain and suffering, Jim,
that these wives like Emma willhave gone through.
Let's not forget that, in myopinion, they were victims of
this awful dishonesty.

(59:05):
And we've said, I asked thequestion earlier, trying to ask
it in a very balanced way, wasGeorge Smith honest about it?
Did he lie about this?
He lied about this.
And it caused immense pain andsuffering for these women.
And we must highlight thatbecause these lives were broken,
they were damaged.
Can you imagine how they felt,the tears and the heartbreak,

(59:31):
having found out that thehusband has been having these
relationships and not told them?
Why on earth didn't he just tellthem about this revelation and
say, hey, look, this is thesituation.
I want to involve you in theconversation and where's the
respect for Emma?
Zero respect.

(59:52):
And is that the quality of aprophet?
I mean, we're talking basic, butyou're talking about
infallibility.
I'm talking about the basics ofhuman decency, honesty with your
wife, with your family members.
And if you haven't got that, areyou really a prophet of God?

(01:00:14):
And the other thing as well, ifthis is an eternal principle,
And God's laws are higher thanmen's laws.
Has God acquiesced?
Has he given in to man-madelaws?
If this is such an eternalprinciple in section 132, a
principle that we need topractice in order to achieve the

(01:00:35):
highest level of eternal life,polygamy, again, there's lots of
doctrines and references onthat, that we achieve that level
of eternal life and be with theHeavenly Father if we except the
fullness of the gospel.
Presumably plural marriage is animportant part of the fullness
of the gospel.

(01:00:56):
Why has God given in to man-madelaws?
Aren't God's laws higher thanours?
I mean, that's anotherconversation.
But the problem I've got withthis is it's not...
It's deliberately missing outimportant information.
Then again, the church...

(01:01:18):
can't get into that detail and Iunderstand that I get that but
it's not honest it'sdeliberately say missing really
important information now thekids aren't stupid you know
there's some smart kids outthere the youth are smart

(01:01:38):
they'll look at this they'llresearch it will it inoculate
them some of them for sure butJust as a closing experience
here, when I was set apart on astate presidency, going back a
bit now, this was at the MittRomney.
Was it 2010?

(01:01:58):
I think it was.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:00):
Well, Mitt Romney was the nominee in 2012.
2012.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:05):
So 2012, it was, I remember leaders in British
Columbia, church leaders, seniorleaders, area authority 70s,
talking about a new initiativethat Elder Oaks was behind that
he introduced in our stake.
He called it hastening the work.

(01:02:28):
There was no question that thework is true.
The cause was great.
Our focus now was hastening it,advancing it, and accelerating
it with the words.
We've got the truth.
We've got the gospel.
We've got this amazingorganization.
The foundation is there.
How do we scale it?

(01:02:48):
That was the message.
And how do we scale it in 2012at what they call the Mormon
moment, which was the MittRomney component.
And they talked about, and I'vegot it here, they talked about
bringing the church out ofobscurity.
Another lesson that NeelyMaxwell talked about where the

(01:03:10):
Lord in the Doctrine andCovenants He says, among other
things, the past obscurity ofthe church is giving away to
visibility.
Obscurity, do you notice that?
Which is generally unknown andwithdrawn from the centers of
activity.
Hence, the obscure is oftenmisunderstood.
It's nearly Maxwell's talktitled Out of Obscurity.
The Lord describes how he willbring his latter-day work,

(01:03:33):
quote, forth out of obscurityand out of darkness.
These were the scriptures thatwere shared with us as a new
presidency in when Mitt Romneywas running for the US
presidency, it was the Marvinmoment.
We were accelerating andadvancing the work.
We were, quote, hastening thework.
Elder Oaks was behind it.

(01:03:55):
The internet was a tool to beable to advance the work.
And now I think all this out ofobscurity has not entirely
backfired, but they've got...
The church has got this bigproblem now with all this
material on the internet, theinternet that has been a major

(01:04:16):
problem for the church.
And the youth and the primary,certainly the youth, will go
online.
They will research it.
They'll come across thispodcast, many, many of the
podcasts.
They'll dig into the details.
Actually, I think I'm wrong.
I think I'm wrong.
They probably won't do that.
They're probably not going to dothat.
It's going to your point aboutwhether they want religion in

(01:04:38):
their life or not.
But if they do research this andinvestigate this, and some will,
they will find the dark side, ifyou like, of polygamy.
And there is a deep, darkunderbelly of polygamy that
destroyed many lives anddisrupted many lives.

(01:05:00):
And the discerning youth, if youlike, will discover this.
And they will see that thismaterial exists.
Missed it.
Because this material will beevidence also.
Yes, evidence that the churchhas tried to address it.
You know, if we fast forward now20 years, and this is still

(01:05:22):
around on the internet, thischildren material, we'll see the
church will use that and say,hey, we talked about this 20
years ago.
It's not new.
This is old stuff.
But on the other side, you canargue, well, let's look at it.
They will have the sameconversation that you and I are
having right now.

(01:05:42):
They say, well, you missed this,and you missed that, and you
missed that.
And there's probably other stuff20 years from now that will come
to light that we don't knowabout right now in regards to
polygamy, which is a big issue,a constant, big, major, major
problem that has neverdisappeared, ever-present, and

(01:06:03):
always been one of the majorissues impacting people the
ability of the church to advanceand accelerate and scale this
tiny, tiny church, the only truechurch in the tiny, tiny church
in the context of the globalpopulation.
Right?
So, yes, broadly, it's a goodmove.

(01:06:24):
To summarize my thoughts here, agood move.
Yes, it brings the big, one ofthe big issues, raising the
priesthood of the one, you know,there's other big ones, but this
is probably the biggest one ofthem for sure.
It brings it to the surface herein front of the children.
It is designed to inoculate thekids.

(01:06:44):
I think it will be used againstthe church like we're doing
right now in criticizing thechurch for not being completely
open and honest about thedetails behind this.
And I think the church, Jim,will continue to struggle and
wrestle with polygamy fordecades.

(01:07:05):
It's going to be a problem fordecades.
People will not accept it.
And I think the church has to,at some point, and I'll finish
on this, accept that, likeracing the priesthood,
prohibiting black people fromhaving temple blessings and
having the priesthood, that itwas a downright mistake.

(01:07:27):
Now, the church is not ready tosay that, as blunt as that.
But I predict, if I can put myprophet hat on here, I think in
the next five to 10 years, Ithink the church will come out
in some way and say, polygamywas a mistake.
And somehow, some way, it willdisavow it.

(01:07:49):
It's disavowed, in the Race andthe Priesthood essay, disavowed
any behavior of individuals whowere racist in the church.
Don't make specific references.
Where I believe there'll befurther material coming out to
disavow the church from thisawful practice of polygamy that

(01:08:13):
destroyed so many lives andimpacted so many.
So yeah, they're my thoughts.
Any concluding thoughts fromyour end?

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:23):
Yeah, I appreciate your concluding thoughts.
I don't share the, what's theword I'm looking for?
Well, let me just back up.
There is no question thatpolygamy looms large in the

(01:08:45):
public imagination, and itcontinues to haunt the church to
this day.
And you are correct.
To some degree, it is stillpracticed in the church to this
day.
Carolyn Pearson wrote abeautiful, heartbreaking book
about a few years back calledThe Ghost of Eternal Polygamy,

(01:09:07):
where she talks about the factthat it's a mistake to think of
polygamy as a historicalmistake, that we need to think
of polygamy as a current andenduring mistake, because women
in the church are haunted by theidea that if they were to die as

(01:09:28):
President Nelson and PresidentOaks' wives died, first wives
died, that their husbands willbe free to be sealed to another
woman and that they will beexpected to share their husband
with that woman in the nextlife.
My uncle, his wife died.

(01:09:52):
He remarried one of her bestfriends.
And the conversation was allabout, oh, it'll be great
because Aunt Theda will loveBetty.
And they were already friends,so this won't be a problem.
Betty ended up dying, and myUncle Wally ended up marrying a
third woman who was alreadysealed to somebody else.
And he tried to get sealed toher after she died.

(01:10:15):
And the church told him no,because she was already sealed
to her first husband.
So, you know, this is still withus.
This is not...
Just a historical relic.
I want to return, however, towhere we began, which is with
this article and my statementthat this article is a good

(01:10:37):
thing.
Because for all of the flaws init, I mean, you pointed out
where it hasn't been entirelyhonest.
I pointed out where it hasn'tbeen entirely honest, where it's
leaving out really importantinformation.
For all of its weaknesses...
for all of the problems that wehave wrestling with, confronting

(01:11:01):
the legacy of this practice,this is the church moving in the
right direction.
This is the church movingtowards the kind of honesty, the
kind of transparency that wedemand from it, and that the

(01:11:21):
church has taught us needs to bea part of our own individual
lives.
The church of my childhood wouldnot have even dreamed of
anything like this.
And the church even of my youngadulthood was excommunicating in

(01:11:42):
the September 6th in 1994,excommunicating D.
Michael Quinn for pointing outthat the church continued to
practice polygamy after themanifesto.
It's not that Michael Quinn didanything that was contrary to
the principles of the church.
It was that Michael Quinn toldthe truth and the church,

(01:12:04):
particularly Elder Packer,wasn't having it and just did
not want the truth to be outthere.
And so the church of 1994 was achurch that would have said, We
just don't talk about this.
This just didn't happen.
We're just not going toacknowledge it.
The Church of 2024 or 2025, wewere recording this in the new

(01:12:28):
year, and this is going to beintroduced to children in this
year.
The Church of 2025 has come farenough that not only are we
willing to acknowledge thereality of polygamy, in the
Gospel Topics Essays and in theJoseph Smith Papers Project,

(01:12:50):
where all of the documents aboutpolygamy are being made public.
I mean, the church has done somany good things in terms of
moving towards transparency thatthey're now even willing to
acknowledge this with ouryoungest and most vulnerable

(01:13:11):
members.
Now, have they done a good jobin that?
I mean, I think it's a halfmeasure.
I think there's actually part,this tells more than I thought
the church would, but doesn'ttell nearly enough to be able to
say it's fully honest.
So yeah, we can talk about that.
I want to embrace and applaudthe church's efforts To move

(01:13:35):
towards the transparency that ithas no choice but to provide, I
think.
I mean, I think there are stillleaders in the church.
I believe there are really—thefact that this exists, that this
thing exists, it's, I believe,the product of a great deal of
behind-the-scenes tension, I amsure.

(01:13:57):
that there were brethren whosaid, you can't do this.
We can't do this.
You can't put this in theprimary manual.
And there were other brethrenwho said, not only can we do
this, we should go further thanthis.
And then what eventually endedup was some kind of a
compromise.
But there are still leaders inthe church who think we have a
choice, who think we can stillsort of sweep polygamy under the

(01:14:23):
rug.
We can still sort of pretend itdoesn't exist.
And they're the ones, I think,that are in the way of the kind
of transparency and honesty andaccountability that the church
needs to take for pluralmarriage.
If there is a good side toplural marriage, and I think
that argument can be made thatthere is a good side to it.

(01:14:46):
I mean, I think the autonomy ofthe Relief Society in the early
20th century, in the late 19thcentury, I mean, I think that
there are stories that can betold that can make plural
marriage less of the absolutedisaster it appears to be to
most people who look at it.

(01:15:06):
But you can't tell those storiesunless you tell all the stories.
You can't make an argument thatpolygamy wasn't that bad if you
don't address the arguments thatit was, if you don't address the
realities and the heartbreak, ifyou don't address...

(01:15:26):
The dynamic between Joseph andEmma that split the church and
that created the community ofChrist, which for a century or
so refused to acknowledge thatJoseph Smith was a polygamist.
Until you address all of thetruth, you cannot highlight the

(01:15:48):
truth that makes the church lookgood.
And so the church is in aposition where really it has no
choice but to address polygamy.
And this is its first sort of,not first, but first with
children, one of the first sortof halting efforts to do that,

(01:16:10):
to be transparent.
And it's not entirelysuccessful.
I don't think the Gospel Topicsessays were entirely successful.
I think they were half measures,and half measures never satisfy
anybody.
But it's a step in the rightdirection.
We're going the right way.
If the church has a future, it'sa future that has to somehow

(01:16:32):
come to terms with the legacy ofplural marriage.
If there is a way to do that, ifthere is a way to reconcile all
the goodness of the restoredgospel with all of the messiness
of plural marriage and howJoseph Smith is at the heart and
the center of both of thosethings, If there is a way to
reconcile that, we won't be ableto find it until we are fully

(01:16:56):
honest and we are fullytransparent.
And so I want to conclude thisepisode by applauding the
church, applauding the churchfor taking steps in the right
direction.
We've got a whole lot.
I mean, I say you to the church,but I'm in the church.
This is my church.
We as a church have a long wayto go.

(01:17:18):
We have a whole lot more we haveto do.
But when we go in the rightdirection, I think that should
be applauded.
And hopefully that willencourage the church to continue
to move in that direction andget to where we need to be.
So those are my final thoughts.

(01:17:39):
Any rebuttal?

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:42):
No, no, Rupert.
I thought it was really good.
You know, we have a balancedapproach on the podcast.
You've got your side, I've gotmine.
A lot of stuff we agree, somethings we don't.
And I think that that yin-yangbalance is just really healthy,
really good.
I'll say one last thing.
The polygamy issue will never goaway.
It's part of the church history.
It happened.

(01:18:03):
We can't deny it.
It was a mess.
I don't know anything good camefrom it.
I can't think of that.
We won't get into that rightnow, but it will never go away.
And somehow the church has tocome to terms with it.
Yes, I agree.
It's a step in the right move.
And I appreciate youhighlighting that.

(01:18:24):
That's an important point, Ithink, to finish on.
So that was my final, finalcomment.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:30):
All right.
Well, that concludes thisepisode then.
I hope it doesn't conclude thechurch's efforts to be
transparent and accountable forplural marriage.
But we will be here throughoutthe coming new year to be able
to discuss these sorts ofthings.
And Ian, I'm very, very gratefulthat you are my partner in crime

(01:18:51):
in this.
And I can't think of anybody Iwould rather be discussing this
with than with you.
So...
And I want very much ourlisteners to know how grateful
both of us are that you arejoining us in this journey and
that we can have theseconversations with you.
And we look forward very much totalking with you next week on

(01:19:13):
the next episode of Inside Out.
Thank you very much, Ian.
Thank you, Jim.