Why beat a dead horse (Joseph Smith and Polygamy).

If you followed the two links in my prior post, you’ve discovered Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith vigorously and openly challenged the secret activities of many LDS people, including leaders, who had adopted ‘spiritual wifery’ (Polygamy/Bigamy). Joseph Smith did not permit instigators to go unchallenged, bringing many before church councils to root out the truth. Joseph Smith himself was once accused by Oliver Cowdery of an immoral act with 16 year old Fanny Alger, which led to a council where Cowdery recanted the accusation and Joseph was acquitted.

John C. Bennett is a character you may have known little about, yet he played a principle role in everything that influenced this secret ‘illicit sex society’ in Nauvoo. After his excommunication for immorality, Bennett helped establish and operate the ‘Nauvoo Expositor’ printing press, which published the article that Joseph Smith was the influence behind the ‘spiritual wifery’ practice. After the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of Bennett’s printing press, Joseph and Hyrum Smith were charged in connection with that order and ended up at the Carthage jail, where their lives ended. Bennett went on to publish a book that pinned ‘spiritual wifery’ entirely on Joseph Smith. In the book, Bennett claimed to have infiltrated Mormonism to expose it as a fraud; Bennett was the actual ‘fraud’. Since current LDS Church leaders agree that Joseph Smith secretly practiced plural marriage with up to 34 women, some as young as 14, and he was having sex with most of them (ref. BYU's FairMormon), they appear to agree that Bennett was at least partly right.

The second link in my prior post is a summary of DNA research that proved Joseph Smith did not father children with numerous purported plural wives. So if recent LDS Church leaders assert Joseph Smith did [father children with plural wives], but DNA science [so far] is proving contrary, in which should I place my confidence?

In an era [1830–1844] of no contraception, pregnancy could not be prevented if sexual intimacy was happening (except in rare cases of sterility).The DNA study proves Joseph Smith was not the biological ancestor of these descendants, therefore, he did not have sexual intercourse with those women who claimed to be his plural wife. I perceive Ugo Perego, who happens to be LDS, has no agenda to prove Joseph Smith was or wasn’t a Polygamist, he is simply a Scientist who strives for facts (a/k/a ‘truth’). Since Brigham Young University dropped the funding of the study mid-stream, Mr. Perego is continuing the study with private support.

Everyone in Mormonism knows that Emma Hale Smith and her children did not follow Brigham Young to Deseret (Utah). Near the end of Emma’s life, she gave a sworn statement that her husband did not institute or practice a concept by any name that involved having sexual intercourse with other women. Read Emma’s testimony to her children, grandchildren, and the world; pray about what she said; Emma would be a 'liar' by definition if you agree with the LDS Church on this one.

By 1852, Brigham Young went on to challenge the United States Government that Polygamy (or ‘Celestial Marriage’ in LDS terminology) was protected by the 1^st Amendment of the Constitution. By 1882, the Federal Government had enacted laws to stamp out the practice of men cohabitating with more than one woman anywhere in the United States and its Territories. Even though Brigham Young and his successors eventually lost the battle, the practice of ‘celestial (plural) marriage’ was driven underground. Today, more than 80 factions of the pre-Manifesto LDS Church still practice a form of ‘celestial (plural) marriage’. The mainstream LDS Church admits the practice within the church went on into the 1930’s. Most LDS members today believe in a doctrine that ‘celestial (plural) marriage will persist throughout eternity.

So is this an ‘old news … time to move on … nothing important about this anymore’ kind of thing? Some have said to me ‘…then don’t study about it and it won’t bother you so much’. Not so fast … it was LDS Church leaders that recently decided to release an Essay on the subject, and I appreciate they did, because the truth is always relevant.

Obtaining the truth is agonizing when it challenges everything you believe, but in the end, truth is essential to triumph. The Lord does not walk in crooked paths, He does not say one thing, but mean another. When man disobeys God, he stumbles and is left unto himself, confusion sets in and doctrines of men prevail.

In the Spring of 1820, do you remember how Joseph Smith described his experience of going to a ‘sacred grove’ to pray to God about which church he should join? As he began to pray, do you remember his description of nearly being destroyed by an evil influence? Do you think that ‘evil influence’ ever left him alone as he lived his daily life? When Cain envied God’s approval of the sacrifice made by his brother, Abel, it was that same ‘evil influence’ that encouraged Cain to murder his brother, and thereby take possession of all his brother’s achievements. That ‘evil influence’ is alive and well in our lives too; it is at the root of every occasion that a person bares false witness against another, or exploits a person’s vulnerability, or exercises control or dominion over others in the name of ‘priesthood’.

What if Joseph Smith is innocent? What if ‘spiritual wifery’ or ‘celestial plural marriage’ was not introduced and practiced by him? What if Joseph was only sealing men and women to himself as the ‘Father of the last dispensation’? Can believing that Joseph Smith engaged in plural marriage when he really didn’t constitute ‘speaking evil’ of him, as Moroni proclaimed many people will do?

Ask God as you patiently study his word and history, and truth will distill upon your soul.

The next installment on this topic will get into the scriptures (Jacob 2; D&C 132).