Wheat & Tares welcomes guest poster Bill Reel once more for a discussion regarding placing of blame for a lack of knowledge of Historical Facts.
As Richard Bushman says at a 2008 seminar
“Increasingly teachers and church leaders at all levels are approached by Latter-day Saints who have lost confidence in Joseph Smith and the basic miraculous events of church history. They doubt the First Vision, the Book of Mormon, many of Joseph’s revelations, and much besides. They fall into doubt after going on the Internet and finding shocking information about Joseph Smith based on documents and facts they had never heard before.”
I think each of us are aware of Church Members who had had this happen. It hurts and the anguish involved are for some almost unbearable and unfortunately some even leave the faith. While we each should do all we can to comfort and help those who struggle, some are quick to place accountability for such previously unknown information. Whose fault is it that such things were not learned sooner. The question has been debated recently in two articles.
The first by Daniel Peterson on his blog Patheos titled “Why didn’t the Church Teach me this Stuff” . In it Dan makes the following observations
I’ve not been overly patient when newly-minted apostates complain that the Church hasn’t taught them about Joseph Smith practicing polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, accounts of the First Vision beyond the one canonized in the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith’s using a stone in a hat during the translation of the Book of Mormon, and so forth.
I don’t fault people for not being scholars. I’ve publicly lamented the fact that the Saints by and large don’t know their scriptures and their history better than they do, but I know and readily admit that many such members of the Church are far better Saints and disciples of Christ than I am. What I object to, though, is when certain people loudly abandon their faith, claiming that the Church kept such things from them. This simply isn’t true.
I find such a quote (specifically the bolded portion) to be missing the mark. Bro. Peterson seems to be blaming the doubter/critic and implies that the Church has not kept such information from them. He also points us to a secondary source, another blog which addresses the same issue titled “Why didn’t the Church teach me this stuff” . The Author who goes by Geoff B seems to insinuate the same idea, that the Church never withheld any info on controversial topics. Geoff states
I do not want to diminish the emotional toll that further disclosures on polygamy may be having on some members, but I would like to posit that if you are claiming you never were taught about polygamy you are a bit naïve.
Geoff seems to be separating Polygamy from the nitty gritty details of the practice. He continues
In the wake of media attention regarding the Church essays on polygamy, one of the refrains you will hear from some members of the Church is, “why didn’t the Church teach me this stuff?”
First I would agree with Dan and Geoff that we as Church members should know about polygamy and that it occurred. Section 132 of the D&C is plenty of reason to at least know the practice occurred. Dan and Geoff both seem to think that when most members state the the Church never taught me about polygamy that they mean the practice generally. I would suggest that many are speaking directly about the nitty gritty details. Joseph lying about the practice to keep it out of the public arena, marrying a 14 year old (and other slightly older young women), marrying other men’s wives, and the Fanny Alger episode. These specific details were not taught by the Church. Polyandry (the practice of a woman being married to more than one man) was a term that got zero results on LDS.org’s search engine only a year or two ago. These details weren’t in the Ensign, Liahona, Friend, or New Era (the Church’s official magazines), official manuals, General Conference Talks, or any other LDS approved resource (with the exception of it’s genealogy site FamilySearch.org)
Polygamy whether you agree with it as a practice or not, is at least defensible using the Old Testament as a precedent and even the Book of Mormon makes it a possible exception. But the the devil is in the details. I am guessing only a small % of membership knew the eyebrow raising details of polygamy and for those who did, they likely never could have discovered such things in any LDS approved resource. In fact they are right in saying many leaders told them such details were Anti-Mormon lies.
In fact we are still instructed as teachers to steer away from discussing some issues such as polygamy at any kind of length see D&C Sunday School Teachers Manual lesson 31 where it says
The following information is provided to help you if class members have questions about the practice of plural marriage. It should not be the focus of the lesson.
Geoff finishes though by saying
The Church did teach you stuff about even controversial topics. Perhaps you were distracted or didn’t pay attention or were not curious enough to explore on your own. You are ultimately responsible for your own learning, and you are responsible for how you respond to new information. That is what that whole “free agency” thing is all about.
While I am an active, faithful, Latter-Day Saint, and while I was aware of the Church’s controversial topics, it is only because I read outside of the Church’s approved material and sought after the deeper history. In the Church I can’t remember ever getting the controversial topics. I never learned in the 3 hour block about seer stones, treasure digging (Outside Joseph’s saying he made $14.00 a month), polyandry, False racist teachings taught as Doctrine before 1978 that are now disavowed theories, and many others.
That said, I did learn lots of crazy ideas that the Church either never held as an official position or has abandoned (age of the earth, Evolution as a heresy, Resurrected beings will all be white, Joseph used the Nephite interpreters to translate the Book of Mormon, Cain is bigfoot, Jesus was a polygamist, we get our own planets, Garments do protect us from physical harm in a sort of metaphysical way, along with many others bits of speculative nonsense).
I also find it odd that we have manuals that teach Thomas Marsh left the Church over simple incorrect reasons like milk and strippings, Symonds Ryder incorrectly left over a wrongly spelled name, and ohhhh how many times I have been taught about Joseph’s leg surgery in his youth. And yet. somehow events like treasure digging which shaped Joseph’s role as a seer and Polyandry which has theological implications, seemed to never make their way into official arenas. Somehow while MormonsandGays.org is a church site, the Church has chosen to leave that site off its main webpage and chooses to say very little about it to raise awareness to local leaders. Even the essays are only in English and other countries don’t have access to them in their own language. Even here in the U.S., the new gospel topics essays and their details are relatively unknown to leaders I have spoken to. There may be completely valid reasons for doing so, but the lack of deeper history and the publicizing of deeper history when it is released is a major contributor to what framework members structure in regards to their faith paradigm and what they know, how they contextualize church beliefs, how naive one is to the Church’s history and current stance on issues.
So while I agree, we as LDS should know more about our faith’s history, there is more than enough blame to go around from the top on down.
Bill Reel is the host of Mormon Discussion Podcast. The podcast tries to deal with the tough issues forthrightly while “leading with faith”.
Why do you think are we generally unaware of such issues and their details?
How did we get to a place where we are generally naive to such things?
Is it fair to say we should have known?
What can we do beyond what has been done to better resolve the lack of information among our Church’s members?
Thank you for this. I thought Dan and Geoff’s posts were tone deaf and (disingenuously?) glossed over the real issues. As you correctly point out, the angst isn’t about polygamy generally but about the disturbing details (marrying young girls, marrying married women, pressuring women to be plural wives, and hiding it from Emma), which were most definitely NOT taught at church.
My $0.02:
Why do you think are we generally unaware of such issues and their details?
Academic historians build their narratives on a careful examination of as many primary sources as possible. Even if consideration of those details leads a reader to draw different conclusions than the author, the primary sources are what counts as evidence. On the other hand evidence-based approaches have been frowned on in our church, because personal religious experience and ecclesiastical rank has been the way to determine whether something happened, whether it is important, and what an issue means. The reason that church leaders have tried to prevent ugly historical details from coming out is because they believe that one cannot learn from them or draw conclusions from them. (See Elder Anderson’s talk) They believe that their rank and their testimony trump the historical details. When Richard Bushman said in his interview that “the facts are the facts and you have to deal with them” it is because he is a historian. When Joseph Fielding Smith cut the 1832 First Vision account out of the J.S. diary and put it in his safe, it is because he was not a historian and didn’t want details to interfere with the things that he and the members knew. I think the epistemology question is the reason. There are many cognitive biases in the human brain that push humans away from evidence-based approaches to finding truth. The underlying question is “what is the role of historical or scientific evidence?”
How did we get to a place where we are generally naive to such things?
The human brain has a very large number of well-documented cognitive biases. Most of them make humans better able to function in groups and make us more resilient. One very well known cognitive bias that exists in all cultures is that authority figures tend to be believed. We have a culture that has reinforced that inherent cognitive bias. Trusting leaders has lots of advantages. One is accepted by the group, one gains status in the group by being cooperative with one’s leaders, and faithful members can receive lots of support in trials and difficulties from their fellow members. That cognitive bias is adaptive in that it helps groups function better. Those biases work whether or not what the leader says is true.
Is it fair to say we should have known?
What is fair is simply to be compassionate and understanding. It is a Golden Rule type of thing.
What can we do beyond what has been done to better resolve the lack of information among our Church’s members?
Bill, you are doing better here than most of us. Maybe we should be asking you for advice.
Thank you for this article. I think what Dan Peterson and others miss when they blame life-long, active members for not knowing the disturbing details of polygamy is that Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s practice of of polygamy has no resemblance to the doctrine outlined in D&C 132. Marrying other men’s wives, non-virgins, and disregarding their first wife’s wishes (also Emma wasn’t actually Joseph’s first etereally sealed wife) are inconsistent with what one reads in the D&C (and with what we know how it was practiced on Old Testament times).
It’s fair to say that members should be familiar with the doctrine of polygamy as taught in D&C 132, but there is no way members would know the disturbing details without consulting non-LDS sources.
I feel Dan’s words are a bit like me as a computer professional shaming someone for not making daily backups of their computer. And to say it to someone in a faith crisis is about the same as me saying it to someone that just lost their hard disk with all of their pictures on it.
It seems to me that the blame that is decried in the original posting is a reaction to the blame that is sometimes celebrated here.
The “newly-minted apostates” blamed the church for not telling. In reaction, other church members blamed them for knowing. The first caused the second. Yet we only decry the second. I tend to think the first is unfair and the second is unkind, but to me the second seems more intellectually honest. That may be because I still choose to see the church as a “good” institution and I want to support it. I see God’s hand in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I want to sustain it.
Even so, I would prefer to see forgiveness instead of blame, all the way around. If those who decide to leave the church did so without blame, but still thought well of their former friends who stayed, that would be good. And if those who remain in the church continued to think well of their former friends who left, that would be good, too.
I don’t think Church leaders knew the “facts” as many assume they did and I don’t think it matters to the message and focus of the Church which is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and has Atoned for our sins. What difference does it make how the BoM was translated or the different ways the First Vision was documented? The result of the publication of the essays will be we will have a stronger membership. The wheat is being separated from the tares.
In the meantime I will refer to my great-grandfather as a pedofile for marrying my 12 year old great-grandmother in 1899. Big deal, folks, this is the anti-Mormon bias that the leadership wants us to avoid and we should avoid.
Another example of biased statements is when the author of this post uses hyperbole such as: “still instructed as teachers to steer away from discussing some issues such as polygamy at any kind of length see D&C Sunday School Teachers Manual lesson 31 where it says : ‘The following information is provided to help you if class members have questions about the practice of plural marriage. It should not be the focus of the lesson.'”
How does one get “instructed to steer away” from “should not be the focus”? This is just biased reporting.
I was not taught about polygamy before I was baptized. Had I known I would not have chosen to be baptized. When I did find out everyone I tried to talk about it with told me it was lies. I have never once heard polygamy discussed in church in 17 years. I learned everything I knew about polygamy from the internet mostly from sources not friendly to the church so I is hard to know what is true or false.
The blame game is ugly and unproductive. I hope we all learn our lessons on this one. Accepting everything you are told without question is not wise.
Having said that, cheating spouses lose respect for their spouse even while deceiving them because psychologically, when we know something that we know the other person doesn’t know, our respect for that person begins to erode the longer they don’t know it. On a generous day, I’ll say that the church is in an impossible situation with JS’s polygamy. It’s very difficult to eke out a favorable interpretation when you look at the actual facts with even a dose of human empathy and imagination. But it happened, and they can’t make it unhappen. They’ve inherited it.
On a bad day, I get pretty pissed off that our current leaders don’t want to disavow it because they believe that’s the eternal role of women, and they are banking on it from a personal desire perspective (not all of them, but enough to hold back the rest of them). It’s consistent with the narrative the church has woven about women; it’s an underlying assumption of the temple ceremony (hiding in plain sight). If they don’t outright disavow it, it’s hard for me not to see that as an underlying motive. It is misogynistic, but not surprising.
I don’t find it at all outside the realm of possibility that a huge number of members of the church have never read D&C 132. You don’t even have to read the whole Book of Mormon to be baptized, and that is the book of scripture that by far gets the most attention in our meetings and in our admonitions to read the scriptures daily. And we’re probably all familiar with starting out with the intention to read through one of the four standard works in with gusto in January and having pretty well petered out by June, well before arriving at the back of the book, where 132 is stashed. And never, ever have I been in a Sunday School class where we read the verses that make women want to smash things; we always just read the warm fuzzies about eternal marriage without getting to the parts about polygamy.
It’s important to remember, too, that a lot of church members are not inclined to read long, dry history books. Internet articles are a lot more accessible. Nor are they equipped with the tools necessary to determine whether a book is good scholarship or bad. I remember feeling that way before I went to grad school. There was no way I felt like I could evaluate whether a book or article counted as anti-Mormon or good scholarship. That fear (reinforced from the pulpit) keeps a lot of members away from even trying to read up on our history.
Thanks for the rational and well-put comments, Bill.
We are all responsible for our own education regarding church history and doctrine, but when we are instructed to only turn to church-approved sources (which are woefully inadequate, and I’ll go so far as to say deliberately misleading) you can’t turn around and fault people for not knowing about these issues, when they’re just following the guidance we’ve been given by the Bretheren.
Case in point: The link to the gospel doctrine curriculum you provided in your post above. It would be harder to include LESS factual information about the practice of plural marriage in the church, and yet still the instructor is told to not discuss it unless asked.
I’ll go further than your kid-gloved assessment of Dan Peterson’s comments: They were disgusting. I would like to expect more than this “blame the victim” mentality from somebody like Dan Peterson (who has had the luxury of getting paid to study LDS history). Come to think of it, since I’m familiar with Dan’s body of work, I don’t expect anything less.
The main problem is members thinking that D&C is “God Breathed”.
The 66 book Judeo-Christian Canon, known as “The Bible” and “The Book of Mormon”, are “God Breathed/The Word of God”.
Doctrine & Covenants is nothing more than Joseph Smith’s rules and regulations, and may or may not be “God Sanctioned” at best.
As for Pearl of Great Price, that is nothing more than fantasy fiction, that even Satan could have done a better job fabricating false doctrine than that laughable comic book.
Once you realize that the Bible and BoM are all that matter, and you laugh off D&C and PoGP, then nothing else that you find out matters.
Joseph Smith was human like everyone else, he was not God, he was imperfect, and screwed up, so were other prophets in the OT. There is no need to hold him, or others to a higher than human standard.
Take seriously ONLY what matters, and let the fools be fooled by foolishness. Who cares who had what wives, who cares who is anyone, all that matters is you, and your personal relationship with the Lord.
Thanks for posting this Bill. As a lifelong and 8th generation mormon I am very aware of the many historical, doctrinal and ethical issues the church has to deal with as part of how it came into existence.
My have a very understanding heart for those mormons who have not, before now, become fully aware of the issues.
But I must admit, almost none of my knowledge of these issues came from attending church, general conference, seminary, institute, serving a mission or serving in leadership positions for over 30 years. My knowledge came from a sincere desire to study and understand when issues came to my attention.
So I agree with you. Both sides need to take accountability.
But I personally feel that the church leaders have the greater burden. They intentionally have tried to stay so faith promoting that they have really created an unhealthy culture of denial which has led many good members to be in this sad position of learning hard “truths” just because they were trying to be good members.
I am glad the church is at least trying to take a baby step. Even if it is a forced step.
Apologies, source for quote from Pres. Monson:
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/obedience-brings-blessings?
Fair-handed post, thanks.
I’m with Hawk, but have a note to add to her first paragraph:
“The blame game is ugly and unproductive. I hope we all learn our lessons on this one. Accepting everything you are told without question is not wise.”
I think with the movement the church is making to ‘own’ their own story, since their alternative is keep trying to smush members’ heads farther into the sands of correlation they are starting to distance themselves from the ‘stop asking questions’ rhetoric. I mean, they wanted you to ask questions, but only the ones they had answers for. Failing that, ignore the questions and be obedient. I feel like I can substantiate these claims easily, just look at last year when the prophet said:
“There is no need for you or for me, in this enlightened age when the fulness of the gospel has been restored, to sail uncharted seas or to travel unmarked roads in search of truth. A loving Heavenly Father has plotted our course and provided an unfailing guide—even obedience”
Given the context of this counsel (from a prophet, which primary children are taught ‘knows the way’, previous admonitions to not look for LDS information outside of church-sanctioned sources etc), I’d argue the church is institutionally unprepared for what will happen if they even remotely adapt what seems to be ‘TBM’ reaction to the polygamy essays, i.e. ‘if you knew your religion, you’d have investigated this stuff already’.
I think we’re generally unaware of these issues because the church wanted us to be. I come from England, and pre-internet, the material we received from the church was almost 100% correlated, with the odd book someone might bring back from Deseret Book after a trip to America or the non-English trends started by Senior Missionary couples from Kaysville (think: handouts with cute quotes). There was no quick google search for FARMS articles, no access to Deseret Book’s accumulation of church approved materials, and when the internet arrived, there was strict advice to avoid giving into the devil and Ask Jeeves’ing whatever religious bits and bobs we fancied. I’d argue we were naive to these things because the church deemed such naiveté fit. I dont know whether the church globalized differently than they expected, or the internet really surprised them that much, but they seemed unprepared to handle the cultural gaps that so many people feel betrayed by. We should have known, yes, but the onus wasn’t on the believer.
To resolve the lack of information, the church needs to start with apology. Instead of just blindsiding members and throwing them under the bus with their newfound campaign for ‘openness’, they need to start being accountable to the rank and file that make the institution. That garment video on YouTube, for example? After decades of telling people they can’t even show their sons and daughters the ceremonial robes even as they’re in distribution buying them, to just slam that on YouTube without so much as a letter from the first pres. to say to members ‘hey, we know we said X, but we’re hoping you understand why we need to do Y’, is reprehensible. Apologising, and then explaining that the church feels a need for members to read [mormonsandgays.org, the essays, whatever] would be a good start.
Apologies for so many comments. I’m having WordPress issues
The current situation is the inevitable outcome of an institution that values promoting faith over complete honesty and transparency, which has run into the information age. It is disgusting to blame good, faithful members who spent countless hours attending church and other meetings, reading their scriptures, fulfilling their callings, and just trying to be good people for not knowing this stuff. Maybe they didn’t have time, weren’t interested in history, weren’t aware there was more information available, or felt it would be unfaithful to research church history.
But I also have sympathy for the church which felt it had a divine mission to spread the gospel and so chose to focus on its core message, present its best self to the public and the members, and warn members away from information that could harm their testimonies. It was an unfortunate choice but an understandable one.
I think having a lay membership in leadership/teaching positions is also a factor. Church leadership isn’t made of biblical scholars or theologians. Many members I know legitimately don’t care about history, and they don’t feel it has any bearing on matters of faith. In their view, as long as you have a faith that Joseph Smith was a prophet, then it really doesn’t matter what he did. As mind-boggling as that view is to me, in talking with people recently I think it’s actually a lot more common than I realized (and may have informed Packer’s “some truths are more useful than others” back in the day). When you have a large share of leaders (who determine curricula) and teachers with a generally apathetic view towards history, I can see how uncomfortable data got left by the wayside.
Another important point to make that lead me to cast a jaundiced eye in the direction of Dan and Geoff is that they off all people should also know the environment of anti-intellecutual that was growing up in the church and often directly around historical issues. The irony is that now they are embracing and pointing to scholarship produced and published in sources that they were *actively* discouraging members from reading. These were the “alternative voices” and “symposia” about which they circulated letters and warnings. They excommunicated and otherwise punished scholars and intellectuals of all stripes from Lester Bush to Eugune England to the September 6. And these were just the centrally orchestrated, high profile ones. They let grow up and supported apologetics that were based on sloppy scholarship, ad hominom and other tactics directed at the very scholars that they are now telling us we all should have read. Even today Deseret Book doesn’t carry even Todd Compton’s “In Sacred Loneliness” or “Mormon Enignma”. Intellectuals were famously decried as one of the 3 “enemies of the church” and reminded that everything “true isn’t useful”. If the details about polygamy don’t fall into that category I don’t know what does. The church shied away from incoprorating more objective scholars – lay or professional – into its leadership ranks. They blacklisted them from church institutions of higher learning. High profile scholars such as Laural Thatcher Ulrich were deemed “too dangerous” to be allowed to speak at BYU campus. Within this entire environment, cultivated systematically over a generation, is it any wonder that good-hearted and well-meaning saints avoided the very scholarship or scholarly endeavor that people like Dan and Geoff are shaming them for?
In its place were endless portrayals of Joseph and Emma as the happy loving couple. This is striking becasue it was such a reversal from the vilified Emma that had long been proglumated in church teachings due to the reprecussions of the succession fight. Alternative histories of milk strippings and misspelled names to explain early rift s in the church. We ought to be full of sympathy and empathy for good-hearted members who were simply trying to follow the church’s lead in how to spend their limited time for gospel study and focus.
And even now, the essays leave out or brush by many of the most worrisome parts in the “nitty gritty”. For example, the well-sourced instances of direct dishonesty to spouses (not outsiders), coercion and threats etc. are all left to be discovered by saints who decide they need to go beyond the essays. It is a Matrioshka doll of potential “dishonesty” by the church with which many will still have to contend.
For me, ultimately, I ask, “For what?” It seems clear to me that this price is being paid because as an institution we are unwilling to grapple honestly with falability of leaders. The essays are written with a primary agenda of exhonerating Joseph in both his instition of and practice of polygamy. We have a novel theory about sexual relations (which may be a plausible theory, but on which first hand sources are very mixed), a full-throated defense of the divine origin of the practice (despite its very murky retroactive written history).
Totally missing are any attempts to grapple with the theological mess left behind, our current practice through multiple temple sealings or more than the most cursory 2 or 3 sentence effort to grapple with the cost on the women who sacrificed so much. So forgive the concerned and close reader, whether already knowledgable or newly discovering of this history.
And this doesn’t even begin to address the huge number of non-English speaking saints for whom there is almost NO access to church or non-church scholarship or resources. Even now there are no Spanish or Portuguese language versions of the essays. As a former non-English speaking missionary and currently living in a non-English speaking country we must remember our English speaking priviledge as media from all over the world is covering this. Dan and Geoff’s objections are completely non-sensical for these members and communities.
I’m curious who the “newly minted apostates” are? This essay only came out a few weeks ago, and the only people who would be aware of their existence would be internet savvy, blogging types, who already likely knew everything anyway. These are not Ensign articles or Conference talks. Do we have any evidence that these essays are actually being read by the non-blogging Mormon mainstream, and have any of them expressed any signs of trouble?
I think what we are seeing is a fight between historically-informed Mormons about how to respond to a hypothetical mainstream LDS response. Liberals of course want to rally around the hypothetical “newly minted apostates” and conservative Mormons want to accuse them of not being genuine.
The conservatives have a point, because these “newly minted apostates” are not genuine. In fact, they don’t even exist, at least currently. So I think we have to wait and see what actually happens with the LDS mainstream. Right now, its just people who already knew about stuff voicing their shock and horror, which they’ve actually already lived with a long time.
My prediction is that few mainstream Mormons will leave the church thanks to these particular articles and any church-sanctioned dialogue it engenders. We are very good at burying our head in the sand, and we will continue to be very good at it, or put more kindly, we are very good at putting troubling issues on the back-burner and not talking about them.
But I could be wrong. These articles could be a game-changer in the way we talk about church history. However, if this is the case, I think it will take a long time for these changes to come about.
I do find it interesting that those who are supposed to be the most troubled, orthodox Mormons, are the ones who are NOT expressing surprise. The liberals, on the other hand, are moaning that somehow this information is damaging. Shouldn’t it be the other way around according to the theory on this and other like-minded posts? Personally, I think the average member either doesn’t care or knows more than are getting credit.
Nate: the reason the essays have come to the attention of less curious members is that they were featured in prominent news articles in CNN and NYT in the last week. People posted links to these articles in Facebook. So even those who aren’t looking for more information got it.
Jettboy: One of the things I find fascinating about human psychology is the ability to ignore unpleasant information that disrupts our worldview. I would bet those who are not disturbed haven’t fully digested the “lurid details” as some would say of a sexual union between a 14 year old and a 38 year old prophet who told her that her salvation hung in the balance. I’m not going to point that out to them. It won’t make them a better Christian to do so. But if they are simply taking that in stride, that just means they aren’t really paying attention. Most people literally don’t read anything past the headlines of articles. They wait for others to tell them about the news. If they are only hearing summaries that gloss over the implications, then it’s easy for them to ignore.
Hawkgrrl, if you are not going to point that out to them for the reason you gave, then why should the Church? Don’t you become part of the “problem” according to the critics? I have digested and have come to the conclusion that the Got of the OT is the same as the NT, so His morals are not our Western ones.
God of course is the word above.
“ if you are not going to point that out to them for the reason you gave, then why should the Church? ”
Because the church claims special moral leadership.
PS Did you really need someone to point that out?
Where does it claim special moral leadership? It declares spiritual leadership, with admitted moral leadership as a sub-set. But, it declares that WE members are part of that leadership for each other as much as they are.
Jetboy,
Of all the disingenuous crazy things you have ever said while trolling the bloggernacle this one is…just mind-boggling strange.
“Where does is claim special moral leadership?”
How about here. The promotional video for last General Conference we were encouraged to share with all our friends:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/invite-others?lang=eng
I agree totally with Naomi @15 and others. I was baptised in 1958 in Australia. Until I started reading blogs like this I was not aware of any of this.
Jetaboy @20 In HP group yesterday we were doing lesson 19 “in the world but not of the world”. I raised the question of whether the racism of the leaders
I didn’t get any further because I was howled down. THE LEADERS WERE NOT RACIST. Some of the HP have read the article on LDS.org about race and the priesthood and deny what it says quite clearly. “Church leaders today condemn all racism. past and present in any form”.
Some of our members are so conservative that, they are not willing to change. They will claim black is white, rather than change.
Even when the leaders change I am not sure they can.
Jettboy: “Hawkgrrl, if you are not going to point that out to them for the reason you gave, then why should the Church? Don’t you become part of the “problem” according to the critics?” Two things: 1) while I am not going out of my way to point it out, I am also not hiding it. If it comes up, I’ll speak from what I know, and 2) I’m not in a position of authority in the church – at all. I don’t write curriculum. I’m not even in a teaching calling right now. I give a talk maybe once every other year. It’s not my responsibility how the church frames information, so, no I’m not part of the problem.
I’m not advocating that the church should put it all out there, either – just don’t say things that are clearly misleading and inaccurate while telling people not to look further and that intellectuals and historians are apostates who should be cut off, then confirming that what they’ve said is in fact true if not faith-affirming.
rah, you have heard nothing yet. I wish to blow up the liberal “Mormon”internet.
I’ve been aware of the real mormon history for a very long time. I first discovered it in the early 1970’s digging in special collections and being part of the underground Xeros at BYU.
Today the real mormon history is a click away on the internet.
I don’t blame church members who are grossed out when they come across the real mormon history for the first time.
In my experience, the key to dealing with the real mormon history is to have a real understanding of mormonism as taught in the Book of Mormon.
The Book of Mormon teaches that there opposition in all things. The word “all” is only three letters, but it is a huge word.
The Book of Mormon from start to end provides one example after another of opposition at work in the lives of the followers of Christ.
The prophet Lehi for example. His family were subject to opposition, mostly from members of their own family. Certainly, the Lord could have made it easier on them by the presence of faithful children.
Lehi’s children could have all been like Nephi and Sam. But then, would Nephi been as great a prophet as he turned out to be if Laman and Lemuel were faithful?
The point is that opposition either makes or breaks followers of Christ. We are here to be proven in all things, that requires opposition in all things.
In my experience, a careful study of the Book of Mormon is the key to surviving the real mormon history. Heavenly Father promises to reveal the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to those who diligently seek for an answer. When that answer comes, then we see Joseph Smith as a prophet following God’s commands, not a philander addicted to his lust.
“When that answer comes, then we see Joseph Smith as a prophet following God’s commands, not a philander addicted to his lust.” Why can’t he be both? People are complex.
Geoff: “Some of our members are so conservative that, they are not willing to change. They will claim black is white, rather than change.
Even when the leaders change I am not sure they can.”
Not sure I’d go quite that far, but at any rate, won’t recognise the change for what it actually is (as in a retraction of a former position).
In Sunday School I’ve noticed a tendency for the teacher to allow relatively open discussion on some things, but then just before moving on to deliver a string of supposedly linked ideas that leave me gasping, but no opportunity to say something before the next subject is addressed – so for instance, yesterday there was lots of discussion of Ezekiel’s shepherds analogy, and just before moving on he came out with something to the effect of because we know when the Lord’s servants speak its as if he has spoken (main objection, only if they’re speaking His words), and because our leaders are called by leaders who are called by leaders who ultimately have a line back to the president(which presupposes an awful lot about the everyone in that chain), then anything the Bishop says is also His word as well (reintroducing main objection)… (help!). And waved goodbye to any possibility from the lesson that a Bishop or any other church leader might at times be behaving badly as a shepherd. I did manage to say something in the last two minutes of the lesson in his swift address on the sticks of Judah and Joseph though…
In my stake at the moment we do seem to be seeing a lot of doubling down on the following leaders rhetoric. This is a fairly recent change after what had seemed a more expansive period when we moved in 8 years ago. The change was precede by a change in area presidency, then stake presidency, then bishop. in fairly close succession (though stake and bishop changes were within the expected time frame – the previous stake president had been there 9 years, and the bishop 7 years).
I was in YW, but not RS, but I’m not aware that anyone mentioned the publicity generated, or the essays yesterday.
And a hilarious conversation at home, since coincidentally in our family scripture study we are reading the Doctrine & Covenants, and currently ploughing through section 132. I feel bound to point out it isn’t completely obvious (and certainly wasn’t to my husband)from the wording of the section that Joseph was actually practising polygamy, without already being aware of the history surrounding it – so yesterday we read up to verse 52, and I explained that “A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her” referred to the additional proposed husband, and that “Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph” were his wives. (Explanations I was only able to give after the reading I’ve been doing over the last few years.) He said “Joseph had more than one wife?” The children and I all said “yes!” Now I’m pretty sure when he and I were both students I did mention to him my reading of Mormon Enigma (I don’t remember much of my reading of Mormon Enigma, other than it was disturbing and I wasn’t sure what to do with the information so it got shelved over time), at least in passing. I know absolutely that on our way to the HP activity Friday evening I thought we were discussing the release of the essays (which I had linked for family & friends as I have for all of the essays) when they came out, and mentioned how they’d suddenly hit the news this week. And he thought it’s great for the missionaries because it’s always good to knock on a door and have the people say I read about you this week, in an all publicity is good publicity kind of way. Obviously none of that sunk in. Now, he doesn’t follow the news at all. I always have to tell him what is going in the world. And he is very busy and preoccupied with work, and his calling on the bishopric. The practicalities of those responsibilities aren’t leaving much head space for anything else. I think this is often the case for those in leadership positions. He does study the BoM personally daily as per ETB instructions, and has done so since baptism, over 25 years ago, but hasn’t studied the Doctrine & Covenants. He missed that year for institute, as a student, and because of church callings hasn’t always been able to attend adult Sunday School (which generally avoids discussing poylgamy anyway, and concentrates on sealing and eternal families for that part of the D&C). Add in that English is his second language, and that the Japanese translation of the D&C he has is viewed by pretty much all Japanese members as incomprehensible and there you have it (I believe a new translation was released in the last few years).
Jetboy,
Fortunately we aren’t that easily swayed or dissuaded. Lob away.
Hawkgirl,
Clearly the problem is the underlying belief that is so strong in Mormonism that the Spirit and its fruits accompany righteous living and obedience. How could Joseph have the spirit when he was violating a law that is “next only to murder”. It is almost logically impossible in current Mormon thought for Joseph to be both a philander and a spirit-attuned prophet. The whole hagriography around Joseph is built on that principle. Foibles are allowed. Mistakes/learning are allowed. But full on deceit or chastity breaking can’t be reconciled (for many). I truly wish the church had taken a more circumspect view of righteousness of the actions around polygamy. But they didn’t. It was a full throated defense of its divine origns and trying everyway possible to hold Joseph blameless of “any great sin”. The sad thing is that our apparent need to protect Jospeh’s privilege has real consequences for men and women. I really, honestly think the church membership could by in large handle a straight out reject of polygamy jsut like we weathered the priesthood ban. I think most modern Mormon women would cheer and move on. But we can’t.
This is the reason I really hope the church doesn’t release an essay on the topic of Women and the Priesthood. It will take a huge amount of flexibility for future leaders to make progress because they will feel the need to reconcile it with any new statements made and the church has all types of incentives right now to write an essay that validates the last 80 years of retrenchment.
rah: I agree that the church is in a no win on polygamy. They can’t or won’t or don’t see how to disavow the sacrifices of their beloved ancestors. They can’t or won’t or don’t see how to refute what Joseph did without undermining prophetic authority. So, once again, women get thrown under the bus.
Yesterday was the second time I’ve stood as a teacher in SS offering time to discuss the essays for anyone that wants it. Class members already know everything they want to know about the subject (“Any idiot knows Joseph practiced polygamy. Why is this news?” or “Polygamy was because of the widows and extra women, duh”). There is no way to present accurate historical information without puncturing holes in long-held misconceptions, and it is very difficult to do in a faith-promoting way. I review the history as best I can and the difficulties we have in determining what happened, leaving out the finer details that I find particularly troubling (since that’s not faith-promoting, right?), and what’s the end result? I get told (both times by different people) that *I* should really go talk to Bro. X to feel better about the topic. I’m done.
Mary Ann – If I were to hear the “widows and extra women” comeback, I would respond with, “I heard that also, but when I read the essays it does not say that at all. Maybe you should read them.”
In my ward the bishop read what I thought was something from SLC saying, “there are many topics being put in the lds website and we encourage members to study them.” I almost took that as “now we can say, ‘we TOLD you to look and if you didn’t, then the onus is on you'”
I wish they would have at least mentioned some of the topics across the pulpit. It might have generated more excitement – more than “here is some more stuff for you to read during your scripture study” as I think most ward members yawned.
after RS lesson yesterday regarding “work” I concluded mormons aren’t interested in complex discussion and actually learning any more about the topic than they are in denigrating those not living the principle as well as them and reinforcing their own perspectives that what they are doing is right on track. Apparently the only thing the church can trust it’s members to teach and learn and the most basic of basics in the black/white dichotomy. After seeing TBM responses to the essays (they were all spiritual wives!) they see what they want to see in the essays so whatever. I’m done talking about it. 🙂
Recently I was challenged to research the life of Joseph Smith. I am one of the sheep in the church who has always followed blindly without questioning authority. After doing so frankly I was shocked at the real man as opposed to what is taught in church. It made me start to think about the LDS splinter polygamist group headed by Jeffreys. I considered him to be a sick and depraved individual. I realized how similar his actions and Joseph Smith’s real life were. It really sickened me. After some reflection I realized several things. First, thanks to my very good friend helping me work through this, Prophets are imperfect and always have been. Read the Bible. Second, the whole practice of polygamy does indeed conflict with the teachings in the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I have a testimony of it and the Holy Ghost has confirmed the truth of it to me. (See Jacob 1:15, Mosiah 11:2, Ether 10:5) This is in direct conflict to section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Since God is unchangeable how can section 132 be true doctrine? My personal belief is this…Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. He was raised in a family with some crazy notions about how revelations are revealed , such as seer stones, etc. He went to pray and God and Jesus appeared to him. He did in fact have an angel named Moroni appear to him and lead him to the gold plates. He did indeed translate the Book of Mormon by revelation from God. We are all human and imperfect. Humans are all God has to work with to implement his plans. He is God and in spite of us and our human failings His plans will come to be. Joseph was a man aquainted with the weakness of the flesh and lust. I do believe in the idea of eternal families. Polygamy cannot be doctrine. Not true doctrine. Therefore some of the Doctrine and Covenants may not all be revelations from our Father in Heaven. I think some of it is. Perhaps that is indeed why we are asked to pray about the Book of Mormon when we are baptized while the Doctine and Covenants are not even mentioned. Mostly I look at it as an instruction manual on how to organize and run the church in an orderly fashion. I have also come to the conclusion that the church was persecuted because of their practicing polygamy and driven west practically destroying the church that God had restored in it’s fullness. It is my opinion that God was angry at how poluted His newly restored church had become at the hands of his Prophets.(namely Joseph Smith and Brigham Young) Once the church dropped the polygamy practice the church once again began to strive. The church was bankrupt and dessimated. Because they dropped polygamy as a tenet the church flourished once again. The church is in an awkward possition this is true. Truth is truth. If we believe in being HONEST TRUE BENEVOLENT and VIRTUOUS then honesty is the best policy. Perhaps it would help relieve some of us in the church who are so comsumed with trying to attain perfection.
#32 hawkgrrrl-
I have no doubt prophets are fallible, but leading the church (that the Father and Son restored) astray to the extent your comment suggest isn’t possible.
Joseph Smith was either a prophet or a philander, not both.
I’ve tested out his teachings over a lifetime and the results for me have proven Joseph Smith is an authentic prophet.
Again, I have to agree with Hawk that I can see theoretical possibility for a prophet to be an adulterer, even though that opens the door on hard questions, like whether Mormonism has correctly interpreted God’s perception of sexual missteps.
Often we say ‘We’re All God Has to Work With; Imperfect People!’ but when confronted with the idea of a prophet involved in extra-marital relationships with probably sexual undertones, we shout ‘Not THAT Imperfect’. I’m interested in where that cosmic delineation is drawn for people.
*probable. I can’t spell, it seems.
# 39 “After seeing TBM responses to the essays (they were all spiritual wives!) they see what they want to see in the essays so whatever. I’m done talking about it. 🙂”
Some people outside the church aren’t done though. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/16/god-vs-the-internet-and-the-winner-is.html
One part is particularly notable:
The essay on Smith’s polygamy takes great pains to emphasize that his marriage to 14 year-old Helen Mar Kimball, while “inappropriate by today’s standards, was legal in that era;” that Kimball eventually “became an articulate defender of [Smith] and plural marriage;” and that they may not have had sex.
While it’s essential to understand events in their historical and theological contexts, it’s also important to discuss the possibility of what we would call now statutory rape.
In light of the way these essays are echoing around mainstream media I wonder how long saints will be able to keep cotton in their ears however determined they may be to remain in denial. There’s also the possibility that, now that it’s out in plain sight, traditional non-church historians may investigate some of the bromides such as the ones Kristine A cites that have always softened the blow. That would just add to the stress and keep the essays current longer.
This is painful but it’s also important to have some way of evaluating what did happen and what our historic roots are. Not knowing and setting ourselves up for rude disillusionment is also painful. …as is women always being thrown under the cart wheels to square the circle as hawkgrrrl suggests.
#44 alice-
If you asked God to show you the truthfulness of the calling of Joseph Smith as a prophet who brought forth the Book of Mormon and within hours received a vision in answer to your prayer. Thereafter, you brought your life in line with the church and experienced additional unmistakable manifestation of the Spirit, how would you feel about Joseph Smith in light of the recent essays?
Jared, I think the key to your question is truthfulness. I think it is the most important proof of Heavenly Father’s existence and his goals for all of us. I think the BOM is one part of how he reveals truth to us and I think it is our job and the job of the church and all its leaders to bring our lives in line with the truth as we seek to fearlessly understand it. I think that just as we have always heard that things will be revealed to us line by line and precept by precept we are fools if we draw a line and say “I will not listen to any further revelation; I am not interested in any further truth; this is a truth I don’t want to understand”.
alice- I didn’t see an answer to my question.
There are two point I desire to bring to this discussion. First, Heavenly Father tries the faith of His followers. One example of this is found in Mosiah 23-24. The events of these two chapters can be used to understand the difficulty the church is experiencing with the real church history coming into view via the internet.
Two, Heavenly Father answers prayers in many different ways. The assumption most who frequent W&T have is that answers to prayer are rare, difficult to recognize, and therefore can’t really be counted on.
I asked you a question in #45 hoping that you would provide a simple answer, either yes or no. Didn’t happen.
I wonder if those among us who have trouble obtaining answers to prayer really want an answer?
“alice- I didn’t see an answer to my question.”
I’m sure you didn’t. Just as I suspect you’re not interested in anything else that may be revealed by an honest investigation of history.
Jared: We can’t take an everything or nothing attitude. I have had the spiritual manifestations I have had. That doesn’t preclude Joseph Smith’s free agency or give me a pass on my own actions. If he was an adulterer, that doesn’t mean I don’t have to live a moral life. It doesn’t mean the whole gospel, including the restoration, needs to be thrown out. It does mean (and this is true regardless), that I’m responsible for my own actions, just as he was. And I will be judged for those, just as he will be.
But I can’t say it’s right to coerce a 14 year old girl into a sexual union, and I don’t believe his life was threatened with a drawn sword by an angel. I believe section 132 was his attempt at manipulation of his wife and it was not from God, and yes, it was used by others to create a no win situation for women in the church in the early days. I think Joseph let power go to his head, and he went much, much too far. But that’s not the sum total of his existence. It’s not in my position to forgive for that as I wasn’t the one wronged.
The church not acknowledging the inherent immorality in his actions puts women in a difficult position because of what it implies to how the church views us all as women. We continue to be expendable as were our female forebears. I can’t say I’m surprised.
#48 alice-
I have been studying church history and doctrine for a long time. I first discovered the challenges church history presents today in 1972.
#49 hawkgrrrl-
I believe I can understand your position. It is reasonable based on your experience.
With that said, I would like to have you understand that there are members of the church who have received manifestations of the Spirit to the extent that it is not possible to have doubt about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, or the keys of the kingdom that have been passed on to the latest leaders of the church. The only doubt they have is–can they endure to the end faithfully. I am one of them.
See 2 Nephi 31:14
Hawkgirl: Your statements in #49 remind me very much of the process undertaken within the RLDS/CofC tradition for the past several decades both institutionally and individually. Among other things, this has meant moving from a rigid either/or to a rather expansive both/and approach to Joseph Smith Jr.
Keep in mind that the RLDS Church for roughly a century from the 1850s formative years of the Reorganization was Emma Smith’s and her sons’ church, and that fact casts a huge shadow over how we understood and honored Joseph “the founder.” At its core is something like the following: (1) Joseph was an honorable man; (2) honorable men don’t get involved with, much less initiate, something like polygamy [or spiritual wifery, etc.]; therefore, (3) Joseph could not have had anything to do with that practice.
What has helped us eventually to see the falsity of that approach (granted, not everybody in the CofC does, of course] was first of all the New Mormon History movement. This had the added benefit of breaking down barriers and animosity between LDS and RLDS folks, beginning with historians. But we can’t ignore the fact that the last two prophet-presidents of the church have not been direct descendants of the founder. For good or bad, it’s no longer the “Smith family business.”
Personally, I honor Joseph as the divinely led founder of our faith community/movement AND as a man with deep flaws. I don’t use the term “fallen prophet” and likewise don’t think his eventual assassination (we rarely, if ever, use the term martyrdom anymore) was caused by divine action. In short, there’s a lot to admire, a fair bit to abhor, and a great deal we simply don’t know. Maybe we never will.
It appears to me that faithful LDS folk are being forced to compress a great deal of historical/sociological/theological information and conjecture into a much, much shorter time frame than we in the Community of Christ have been dealing with it. Still, when I hear talk of 14-year-old girls, angels with flaming swords forcing Joseph to take additional wives, and the so-called “Law of Sarah” (why have I never heard this term until now?) I’m more than a little taken aback. At least I’ve had decades of conditioning before having to deal with all this current stuff.
While at BYU I took a history class from Susan Easton Black called Joseph Smith and the Restoration, 1805-1845. She never talked about Joseph’s treasure digging, stone in hat, magical world view, polyandry, etc… She mentioned Joseph’s polygamy but not any details. Only stated that estimates were 20-40 wives. When asked specifically about William and Mary Law she glossed over any story. Didn’t even mention he was heavily involved in the Nauvoo Expositor.
I aced the course because I had previously read the Church History Institute Manual and BH Robert’s History of the Church. We were never taught or tested on anything outside of the institute manual, it didn’t mention any of the details about Joseph that many find troublesome.
#36 Hawkgirl. Yep exactly. And the consequences are real in the lives of real women. That is why it is so tragic.
The only way for members to have known this information prior to the essay is if they had ignored the prophets and read anti-Mormon material.
So, these two are essentially saying, “It’s your own fault for being foolish enough to follow the prophets, unlike us.”
#49 hawkgrrrl,
Faith is a decision. We hear this often, but what does it mean?
Take the example you gave:
“But I can’t say it’s right to coerce a 14 year old girl into a sexual union, and I don’t believe his life was threatened with a drawn sword by an angel. I believe section 132 was his attempt at manipulation of his wife and it was not from God…”
This statement reflects a decision you’ve made. You’ve elected to judge Joseph Smith in this light. There is evidence to support this judgment, so it’s not unreasonable.
However, it is reasonable to believe that Joseph Smith was being inspired by God.
We live in a fallen world and there is opposition in all things or else faith would not be needed.
My position (as I stated in #51) is that Joseph Smith is God’s prophet. This is a reasonable decision based on the evidence of history, but more importantly based on personal experiences with the things of the Spirit.
Hoffbegone said, “In the meantime I will refer to my great-grandfather as a pedofile [sic] for marrying my 12 year old great-grandmother in 1899. Big deal, folks, this is the anti-Mormon bias that the leadership wants us to avoid and we should avoid.”
She was 12?!!? It doesn’t require any “anti-Mormon” anything to have an issue with that, it IS a big deal, and it is unsettling that you say your religious leaders are actively telling you to avoid those who tell you it is wrong. Are you saying your Mormon leadership encourages you to actively believe it was acceptable for a 12 year old to enter into marriage? How old was your grandfather at the time? Was the 12 year old his first wife? The definition of pedophile is not an “anti-Mormon” construct, so this is probably not the argument you want to make unless you are suggesting your leaders encourage you to avoid following the law of the land and common decency, a la Warren Jeffs.
I agree with Dan and Geoff to a certain extent. From personal experience, it’s entirely possible to learn about controversial information solely through “approved” sources. On my mission, without reading or otherwise studying unapproved materials, I learned about seer stones in a hat (and especially the fact that Joseph didn’t use the plates for much of the translation–all at a Church-sponsored symposium on the Book of Mormon), “better dead clean than alive unclean,” and other sticky subjects. I can’t remember everything off the top of my head, but let’s just say I perused most every Ensign published by the Church, and old 70s-era Ensigns included a lot of information that contradicts the dominant narrative.
This blog post begs the questions, “What responsibility do Church members have to learn about Church history? What responsibility do Church leaders have to teach Church history?” Again, from personal experience, if one’s curious or diligent enough, he or she can dig below the surface and learn quite a bit about controversial aspects of Church history through the Ensign and other Church-approved sources alone. On the other hand, I don’t expect most people to share my scholarly proclivity or interest in often mind-numbingly arcane and mundane matters.
In my opinion, the Church cannot effectively teach controversial aspects of its history due not only to potential defection, but also time constraints and budgeting of resources. If the Church were to change course and devote a large portion of resources/time/energy to teaching Church history, its mission would be derailed substantially. Thus, when Boyd K. Packer says “Some things which are true are not very useful,” abhorrent though the phrase may seem, the statement makes sense from a logistical standpoint.
Richard Bushman states that “the dominant narrative is not true; it cannot be sustained.” While I completely agree with this assessment, I also can’t think of another narrative with which to replace it. To me, the lesson learned from this quote is that the conflicting information found when studying various journals, secondhand reports, and scholarly analyses renders the idea of any narrative at all largely impossible. In other words, no one narrative contains the full picture of Church history. Therefore, the Church can’t teach any one narrative and expect a clean record when it comes to historical matters. This really complicates things, because groups need narratives in order to convey information in a timely and organized manner. However, the Church may have more to gain from pursuing a narrative-free approach than otherwise.