Gospel Topics Chapter 8 Smith Part 5

Mormonism 101 for Teens is a valuable resource for anyone wanting a simplified view of the Mormon religion from a Christian perspective. Mormonism 101 for Teens is available at the Utah Lighthouse Bookstore in Salt Lake City or mrm.org.

Hope you're having a very pleasant Friday. Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM. Today we wrap up Chapter 8 in the book, the LDS Gospel Topics Series, a scholarly engagement. This chapter deals with the Gospel Topics essay titled Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah.

It was released by the LDS Church on December 17th, 2013. The chapter is written by George D. Smith. I think he does a very good job in talking about that particular essay that was produced by the church. But in yesterday's show, Eric, we were talking about a statement that the essay makes regarding the importance or perhaps you might say the not so important understanding of plural marriage during the 19th century.

But he ends that section with this comment. He says the church's essay in attempting to soften or mitigate the church's hardline 19th century position regarding the centrality of plural marriage may have left some readers with a mistaken, if not erroneous, understanding of polygamy's importance to the historical church. Why is that statement by George Smith so important?

Well, we need only turn back a page and look at page 220 to see what the essay tries to do. It says the essay stressed that while, quote, church leaders viewed plural marriage as a command of the church generally, they recognized that individuals who did not enter the practice could still stand approved of God, end quote. Now, on the next page, 221, George Smith, the author of this chapter, lists several citations from early Mormon leaders, primarily Brigham Young, the second president of the church. He also cites a citation from Joseph F. Smith, who would later become the sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also mentions John Taylor. John Taylor would become the third president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in 1866, when he makes the following statement, he was an LDS apostle.

We want to read for you the quotation from John Taylor and show you when you compare what John Taylor says with what the essay itself tries to imply, there is certainly a contradiction. Where did this commandment come from in relation to polygamy? It also came from God and was made binding upon his servants.

When this system was first introduced among this people, it was one of the greatest crosses that ever was taken up by any set of men since the world stood. When this commandment was given, it was so far religious and so far binding upon the elders of this church that it was told them if they were not prepared to enter into it and to stem the torrent of opposition that would come in consequence of it, the keys of the kingdom would be taken from them. When I see any of our people, men or women, opposing a principle of this kind, I have years ago set them down as on the high road to apostasy.

And I do today. I consider them apostates and not interested in this church and kingdom. So John Taylor is telling the people that this is doctrine that comes from God and is binding upon his servants. He says binding upon the elders of this church.

Twice he uses the word binding. Then he says, if you don't do it, if you oppose it, the consequence would be that the keys of the kingdom would be taken from you. John Taylor looks at those members of the LDS church who oppose this principle.

I consider them apostates and not interested in the church and kingdom. That seems to go against what the essay says and what George Smith cites on page 220. And for space, he only gives us four citations. But Bill, in your book, in their own words that you put together, you have eight plus pages on the issue of polygamy. This was a very serious topic in the 19th century for the leaders. And over and over again, they said you had to participate in polygamy or not have the ability to go to the celestial kingdom.

I think this is important. These are just a few select quotes that he's given, but there are many more resources we could go to. On page 225, George Smith brings up the subject of civil disobedience because we know, and we're going to be talking about it in a future broadcast, that even though the Manifesto was supposed to bring the practice of plural marriage to a close, it didn't really do that.

It was still being practiced after 1890. What does George Smith say on page 225? He writes, as it draws to a conclusion, the 2013 LDS essay noted that after the US Supreme Court declared anti-polygamy laws to be constitutional, the church and its members responded by continuing to practice plural marriage and by attempting to avoid arrest as public and private acts of civil disobedience. Offending church members paid fines and submitted to incarceration, as well as separated into different households and or went into hiding under assumed names, particularly when plural wives were pregnant or after giving birth. The essay's strategic use of the term civil disobedience seems calculated to bestow greater nobility upon members' actions at willfully engaging in unlawful activities than non-Latter-day Saints may have been inclined to grant or than the LDS church today might be so willing to afford. That seems like a delicate task for the writer or writers of this essay. At one point, you're claiming to be a church that follows the laws of the land, but yet at the same time in the essay, you're lifting up those who practice their faith despite the fact that the government was saying, you're going to go to prison if you do so. He continues on page 225, And this is what he writes, And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed and with famine and plagues and earthquakes and the thunder of heaven and the vivid lightnings, shall this nation and the nations of the earth be made to feel the chastening hand of an Almighty God until they are broken up and destroyed and wasted away from under heaven, and no power can stay my hand.

Therefore, let the wicked tremble, let them that blaspheme my name hold their lips, for destruction will swiftly overtake them. What's the date of that statement again, Eric? That's dated 1880.

1880. Has destruction swiftly overtaken them? Now, who are the them? Well, obviously, it would include the government of the United States.

He says, And I say again, woe unto that nation or house or people who seek to hinder my people from obeying the patriarchal law of Abraham or plural marriage. This is specifically a threat against the United States government. Let's not forget the Morrill Act, the Antibigamy Act of 1862. And then later on, you would have the Edmunds Tucker Act later in the 1880s. The hammer is coming down on the church.

They better stop this or they're going to be disenfranchised and their property is going to be confiscated by the government. It's the church that ends up crying uncle, not the U.S. government. But here's what I find fascinating about this. This is supposed to be a revelation to Wilford Woodruff. Now, at the time, he's an apostle.

Later, he would become the fourth president. But it's supposed to be a revelation to Wilford Woodruff. Now, when this revelation was disseminated to the membership, did they not understand this as being just as much a revelation or command from God as the doctrine of polygamy itself? And the reason why I ask that is because if they felt that the doctrine of polygamy certainly came by revelation to a leader in the church, why would they take this particular revelation with any less seriousness?

But yet, as you've noted, it was the church that failed. And even though Wilford Woodruff attributes these words to God, in other words, he's adding words to God's mouth that God never said, why are there still members of the LDS church today? Obviously, this statement, if nothing else, proves that at least Wilford Woodruff was a false prophet, because that did not happen the way Woodruff said it would happen. He says God is going to do all these things if nothing is done about the restrictions on this patriarchal law of Abraham, and yet nothing was done to alleviate those restrictions. He also lists one more citation that's from the LDS First Presidency, an epistle to the Latter-day Saints, and this one is dated 1886. I'm just going to read a portion of it where this statement says that it means dishonor, treachery, cruelty, and cowardice.

It places not the law but a gross and wicked perversion of the law above the revealed will of God and the noblest promptings of the human heart. It is a promise that no true Latter-day Saint can make and that no humane being would demand, but yet the church would acquiesce in years to follow. On page 226, Smith writes, The 1880s also saw ranking church leaders perform a special cursing ordinance after compiling a 13-page list of nearly 400 names of the church's enemies, including past and sitting U.S. presidents Martin Van Buren, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James Buchanan. So the church has an enemies list, and as it says here, nearly 400 names, and we see only four of the names that were on there that were prominent United States presidents. Obviously, this meant a lot to the leadership at that particular time that they would come up with this 13-page list. George Smith ends by commending the church for this essay. He says, The church's 2013 Gospel Topics essay, Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah, is evidence of a laudable institutional willingness to begin to address the challenges of a past that is more controversial and more interesting than many earlier church officials had us believe. So despite the many criticisms that George Smith has, he does commend them for coming forth with this kind of information. We hope you will join us again as we look at another Viewpoint on Mormonism. There and follow the instructions. MRM is a Christian nonprofit 501c3 organization, and your gifts are tax deductible. Not only that, they are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support of this ministry.