Whitney, Jeremy, and Michelle’s next panel discussion, on Joseph’s “carefully worded denials.” What exactly did Joseph Smith say about polygamy and the accusations against him? Does calling them “carefully worded denials” or “dodging” sufficiently explain Joseph’s continual and consistent statements opposing polygamy? Does the explanation of the apologists stand up to scrutiny?
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Links
Larry King interview with President Gordon B. Hinckley
Gospel Teachings about Lying, by Dallin H. Oaks
Ep. 117: William Henry Harrison Sagers: More Historical Malpractice
Chapter Index
0:00 Intro
1:30 Recap: No reasons given for polygamy?
9:40 Can prophets repent?
13:25 Modern Korihors?
19:15 Prophets should have answers – Amos 3:7
20:40 Pres. Hinckley condemns polygamy as a practice (link in description)
22:30 Church losing members because of polygamy teachings
25:00 Joseph & his “wives” had sexless marriages??
28:55 Brian Hales’ statements about Joseph’s denials
29:25 “Lying for the Lord”
34:05 Dallin H. Oaks – gospel teachings on lying (link in description)
43:55 Denying Joseph’s denials
47:55 “Spiritual wifery”
54:25 “Celestial plural marriage” & the doctrine of many wives & concubines
1:15:25 Joseph brings charges against Harrison Sagers (ep. link in description)
1:28:00 Joseph’s fight against polygamy
1:37:40 The Voice of Innocence
1:42:05 Outro
Transcript
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy. I am so excited to be able to bring you the next panel discussion that I had with Whitney Horning and Jeremy Hoop on Brian Hale’s handling of the polygamy narrative. In this first part of this discussion, we will be talking about Brian’s approach to Talking about Joseph’s carefully worded denials, the questions of was Joseph lying for the Lord? Was Joseph dodging? What are we to make of the statements that Joseph Smith himself made about polygamy? I hope that you will find this conversation very illuminating and very worthwhile. I’m excited to get into it. Welcome to 132 Problems. We are here. I’m here with Jeremy and Whitney again for our second panel discussion on the narrative of Brian Hailes. This is the 3rd episode because I’m splitting them into two, so I’m hoping this will be another fantastic conversation. I’ve been really excited for. it. Thank you again, Whitney and Jeremy for being here. This is actually really exciting that we’re doing this in a way because I, it feels like, you know, we’re, we’re kind of David with our little stones aiming at Goliath and, and I think maybe, maybe we’re gonna get some direct hits. We’ll see what happens. But um let’s go ahead and recap just quickly last week’s conversation when we talked about Brian saying the specific thing we covered was that Brian told us that we were never given reasons for polygamy, right? And um I think probably all of us have. Thought of new things we wanted to add to that that part of the conversation so I found one more clip we can include that I thought was ironic and kind of leads into this clip and then another, um, well, uh some more, some more information of why this is so important. So before I start into that, I wanna welcome you both here and do you guys have anything that you wanna add or say before we get going?
[02:13] Jeremy Hoop: I think we made it really clear that they gave very specific concrete reasons for why the, the, the principle was revealed and they, and, and they went down many rabbit holes in those explanations, but to say that, Brian is just simply not true.
[02:30] Whitney Horning: And I just wanna um say that as my husband and I were um listening to this, and he just said it’s a good thing the church. Doesn’t teach that in Sunday school anymore, that they stick to the um if the Lord commands it and raise up seed and way too many women in Utah excuses because the other ones are just so incredibly bothersome and quite frankly, some of them are actually disgusting that um Yeah, I think it’s a good thing that churches distanced themselves from all of the reasons that used to be given, but I think that that is not being transparent, that basically in 1852 through 1890, 1904, Utah, those reasons were the reasons that the people believed in.
[03:26] Jeremy Hoop: You know, something else that’s really, really important to understand. The reason why the, the ex-Mormons, the, um, I call them the antagonists, for lack of a better term, the ones that, that really oppose the restoration. The reason they impute to Joseph certain motivations and certain activities and certain, um, intentions, uh, and, and thought processes, behaviors, etc. is because of the things that they would say later on. And they just assume they got it from Joseph. They just assume all that stuff we read last time, uh, the originator of, of all those crazy motivations about, you know, needing polygamy is good to keep you from temptation and from hanging out with hookers and, and from disease and, um, it, you know, it’s the grandest system ever devised by God for the salvation of men on the earth and that, that it’s gonna make you, um, a savior of not only the women you bring in, but their, you know, their families, etc. etc. They, they, they superimpose that on top of Joseph Smith, and they just say that that’s what Joseph was doing and that’s how he operated. And it’s because of the things that we can verifiably say that they did say publicly, many, many times, um, in both in print form and, and in sermons. Um, so I think we need to be very clear as to where those things originate. And they don’t originate with Joseph Smith. There is not a single person who can point to anything Joseph ever says, writes, does that, that confirms those later statements. No, no matter what they say down the road, just be very clear that where it comes from is from these men, these really interesting characters, Orson Pratt and Parley Pratt and Brigham Young and Hebrew Kimball and others, comes from them. And so, But they, but Brian, they were very, very clear as to why it was, uh, as to at least why they’re practicing it.
[05:20] Whitney Horning: Yeah, I feel like that’s exactly why Brian, Brian wants to um. shy away from those, maybe, and maybe, you know, bury them. And so to say, oh, they never gave a reason, which even himself, he’s prevaricating because then he’ll say things like, well, God commanded it. Well, then that is a reason. So there was a reason, right? It’s, it’s just, um, to me, intellectually dishonest to tell people that there were no reasons given.
[05:52] Jeremy Hoop: And, and the number one reason they say is to raise up a righteous seed, you know, uh, which they claim is what Jacob 2:30 says, but Um, and we, we obviously disagree, but I don’t even know why he doesn’t even say that. That’s very interesting that he tries to minimize the argument to say, well, we don’t really know why. It’s, it’s an odd thing to say, given everything that that exists.
[06:16] Michelle: Well, what you guys have been talking about leads us into this clip, so I just grabbed a couple of clips that we left off from our last discussion that I think tie it in, so anybody who hasn’t already watched that, we did go through the Extensive reasons that were given. Monogamy is bad. It was started by a bunch of robbers in Rome who were bad guys, right? Polygamy is the glorious thing that’s going to fix all of the problems of the world, keep us safe from disease, keep all of God’s righteous men from visiting whorehouses, right? Like, I mean, on and on and on, and that women can only be saved by attaching themselves to a Worthy man, that can take them, they can raise them from the dead and be their savior. And there aren’t very many men on the world in the world that can qualify to be a savior of men. Really, there’s only one, but polygamous men qualify themselves as well. I, I’m sure there are other reasons that we’ve get that I’m leaving off, but those were generally the reasons. And they were said all over the place by many key holders and Key ring grabbers that were close friends of the keyholders on assignment by the keyholders. I will use that awful term. I thought maybe by the last time I say it, but I’m gonna go ahead and play this clip from Brian that we
[07:36] Jeremy Hoop: love the way Genghis Khan Genghis Khan would have loved doctrine,
[07:42] Michelle: by the way he lived it fully, yes. So Brian has just, he, this is where he’s responding to my video, and he’s just gone through, uh, um, quotes from each of the first presidents of the church up through Joseph, well, not he starts with Brigham Young because he can’t start with Joseph Smith, um, but he goes through and and gives us a quote from each of them about that polygamy was commanded of God because the question he’s responding to that I ask is, is polygamy of God? And he’s saying that’s not a question that’s allowed to be asked because it’s already been answered by all of these. Um, presidents of the church. So here we go.
[08:16] Brian Hales: I could have found dozens, if not hundreds more from these individuals and from other church leaders, the, the 12, those that we, uh, in the church called prophets, ears and revelators who are saying that, yes, polygamy was revealed from God. And they would also add, if we looked a little closer, it came through Joseph Smith. So we have Michelle in this podcast asking a question and answering it in a way that seems to uh reject or dismiss or ignore multiple statements that come from our church leaders.
[08:46] Michelle: That last part was my favorite because he accuses me of ignoring, dismissing, rejecting several statements that come from church leaders. Um, anyone, Brian, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing exactly what you’ve been doing in this entire discussion? Well,
[09:05] Jeremy Hoop: if you’re, if we’re gonna, if, if we’re going to make the standard that that we have to accept everything that was ever said by any church leader, and we’re, we’re in for a very long interesting discussion.
[09:17] Michelle: Yeah, it’s gonna be difficult when there were so many awful things said that we just went over. Is it the transparent thing to do to say, hey, guess what, polygamy was a mistake. It’s a problem. It was a problem. Just like racism was a mistake, just like Adam God theory was a mistake, just like let atonement was a mistake and other things. And we, um, the good, the good news is we can always repent. I guess the question that’s been going through my mind lately is, are our profits required to be perfect to the extent that they can’t. Repent, that we can’t accept repentance, right? Like, if you say, I am perfect, I cannot make a mistake, what you are actually saying is, I cannot repent because I can’t acknowledge that I could have possibly ever made a mistake. And not just me, but all of the leaders, right? So we have to choose between prophetic infallibility or our prophet can. us astray, and our prophets follow the gospel of Jesus Christ by being willing to repent and having the faith to repent. That that dichotomy really struck struck me this week.
[10:21] Jeremy Hoop: Well, in the quandary that that they find themselves in and the catch-22 is that on the one hand, they can ignore what you just listed, that long string of other things that, that the key holder, you know, Brigham Young said. I mean, he got in a public spat with Orson Pratt over, he, he said, this apostle doesn’t believe in God. He publicly told, told the audience that Orzin didn’t believe in God. Why? Because he didn’t accept Brigham’s Adam God doctrine, you know, and, and by the way, the Adam God doctrine is part and parcel with the polygamy doctrine. It’s inter uh intertwined inextricably because it has to do with the nature of the hierarchy of gods. As Hebrew would say, Brigham is my god and Joseph was his God, and, and that goes all the way back to the, to the main big god. Which is Father God, which is Adam. OK, that’s and and polygamy is built on top of my
[11:12] Michelle: husband is in the displayed in the in the temple.
[11:18] Jeremy Hoop: And so he doesn’t want, he doesn’t want to deal with that, um, or the blood atonement or or blacks in the priesthood or the many myriad things that Brigham would say over the years that are just really everybody rejects now. The problem is he can’t tie those doctrines and probably, and of course doesn’t want to to tie those to Joseph Smith. We can, we can ignore those because obviously Joseph didn’t talk about blacks and priests that way. He, he, he didn’t talk about Adam God, etc. But because, you know, he, he believes it’s, it comes from Joseph, polygamy comes from Joseph, and then of course, uh, he has to preserve that while ignoring all the rest, and that’s really the, the problem that That Latter-day Saints find them in ex-Mormons, they, they just say all of it’s bunk. The whole restoration’s bunk. Joseph’s a con man, throw the whole thing out. Um, but the problem with Latter-day Saints is you have this transition between Joseph and Brigham and you have to know how to deal with that. So that’s really what we’re, what we’re endeavoring to do is learn to separate, um, Brigham from Joseph because, because they can and should be.
[12:22] Michelle: Yeah, to not see Joseph only through the lens of the Utah polygamists, right? That’s just like you were saying at the beginning. We can’t, we need to just look at Joseph. There’s plenty of information that Joseph left, uh, his sermons, his writings, his revelations, his scriptures, the letters, I, I mean, the entire historical record of his life, give. Us a very, very different story than when we look at it through the Utah lens, right? And, and I think that we’re obligated to at least consider, I think the historians and all of the people, we need to at least look at Joseph on his own terms and consider which one is a better fit, right? Like, fine, don’t, don’t take our word for it. I mean, we’re not. Don’t, don’t accept our narrative at this point, but, but you need to at least look at Joseph’s own life on his own terms and separate that and then look at the quality of the later Utah claims and see how problematic they are and then make a decision. That’s what’s needs to be done and I, I think part of why this is so important, so many people have seen this. This was a presentation. Just done by um I think her name is Claire Haney. She’s um she’s a church historian employed by the church. I believe she works on the Joseph Smith papers and um I don’t know her relation to, um, water bottle, Elder Haney that talk that we had about squishing water bottles, not my favorite talk, but I don’t know if they’re related or not, but this. Was amazing. This is so this was just last month at the Women’s conference at BYU, and she gave a talk on modern day Korra horses. That was one of one of her other sites were. And if you look down there, it’s, it’s examples of Korra horses, and one of them is, for example, Book of Mormon happened in North America. That’s not an issue that I’ve gotten involved in, but Apparently, if you believe that the Book of Mormon happened in the in North America, you are a Kora whore. And Joseph Smith did not practice plural marriage. You are a Kora whore. This was taught by a church employed historian at BYU Women’s Conference. I find this appalling and I’m so tired of how many decades have I been called Korohore by various people, and I’m always in shock. Go read about Korah. What did Korohor teach? That there was no God, there was no Jesus, right? There would be no Messiah, no savior. The scriptures are bunk. They lead the people astray. who came and taught in direct opposition to the scriptures as opposed to, say, a Benada who came and taught the scriptures to the leaders who were living in direct opposition to the scriptures, right? We are not rejecting the scriptures. We’re doing exactly the opposite and trying to get people to pay attention to them. And this is part of why this is so important. The the the kind of division this creates is shocking to me. I, I hope that this presenter was seriously reprimanded because I can’t think of one good thing good thing that could come from this kind of a presentation.
[15:35] Whitney Horning: The other point that really bothers me about this is her 0.3 where she says that core whores are people that claim that the church has rejected or fallen away from the truth taught by Joseph Smith. In that is monotony, because we believe that Joseph was teaching truth and he was teaching monotony. But I just for me it’s so offensive, just I, I don’t like calling anybody a core whore or an anti-christ. I think we just all need to be so careful what we accuse others of and just be more open-minded and accepting that everyone’s on their own faith journey and there is truth. But if we’re interpreting the scriptures a little differently than somebody else, I mean, just leave room to be open. To let us find God. I, I don’t know, this is, this really bothered me. I was sent this by a friend and The whole purpose of this whole presentation was created to strike fear into people, so they wouldn’t go search for truth and they’ll just stay wrapped in a blanket of security that the church leaders will never leave them astray. So trust us and, you know, be scared of anyone that doesn’t sound exactly like us.
[17:09] Jeremy Hoop: I think it’s, I think it’s indicative of um. Where they how the historians see themselves as um vanguards um protecting the restoration or protecting the church. Um, I think they view themselves, at least some of them do, and it sounds like Brian Hailes does, you know, as a, an amateur historian, um, as. As providing the narrative to navigate these tricky issues and therefore setting what is acceptable and what is not. Really odd that the North America model is apparently not. That’s really, really odd to me that she would in a very public setting talk about that. Um, but then obviously calling. It’s really what I, how many 6 dozen of us, 10 of us out here who are trying to advance this narrative. There’s 10 core whores parading around on, on the internet, um, to be called that directly is pretty, it’s pretty astonishing.
[18:10] Michelle: It’s grown a lot bigger than that already and it’s calling anyone who believes that, right? It’s anyone who, who believes that is a whore or is at least, right? And that’s growing immensely. And I, I, I don’t know. I just, again, like, Let’s let’s counter the ideas. Let’s get into them, you know, like it, it is just so divisive and threatening and untrue, and I, I will say. I hope I’m OK to say, but also this um church employee has also caused problems for other church employees if anyone steps out of line at all they get turned in and you know like it’s this is an attitude that we need to decide I think what kind of church we want if if Brian Hailes and Claire Haney I believe is her name if they win, right? I I I I hate to say win but you know what I mean if the church, if this is the direction that our church leaders go. What, what does that do? What does that say? We are shut down to even seeking truth like you said, Whitney. And so, yeah, so I, I wanted to go over those and then I had one more thought. I just thought it was interesting when I, I had wanted to share this scripture in our last conversation when. When all of our leaders say we don’t know why, Brian Hill says none of our leaders told us why, and our current leaders say we don’t know why, you know, but Amos 3:7 is the scripture I had wanted to include that says, Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants, the prophets. If you are the prophet of God, it is your obligation to know why, to be able to tell the people when we have issues, this core to the nature and identity of God, to the nature and identity of each of us as sons and daughters of God, and to the most sacred covenant relationships that God establishes between husband and wife, we need these answers. So if this was commanded, It’s incumbent upon a prophet of God to be able to have the answers because God will do nothing but he revealeth his secrets unto his servants, the prophets. I would think that the reasons for polygamy might be included in that. And so what they really need to start saying is, well, They had their reasons, but we don’t like their reasons. We still think God commanded it, but they were wrong about why God commanded it. So we’re just gonna say we don’t know why God commanded it, but he did.
[20:39] Jeremy Hoop: The, the problems, probably starts with President Hinckley, you know, when he’s asked on 60 Minutes about it and he just kind of tries to, it’s in the past and I don’t know that it was ever, I can’t remember the exact things he said, but I don’t know that. basically, but he was equivocal as well. And
[20:58] Michelle: he said, I condemn it. Yes, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not scriptural. It is not legal. I, I thought it was pretty, I don’t know.
[21:07] Jeremy Hoop: But he was, he was asked more specifically, and he said, I don’t know that we preached that and this he was, he hemmed and hot a bit and, and from that point forward. Um, we’ve had much more equivocal statements about the, about the eternal nature of it, the significance of it, especially as it relates to today. And, and what, what I don’t think any of them want to deal with are the things we went over last time. And, and it’s, it’s the reason why people sometimes leave the LDS Church for the fundamentalist churches because they get convinced of the stuff by Orson Pratt and Brigham Young at all, and, and they think we’ve, you know, we’ve left the, the original teachings and they get persuaded. And so the the church must recognize those things, acknowledge them, and, and full-throated if they, you know, like they did what they’ve done with blood atonement, come out against it. At least those, at least those things like you’re saying, at least, uh, confront. The insane teachings of Hebrew Kimball and Brigham Young and, and the way that they would talk about women and how they would demean them, how would they would call them property, OK? And, and, and, and the tactics with which they would engage in this, in this system. And so, um, the Brian, I would encourage you to be honest about those things and incorporate those things into the thing into what you talk about because you, you, you lose credibility. When you don’t address things that are so blatant in the history.
[22:39] Michelle: Yes. And it is such a losing battle on both sides. Like the church trying to walk this middle ground, we are losing people to polygamy when they get in and read these quotes. Whoa, we’re not living the real gospel. I just had a conversation with a polygamist this week who was in the church and converted to polygamy, right? And then on the other hand, like anyone. Learns about the narrative we tell about Joseph Smith, and it’s horrific, right? And so I’m out of here.
[23:08] Jeremy Hoop: So it’s the Morgan Philpot on the one side, right, that we talked about. It’s the Morgan Philpot crowd that secretly believe they understand the higher teachings and, you know, we’re just waiting for it to come back or we’re going to do it
[23:18] Michelle: actually do leave and go to polygamist groups. There are hundreds and thousands of those. Which Morgan might be on his way to doing, who knows how, how, how bullish he is on it, but yes, you’re right.
[23:32] Whitney Horning: So that I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago where I, I got to spend an afternoon with a woman who is currently a polygamist and was raised in it. Her parents um converted to it before she was born. The entire time and, and she spoke pretty much the entire time. I just listened. And but I finally was able to, you know, ask one question and I said, you’ve quoted. Over and over again, Briggan Young, but I had not heard one quote about polygamy by Joseph Smith. And she said, oh yeah, my mom loved Brigham Young. She could quote Brigham Young 9 day backwards forwards. And I said, well, my question is, did she ever quote Joseph Smith? And that kind of brought her up a little and she said no. I only quoted Briggan. So that’s a little telling to me, right? Um, because if you didn’t know if you’re gonna call Joseph, then that needs to include his many, many denials and announcements of it. Um, and then that just confuses people because if they’re going to listen to Brian Hayes and the LDS Church’s narrative. Then, you know, what do they make of Joseph’s consistent denials. But the other thing I wanted to mention, this is a very fascinating thing to me that I’m gonna mention. Um, there is a growing group of active LDS who do believe Joseph practiced polygamy and I feel like Brian’s swinging into this category, but they’re starting to say, well, Joseph Married a lot of women, but he didn’t have sexual relations with them. So we have a family member who strongly, strongly believes this and He does not like my work at all, um, but he’ll he’ll call my husband quite often and um. Say very not kind things about what I’m doing. And then he’ll always say, well, I don’t even know what her problem is, you know, we all know Joseph didn’t sleep with the women, he just married them to fulfill God’s command. So then Veril always, I know, Vert always respond with, oh that’s, that’s OK. Well, but Brigham did. Oh yeah, Brigham had sex with his wives. Well, where’s the revelation to allow Brigham to do that? Like, where’s Brigham’s revelation that said, take what Joseph did. If you believe Joseph was commanded of God to marry women and he married him but didn’t have sex with them, then Brigham comes along and sexualizes it, then where’s the revelation of Brigham this is OK, now make this about sex and about having babies.
[26:32] Jeremy Hoop: Or or the office where, where’s the statement to Joseph Smith or where’s anything from Joseph Smith where the Lord tells him or he decides I’m going to live this, I’m gonna live this, um, uh, without sexual intercourse because in section 132 it talks about the definition of adultery and there’s only adultery involved if there’s sexual intercourse. So, if you’re, if you’re commanded by God to do something, it’s not adultery, that’s the whole, that’s their whole loophole. God can command you to have 4000 wives and you can have sex with every one of them every day and it doesn’t matter because God commanded it, therefore, it’s not adultery. That’s how they, that’s how they justify it. And so it’s just this gigantic um rationale loop that everyone finds themselves in.
[27:16] Michelle: Yep. And a couple of things with that, but when I encounter that, especially with members of the church, when they say, whatever God commands is right, I’m like, that is such a dangerous moral paradigm to hold. Um, if, if God commands me to molest my little child, God can command that. If God commands me to, you know, like there are horrific things. And, and where do they get that?
[27:39] Jeremy Hoop: Where do they get that phrase from the happiness letter.
[27:41] Michelle: Yeah, it’s awful. It’s terrible. And in addition, with, with this idea, there’s a new idea of he married all of these women, but he didn’t have sex with any of them. I, I again, I’m like, so what is marriage? Or he always degrades marriage. It ruins the idea of marriage. God established it clearly. Marriage is. Like, you, the one, the reason is different from all other relationships is because it’s the one relationship where there is sex, right? You can even have like a roommate, you can even live with somebody else. It’s not marriage because you’re not having sex and raising up a family together, which is what marriage is. So this idea, first of all, this idea that Joseph married these women but didn’t have sex with them. That opposes the entire historical record. There’s no, it’s like you’re picking and choosing in complete ignorance from what any documents actually say, cause that’s not what the women said, and that’s not what 132 says, as you pointed out, Jeremy, and right, there’s nothing to support that view. It’s this weird trying to stay on this. They’re like living on the Joseph Polygamy Island and it keeps getting worn away and worn away and worn away, and they just keep trying to balance on it in in these stranger more and more strange positions. So. OK, well, let’s go ahead and get into this week’s conversation, which we are basically talking about Brian Hill’s statements about the denials, about Joseph Smith’s denials, and also a bit we’ll touch on denials and Hyru’s denials, and I think we’ll talk a little bit more extensively about Joseph Smith the Third’s denials because these are the claims that we are addressing this time. So we’ll go back to this, um, Doctrine and Covenant Central, our favorite episode, hurrah yay, so exciting. Here we go.
[29:30] Scott (Church History Matters): Some people are convinced that Joseph Smith was lying in Navu, that he was practicing polygamy, but then when he was confronted about it, he would lie and say that he wasn’t practicing polygamy. And some people kind of snarkily comment that he’s lying for the Lord. Did he do that? Brian? Did Joseph Smith lie for the Lord? Did he cover this up in Navu?
[29:53] Michelle: OK. We’ll respond and then we’ll go to Brian’s answers.
[29:59] Jeremy Hoop: So first with the, the idea of lying for the Lord, let’s be very clear. This was a principle taught and practiced by the Utah Latter-day Saints. It’s not, this is not a controversy. For example, John Taylor in 1850 over in France was giving a public talk and was, and was confronted saying you guys practice polygamy, and he wagged his finger and he said, How dare you, sir, basically. And then he read from the doctrine and Covenants from the 18, I don’t know if 1835 or 1844 version, but he read the statement on marriage as proof. Well, it just so happened at that time he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 1415, 16 wives, OK. And he was asked later, Well, why did you lie? He was in a, in a letter between an RLDS uh elder and him. He said, Well, I did it for prudential reasons. Basically, they wouldn’t let me stay. They wouldn’t listen to me if I had admitted that I was practicing that. So he boldfaced, lied. In that moment, and he’s not the only one. I mean, we have many, many, many, many instances of that going all the way up to, you know, the transition and Joseph F. Smith, and we have, I think it’s George Buchanan who said, I think we’re raising a generation of liars basically because they, they so thoroughly practiced it. Now mind you, it’s very similar actually to Islam. It’s interesting the similarities to certain Islamic uh or Islamicist, I should say. Um, tenets where it’s OK to lie to the infidel. OK, and, and it’s part of, it’s part of certain fundamentalist Islamist, uh, um, sects where, where it is promoted that is, it is OK to abuse and to lie to the infidel because you’re doing it for the sake of a law. And so here it was. Lying to protect the principle that first of all must be understood and accepted and frankly acknowledged, Brian, by everyone. Uh, the Exos acknowledge this all the time. They acknowledge this like crazy. However, they just pick and choose when they want to believe the liars. Right.
[31:59] Michelle: Right. And the historians admit it too. I had Barbara Jones Brown state. clearly that Joseph F. Smith lied in his testimony and, and, and, um, what was it before Congress? I know it was in DC, right? Like they would lie in any setting. And I will also add, it continues today. The interview that people may see before or after this one that I just held with, I was, I really, um, am thankful that that polygamists are willing to come and talk. to me because I think it’s important to engage, but the principle of lying for the Lord is alive and well and is considered completely moral. And
[32:33] Jeremy Hoop: I
[32:33] Michelle: believe
[32:33] Jeremy Hoop: it started, I believe it started the earliest reference I can pin down, I might be wrong about this, but is Samson of Vard, who was the leader of the Danites, and he, um, enacted a bunch of violence, I believe in uh Missouri, um, and he, he pinned it on Joseph and then talked about how it was right to lie for the Lord. Um, and that Joseph taught him that and Joseph denounced that, um, entirely, and, and, and Exos want to tie the Danites to Joseph and all of that and so. Um, so it, it starts early on in the restoration and somehow gets picked up. Um, I think some of the Danites were part of, you know, who knows, Josea Stout’s crew or, and, and so, uh, it, it gets promulgated. I don’t know if, I don’t know if they directly tied to him or not or if they also believed it, but it starts early on and continues all the way through the Utah period.
[33:26] Whitney Horning: Yeah, so while the church has been um distancing themselves from that, you know, little saying or mantra, you know, life of the Lord, I was actually raised with that. I mean, I remember Sunday school lessons, relief society lessons when I was a young, uh, wife, where that was the justification for why Joseph denied was because he had the life of the Lord. Right, and it was, and I remember Sunday school lessons where from the church approved manual it was stated that they compared it to, um, Abraham lying about um Sarah being his sister rather than his wife, right? So I found this interesting little article by Galla Jokes in, um, it was in the law magazine for
[34:14] Michelle: BYU Law Review, yeah,
[34:17] Whitney Horning: it’s the article titled Gospel Teachings about Lying. And he said, as far as concerns our own church and culture, the most common allegations of lying for the Lord swirl around the initiation, practice, and discontinuance of polygamy. The whole experience with polygamy was a fertile field for deception.
[34:43] Michelle: Wow,
[34:44] Whitney Horning: here you go, Brian. Just if you believe all the leaders what they say, and then here you go, Dean Achos while he was an apostle wrote that.
[34:54] Michelle: And he’s exactly right. Polygamy and lying are they go together. They cannot be separated. And the Book of Mormon teaches the liar shall be thrust down to hell. The doctrine of covenants has many scriptures against lying, just like they also both do about polygamy. So somehow these two abominations. That must exist together, get a pass. Like, where’s the scripture that says, um, thou shalt not lie unless I, the Lord command otherwise, in which case, like, show me that
[35:22] Whitney Horning: scripture, right? Good, good point. The scriptures also um say that adulterers are liars. Christ himself said that. And so perhaps that is why polygamy and lying go together because it is adultery that they’ve just testified by slapping on the title 2nd, 3rd, 4th wife.
[35:45] Michelle: Right. Yeah, I call my prostitutes my wives. We’re, we’re all good, right? We’re good. And so, and I do think it’s interesting also because this idea of lying for the Lord, and we’re gonna go on and I think we have 3 more clips about Joseph lying. But, um, the thing that I find interesting also is that when I look at the record, I can see Brigham Young lying. I can see him clearly saying one thing at one time, something else at another time. I also can see the evidence in his life that goes for Eliza Snow, John Taylor, Hebrewy. Kim like again and again and again. I can see them on both sides and I can see the evidence in their lives. Guess who I can’t see that with? Joseph Smith. Right, Joseph Smith and Emma and Hiram and Lucy and Joseph the 3rd were 100% consistent, and there is nothing that has to do with their lives that any evidence that you can find about their lives, anything that would show that they were lying. There were other children and not like some people like to say, well, well, the children might have. Guess what? We know who the children were that died in Navu of the other polygamists, right? We have those like we can track them down. We have the journals, we have the letters, we have all of this information about the other Navu polygamists. There’s nothing about Joseph. So to claim that lying for the Lord began with him was a lie.
[37:07] Jeremy Hoop: And you have to, you have to believe. In order to believe that Joseph was a liar. That’s what you have to do. And there’s also something else that’s really important to understand. The second anointing ceremony. That Brigham, I don’t know what Joseph did with it. We have no idea what Joseph was doing. But what Brigham did with it is he turned that into, that’s where they, um, I don’t, not consummated, but that’s where they, they, they officiated the plural marriage ceremonies was in the second anointing. And as a part of that. The, the, the, the, the wife would wash the feet, um, uh, feet, head, neck, or stomach and head. I don’t know exactly, it’s different, different things, but of the man in order to have claim on him in the resurrection, and then both were pronounced gods and goddesses on the earth, kings and queens, priests and priestesses on the Most High God. So the, the things that are alluded to in the, in the first ceremony were actualized in the second ceremony. And in that, they were, it was pronounced upon them that there was no sin. Save the sin against the Holy Ghost or the shedding of innocent blood that they could commit. That would take away their, their calling an election, their, their exaltation. The exaltation was pronounced upon them in that ceremony. Now, imagine that. Imagine people who believe that this is an apostle of the Lord that’s pronouncing these things on, on, on me, OK? And, and that there’s no sin that I can commit, say to, OK, these two really serious ones, killing innocent people, really, really shedding of innocent blood. Actually, Christ, uh, Joseph Tot was actually crucifying Christ afresh, OK? That’s really what he meant by that, but you could extend that to maybe babies, I don’t know. But, but if you don’t do that and you don’t deny the Holy Ghost. Anything else goes and I’m OK. And so lying is no big shakes whatsoever in your theology. So please understand that, that when you have a group of people who are indoctrinated that they can and should lie. To protect the holiest of holy principles, the, the, the grandest capstone principle of the religion which ensures upon you your exaltation. Then we should expect that they will lie.
[39:23] Michelle: Wow. And wow. And you know what the the combination of these doctrines, the idea that nothing could remove your exaltation except the shedding of innocent blood combined with the one commandment is follow your leader. Your leader is your God. You do what he says, right? That leads us to places where we are justifying why, say, the, um, the pioneers from was it Arkansas they were coming from? Does that remind me where the mountain meadows. Yeah, where they justified those people are guilty and are worthy of death. So I am not shedding innocent blood because they are the Gentiles. They were involved in killing Parley P. Pratt. They, right, we’re not killing under eight year olds, but even the ones that have reached the age of accountability, they, they, they will tell, tell, tell tales, so we need to kill all of them. They killed so many people. So even the idea of shedding innocent blood was justified away, right? It was Rationalize the way to where it’s not innocent blood. We have blood atonement and we’re justified in that’s
[40:28] Jeremy Hoop: that I’m, but you have to, you have to in order to protect um the gospel or the principle. And so what, right? It’s where do we get that
[40:46] Whitney Horning: um teaching from? I had somebody. Quote that to me a few months ago. And I then went and did a deep dive into the scriptures and from what I can tell, the only place that that doctrine is taught is in section 132.
[41:06] Michelle: The doctrine of
[41:07] Jeremy Hoop: destroyed if you reject
[41:09] Michelle: the
[41:10] Whitney Horning: doctrine that if you received exaltation,
[41:14] Michelle: you have to do
[41:14] Whitney Horning: whatever you want as long as you don’t shed blood, and then they, they point to King David and they say, well, he only lost his exaltation. Because you had Uriah killed, it wasn’t for the adultery with Bathsheba, or the, you know, 1000 wives and
[41:33] Jeremy Hoop: concubines. Well, there are some hints that Joseph taught something of that nature in public sermons, but it’s always accompanied by, you know, if you sin, you’re gonna be given up to the buffetings of Satan basically and, and, and, and the atonement basically doesn’t cover you.
[41:48] Whitney Horning: Well, and that’s what I actually thought Joseph was teaching was actually from what I understand and from what I’ve studied. Almost more difficult, almost say once you have been somebody who the Lord has called and anointed and elected and exalted, then if you say yes, then you are given up to the buffetings of Satan and the atonement basically doesn’t have place for you.
[42:15] Jeremy Hoop: Like the Joseph Smith’s uh translation of the Bible. Um, strengthens that idea because it condemns David even more thoroughly after his sin with Bath, um, and that he’s lamenting and, and the Lord tells Solomon that you’ve sinned like your father and, and, and basically you’re, you’re in trouble like your father is in trouble. And so that I think that holds from what Joseph did with the Bible.
[42:43] Michelle: That makes much more sense to me, especially we are always taught. I always was like, if you sin against the greater light, you receive the greater condemnation, right? Not if you get high enough in the hierarchy and the power structure, then your sins don’t matter. You get a pass, right? That does not make sense at all. And we have Hirum. That’s one thing that bothers me about this too is just like we’ll hear going forward, because the two topics we’re. Talk about are the denials and then Brian’s criticisms of Joseph Smith, right? We make Joseph Smith into, like, like, we not only demean marriage through polygamy, we also demean what it means to be a righteous man or a prophet of God. Cause people who claim that Joseph is a prophet of God also claim he did all of these awful things. And so they say, God, you don’t have to be good to be a prophet of God. It doesn’t. Really matter, right? Hyrum taught exactly the opposite and taught that God would not allow his prophets to to commit grievous sin, right? And Joseph, by his own testimony, says it was never in his nature to commit grievous sin. So we, I mean, it’s, it’s, we, we didn’t mean everything through this false tradition. This is why it matters so much. It taints everything, every single thing. So. Should I go to the next clip? Do you guys have anything else? OK, here we go. Here’s, here’s Brian’s answer to that question about was Joseph lying for the Lord, which Scott painted as a really bad thing. People say it snarkily lying for the Lord, he wouldn’t do that. Well, they all did. All the other leaders did, and they claimed that Joseph did. But here’s the answer.
[44:11] Brian Hales: Of the reductionist questions they want to reduce it to if Joseph was a polygamist, he lied. Joseph wouldn’t have lied, therefore he wasn’t a polygamist. It, it isn’t a strong argument. I wrote an article was published in 2015-2016 in the Journal of Mormon History where I went through and tried to find every alleged lie or denial. From Joseph Smith, and there weren’t very many, so I expanded it to Emma and to Hirum when
[44:36] Michelle: I think I’m gonna pause it right there because I went and reread his article, and he always claims that there weren’t very many denials. I’m just gonna remove this for a second, we’ll go back. Jeremy, I’m just gonna let you respond to that. There weren’t very many denials from Joseph, right?
[44:52] Jeremy Hoop: Uh, so, He plays word games. He, he wants to basically say, well, yeah, he, he didn’t come out and, and deny, first of all, what he’ll say is he didn’t ever deny celestial plural marriage. And he gives, he gives 5 categories of what he calls denials, but he says they’re really, they’re really kind of workarounds for the problem that he’s got because he, he doesn’t deny the principle he’s practicing, but he does deny John Bennett’s spiritual wife system.
[45:26] Michelle: Maybe I should finish the clip and then I’ll clip and then, um, yeah, I just, I, I, we have an extensive collection of Joseph Smith’s denials, a very extensive collection. So, OK, we’ll we’ll go ahead with the rest of the.
[45:40] Brian Hales: Did these people deny polygamy? What did they say? Provide some context and the take home message is that Joseph Smith denied. Community of wives that the church was accused of in 1831. He denied spiritual wifery, which John C. Bennett was secretly practicing in Navu. He denied unauthorized polygamy. In other words, you can’t read the Bible that Abraham was a polygamist and go off and be a polygamist. That would be adultery. He denied that as well. He never denied celestial eternal marriage, including. Celestial plural marriage as he believed it could be practiced and that denial is something that people will assume based on language that is very ambiguous and generalized, and that’s the response. He never denied that. He just denied these other things and then the polygamy deniers are trying to recruit that language to cover what they want to believe, but the language doesn’t allow that, and that’s the
[46:33] Jeremy Hoop: problem. So first of all, um, this is, this is the conflation that they, that, that the, it’s usually mostly apologists, um. Uh, the likes of Brian Hale, Hale makes, and that is, well, he didn’t deny celestial plural marriage. There is not a single reference to celestial plural marriage by anyone. Including Brigham Young, Hebrew Kimball, anyone during the Navu or prior to that time period. There’s not a single reference to that during Joseph’s lifetime. In any form condoning or blessing that, that principle and separating it from the others. OK, so that’s the first thing to understand. That term didn’t exist. During Joseph’s lifetime. That is the biggest anachronistic kind of twist, you know, uh, to say, and frankly, it’s kind of even presentist because really, they didn’t call it so much celestial plural marriage in everyday usage, even in Utah. They refer to plurality, plurality derives, the principle of polygamy, polygamy, the most of all, but plurality wise. But here’s what they also referred to it as. This is so critical and it’s everyone needs to memorize this because if you don’t understand this, first of all, you don’t get the fact that that Joseph’s lumping everything in together whenever he talks about this. First, let me just read a few quotes from Utah Mormons. Helen Mark Kimball said in 1882, at the time in Navo. Spiritual wife was the title by which every woman who entered into this order was called, for it was taught and practiced as a spiritual order. Brian Emily Partridge. Quote, spiritual wives as they were then termed, were not numerous in those days as a spirit and a spiritual baby was a rarity indeed. She’s recounting the time when she’s pregnant. And has she had one to Brigham Young’s Brigham Young’s baby, and she she was spiritual
[48:41] Michelle: wife who had his spiritual baby by her own admission.
[48:45] Jeremy Hoop: On our journey from Navu, the saints would stop and form small settlements to recruit. I stopped at one of those places a short time. Company after company passed and many hearing, many hearing that a spiritual wife and child, meaning, oh my gosh, she’s had a baby out of wedlock. OK. That’s really what they were hearing. Uh, were there. Curiosity led them to seek an interview. I’ll pronounce the child bright and beautiful. Actually, I think she’s she was mortified at the time, because Brigham wasn’t around her. He was off in Utah and she had to be left alone with this child as though she had at that time to have a baby out of wedlock’s a really big deal, right? Then later on, she says, um, in 1883, uh, in her um in her personal account, Mrs. Durphy invited my sister Eliza and me to her house to spend the afternoon. She introduced the subject of spiritual wives, as they were called in that day. In her own journal, she writes the following. July 29th, 1881. Today I’ve been thinking, thinking, thinking, my mind goes back to days gone by. My, my life has been like a panorama of disagreeable pictures. I have been heart hungry all my life. I am, as the world calls it, a spiritual wife of early days. When public opinion was like an avalanche bearing all such beneath its oppressive weight, some will understand what it is to be a woman, mother, and an unloved spiritual wife. August 1881. Uh, yesterday I was in a dark mood. Today I’m looking for the bright spots, although they may be few and far between, they should not be overlooked. And among the greatest blessings I class the fates that I am a mother and was a spiritual wife. Brigham Young. Uh, 1845 in Navu and they killed the prophet because they say he has a spiritual wife. Uh, in 1845 in Navu. Now brethren, these are Paul’s sayings, not Joseph’s spiritual wife system sayings. No man can be perfect without a man to lead her. This is spiritual wifeism, that is the doctrine of spiritual wives. Uh 7 June 1847, where these are loose notes, but he starts preaching openly advocating the doctrine. Of spiritual wives, this is a general feeling in this church with regard to the doctrine called spiritual wife doctrine. The Lord in in the last struggle between God the Father will put forth his hand and conquer a godly people. I’ve done as I was told. There is not a man have 20 to 25, but I can get 5 wives to his one. Who gave me that power? I got it by being faithful. There’s not a girl, etc. Take all you can get. Don’t know exactly what he’s talking about, but he’s definitely talking about. Promoting the idea of the spiritual wife doctrine, uh, and in 1849, the spiritual wife doctrine came upon me while abroad in such a manner that I never forgot. Joseph said, I command you to go get another wife. I felt as if the, the grave was better for me than anything, but I was filled with the Holy Ghost, that my wife and brother Kimball’s wife would upbraid me for lightness in those days. OK. Hebrew Kimball, 1855. If you oppose any of the works of God, you will cultivate a spirit of apostasy. If you oppose what is called the spiritual wife doctrine, the patriarchal order, which is of God, that course will corrode you with a spirit of apostasy, and you will go overboard. So Brian, please. Verifiably, it was called the spiritual wife doctrine or being a spiritual wife by Utah polygamists who also called it plurality of wives, polygamy, the principal plurality, uh, and celestial plural marriage or just. Celestial marriage. They called it a bunch of different things. So please quit it. I don’t suspect you will, but quit it. It’s absolutely disingenuous. I suspect you know this, perhaps you don’t, but if you do, if you didn’t know it, then now you do. It was called spiritual wifeism in that day. Now, Joseph Smith over the course of time, As Brian rightfully mentions, would decry by a number of names, Community of wives in 18, 1831, uh, polygamy and by the way, he would lump together. Spiritual wifery, polygamy, etc. with fornication, adultery, whoredoms, etc. but he just like just like the Book of Mormon does. So the terms that were all woven together, which we’ll see here in a second, were community of wives, polygamy, um, uh, spiritual wifeism, the spiritual wife system, uh, bigamy, fornication, adultery, prostitution, having more than one wife, a plurality of wives. He mentions that and talks against it. So, so, mind you, when Joseph is talking about these things, it’s anything like unto it. A man having one wife, more than one wife, uh, either by some strange spiritual, uh, ceremony or something officially condoned. With a certificate, it doesn’t matter. It’s all in the same bucket for Joseph Smith. And I, Brian, I defy you to show me anything. Joseph, Emma, Hiram, or anyone that was close to them, not William Clayton, right? It was close to them and one of their allies who ever said anything different, OK? Now, in terms of Um, denials, if you just say, well, denials, I, I can show you a handful of direct denials.
[54:25] Michelle: Can we first respond to the spiritual celestial plural marriage and then and then go on to your next just while it’s because I have a couple of things to say and then Whitney, do you want to go first? Did you like, I was just going to say that by
[54:34] Whitney Horning: 1889. They were using the term celestial marriage. Um, to mean that. And so Joseph the Third, in a letter written to his cousin, Joseph F. Smith, who’s, um, you know, a lygamist in Utah, he makes this statement, um Joseph the 3rd is saying this. You need not tell me that celestial marriage does not mean spiritual wives, plural wives, and in the sense of having more than one wife at the same time, polygamy, for it essentially does and is so understood all over Utah in practice. That’s 1889. So they still were using all of those terms interchangeably and as Jeremy pointed out. Celestial marriage. It’s possible it started getting used in Navo in 1846 in January when Brigham Young and Hebrew C. Kimball started doing the endowment ceremony. There are witness accounts that when they got to the celestial room, Brigham Young would say, now that you’ve made all these promises not to divulge what you’re learning, now you can learn about the law of the celestial kingdom, and that is a plurality of why. So it’s possible that they kind of started coining that term, um, definitely by 1889, as this letter points out, they were using that, but they still were using spiritual wifery, plural wives, and polygamy. And so as Jeremy pointed out, just because Joseph didn’t stand up and say, I denounce celestial plural marriage. Which by the right, I mean, we had John Bennett that definitely was doing a spiritual wifery doctrine, so they definitely called that out as spiritual wifery, but so were other men, and as this points out and as Jeremy has pointed out, um, that was a term that they very frequently used to mean a wife because it was a wife who they couldn’t legally marry. So. Right, so they were spiritually by a spiritual ceremony or, you know, somehow spiritually united. Um, that was why that, that’s what that term meant. And so, uh, it’s just as ridiculous for, for Brian or anyone else who is on the apologetics or the pro-polygamy side or the anti-Mormons who believe Joseph did polygamy to stand up and say Joseph didn’t deny it. I mean, he couldn’t have, he could not have envisioned. All the different terminology that would be used. It’s kind of like when King Benjamin said to his people, I’m not going to give you a list of sins. There’s diverse ways. And the problem is, as soon as you start labeling, then people immediately find a loophole around the label, right? As soon as you say, right, like X Y Z is a sin, then they’re like, oh well, if I do, um. EO. Yeah, it just it kind of smells and looks like X Y Z, but it’s not totally that I’m OK, right? And so Joseph very much denied um having more than one wife alive at the same time.
[58:07] Jeremy Hoop: My, my wife was was approached by a guy who brought her a new doctrine called dyadic companion. Meaning we were broken off in a previous life and, and we found each other again because we had been a dyad in a previous life. Therefore, we’re OK to reunite that pair.
[58:30] Michelle: Joseph was for that because he didn’t deny it. He didn’t reject dyadic companionship. So that was what Joseph was actually doing and teaching
[58:38] Jeremy Hoop: and dyadic
[58:40] Whitney Horning: companion. Yes, I, I was gonna say Jeremy knows I’ve heard of a guy who was teaching a thing called bonded wives, so meaning you are spiritual like you were married in a celestial marriage in some eon before. And so if you find each other again now, but you’re married to other people, then you can have relations because, you know, maybe a million years ago you’d then uh bonded together. Yeah, I love Benjamin. There’s diverse ways to 10 don’t commit adultery and adultery is you have all legal wife one. Anyone else that’s not that legal wife, or if you’re a woman, anyone who’s not that legal husband. There you go.
[59:26] Michelle: It’s wrong. Well, so, OK, so the earliest I have been able to find, and please feel free to share if there’s an earlier time. In 1869, um, George Q. Cannon gave an address where he talks about patriarchal or celestial marriage. That’s the earliest I’ve been able to find. And we could use patriarchal marriage synonymously. In fact, I believe that many polygamists do. So celestial plural marriage, I, I, I couldn’t find it in the Journal of Discourses. Maybe my search engine wasn’t functioning well, but I can’t find that term used easily, right? That was the earliest I’ve seen so far. However, this is what I think is interesting. I would think. That if God had a high and holy doctrine, he would know what it was called, right? And God gave a revelation on the highest and holiest doctrine, that is doctrine and Covenants, Section 132, canonized in our scriptures, saved miraculously in Brigham Young’s desk from the burning hands of Emma Smith. It doesn’t mention celestial plural marriage, right? We are given the name of the doctrine in verse 1 May I remind you, Brian, this is the doctrine right here. Let me scroll up. I thought I was there. Verily, thus sayeth the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of having many wives and concubines. The name of the doctrine is having many wives and concubines and. And in our scriptures, and many wives and concubines, the doctrine of many wives and concubines is what 132 teaches. I would say that’s a great deal worse than spiritual wifery actually, or dyadic bonded weirdness of any form. But let me now direct your attention to the Book of Mormon, where we also have mentions of many wives and concubines. In fact, we have several of I will bring your attention to Jacob chapter 2, verse 24. 1st of all, these are not the only ones. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, sayeth the Lord. We could go to Mosiah 11, for behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but did walk, but he did walk after the desires of his own hearts, and he had many wives and concubines. Are we catching a theme? We’ll go on to Ether chapter 10 and it came to pass that replicke did not do that, which was right in the side of the Lord, for he did have, let’s say it together, many wives and concubines, right? The doctrine that 1:32 teaches is called the doctrine of many wives and concubines. Brian, where are the concubines, right? Where I think, well, I, I, I want to get into this a little bit. More in future episodes, but many wives and concubines is what this doctrine is called in the revelation from the Creator of the doctrine himself, God, or Adam or Brigham and Company, whoever we want to claim created this doctrine, that is what it is called. If you want to claim that it is called celestial plural marriage, it needs to be in the revelation that teaches it.
[1:03:12] Jeremy Hoop: And they hide, they hide behind this notion John Bennett was doing something different. He, yeah, he, he was. He was doing something that, that, that didn’t have the same tenants because they would tell the women, Joseph teaches that we can do this, and basically, we can have sex together and if you don’t tell anybody, then it’s not a sin. That wasn’t really the totality of what they taught them because there was more to it. And in John Bennett’s History, the Saints, he publishes this whole system that he says Joseph creates with these, these different orders of women, different classes of women. Uh, the, the Sorao Joseph had created, he calls and, and the, the, the sisters, the cloistered saints and all these, the sisters of the green veil and the whatever, and, and, and they have different ranks and positions and they can be used in different ways sexually by the men. It’s really bizarre and crazy and
[1:04:01] Michelle: then we universally, we have universally acknowledged that that was all lies. That was all just made up, but go ahead,
[1:04:09] Jeremy Hoop: like even when they want to believe him.
[1:04:11] Michelle: That’s what I.
[1:04:12] Jeremy Hoop: And was he an insider? Was he not an insider, but the point being that, uh, that yeah, John Bennett’s system was not the same as what Brigham Young’s became. However, whatever the heck they were doing in England seems to have evolved over time as well, because going to washing your feet and going to bed with a woman that you know, you don’t take into your home, Ebra Kimball and Ellen Balfour Redman, a woman that, OK, so we don’t have a description of actual penetration. OK, we don’t have that description, but we have a man and a woman going to bed together alone in his apartment while no one else is there, OK, after having performed a religious ceremony. And so, and we have, we have all kinds of strangeness going on in England. Where there is highly inappropriate interaction between numerous men and numerous women documented in letters and in their journals. I mean, please. So, and that seems to morph over time. Um, I mean, Harley Pratt, did he have permission from Brigham Young to go marry the woman that whose husband killed him? Like, where did he get permission for this and who, and who performed the ceremony? And I don’t think they, that that happened. I think he just decided to say, I marry you, I marry you, I marry you, and they got married, spiritually, and then the husband got a little pissed. And by the way, apparently mutilated the body, um. Which might be a e castrating him. So, um, you know, this is, this is the, this is the world we’re living in. What, well, you know, which is the true and the holy and the right system and which is the not, OK? And, and does that include what Warren Jeffs turned it into? I mean, where, where did it all go wrong, you know, that’s the slippery, crazy, uh, mangled slope that people find themselves in trying to justify the one while decrying the other.
[1:06:12] Michelle: Yeah, and I, OK, thank you so much and I know everyone, I interrupted Jeremy. I’m gonna not do that again. I’m sorry, Jeremy. Thank you for getting back your thought and I go ahead. I do want to point out, oh, go ahead, and then I’ll do my.
[1:06:29] Jeremy Hoop: No, no, I’m gonna continue on with the types with what he calls denials, and we’re going to, we’re going to classify that.
[1:06:37] Michelle: Sorry, let me just finish this one little point that and then we’ll get back to that. So I just want to point out this one thing that section 132 does not contain the word celestial. Does not contain the word plural, and it has two times that it contains the word marriage, both of which are in the strictly monogamous section where Joseph Smith, I think, was revealing eternal marriage. It’s versus.
[1:07:04] Jeremy Hoop: A
[1:07:04] Michelle: and it says their covenant and marriage are not enforced when they are dead if they don’t do, you know, and then it goes, it goes onto that. Those are the only times that marriage is used. Anyway, you cannot claim it was called celestial plural marriage when we have a revelation. It’s done. OK.
[1:07:24] Jeremy Hoop: So the, the, the category, the way that Brian and others talk about this is though, you know, Joseph’s just trying to, kind of trying to avoid the subject. He’s just doing everything he can not to lie, but if he has to, he’s gonna, he’s gonna do it in such a way that it’s gonna be carefully worded and yada yada yada yada. But the problem is, There are many things that Joseph engages in that are in direct opposition to it. So it’s not merely just denials. It’s a, it’s a slew of activity really from 1827 to 1844. And I, and it’s such an insanely long list that I can only give highlights. But first, there’s, there’s, there’s categories of it. There’s preaching, OK? Public preaching. In 1841, he preached much against it. How do we know that? Um, in 1842 in the times and seasons, Joseph, uh, talking about John Bennett, writes the following. He, John Bennett, had recourse to a more influential and desperately wicked course, and that was to persuade the women that myself and others of the authorities of the church not only sanctioned but practiced the same wicked acts. And when asked why I publicly preached so much against it, that being spiritual wifery, polygamy, adultery. Said that it was because of the prejudice of the public and that it would cause trouble in my own house. And that’s where we get the whole notion of Emmon’s pissed about this, right? It starts with John Bennett. But again, yes, spiritual wifery, but it’s lumping the whole thing together. In 1842, he preached, uh, to the choir, to the Navvo choir against it, and it was from that sermon that he preached, which we don’t have that sermon. We don’t have it. Uh, we don’t have any of these sermons that he, he was preaching so much against it throughout 1841 and, and into 1842. We don’t have those sermons. And by the way, James Whitehead says that he turned a bunch of his papers over to Brigham Young. We don’t have those papers either. I wonder if these papers, these sermons exist somewhere, Joe. says he preached them. Some took notes. Um, he preached to the choir and from that preaching came forward, uh, at least one woman who was involved with John Bennett and others, and she finally went to the Navau High Council and testified against. That’s where we get the beginnings of the, the testimonies against John Bennett and his crew, um, throughout 1842. Um, he and Emma taught the relief society, um, extensively against spiritual wifery. They worked with the relief society to root out people who were, uh, creating rumors. Um, there’s a letter in March 8, 31st, 1842 that I’ll reference here in a minute, that Joseph specifically, um, writes to the relief society warning people against, uh, the practices of people like John Bennett, and he’s not. A differentiating between John Bennett and, and, and Hiram Brown later. Um, January 3, 1844. Um, William Law acknowledges in, in a, in a testimony where he testifies, um, that he’s not Joseph’s enemy, which is interesting, because people were saying that, that William Law was a Brutus, was a, was an enemy to Joseph. Um, Bishop Carnes, uh, said, Brother Law and me had a conversation about stories afloat on spiritual wives. He thought it was from the devil. Law did, and must put it down that he knew such a thing was in existence and was breaking up families, etc. And Law says, did I say not? Um, we have a good foundation for believing so because, quote, Joseph blow it all up before the Navu State High Council and Hirum before the elders quorum. Where are those talks where Joseph specifically spoke against spiritual wifeism, which again, remember Brigham Young called it spiritual wifeism, spoke against that before the Navajo council and uh hirerum before the elders quorum. We don’t have those talks.
[1:11:29] Michelle: What was that date? What was the date of that?
[1:11:32] Jeremy Hoop: said in January 3, 1844. Um, we don’t know when those, those two sermons occurred, OK? Hirum on the 14th of May 1843 is at the temple. This is recorded in Levi Richard’s journal, uh, where Hiram is teaching the ancient, uh, quote, the ancient order of things as Solomon and David having many wives and concubines is an abomination in the sight of God. If an angel from heaven should come down and preach such a doctrine, one would be sure to see his cloven foot and cloud of blackness over his head, though his garments might shine as white as snow. It’s by the way, shortly thereafter that they say Hiram accepted the principle. Interesting. And of course we have uh Hiram’s April 8th, 1844 talk where he talks for an hour and a half against spiritual wifery. He says God has not commanded any man to have more than one wife. That would include Abraham, that would include Jacob, OK? Um. And then, of course, May 26th, 1844, uh, Joseph gives an extensive talk, uh, and it’s not just, it’s been said I have 7 wives and I can only find one. He, it’s, it’s a, it’s a long diatribe against this accusation. That he’s practicing polygamy, by the way, and spiritual wifery and plurality of wives, um, and there is an indictment gotten up by William and Wilson Law in the days previous to that where they accuse him of living in an open state of adultery and fornication with Maria Lawrence and with other unnamed women. OK. Um, and in his journal, Joseph Smith, or it’s recorded by Willard, uh, Willard Richards, that they’re talking about the indictment that, that’s been gotten up and it’s saying, I guess I’ve been indicted on charges of polygamy or some such thing, OK? So they, so Joseph is responding very, very publicly um about that. Now, so there’s, there’s a whole long list of preaching and we only have a small portion of those sermons. Then we have the The, the ecclesiastical actions against people, the excommunications, it must be understood that Joseph Smith worked very closely with William Marks in terms of church discipline. While he did not dictate to William Marks because he respected the authority of the president of the high council, he did certainly work with him, as we know from William Marks’s own statement that at the very end of Joseph’s life, William Marks would say, That Joseph talked to me about the subject of polygamy and it was going to ruin the church and that I, he instructed me to go about and try all those who were practicing or preaching it, all of those that, by the way, that would have included Joseph Smith if he were doing it. So that’s an interesting thing to think about. Why would he ask William Marks to go investigate and try all those people basically and kick him out of the church, OK. So he worked very closely with William Marks. There were 23 trials in Navvo for uh sexual misconduct. 13 men were excommunicated for spiritual wifery or polygamy. 13 men. OK. Uh, among them was Solomon Freeman, William Campbell, John Bennett, Chauncey Higbee, Lyman Littlefield, Joel S. Miles, Justice Morse, Gustavus Hills, and Hiram Brown. Others were investigated, but apparently there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence, although there was testimony against them. That would include Francis Higbee, Darwin Chase, Harrison Sagers, and Theodore Turley. On October 5th, 1843, he’s walking up, this is the famous journal entry, but one thing we pass over in that journal entry is that he gives instructions to try persons for preaching, teaching, or practicing the doctrine of plurality of wives. And, uh, and then this is something you’ve been diving into, and I think you’re gonna do a presentation on this is Joseph himself prefers charge. against Harrison Sagers, he specifically brings that to the Nabu High Council for whatever reason, for whatever reason, the historians think that this is actually proof of Joseph having practiced polygamy because Harrison Sagers is not convicted by the Nabuha council. They somehow in their brains assume that Joseph whispered to the council, Please let this guy go. You got to let him go. Oh, OK, upon what grounds are you basing that? And by the way, right after, uh, the trial of Harrison Sagers, he brings the whole quorum of the 12, the whole entire quorum into the Navaha council, and Wilfred Woodruff records this in his journal on the 25th of November 1843. We set 3 window frames, uh, da da da da, let’s see. Uh, I was called in the evening to a council with the 12 when I arrived at Joseph Smith’s store. I found the high counsel sitting on a case of Harrison Sager’s for some improper conduct. By the way, the charges were, were for teaching, um, the spiritual wife doctrine. His wife would later bring the charges again and say not only is he teaching it, he’s doing it, and he’s left the family. And the guy was let go twice. It’s very bizarre. It’s very bizarre that the council didn’t convict him even though Joseph wanted convicted. But this is what Joseph says about the subject regarding Harris and Sagers. Sitting on a cause of Harris and Sagers for some improper conduct or offer towards some female at the at the close. President Joseph Smith made an address upon the subject, which was highly interesting and its tendency, Wilfred Woodruff is not a part of this yet. OK, at this point, I don’t believe. I don’t believe he’s involved in the practice, OK? Um. Uh, and its tendency was to do away with every evil practice. And uh practiced and practiced virtue and holiness before the Lord that the church had not received any license from Him to commit adultery, fornication, or any such thing. But to the contrary, if any man commit adultery, he could not receive the celestial kingdom of God. Even if he was saved in any kingdom, it could not be the celestial kingdom. He said he thought the many examples that had been manifest by, uh, John C. Bennett and others. Having more than one wife, plurality of wives, spiritual wifery, polygamy was
[1:17:55] Michelle: sufficient or anything like it, he adds, or anything like it was sufficient
[1:18:00] Jeremy Hoop: to show the fallacy of such a course of conduct. He condemned the principle in Toto and warned those present against going, warned those present, which included Brigham Young and Hebrew Kimball, and the rest of the crew. Warned those present against going into those evils, for they would surely bring a curse upon their heads. OK. He prefers charges against Harrison Sagers, and then he speaks, he said he wants to make an example out of this. So he brings the entire quorum of the 12 into the meeting, OK? That’s not a denial. That’s not a denial.
[1:18:42] Michelle: If anyone hasn’t watched my episode on that yet, please do because it’s especially fun to see what that speech is turned into in the history of Joseph Smith, how they adjust it. It’s another one, it’s great fun.
[1:18:54] Jeremy Hoop: One more evidence of how they changed the history. And then we moved to the first of February 1844. Joseph and Hiram, look, they, I think it took a little bit for Joseph and Hiram to realize just how infected the church was, was with this, and they stepped up. Um, their, their opposition to it publicly, even more so, uh, in the early part of 1844. They write in the times and seasons, as we have been lately credibly informed that an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by the name of Hiram Brown has been preaching polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines. Just spiritual wifery, but polygamy, that same word that the Utah Saints would use over and over and over again to characterize their own practice. OK, Brian, and other false and corrupt doctrines in the county of La Pier state of Michigan, this is to notify him and the church in general that he has been cut off from the church for his iniquity. He’s further notified to appear at the special conference 6th of April next to make an answer for those charges. Joseph Smithyrum Smith, presidents plural of the church. Joseph also, and as I mentioned, then would instruct William Marks within a few weeks of his mar uh martyrdom. To try people for, for the same very same things. And, and these excommunications, by the way, started in 1837. It’s the first known, the one that I can find from a guy named Solomon Freeman, OK? And a guy named William Campbell. They just kept going on and on and on and on. So we have the preaching, we have the excommunications, the ecc ecclesiastical actions. Um, then we have the court cases, OK. Any reasonable person. OK, who, who witnesses someone, sues someone understands that when you take someone to court, you open yourself, today we call it discovery. I don’t know what they called it back then, but you open yourself up to cross-examination. OK. If you’re making charges against someone, they have a right to confront their accusers. Well, he made charges in 1842 against Chauncey Higbee for slander and libel for saying that he taught the spiritual wife doctrine. He made charges against Orsemus Bostwitch in 1844 for saying that Hirum was practicing polygamy, that he had more than one wife. He brought charges against Francis Higbee, um, uh, for the same thing, and, uh, he defended himself in court. In 1844, in March, May of 1844, against the indictment and the charges against him for um adultery and fornication, which involved many women, OK? And then, uh, he, uh, right before his death, in response to William Wilson Law’s in um charges against him. He asked John Taylor to go and sue the laws and the Fosters, um, etc. which would include, um, uh, the rest of their crew, the the Higbes at all for slander against Ria Lawrence. Now, OK, so let’s do some math. So, uh, by 1842 or by this time, he’s got 35 women. 35 women times, let’s just make it simple, 10 people, OK? that they know intimately, that kind of know what’s going on. 10, 350 people out of 350 people, could you not get one disgruntled uncle, one neighbor who saw some stuff, one family member who thinks this is a little weird. That you couldn’t put them on the stand and say, I know Joseph’s doing this because I saw him come over last night. OK. When you, when you sue people in open court for slander and libel, you better have the goods or you’re gonna be in trouble. And he did it 3 times that went through and, and a 4th time it was proposed and he defended himself a 5th time against these very things. Brian, why don’t you ever address that? In his private journal entries, we have two of them on October 5th. That’s the one where he’s walking over and down the street and, uh, everybody in this audience should know that, that one by now. The one that gets changed in the history of the church.
[1:22:57] Michelle: The point that he takes to the street, like, like, it’s easy to let that go over our heads because it’s, we’ve heard it so many times. He’s preaching, preaching, preaching, bringing up charges, publishing the newspapers. He takes to the street. He’s like campaigning door to door. Hey,
[1:23:13] Jeremy Hoop: no polygamy,
[1:23:16] Michelle: right? I mean, like, like it’s almost like what more can he do?
[1:23:20] Jeremy Hoop: That’s right. And then, and then just 10 days later, he’s speaking publicly in a sermon on a Sunday. It’s a pretty great sermon, covers a wide range of topics including a lot of interesting stuff about the Holy Ghost. And then in this almost aside, he’s he, he, he says, basically he’s wishing that people would stop their spinning street yarn and talking about spiritual wives. I proclaim in the name of the Lord God that I will have nothing but virtue and integrity and uprightness. OK. And in private conversations, we have recorded private conversations. We have private meetings with Sidney Rigdon where he denies the rumors that are being spread about him propositioning Nancy Rigdon in private meetings with Orson Pratt. He denies having done anything improper with Sarah Pratt and produces uh evidence against her that he then later. Publishes in the times and seasons, I believe 4 affidavits saying that they witnessed Sarah Pratt in very compromising positions with John Bennett, one of which said, I saw John Bennett lying on top of her with with his hand inside her dress, and she signed an affidavit. Mind you, this is not an affidavit 30 years later. This is an affidavit at the time. People willing to go on record very publicly. And defend Joseph’s honor because they saw something. Ryan, why don’t you mention those, um, those affidavits and why don’t you mention the the private conversations that Joseph had with Sydney and with Orson. Um, in in William Clayton’s journal, which then later gets turned into the history of the church, they’re using his journal to, to, to create this in the history of the church. On the 23rd of March 1843, we went down there and saw her. That’s uh Sister Foster, Robert Foster’s wife. President Jay asked Sister Foster if she ever in her life knew him guilty of an immoral or indecent act. She answered no. He then explained his reasons for asking then if ever he had used any indecent or insulting language to her. She answered, never. He further asked if he had ever preached anything like. Anything like the spiritual wife doctrine to her, only, uh, what he had preached in public. She said no. He asked her if he had ever proposed to have illicit intercourse with her and especially when he, when he took dinner during the doctor’s absence. She said no. So anything like spiritual wifery. And by the way, he’s doing this in front of William Clayton, OK? He’s doing this in front of William Clayton, who writes it down. That’s kind of interesting and, and that he’s publicly, publicly addressing this in a private conversation, but publicly meaning he’s got William Clayton as a witness to, to get it on record, and this will go along with what he says in his May 26th, 1844 speech and he says, look, I can prove them all perjurers because I have people writing down everything I’m doing. Which, by the way, casts a lot of shade on uh William Clayton’s journal. If he’s got everybody writing down what he’s doing, what the hell is, sorry, heck, is William Clayton writing down? And so, you can edit that out, I think. that from the record. Um, So we’ve got his, we’ve got his sermons, we’ve got his excommunications, we’ve got, um, his private conversations, his journal entries. We’ve got the published statements, which are everywhere. First of all, we have DNC 101, the statement on merit was published 6 times, 6 times, twice in the Doctrine of Covenants, one in 1835, 1 in 1844, and Joseph Smith was involved in the pub in the collection. and publication of those revelations the entire time, even if they want to say, well, Joseph didn’t really do the revelations in 1835, he certainly did, according to the JSP’s own admission in 1844. He curated all of the revelations in 1844 and in 1835 he signed a statement saying that all of us here, including myself, we will vouch for every, we will stand to account before God for every principle advanced in this little volume. Go ahead, Michel.
[1:27:21] Michelle: As well as the index for the 1835 edition, which, so the presses were going, right? They had already produced much of it and they needed this part. That’s why they didn’t wait for Joseph because they were hurrying to keep the presses going. The index at the front of the book, 4 different times. There are different indexes that include the statement on marriage. They knew exactly where it was going to go. Joseph was in charge of all of that before he left. It was planned, premeditated, determined that it was going to be there verifiably by the index that is in it. And then, and so that’s like there’s no way to claim that Joseph wasn’t completely involved.
[1:28:02] Whitney Horning: The other thing I want to say about that is when the doctrine and covenants was presented to the congregation and to different ws of men. For a sustaining vote and an accepting vote, they read the statement of or the law on marriage to the people and all the people said amen.
[1:28:23] Jeremy Hoop: That’s right. Then they did not read the other sections. They didn’t read the other new stuff, but they did read that. And when it was published in the Messenger and Advocate, they published the general information about the conference, but then they published the entire article on marriage in total. And so they felt it was incredibly important. I know they’ll say, well, Joseph wasn’t at the conference, and Joseph, uh, well he, he, he wasn’t the editor of the Messenger and Advocate in 1835. Well, was he the editor of The Times and Seasons in September of 1842 when he published it then? Was he the editor of the Times and Seasons in October of 1842? This was in response to the John Bennett Bennett fiasco. So he publishes a short statement and then the entire article on marriage in both of those editions. Joseph himself as editor of the Times and Seasons did that. So you cannot weasel your way out of this. Joseph was intimately involved with the creation and the publication of the article on marriage, and then finally, uh, the Millennial Star, um, it was published in January 1844. We have to really twist ourselves in the knots to think that Joseph was just unaware of what people were doing around him. I mean, on the one hand, he knew everything. On the other hand, he could dictate everything, and on the other hand, he just didn’t really know. I mean, which is it?
[1:29:35] Whitney Horning: So I have a thought. So when you’re, you’re just, you’re sharing here about when, how many times the statement or law of the church on marriage was reprinted, and one of those times was October 1st, 1842. That’s right. It was signed by several of the leading men in Navvo, including No K. Whitney, John Taylor, Wruff. Which makes you wonder if that’s where the idea of lying for the Lord came in, because saints would have seen this, and then they’re like, wait a minute. No, wait, do you have more than one wife, um, and then when Wilfred Woodruff started and I wonder like, but you signed this statement and so I wonder if um. If that’s when they started using that term to justify why they had lied because they’re lying right here.
[1:30:22] Jeremy Hoop: Well,
[1:30:23] Whitney Horning: Taylor,
[1:30:24] Jeremy Hoop: we don’t know if John Taylor is involved at that point. We don’t know, um, as far as we know.
[1:30:30] Michelle: The March 1842 letter to the relief Society is signed by Brigham Young. At least we, we don’t have the original letter. They tried to fake and pretend that we do, but they don’t, we don’t. We have what is recorded. The original is recorded in the, um, the record book of the Relief Society, and then 1/4 version was made, which you know because it does not have. Joseph’s or Brigham’s signatures. It’s in Willard Richard’s, yeah, and Richards,
[1:31:01] Whitney Horning: Willard Richard’s version has that silly of saying
[1:31:05] Jeremy Hoop: unless we
[1:31:08] Michelle: tell you tell you which is the whole reason he had to make up a fake version because it’s just like the journal entry, just like the Harrison Sager sermon that Joseph gave, just like all of it. This ongoing record of wink wink, we’re adding this little language in that was not in the originals ever.
[1:31:27] Whitney Horning: And then in that same times and seasons, October 1st, 1842, right after the men print the stats and they print the whole thing and it’s titled On marriage, and they print it right after that, following that statement. The women of the relief Society printed this following statement. We, the undersigned members of the ladies relief Society and married females do certify and declare that we know of no system of marriage being practiced in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints save the one contained in the book of doctrine and covenants. That we give this certificate to the public to show that JC Bennett’s secret wife system, so that’s interesting, they called this secret wife. Um, system is a disclosure of his own make, and it was signed by Emma Smith, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, that’s Newell’s wife, Eliza R. Snow, Phoebe Woodruff, Leonora Taylor, and others.
[1:32:28] Jeremy Hoop: And this is after Eliza supposedly has already become his wife, according to.
[1:32:34] Michelle: But I think, I think at this point those women were honest, right? They didn’t, none of them like they were honest when they were writing. They had to get to Utah into this totalitarian system to become the liars that they’re bringing up a Whitney.
[1:32:50] Jeremy Hoop: I’m chronicling the things that Joseph was directly involved in and, and not all of them, just a, just uh Uh, a decent list of them. What I’m not chronicling are things that he would have been extremely well aware of because they were very public. And I, and I have put them all together in a, in a long list, and there are hundreds and hundreds of references of the things that were done in support of him that he was involved with from 1827 to 1844. And so this is by no means a comprehensive list of everything that was going on very publicly. Um, in opposition to plural marriage that Joseph was directly involved in or that he was supported in by things like this other statement that, uh, where, where these other people signed their names. And so it’s really important to understand that. So we have published statements, we, we have the letter from Liberty Jail in the 16th, uh, people don’t know this. They, we, we get the, a small portion of it in our doctrine and covenants, um, but it says this, no, no assuredly, dear brethren. That it is for the testimony of Jesus that we are bound in prison. Was it for committing adultery? We are aware that false and slanderous reports have gone abroad. So 1838, these reports are going abroad, which have reached our ears respecting this thing, which have been started by renegades and spread by the dissenters who are extremely active in spreading foul and libelous reports concerning us. Thinking thereby to gain the fellowship of the world. Some have reported that we not only dedicate our property, but likewise our families to the Lord and Satan taking into Satan taking advantage of this has transfigured it into lasciviousness, a community of wives, which is polygamy, which things are an abomination in the sight of God. And when a man consecrates or dedicates his wife and children to the Lord, he does not give them to his brother or to his neighbor. Which is contrary to the law of God, which says, which by the way, this is what the righam and his people would do. They would, you know, they even swapped wives. Um, God says thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already in his heart. Now, for a man to consecrate his property, his wife and his children to the Lord is nothing more nor less than to feed the hungry, clothe the naked. the widows and the fatherless, the sick and the afflicted, and do all he can administer to their relief and their afflictions and for himself and his house to serve the Lord. In order to do this, he and all his house must be virtuous and shun every appearance of evil. Now, if any person has represented anything otherwise than what we now write, they have willfully misrepresented us, and I think that would be including you, Brian. So on March 30th, 1842, He writes this letter that I mentioned to, um, uh, to the relief society that it gets included in their minutes, and I won’t read the whole thing, but there is one portion of it that, um, that is actually really interesting because he, he comes at it from another angle. He basically says anything that anyone, um, characterizes as having come from us, uh, or anything that is, um, untoward. You can basically sit down as an impostor. I gotta see if I can find this. Oh, no. Basically, he says, if a mayor, general, prophet, apostle, pastor, or president comes and tells you that this is OK, that anything like John Bennett is doing, you can set that guy down as an. Aster, and he writes that directly specifically to the relief society. And the reason they formed the relief society, one of the principal reasons was to help the sisters, um, overcome the temptation that was being brought to them by men like John Bennett and Brigham Young.
[1:36:29] Michelle: Yeah, not for their lies, right? They wanted to educate the women so they wouldn’t fall for the lies of John Bennett because it was appalling that women kept falling for this nonsense.
[1:36:37] Jeremy Hoop: That’s right. I do not have, he mentions the fight against John Bennett, but that took the entire, almost the entire year of 1842 and 1843. It was insane how much he was having to deal with both publicly and privately and in the legal system and in hiding, uh, because John Bennett had, had gone to the governor, former governor of Missouri and said, you know, Governor Boggs got shot and he said, you know, it was Joseph that did that. Um, Joseph had his
[1:37:05] Michelle: and they already, they had another suspect that they had a good case that they were pursuing before that happened, and they dropped the other suspect that they had when John Bennett did that.
[1:37:16] Jeremy Hoop: So a good portion of the end of 1842, Joseph spends in hiding having to deal with this nonsense. He’s dealing with the subject of spiritual wifery and his opposition to it virtually every day throughout 1842 and parts of 1843. Um. Uh, and as I mentioned, oh, and he, in terms of publications, he publishes sec uh, the, the statement on marriage, and then we get to the voice of innocence. Now, this is something Brian never mentions, never mentions the voice of innocence, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that the voice of innocence was started by Joseph. Yes. On February 22 28th, 1844, Wednesday, February 28th, 1844 at home, Phelps writing on Orsimus F. Bostwick for women. Joseph is there and he’s having William Phelps, who was one of his pen. Um, uh, one of his ghostwriters, one of his, uh, scribes who would help him compose sermons at times, OK, which is odd because William Phelps is one of the worst of all of them. That guy deserves a giant episode, Michelle. Um, but he, um, He is helping Joseph cause Phelps is a great writer. I mean, he’s very flowery for the time. Um, and he pens the voice of innocence, then Emma comes in and does some final edits to it. Then on the 29th, the, the, the draft is completed and then, um, then on March 7th. They get up and Joseph calls. It says this, a vast assembly of the saints met at the temple of the Lord. This is March 7th, 1844 by a special appointment of President Joseph Smith. Brian Joseph called this meeting for the purpose of advancing the progress of the temple. The patriarch Hiram Smith was present. also of the 12 apostles, Brigham Young, Hebrew Kimball, Parley Pratt, Orson Pratt, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George Albert Smith, all of whom, by the way, at this time, I think maybe with the exception of, uh, uh, Wilfred Woodruff, are knee-deep in the practice. Um, also the Temple Committee, about 8000 saints. An article was read. He has WW Phelps read it by Phelps entitled A Voice of Innocence at Navvo. Um, and an assembly of 8000 strong said Amen twice. Then two days later, Emma reads it to two subsequent meetings of the relief society, all of them standing up and shouting and saying amen to the letter. And a week later, two other meetings. Emma reads it to so she can cover all of the women. Two other meetings they read the voice of innocence. Now, here’s the, the um. The pertinent part that Joseph directly had a hand in resolved unanimously that while we render credence, this is from the voice of innocence, that while we render credence to the doctrines of Paul, that neither the man is without the woman, neither is the woman without the man and the Lord, yet we raise our voices and hands against John C. Bennett’s spiritual life system. There and there’s the, there’s the cloak, right? Well, it’s just John C. Bennett’s spiritual wife system as the grand scheme of profligates to seduce women, and they that harp upon it wish to make it popular for the convenience of their own cupidity. Wherefore, while the marriage bed undefiled is honorable, let polygamy. Bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the gulf of fallen nature where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, and let all the saints say amen. And they said amen twice. And Joseph was on the stand, Bryan, OK? This is
[1:41:03] Michelle: Joseph’s commissioned it. And can I share something? I want to show what our neighborhood resident transparency is, how he covers this. This is Brian Hale’s website, Joseph Smith’s polygamy, the search term I’m typing in voice of innocence. Let’s see what comes up. A total of 0 results. He doesn’t even include it anywhere at all on his website. You can search for Orsemus Bostwick. You can search for any of these terms. He does not even include it. So when he says he has every source on polygamy, he means he has every source he can twist into painting Joseph Smith as a polygamist, and these are all. What shall we say, transparently absent from his website. This is not transparency. This is as opaque as it’s possible to be. So much to talk about. And that was only the first half of our conversation. I hope that you found this as, as enlightening and invigorating and useful as I think all of us did, who were participating in the conversation. Another huge shout out, as always, to Whitney and Jeremy for the huge amount of work they have done on this topic and for everything they brought. For anyone who wants a recap of so many of the sources that were just shared with us, pick up Whitney Horning’s book. Joseph Smith revealed a faithful telling. I read. Reference it often. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s a great resource to have, to have all of this information right there at your fingertips, and a lot more exciting things are going to be coming. So I am excited to to release next week’s second half of this conversation as well. And as always, the invitation is always there for people to come and engage. I would much rather talk to people than about people. And I hope that everyone is just taking all of this discourse as an invitation. An opportunity to elevate their ballgame, right? To, to raise things and let’s all try to do a little bit better. I am certain that there are things that I’ve gotten wrong, and I will always try to adjust and acknowledge and admit and improve what I say rather than just double down and refuse to talk about it. So that’s what I’m hoping will be the outcome of these conversations. For all of you who are tuning in and joining in the conversation, I, again, want to say thank you, and I am so excited to continue the conversation next week.
