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Links
Mark’s channel and newest video
Mormon polygamy – timeline of events
First published record of “Fanny Alger” by her full name was in 1881, per Brian Hales
Chapter Index
0:00 Intro
2:25 Introduction to Hemlock Knots
8:50 Mark’s study of polygamy
16:35 Examining sources & discerning truth
22:05 Trusting in the arm of flesh
28:15 Reasons for the 1890 Manifesto
30:00 Different perspectives, same goal
32:25 Sources & logic v. appeals to authority
45:45 Hemlock Knots sources on Fanny Alger
47:25 Perspectives on Brian Hales
48:50 Hemlock Knots polygamy timeline
49:55 Scriptural polygamists v. monogamists
50:50 Resources on origins of tithing
55:50 The Temple Lot court case
1:00:35 First published record of “Fanny Alger” in 1881 (see link)
1:03:10 Brigham, trustee of the new church
1:05:05 Can a ‘polygamy denier’ stay in the church?
1:08:30 Polygamy research is a collaborative effort
1:12:15 What’s really leading people out of the church?
1:27:50 Importance of respectful discussion
Transcript
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. Today’s conversation is one that is long overdue. Many of you know Mark Curtis, the founder of Hemlock Knots, and someone who has been in this space for a very long time doing incredible work. He is such a great guy. I really like him. I really appreciate him, and I’m really thankful that we were finally able to get together and that he was willing to come on. I think that I had originally planned to release this as like one of our my midweek conversations, but I really wanted to have my conversation with Mark, be one of this regular Sunday numbered episodes. So if we talk about it as a midweek episode, that’s why I’ve decided to change the schedule and add his in right now. I also have so many other topics that I’m working on. I have a number of really great conversations that are just waiting to be released, and I’m working on other things, so things are crazy right now, but I, I really loved engaging with Mark Curtis and hearing more about his story and what he has been working on and what he’s working on now. So thank you so much for joining us for this fantastic conversation. I am really excited to be here with Mark Curtis who on just the spur of the moment dropped everything and agreed to come and talk to me and I’m, I’ve been wanting to talk to Mark officially on the podcast for a long time and so I’m really glad that we are finally have, um, we’re able to make it work out and have a reason to. So Mark, thank you. Yeah,
[01:40] Mark Curtis: thank you. And this all came from a conversation on the phone about an hour ago or so, right?
[01:44] Michelle: Right. We’re just jumping on right now. But yeah, there are a variety of reasons. I’ve wanted to talk to Mark for a long time. And so we decided to go ahead and do it as a live chat because I, Mark Curtis absolutely deserves his own full episode of 132 Problems, but I actually don’t want to wait and try to fit, um, fit our conversation in an official Sunday, um, episode. So we’re doing it as a live chat, but I’m hoping it will Get at least as much play as a Sunday episode. So please join in the conversation, share this conversation because I think there’s a lot of really important information here, particularly, um, right now, as there are some detractors and people attacking my channel and what I’m doing and also what the work that Mark has done. So I just wanted to come on and set the record straight and, and, and also introduce what Mark has done and let people know a little bit more about him. So does that sound OK, Mark? Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. OK, so for those who don’t know, Mark is the founder of the website, the YouTube channel, and the Facebook discussion group of Hemlock Knots. So I’m going to go ahead and share the, um, the, the, this is the website right here that you can see. And Mark, for those who don’t know how brilliant the title is of your website, can you explain where that came from?
[03:05] Mark Curtis: Um, yeah, it’s actually based upon, it’s, it’s metaphorical and it’s based upon something that Joseph Smith is attributed to have said a long time ago and uh we try to find something about us page. I’ve got the exact quote that I’ll read, um. You know, according to 1844 January 21st in the history of the Church Volume 6, it stated that Joseph Smith said, there’s been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It’s been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle. Even the saints are slow to understand. I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the saints prepared to receive the things of God, but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that’s contrary. To their traditions. So, uh, the metaphor there is that like getting people to really understand stuff that’s outside of their normal paradigm and their way of thinking or how they were raised or whatever faith system they were given at birth. People fly apart and it’s difficult. It’s like splitting these tough. Knots inside of a log. If you’re ever splitting wood and they’re up, it’s a very hard wood and so these knots are, you know, they’ll break saws, you know, they’ll they’ll dull axes on these things trying to get these things split open. So I think Joseph Smith, if, if that quote is really something he said, I, I used the metaphor there because that’s what we’re trying to do here is like split these topics open. Let’s, let’s dissect them, let’s get them opened up a little bit even though it’s going to be a rough conversation for a lot of people.
[04:35] Michelle: That’s great. I, I thought it was a brilliant. I love that quote. I hope it is true. I like how careful you are with sources, and that’s one thing we’ll talk about that you instead of you saying Joseph Smith said, you’re saying there’s a source that claims that Joseph Smith said, right, because we need to be careful,
[04:49] Mark Curtis: yeah, exactly, which is the core of what we’re trying to do, right? Trying to figure out what actually happened back then as hard as that question could be.
[04:57] Michelle: Right, but it is a great quote, and I love the symbol of Hebnock knots, like you said, that it’s so hard to get people to consider a new paradigm. I think Jesus said the same thing, like, anything that you, oh, I should have looked up the quote, but Abraham you have and Moses you have, but anything new that you weren’t born with, you can’t accept it, right? They, they It’s like human nature every single time.
[05:19] Mark Curtis: New wine and bottles. I mean, there’s there’s, there’s similar ideas taught throughout all of religion and Christianity and Mormonism. It’s it’s not an uncommon thing to to understand the idea that getting human beings in our human nature to open up to new paradigms is is a task, a big task, you know, it’s messy.
[05:40] Michelle: It is, it’s challenging. So, OK, so I want, there are a couple of different directions I want to go. I wanna first, um, let me just introduce a couple of things, and then I wanna ask you a little bit about your journey and, um, why you started Hemlock Knots, how you started it, when you started it, you know, how you came on to this, to this topic and what you mostly wanted to accomplish. But at first, I want to introduce the reason that we’re talking about this is because some of the detractors who are coming after me are, are assuming, I just think out of sheer ignorance that like I am the, the mother, the great mother of this entire movement, right? And I feel, um, I, I feel offended on behalf of you and others who have been in Hemlocked knots, who have been, I, you know, I, I also wanted to talk to Whitney Horning, who published her book in 2019. Well, I started my YouTube channel in early 2022. And, um, and I was not even discussing. I, I intentionally wanted to stay away from the topic of Joseph Smith and his involvement in polygamy, because I, you know, I hadn’t yet known about him like not. I hadn’t yet known about Whitney’s book. I just was focusing on the scriptures and what I had learned about polygamy itself. So I feel, um, I take great issue with people claiming that this entire movement is based on me and my work. And I think that there are people who are rightly offended by that claim and that assumption. So I wanted to set the record straight for a number of reasons. First of all, I deserve nothing like that responsibility or that credit or that blame, however people want to want to look at it, right? I came into this and we came together because we’ve had similar Um, interest, right? So we, I think the first time we met was when you came to my state fireside on, um, polygamy, right? And that’s, that’s the, I think the one time. No, I’ve met you a couple of times since then, but that was when we met. And, um, and so anyway, so I guess I just feel like people have been on this topic well before I came here, and people have actually in your movement in Hemlock, I don’t even know if I should call it a movement, but I know there have been people in Hemlock not. And people who were on these topics before who were extremely impatient with me being slow to come to the conclusion myself that Joseph wasn’t involved. And then there are still a lot of people who were in this movement before who have left the church, which is not something that I have felt at all necessary to do and is not something I have felt at all inspired to do, who are also impatient with me still being in the church, right? So I think that a lot of the um comments on my videos or on my posts that are very opposed to the church generally are people who were in this movement before I got here. And you’ll have a slightly different perspective on it because I’m in the unique space of feeling like, yes, it’s true that polygamy was never of God and that polygamy, I now have become more and more committed to my conclusion that polygamy did not originate with Joseph Smith. However, I don’t think. That at all means that people should leave the church. I see it a very different way. So that was a big long explanation. And now I’ll turn the time over to you, Mark, to kind of tell us, well, you can respond to that if you want. And then I would love to know your journey and how and why and when you started Hemlocks.
[09:00] Mark Curtis: Yeah, so for me, um, you know, I’ve always been interested in like trying to figure out what what happened historically and stuff like that, even for like reading the Old Testament and things, those things just fascinating. History is always a topic I’m interested in, but um I think for me, you know, 2017 is when I had a, um, I had a stepson at the time who had come to me with, he had read the the CES letter. I almost said the Wentworth letter, the CES letter, right, which has all these um highly controversial things in it. And so he came to me and was, hey, what’s up with this, this, this, this, this and this. And so, you know, to try to help him out, I said, you know what, like, I’ll study this and we can, we can share, I can share with you what I find. I’ll try to help you make sense of this a little more because it is, yeah, it’s pretty shocking on the surface and so. I went down the, you know, the rabbit hole. I’ve always been very studious, um, uh, but I went down the rabbit hole of, OK, let me, let me try to figure out this polygamy thing and I’ll teach him. How it ties into the gospel and the plan of salvation and where Joseph Smith taught about it and you know, all this stuff where it’s at in the New Testament, but I was like, OK, let me just lay it out because I’m sure there’s a lot of detail there. So, you know, 7 or 8 months later, I’ve got an exhaustive list and a timeline and all these sources sorted by date and and I just had this wealth of knowledge and it was all done in like um Google Docs at the time. And so I started to realize, wow, like there’s really, there’s really not a lot in support of of this doctrine, which is essential, according to some, to get into celestial kingdom or whatever they say. And so I remember just, I was, it’s almost like the less I found, the more intense I got at trying to find it, right? And so, and there were little hints there, but, but the things that I did find in support of it, I noticed a pattern. They were all Very, I mean, even back then as, as, as someone who believed that it could be a concept that was had some merit to it, maybe some inspiration to it. I remember just like rolling my eyes at these sources thinking that why, why aren’t there better sources propping up that side of the argument? Why is everything late? Why is everything second thirdhand? It seems like. There’s a couple things that get into the firsthand, but it’s, I don’t know, it’s just a mess.
[11:19] Michelle: Are you talking about like why aren’t there from Joseph teaching this doctrine and is that kind of what you’re referring to?
[11:25] Mark Curtis: I’m looking for firsthand contemporary stuff, you know, ideally if I can get it. Um, and I just, you know, most of the stuff I did find that did fit that, you know, more credible quality of the source was actually him teaching against it. And so, as you can imagine, I was like, wait, what? This cannot be the case. And so I’m asking people, I’m reading books and I’m, I’m going into a pretty exhaustive. I got pretty obsessed with it, you could say, right? So, but, but I wanted to settle that issue for my stepson at the time and for myself because I was starting to get curious like where did this come from, right? There’s a lot of stuff against it in the scriptures, but I don’t see. You know, um, a lot on the other side. So that’s how it all started and I was studying with a a group of friends and we, we were very active in studying the scriptures and things. And so there were a lot of people asking me for my notes. It kind of like I had a lot of people on Facebook Messenger say, Hey, can you send me that timeline? Can you, and I just got so tired of forwarding links to all these things all day long that I just like thought, hey, I’m just gonna throw it on a website and wash my hands of this because, and then I could just add to it as I find new stuff. That’s, that’s the knots.
[12:30] Michelle: You’re a web designer guy, right? Isn’t that like, like in your wheelhouse of what you do, so that was,
[12:36] Mark Curtis: I’m a digital tech companies here in Utah, you know, advertising and things. So, um, I have built websites, but I’m an amateur. I’m not someone who’s software programming friendly. I just, I can get stuff up on WordPress and things and do my best, but I wouldn’t call myself a web developer, but I was willing to do this for the community because it was, it was going to make my life easier, you know, even though it was a lot of work to put this up there. I’m glad I did because I was just constantly being asked for these resources. Hey, Mark, can you look up this quote for me? And I’m like, here, just you look it up yourself. There it is, you know.
[13:12] Michelle: That’s great. Well, it is, I think it’s a great, um, you do a really good job with the design elements and the, you know, I, I love, I love how you’ve done it. I think it’s really
[13:22] Mark Curtis: good. I wish it was more. I wish you could search for quotes in a database. If I would go back in time, I would have done it that way, but thank you for the compliment.
[13:31] Michelle: Yeah, so, OK, so you started researching this in 2017, compiled your notes into your Word documents, or your Google Docs or whichever it was you said, and then you started the website, did you say in early 2019? Is that when you remember?
[13:48] Mark Curtis: So at the end of 2019 I had a bunch of Google Docs and it was the beginning of, uh, I remember it was like when COVID started to happen because I was working from home at the time. You know, in the afternoons when I was done with work, I would, I would just switch gears and go into this project, right? So it was probably late or early 2020, right on COVID, the website actually went up and then the first episode we did where there was a podcast and YouTube that didn’t come until like May of 201.
[14:16] Michelle: OK, so here is. I, yeah, I looked this up as well, and um, here is your first episode, let me get this onto the stage. Here is your first episode of Hemlock Knots on um On YouTube intro to the Hemlock Not show. And if people can see right here, the date, yeah, it was July 12, 2021 that you started, that you posted your first episode that you had recorded that was, that was, um, talking about what you were going to do and I’ll, I’ll go back to your page so people can see more of your episodes because I know you’re not producing content consistently, but there are a lot of really good um. Um, episodes that you, that you have created. And so I guess I wanted to show that also to show, I, I’m in a way trying to like give people credit where credit is due because my first episode was in February of 2022. So almost a full year after you started, and then I didn’t get into the topic of specifically Joseph’s polygamy as a focus until almost A year into that. So almost into 2023, when you started in 2021 on the topic of Joseph Smith’s polygamy, right? Wasn’t that basically
[15:31] Mark Curtis: what I mean, I was like, it’s a big one. It’s hard to gamy wants to go back to it. And so I’m constantly being dragged back to the polygamy even though I’ve got dozens of studies I’ve done on lots of other topics, you know, baptisms for the dead and tithing and the priesthood and all kinds of stuff that I would love to just unload one day. I just, you know, life’s busy now. I’ve kind of lost interest in some of those questions. I’ve explored them and at the time they were a passion for mine, but like I, I just don’t have that burning desire anymore to spend hours a day researching some of these topics as much, you know, I’ll still, I’ll listed things and learn a little bit here and there, but, um, I’ve got other things that are more of a focus now.
[16:09] Michelle: Sure, and that’s so fair. We, we talked about that in our phone conversation about how it’s kind of like, while you’re passionate about it, but while you have the need, then you do it, and then hopefully eventually you get the answers you need, or at least you get it settled and move on to something else. Yeah,
[16:23] Mark Curtis: I spent the rest of my life studying polygamy or not? I’d be an idiot. Like it just doesn’t matter to me that much to spend that much time on it, but I’m glad that I went through that, um, the process of research and study and learning about sources because it’s, it’s made me and a lot of people in the community much better researchers, discerners, just like we’re just. We’re not quite as gullible to the, the fly by drive by secondhand statements that some people cling to and so I mean some call it unhealthy skepticism, but you know, we look at the court like how the courts are run. There’s there’s a statute of limitations that basically say you can’t convict somebody 50 years later of something that they did, like, you know what I’m talking about unless there’s like a really heavy paper trail in some instances you might be able to. The statute of limitations is broad, but for most things, you know, even in society on a civil level, we understand how fallible. Testimony is and late recollections and people coming together and saying, oh, he told me this and judges throw these out all the time like hearsay. He said he said she said like we don’t, we don’t take any of that seriously in our society when there’s bickering about who said what, so why do we Get so into the weeds 200 years ago with very, very sparse records and a lot of these records have been edited and cleaned up and changed and whitewashed and rewritten and I mean it’s, it’s really just a kind of a frivolous pursuit I think to really try to understand fully what happened back then because I don’t think anybody can really know what happened back then. We just don’t have enough detail. I mean if Joseph Smith on surveillance 24/7 and we had records to all of it like a reality show, we might be able to do a better job at at figuring out what happened, right? But the record keeping was just so sparse.
[18:17] Michelle: Right, and I’m gonna push back on something you said, and, and maybe it’s just maybe it’s a different perspective because I am newer to this topic of specific, specifically of Joseph’s polygamy. But I don’t see it as, as at all frivolous. I think you use that word, maybe you meant it in a different way. But to me, I think it is fascinating, and I did for a long time, push away from, I did not want to get sucked into the topic of Joseph’s polygamy because I knew it would just take over. And what I thought felt was far more important was the question of God, the question of God’s polygamy is, you know, like what is truth? Because that’s, that’s why I think this topic is interesting. But I have found, or I felt eventually really led to talk talk about Joseph in service to the greater question of God, right? Like, like, how does God work with us as humans? And what is, what is the story that’s going on here? But then it wasn’t even that so much as like the I find it offensive how bad the information is and how certain people are about it, especially when we’re talking about, for me, especially when we’re talking about Emma, the claims that we make about her on this these horrible sources, and I believe she deserves way better than that. And then I guess, and, and I am. You know, I think there are people who have spent their whole lives on these topics because they are historians who find the historical questions really interesting, you know, and so I do think that, um, anyway, I, I, I think that we can come to. To better conclusions, the more we study it and the deeper we dig into it, but I, I think where we completely agree is taking issue with someone heard some quote, you know, there’s some quote in one of our manuals that Joseph supposedly said this, so we know all we need to know. Or on the other side, someone sees one source and then all of a sudden it’s all settled that we know all we need to know. I think it is really valuable to. Dive in with an open mind, just willing to find where the
[20:21] Mark Curtis: Uh, what’s the word? Maybe frivolous wasn’t the right word, but meaning that like it’s, it’s difficult to do. You’re going to waste a lot of time if you try to figure out exactly what Joseph said, when and verbatim. Like it’s just you can’t do that with what we have. The records aren’t good enough to really piece together the full picture. So, but I think there are shortcuts if you’re interested in like other questions, which is do the teachers, do the scriptures teach polygamy? That’s a different question than did Joseph participate in it, right? And so we need to separate those and go after that because I think the record’s pretty clear in the scriptures like that that’s kind of like an easy one. Like it’s a layup like the scriptures teach that polygamy is OK. Show me one example, right? Besides twisting some verse and demeaning some weird thing, right? Um. So I think those are questions, we just have to separate the questions because right now they’re all kind of stitched together, and they’re all intertwined and and so whether or not Joseph did polygamy has nothing to do with whether or not polygamy is morally correct according to your scriptures. Right they’re connected it’s not the same thing, you know,
[21:23] Michelle: right, that’s one thing I’ve been so yes, it’s hard to separate out those two questions just like you’re talking about. In fact, even when I try to engage with people in discussions or debates, which I’m always like, let’s separate the two topics is polygamy of God, and then is polygamy of Joseph Smith. They are different topics and they don’t have that much bearing on one another. Although I have found with people trying to help people, um, that are still in polygamy today, and, you know, there are people still suffering in polygamy today, um, I have been told how helpful it would be to their work to be able to show people. The evidence that maybe it didn’t start with Joseph Smith. And so it does people’s mindsets still are very much if Joseph did it then it’s good, which I disagree with, but, um, and, and more, more I just want to find the truth.
[22:15] Mark Curtis: If Joseph Smith is your God and he’s the source of your morality, then yeah, if he did it, then you get permission to do it too. But that that’s just such a limited way of thinking. It’s like, well, are we, are we? Believing in a God or a higher morality for the entire universe, or are we just going off of one man, you know, at at Book of Mormon even says that, you know, you’re cursed if you put your trust in the arm of flesh. It doesn’t specify which flesh, just any of it, including Joseph Smith, right?
[22:43] Michelle: I was just thinking that same thing. It’s really interesting that a lot of people who who bring up that scripture. Um, to oppose how we put our current church leaders on pedestals, right? And so
[22:54] Mark Curtis: they’re, they’re not, you know, they’re they’re not infallible, they’re fall. But then when it comes to Joseph, like, no, he’s infallible. Like it’s the same. Nobody’s infallible. It’s ridiculous to think that even Joseph Smith didn’t make mistakes, and anyone familiar with church history knows that he made a ton of mistakes. A time he, he was, he was human and he admitted to that largely,
[23:17] Michelle: right, yeah, which, which actually is something I love about him, that he was willing to publicly publish, like publish his rebukes from God, right? How many times has he called to repentance and the doctor come? You said it was something like 18, I think you’ve counted them.
[23:33] Mark Curtis: I think at least, yeah, there’s just, you know, he had to repent and you’re not quite ready for this. It’s not only stern rebukes, but it just shows like that he wasn’t someone who was perfect and put together and ready to go from day one. There’s a lot of refinement that he had to go through as a person, I think.
[23:51] Michelle: Right, but, but the fact that he published those makes me have so much respect for him. That’s one thing I’ve really been thinking about lately. I’ve said it a few times in some recent interviews, is that we have a problematic dichotomy. Either you are infallible and cannot lead the people astray, or you are capable of repentance. You can’t have both, right? If in your position you can’t make a mistake, that precludes you from the possibility of any degree of repentance, which infallibility is not part of the gospel anywhere. Whereas faith and repentance are the first two principles of the gospel. And so I think the fact that Joseph was willing to not only actually be, but fully present himself as a flawed person, um, in need of ongoing repentance, speaks to his, his character. I think that that’s incredibly impressive, and I wish that we would follow that example a little bit more in our current leadership.
[24:48] Mark Curtis: And even within the pages of the Book of Mormon, you don’t have anything in this like this record is perfect. It’s all the word of God, like that’s what humans say about the book. The book itself says, hey, Marone, Marone, the author in the book or whoever, they say that, you know, there’s a lot of flaws in this book. Like, it’s not perfect. If I could write in this language, it would be better. Like they’re they’re admitting weakness if you if you study closely, like they’re not saying that their record is fallible. In fact, they’re pointing out a lot of errors in their own records, right? And so this idea of fall, it’s ridiculous because it’s, it’s also like Let’s, let’s put it this way. If the LDS Church is saying, Hey, our leaders should be trusted, they’ll never lead you astray, and that’s out of the doctrine Covenant’s declaration too. Wilfred Woodruff, I think was the first. Well, it’s based upon a Brigham Young quote earlier. Brigham Young actually said the same gist of it, but you know, the first published one that we’re all aware of in our scriptures Wilfred Woodruff. It’s not in the program, right? Programs misspelled. It’s not the program to lead people astray. God would remove this person if he did. And yet in the same breath, those same people are saying Joseph Smith had to lie about polygamy. That’s leading people astray. Him lying about it publicly and then privately, that’s why wasn’t he removed? Some would say he when he got killed, but like. It is in the program. A lot of people have led people astray from the pulpit, like even all the stuff they’ve rescinded from. I mean, look at all the stuff that Brigham Young taught that’s no longer around with blood atonement, right, with polygamy, with united order, with what else is there,
[26:25] Michelle: right? Adam
[26:25] Mark Curtis: and the church has rescinded these publicly saying no, these are not correct. These are not doctrine, but the leaders of the church cannot lead you astray. And we’re all just sitting here thinking, wait, what? How does that make sense?
[26:39] Michelle: Right. And actually the, the leader, the, um, president of the church cannot lead you astray is so ironic in so many ways because it grew out of the polygamy crisis, and it was because Wilfred Woodruff was contradicting what previous leaders had said, right? We have so many times of Brigham Young and John Taylor being on the record saying if the church ever goes. from polygamy, you will know it is an apostasy, and this is absolutely essential for exaltation. So Wilfred Woodruff was like, he, you know, he had to set up some new, um, I guess central doctrines which I think are the temple and the idea the prophet can never lead you astray. He, he switched the focus from polygamy to
[27:17] Mark Curtis: eternals, yeah, eternal, the marriage.
[27:21] Michelle: Yeah,
[27:22] Mark Curtis: right.
[27:22] Michelle: But, but it’s so ironic that he was saying those previous leaders were wrong, but God wouldn’t allow me to lead you astray. So stay with me, right? And those, and, and there really was a a big split in the church that those who were like, no, we sided with the last prophets left and went went to the form the fundamental effect. And those who stayed were you like the rallying cry became the prophet cannot lead us astray, right? And, and so it’s an interesting thing to see that that statement was necessary because prophets had led us astray, right? And so it’s, yeah.
[27:57] Mark Curtis: And there was a lot of talk back then, a lot of talk back then about, hey, the federal government can go shut it. We follow God only and then years later they’re like, you know what the federal government says we need to stop this, but actually God told us we need to also, so it’s OK, right. It’s just, you know, the federal government was leading the church back then. There’s no question.
[28:16] Michelle: Although I actually do, I think that, um, Wilfred Woodruff had genuine revelation from God that he was able to listen to. John Taylor, I think, would have let the church burn down around him out of his diligence to polygamy. He would have, he would have not let go of polygamy, no matter what happened. Whereas Wilfred Woodruff, I mean, because of the warning of the cursings that will come in the Book of Mormon, I tend to think that God was like, Hey, are you willing to listen to Thing? Going to go really bad if you keep this up. So I think that even though it was compelled, I got some pushback from that. But even though it was compelled from Wilfred Woodruff, I think at least stopping or at least lessening the practice of polygamy, they pulled down the endowment house, they, they stopped teaching it and the numbers of polygamous marriages like massively decreased even with the first manifesto and then more so with the second manifesto, right? So I, I see that as Um, like, like when the Book of Mormons says it’s better to repent when you’re not forced, but even if you’re forced, it’s still repentance, right? Even a forced partial, um, repentance. Still, the Lord blessed the people after that. The church wasn’t destroyed like it would have been if they had continued.
[29:25] Mark Curtis: So that’s, yeah. Manifesto that stated, if you read it very carefully, everyone should read it again. What were the reasons he gave for why we don’t want to do this? And it was, we don’t want to lose our temples. We don’t want to lose our property. It was about money. Like they didn’t want to go bankrupt. They didn’t want to lose assets to, you know, because the federal government was threatening to seize assets, right? And so they’re like, hey, we should stop because we We like the assets more than God’s commandments, you know, and so, yeah, I mean, if you read it with just an objective, take a, take a step back. Why did they, did they have to do this? It was because corporation that was about to go under, is about to go bankrupt.
[30:03] Michelle: And see, I think this is a good, this is a good example. I’m glad we’re having this conversation because I do think you have a, um, more cynical perspective than I have in several of the things you’ve said, which that’s not a criticism. I want people to pay attention and take notice that there are many different perspectives and I’m not the one leading all of the perspectives because when you say that that’s what you read into the manifesto, I think that’s there, but I also read into it that he’s saying. Is it better to stop all temple work, you know, like if we lose the temples we lose the property, that yes, they would lose the property, but more so I think I read his concern is we lose the ability to do any of our temple work. All of the men will be in prison, all of the leaders,
[30:44] Mark Curtis: yeah, but they did temple work long before the temples were ever built, like in a red brick store. They’ve done them out in the woods. There’s, you don’t need a temple to do an endowment ceremony. That was it, right?
[30:55] Michelle: Right, yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I just, I, I’m just pointing out the difference we see that I do see. I, I attribute more faith to that than I think you do. I think you are more cynical about it than I am, which is totally fine. Just I want people to know there is a wide range of Perspective on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[31:14] Mark Curtis: And honestly, that’s what is about is providing a forum where people can come and explore this stuff, crack it open, see, see what other perspectives there are. Um, it was never designed to be an instrument where I wanted to tell people what to believe, right? I never wanted to tell people what happened historically. I had no clue. In fact, I did, I did like a two-part debate and, and I, I didn’t gather on any side. I was the moderator because I’m like, I, I’m not getting into this. But I, I had people present their different sides because I think the hemlock box community is, that’s the purpose of it. Come here and split some logs. Let’s figure this out. Let’s throw some sources at it. Let’s crowdsource these questions and just do our best. And yeah, the, the community is super diverse. You don’t find any two people that agree on 100% like it’s all over the place, you know, um.
[32:04] Michelle: So we should talk, we should point out we’re talking about the Facebook community, the group Hemlock Knots, which if you’re not a member of, consider joining because it is valuable and I would say like you have gone out of your way to make sure that is not an echo chamber. And I’ve been gratified to see how many actual trained historians have joined that group. That’s been really like,
[32:25] Mark Curtis: I wish, I wish he would jump into the group and say, hey, I think this and this and this, even though it’s unpopular in Facebook. Community I, I think more people should come in and just guns blazing, cite your sources, tell us why you believe X or Y. If you think Joseph Smith was a polygamist, cool. Hit us with those sources. Let’s get into the sources and let’s convince people with logic instead of the spirit told me, therefore I know, or or just some sort of like. Well,
[32:54] Michelle: we
[32:54] Mark Curtis: have, right?
[32:57] Michelle: Right, we have a variety of problems. We have people that are just, I know this is true because it’s threatening to me on one side or the other, or I have this conviction based on the worldview I have, but it’s not based. Natural sources and evidence, but then we also have this, I guess I would call it the arrogance of the standard narrative, which from my perspective so far the majority of even historians that I’ve encountered have generally approached this with appeal to authority and ad hominem, right? That’s definitely what happens in the community. It’s a default. It’s, it’s like all of the historians agree you’re not a trained historian and you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’re a flat earther. Therefore, we don’t have to answer you. So I think. Hemlock knots is an incredible resource for historians who have, if, if you’re a historian with that perspective, I think it’s incredibly valuable to come to Hemlock knots and say, OK guys, this source I find like compelling. How do you, how do you guys ignore this source? Do you know about that? Like come. I think because I think even more than coming to Hemlock Knots to try to make your case, I would recommend to people to come and listen and learn for a little while, look up some old, do some searches, you know, inform yourself a little bit more if you can, or just come and inform yourself in the conversation and ask questions. I know that when Bill Reel was, was, um, dealing with this topic and, um, working on deeds, he joined Hemlock Knots and started, you know. Posing his I
[34:23] Mark Curtis: I loved seeing in there. I did. I was so glad that people like him came and participated, even though I understand that this group is very largely swayed towards Joseph is innocent, Joseph is infallible. Like there’s a lot of Joseph Smithites in there and that’s OK. Like I’d like to balance it out a little bit more because I do know that this community is is largely Passionate about defending Joseph Smith, right? And so it’s, it’s not, it’s not always the most, uh, it’s not always the most friendly environment, you know, for just waiting opinions, unfortunately. I’d like to change that one day.
[34:55] Michelle: Oh, I think it’s, I, I’ve been, I’ve been happy with a lot of people to see how, how the engagement has gone. I think it’s a radioactive topic. People are deeply emotional about it. I You know, and from my perspective, a lot of people, well, yes, there is. I always, I always want discourse to be better, to be less, um, aggressive, less emotional, and more informative. I’m always wanting that. But I think, I think that Knots often does really quite well and, um, you know, and like compared to some of the other perspectives I’ve encountered in some of the other groups
[35:30] Mark Curtis: that. I think you do have quite a few people who who do want to know what happened. They they genuinely do. And if they’re not quite there with with their understanding it, they’re still learning and stuff like that. But uh, yeah, I think it’s a good one of ours, ours is that you have to ask a question with, and we did that intentionally because We don’t like people to drive by a preaching or coming in and hey, here’s this quote, choke on it, you know, we want people to ask questions with every post because it forces, this is a discussion forum. This group is for discussing church history sources and so don’t come in with theology, don’t come in try to prove the scriptures, say this and that. We we just delete all those posts. This is the wrong group for that,
[36:17] Michelle: right? And I will say I very, very rarely post any of my episodes in the group because I know that you explicitly didn’t want it to become about my podcast or about, like, I only rarely when there’s a reason like, hey guys, like, can you help me out with this or what do you think of, you know, I would say once every 6 months maybe. Or I don’t know, every 4 months. I’m trying to think
[36:40] Mark Curtis: you can do it as often as you want as long as you follow the rules for posting.
[36:45] Michelle: I just, I just wanting to let people know I’ve tried explicitly to not post there very much. I’ve tried not to take over that.
[36:52] Mark Curtis: So you can, I think just make it, make it a discussion like hey. You can post on come up and say, hey, there’s a new episode out. We’re we’re following this question. What do you guys think about X, Y and Z and start I don’t mind you posting a link to your latest episode in there, but as long as like you’re trying to stimulate discussion, but if people people come on a lot and they’re like, hey, new episode link, and then they just post it. I’m like, no, like that’s, it’s going to be deleted. It’s nothing personal, but it’s like we got to keep that clean because I think our members really appreciate good focused posts that are about church history. They don’t get into like in prophecy. They don’t get into like Bible verses. They don’t, I just, there’s other groups in that,
[37:32] Michelle: right? And, and it’s just kind of a turn off when it just becomes an advertisement thing. I, I, I don’t love it when people are just always come in and post their latest episode because they’re trying to get views, you know, so I guess I have also not wanted to do that. For that reason as well. I really appreciate other people sharing my videos, but I definitely don’t want to be like, hey guys, here I am, look at me, you know,
[37:54] Mark Curtis: I start a discussion about what the episode is about a discussion with a question and then maybe like in the in the in the post itself or in the comments, like the first comments sometimes like a link in the comments. I’m totally good with that. Like there’s no self-promotion there in fact. Our community does want to know about the topics you’re presenting on. And so don’t hold back, but just make sure you follow the rules because I have to be fair to everybody, including celebrities like yourself, right? So um and I have deleted a few of yours, Michelle. I’m sorry, but we just be fair. I think maybe one. It’s because they
[38:35] Michelle: they follow the rules of posting and everyone’s like you’re so rich you’re so rich.
[38:36] Mark Curtis: Yeah, I think we did, but you know, for the thousands of people’s posts that I’ve deleted for the exact same reason, they didn’t include a question. It wasn’t about church history. It was self-promotion. I’m not saying yours was, but like I have to be fair to everybody, including moderators. I’ve had posts deleted of my own, and I’m like, oh shoot, I forgot to. Yeah, I forgot to follow the the format.
[38:57] Michelle: So yeah, that’s OK, that’s good to know. I haven’t felt like it’s, um, that was, I think I can’t even remember what the reason was it was a long time ago.
[39:07] Mark Curtis: It’s probably because you didn’t include a question.
[39:11] Michelle: I can’t, I’m trying to remember because in my mind I’m thinking I thought I followed all the rules and that you delete. I like, I think that’s why I took issue with it because I was like, this was a bad decision, Mark, but I can’t remember what it was and I’m sure it was a good decision.
[39:26] Mark Curtis: I think I think you edited a few things we let it go through, right? I
[39:29] Michelle: I can’t remember. I don’t know. I might have taken my ball and gone home. That might be why
[39:33] Mark Curtis: anymore. I will usually send someone a message and say, hey, I’m not approving this yet, but if you want to edit it and and. Make it into the right format of post. Um, I’m happy to let it go through. I try to give people a warning, you know,
[39:50] Michelle: yeah, that stuff, so yeah, I don’t feel like it’s moderated with the heavy hands, but I haven’t been, I, I, you know, I think I’ve only had one thing that wasn’t allowed, you know. So anyway, so, OK, so I wanna know, um, let’s like. So your journey has been, I was super interested in this. I put up all of my resources. I, I tried to help people, um, engage better with the sources and engage better with critical thoughts, right? And then, um, I wanted to make this additional point as well when we were talking about how people engage and I will say that when. People engage either with a lot of emotion or aggressive, aggressively and with impatient for other views, impatience for other people’s views, and with just, I know this is true because I know it’s true, it actually hurts rather than helps our cause. I think that that’s, that allows people to. Underestimate how seriously we are taking the sources and how strong the actual evidence-based case for this topic is because I don’t feel like the people that are really working on this are like, I know I’m not coming. It to a from a position of, God confirmed this to me, so I’m just going to keep preaching on it. You know, I got here very slowly, kicking and screaming, realizing I would lose a lot of credibility by, by coming out on this topic, right? And, um, And I think that a lot, a lot of others feel that same way. So I would invite people to try to engage in, let, let, let, like I want people on our end of this argument to try to elevate the discourse and I hope that other people can start catching up
[41:33] Mark Curtis: because. Yeah, and you said our end of the argument. So like you’ve got this conclusion over here, this conclusion over here. I want more people to realize, hey, this, this is a complicated issue and there’s shades of gray between, it’s OK to belong in the shades of gray. Totally cool to say I don’t really know what happened, but I’m leaning towards this if I had to guess. Like that’s OK, and I wish, I wish the official church historians and the narrative. I wish they would be softer with some of their claims because that that’s really where they get into a lot of trouble as they’re like, I declared by the Holy Spirit that this and this happened and it’s like, yeah, but like, what about all this that says it didn’t. And so I think we, a lot of more of us, I would like to see a lot more people recognize that these issues are super complicated. They’re hard to determine and and and it’s OK to be in the in the middle somewhere. And it’s OK to be over here and then be over here now. Like it’s OK. We reserve the right to change our mind, right?
[42:32] Michelle: Absolutely. I hope, I hope we’re all doing that. I hope we’re all changing our mind on if we’re
[42:38] Mark Curtis: learning, we should be adapting our views as we go, so.
[42:42] Michelle: Right? And even if it’s, even if it’s strengthening our perspective and strengthening our views, because we, you know, we should be always learning, um, I like, I don’t like it to be, oh, I just saw this piece. So now I think this, oh, I saw this piece, now I think this. I sometimes have people that engage with me like that, and it’s frustrating when it’s like, I was totally on board, but I saw this one piece of evidence, and now I’m totally on. board here and you know, I think we should be a little bit more patient to form firm conclusions and a little more humble in our conclusions. And at least like I know that sometimes when I’ve seen something that I’m like, oh my gosh, what does that mean? How do I make sense of that? There are, you know, and my, I’ve, I’ve done this long enough to know that when I dig in deeper. You know, there, there are usually answers and things that come about that go, oh, that explains it. OK, now that makes sense. But I think that at least being willing to consider the challenges to a perspective is really important, so that we, you know, I hope that more and more people will do that.
[43:46] Mark Curtis: Yeah, that would be, that would be wonderful. Um, and you know, we, we try to take a more like objective approach when we can. Is it OK if I share a screen real quick and just show you like one small example of like what we’re trying to do in this community. So Louisa Beaman, supposedly one of Joseph Smith’s wyats, right? We, we try to just like break it down with little tidbits. It’s really easy to understand stuff like here’s the dates, here’s all 6 of the sources for this, 3/4 of these firsthand accounts. So we just break it down by like, OK, like, where’s the quality of the source material behind this story? And if you get stuff in the yellow and the green, like it’s probably a little bit more believable if there’s multiple sources that were there and they said like, you know, talking about, and so, but some of these stories, if we can take a look at like, where did these sources actually come from? You don’t have to argue about who do you believe more, Emma or you know. Eliza Snow, like it doesn’t have to be about that. Let’s just go with like, OK, when were these things said under what circumstances? What did the person have to gain from it? Um, how did they know about it? Where was it first recorded? How much longer after the fact they said it? And is it even possible to remember that level of detail 10 years later? No, um, but, and so we, we try to just give people as as close to an objective, now not in the Facebook group, there’s a lot of subjective and emotions behind that stuff, those posts, but On the website itself, like just come here and freshen up on some of the sources and and and wrap your head around a topic first and then we think that makes you a lot better at actually discussing it and seeing the complexities of it, right?
[45:23] Michelle: That’s great. These are, this is so useful. And so what are some of the sources on your website that you, I mean, like that you would want people to know about. I really think that this is so helpful. So how many of the wives do you have this kind of a timeline about?
[45:39] Mark Curtis: I didn’t do whatever.
[45:49] Michelle: Yeah,
[45:49] Mark Curtis: and so look like here’s a timeline of like Everything that I was able to find about her, it’s here and it’s sorted by date, so you can see like where did it start, um. You know, and Will Mc McClelland writes a letter. He wrote that letter 34 years later. I’m gonna highlight that because that’s important. Like terrible, right? Do you who he is and what he did? Well, you know, right here. So I try to include the entire story. What was going on, what was going on just a few weeks before. He writes this salacious letter about Joseph. He was in a church excommunication trial and he’s trying to get someone else to look like a pervert. So I think he’s just, you know.
[46:35] Michelle: He also was the one, he robbed Emma while Joseph was in prison, at least according to the sources that were printed in the newspaper, and he and and and according to that same source, he wanted to beat up Joseph while he was basically in his chains, right? So Yeah,
[46:52] Mark Curtis: definitely
[46:53] Michelle: not that Emma would open up to. OK.
[46:56] Mark Curtis: And so we get to here and it’s like, OK, let me summarize this all for you, right? And what are, what are some of the opinions out there of the LDS Church? Fragmentary evidence suggests, OK, real certain, aren’t we, historians. So they’re just like stabbing at it. They need this thing to be true, but they know they can’t prove it. And so pay attention to what the people are saying, right? Um, even Brian Hailes, who’s very well respected on the subject of Joseph’s polygamy, and I, and I tip my hat to Brian Hailes. I think he’s a thorough researcher, even though I don’t always agree with the conclusions. I think he’s put in the time and the effort to study the topics, and, and for that I will always respect someone who’s studied the topics regardless of their conclusion. I, I, I think they’re a, you know.
[47:45] Michelle: Well, I agree with you on the context. I mean, on, on terms of him um providing sources. I think that that that work he’s done has been invaluable, but I am embarking on a, well, people who watch my channel know that he is the opposite of a transparency, so I feel like he is actually not an honest actor, and that’s troubling to me. I appreciate the sources he does provide, but I don’t appreciate the deception that he, I believe he’s engaged in and
[48:12] Mark Curtis: that’s fair enough. And, but that’s a that’s a personal thing. But you know, he did write a 33 volume set and there are footnotes in it. And so that does help people to get back to the sources, um, you know, and he’s even admitting in this particular instance, like, hey, there’s no contemporaries records that have been located about the story. Well, shouldn’t that read? Let’s not say it’s true until we do find something solid, you know,
[48:35] Michelle: we have no evidence to claim this is true, right?
[48:38] Mark Curtis: That’s my only beef. And so the earliest accounts we have are secondhand and they’re within 9 years after it happened. So like, like, do we really want to claim that this definitely happened? Um, and so this is an example of one of many things polygamy, timeline of events. We’ve got, you can sort here and just there’s a lot of stuff here. I mean, it’s long, long, long. It even gets into the modern times where you’ve got like DNA studies, right? You gogo in 2016, you know, what were the results of the DNA test? Like the entire topic is, well, not the entire, but the overwhelming majority of the sources are here as far as the major timeline of events in the story. Um, can’t include everything, but most relevant hard hitting stuff is, is here on both sides. There’s some pro and against stuff all mixed into one. So I think it’s a good source for people to start with and then they can make their conclusions when they’re more familiar with that.
[49:35] Michelle: That’s great. And one thing I also have appreciated is your list of scriptures that you have. I used to, um, double check on that to make sure I wasn’t missing any, because I had my own list of scriptures, but it’s so useful to be able to compare and look, um, Um, you know, make sure you’ve got everything. I have things that you don’t necessarily have, but there would be times that you would have that I didn’t have.
[49:57] Mark Curtis: And so there’s, yeah, there’s also that, and then um a list of who are they in the scripts? Who are these
[50:04] Michelle: people are monogamists.
[50:09] Mark Curtis: Mhm. Um, these are the ones who participated in polygamy. Just, just take a look at some of these guys like these. Wicked kings of. You know, like these guys were not upstanding folks, but you look at like Lamm Nephi, Sam, Jacob Zorm, King Benjamin’s people, King Lamoni, right? Lehi, Moses, you know, lot, I don’t know, it’s just like, let’s just separate it out. Why would God tell Abraham to do it to get to heaven and yet Tell Noah that hey, if you do this, you’re going to hell. Like just, I don’t think that’s really a consistent story. So I’m just trying to pinpoint some of the ironies in the story and give people a place to go. So, um, I didn’t really go into a lot of the other topics, but like, here’s one about tithing. I think this is a big deal. Tithing has changed a lot since the very beginning, um, and this is hard hitting, uh, it’s not for the faint of heart, but, uh. If you decide not to pay tithing after reading this, like that’s on you, don’t blame me, right? But it just shows that like in Joseph Smith’s day, what they were doing for tithing was like not the same as what we do today. It was never meant to be 10% of your income. That’s ridiculous. That’s a federal government move with taxes, right? So, um, and so, but it was just like you would give what Bishop archers was saying 2% of your of
[51:31] Michelle: your Of your excess,
[51:33] Mark Curtis: your 2% of your excess, one-time payment. When you join the church, you get 2% of your excess and then you’re done the rest of your life. Like that’s how it started out. Imagine how many, you know, families could not be in poverty if they just were to understand that like they don’t need to keep paying for the long-term investments of the church that already has trillions of dollars, you know, and they could do better to provide for their families if they could just imagine someone putting 10% of their income into like a An investment account or a retirement account instead. Like,
[52:08] Michelle: I, I didn’t, I, I was going to do a topic on, I mean, an episode on tidy, but I decided not to because it just doesn’t fit in with what I’m trying to do well enough. So I’m glad you have this here, but I always tell people, you know, always, it’s between you and God, make a make the best decision with you and God rather than listening to, you know, any outside sources.
[52:26] Mark Curtis: Yeah, and if you want to get back to that you get so much from, I have no problem with tithing as a whole.
[52:32] Michelle: you feel spiritually led to do that because it should be a spiritual principle. That’s that’s the only reason you should pay anyway because you feel because you feel inspired to,
[52:41] Mark Curtis: right? Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with tithing, you know, to say something like you’re not gonna see children or your 10% of your income, but that’s where I have a problem with this teaching that’s gone off the rails, right? It’s just not, it’s just not how it’s supposed to be.
[52:59] Michelle: Yeah. Oh, that’s so great. And thanks for giving us that overview of the website. Are you done sharing it? So, OK. So, um, so yeah, I really appreciate that. And I really, I, I really do hope people are, um, willing to pay attention to this conversation to see how broad and diverse the community of I I don’t even know what we are called the community of people who are critical of the Joseph Smith polygamy narrative. We need a better term than that, but people who think that there is reason to research this, it is a very broad wide community with a lot of diversity, and I would never claim to be. I’m, I’m thankful that I’ve. Been able to do what I’ve done and that I’ve become a voice in this community, but I certainly wouldn’t, I don’t,
[53:47] Mark Curtis: I we have
[53:47] Michelle: a leader,
[53:48] Mark Curtis: right? I don’t think so. And people are like, wow, there’s this new movement popping up where people think Joseph Smith was not, it’s like, what are you kidding me? Read the church history. This was a massive debate while Joseph was alive. Whether or not he was involved in this stuff, there were there were trials. There were court cases. There were, I mean, excommunication trials. There were, this was a big deal back then and so it’s more like we forgot about it for a while and then it’s coming back again now that the internet’s a big deal and there’s a lot of research tools available that aren’t before, you know, nobody had time to get out of the church history vaults and Look at for 29 hours looking for something like nobody does that, right? So and
[54:28] Michelle: and yeah, it’s so much easier and I think it is, I think that we’ve had this challenge of people thinking this was resolved. This is an old RLD. narrative and now even the RLDS Church has admitted that they’re not, you know, I think that the RLDS Church changing on this, did a lot of damage to the um to the general to the ability to have a viable conversation on this topic. But I hope that people who haven’t watched my RLDS episode yet will go watch it. I’ll link it below because that it is the wrong people can, people assume that they changed their stance because of overwhelming evidence that could not be further from the truth. They were motivated to step away from Joseph Smith. That’s what they were trying to do at that period. So they found something they could use to justify saying we’re not going to claim this anymore. We’re going to be agnostic on the question. And it’s really important for people to understand that because that’s when we well and and luckily the prices came out of that and and started to take up the torch so that’s where we get Joseph Smith fought polygamy but I think it’s important for people to recognize that this this question has never gone away it’s never been resolved. Pretty much every time it’s been tried in a court of law, I’m trying to think back to Joseph Smith’s life, but yes, I think I can say every single time it’s been officially tried in a court of law, Joseph has found to be innocent, has been found to be innocent.
[55:51] Mark Curtis: The, it’s a huge, huge thing. Judge Judge Phillips made a ruling at the end of it. He’s like, look, I don’t know what happened, but like we’re not buying it.
[56:02] Michelle: I don’t believe you guys. Yeah, I don’t believe the testimonies, right? And
[56:06] Mark Curtis: it was the court case was trying to settle the question of what they’re practicing in Utah. Was it the same doctrinally as what was taught by Joseph Smith and the ruling was nope, totally new church in Utah, totally different teachings. They don’t have a lot of origin in Joseph Smith. So I mean that took like what couple of years, right? All the hearings and all the It was a big deal and there were hard-hitting lawyers on both sides trying to trying to get all this evidence and, you know, the Utah folks are like scrambling to write books of affidavits to try to like prop up evidence that they didn’t have for 30 years and so, um.
[56:43] Michelle: And I think we should acknowledge that that was done when most of the wives were alive.
[56:49] Mark Curtis: They were still alive and they were still. The jury didn’t believe them.
[56:55] Michelle: I like it was argued the best it possibly could be. They had firsthand accounts of eyewitness testimonies who were claiming to be married to Joseph Smith, making their case.
[57:05] Mark Curtis: And when they were cross-examined, they fell apart. Oh my. You read through these people did not know what to say. It’s almost like they some of them were given a script, I think of here’s what you need to say in court. But when they were cross-examined. They put on the spot. I think they just like, they fell apart because they didn’t, it wasn’t real experience they were drawing upon. They were trying to create a narrative to to save the property. It’s about keeping the temples just like Wilfred Woodruff, you know.
[57:32] Michelle: And I think, I think that they genuinely had been steeped for decades in this idea of build the kingdom. God needs you to say this, right? It was such a hierarchy and this is what has to be. The narrative to protect the kingdom of God. So I think they, many of them felt that obligation and, and also the resentment of who are you, stupid government, to question my view of God, right? That comes through a lot and a lot of this testimony. And so with some of them, when you read it, you actually kind of feel embarrassed for them. Like some of the women in particular, you’re like, oh my gosh, this is just embarrassing. Like, and then they’re. Yeah, and then there’s some of the men like Joseph Bates Noble, I think it is that you’re just like, oh my gosh, you are a nut job and I would not want to live next door to you.
[58:18] Mark Curtis: He is the funniest guy in church history. He’s my favorite.
[58:24] Michelle: But we’re not laughing with him, we’re laughing at him, right?
[58:26] Mark Curtis: Like he’s just a hilarious dude. He’s just so funny, yeah, so there, so a lot of these questions have already been dragged out into the limelight. Hundreds of years ago, like over 100 years ago, like this thing is not new. There’s no new resurgence of anyone trying to prove any, and I think there’s people are like, oh this is an old R LDS narrative. It’s not a, it’s an old LDS narrative. There were debates in the church in the 1830s of whether or not polygamy was a thing, and every record we have that’s contemporary firsthand from Joseph, period. I’ve got 9 of them so far. No, he’s a lot more.
[59:02] Michelle: Yeah, we’re a lot more than that, I think, I mean,
[59:05] Mark Curtis: if you don’t include all the scripts that he helped produce the Smith translation, the Book of Mormon, like in the scriptures, the doctrine is, is polygamy except for 132. That’s the only, the only one.
[59:22] Michelle: Right, right. So yeah, I really do. That’s what I think is so interesting. The more and more I research, the more confidence I get that eventually this narrative is going to completely change. Because the very best you can say, I would say, I like, I, I liked your idea that the church could be Become somewhat agnostic as the RLDS Church did, the community of Christ now is actually called honesty, yeah, right, I think they don’t have a case you can make, right? I think the best case you can make is there is controversy on this topic. Some sources claim that Joseph was a polygamist. Some sources, including all the sources from Joseph Smith himself, saying that he was not. People are free to study it out and form their own conclusions.
[1:00:07] Mark Curtis: That would say that the scriptures are strongly against polygamy except for DNC 132, which was not published until 1867, by the way.
[1:00:15] Michelle: Oh, it was, well, it was, it was published
[1:00:18] Mark Curtis: in the scriptures in the scriptures
[1:00:20] Michelle: in the scriptures it wasn’t until 1880. Orson was assigned to put it together in 1876. That’s pretty important to recognize that Section 101, the statement on marriage, was in scriptures during almost the entire polygamous period of the church.
[1:00:35] Mark Curtis: And a year later, 1881, fun fact, was the first time that Fannie Alger’s name was ever mentioned in any of the records.
[1:00:44] Michelle: Really, it wasn’t until 1881?
[1:00:47] Mark Curtis: Even Brian, I got, I got that one from Brian Hills. He, he, he talked about it. Yeah, so 1881 was the first time that her actual name was attributed to the the girl business story back in, you know.
[1:00:59] Michelle: Wow, OK. I haven’t yet done my episodes on that long
[1:01:04] Mark Curtis: to put a name to the face.
[1:01:06] Michelle: And that’s how hard they were looking. They dug back.
[1:01:09] Mark Curtis: Well, and Fanny’s brother. was with the Saints in Utah the whole time. Hey,
[1:01:17] Michelle: by the way,
[1:01:18] Mark Curtis: no idea. He’s like, Oh, this is news to me like, I don’t know, we just don’t have much about it. So, so if you take an objective look, you stand back, get rid of the emotion, get rid of, he, I don’t want to do this because my family might go on me or I might lose myself a recommend or whatever, whatever the fears are strip those away, stand back and just look at the story and be like, huh, interesting. There there’s some, there’s some weirdness here. Maybe we shouldn’t declare definitively unless we know definitively, right?
[1:01:46] Michelle: I love it. I love it. And that’s what I think. I think that what does absolutely emerge is the desperate need of the Utah polygamist Mormons to claim that Joseph was a polygamist, and that is, that is where we get the entire evidence base of his polygamy is from that period when we know they were manufacturing, they were all true documents and manufacturing evidence. That does. Absolutely emerge then people can decide how value how credible they think they’ll sources to be but I think that’s an, you know, because then we, the other piece that we have is the um what what the doctrine Covenant calls the testimony of traitors, the contemporaneous accusations of John Bennett of William Law, right? That’s the other piece that needs to be looked into but how much correlation is there between the two anyway, it’s a really. Interesting topic that I think is worthy of investigation.
[1:02:38] Mark Curtis: And for the record, I don’t know what happened. I’m I’m I’m not joining either camp. I lean towards most of the evidence that says that he was a polygamist and was involved. It is way worse in quality than the stuff that he’s coming out and saying no, like it’s an abomination. Anyone caught doing this is going to be like that stuff is like firsthand contemporary. It’s it’s good sources, but the other, the other stuff is just, it just doesn’t hold the same weight as far as quality and that’s why I lean towards, yeah, probably not. I think there was some probably some foul play. I think Brigham Young and Company, they needed to put pin the tail on the donkey with Joseph being the source of it because they were hell bent to do it. And they wanted him to get on board probably. I don’t know, they just, they needed. To tie back to Joseph’s Church, even, even though most people don’t know that in 1851, February 1851, Brigham Young incorporated a brand new church, new legal entity, separate name from the church, like legally, those are two different churches, yes, yes, it’s a brand new church as of 1851. People have no idea that legally Brigham Young set up. A brand new entity that he could be the trustee over because he tried to get the temple lot and he tried to get the Navo Temple sold and he couldn’t because he wasn’t on the title and he wasn’t the trustee and he had no power. And so what does he do? He starts a brand he’s like screw it. I’m going to start a brand new church with a different name and I’m going to say that I’m part of that. And that goes to the Temple Lot case and the judge is like, Yeah, you have nothing to do with Joseph Church. Like you all around the field. And so people don’t realize there’s two separate legal entities. It’s like having two different trusts. Like you can’t claim they’re the same because they’re different and they’re different signatures and different names and different, I don’t whatever else
[1:04:23] Michelle: you’re controlling authorities over them. Yeah, that’s I didn’t know that. That’s so and then and then they come,
[1:04:34] Mark Curtis: right? That’s because they weren’t yet baptized into the church. Yeah. If you take a step back and look at it and go, Oh, I see what happened. That makes a lot. It actually makes a lot of sense because I spent years just like agonizing. How can this be? Like that’s impossible, you know, but if you take a step back at human nature, I see what happened there. Businessmen doing what men do and I don’t why they did it.
[1:04:58] Michelle: Is the day.
[1:04:59] Mark Curtis: I get why they did it, but there’s, you know, there’s 132 problems behind every claim, you know, right? That’s right.
[1:05:06] Michelle: So, OK, so final question, and, um, and, and I don’t know where this question will go, but I want to know because I We get frustrated by the claims on both sides saying if you think this, you have to leave the church. So we have the people that are in the church saying you can’t talk about this because it will make everyone leave the church, right? And then we have people who are outside of the church saying, how can you, um, you know, you’re, you’re not being consistent in your claims. I just want to know if you, how you see this topic. Do you see it as the end of the possibility for faith that activity. Um, or I, I, I, I don’t, I don’t have faith in the church. That’s not my faith is, but, but activity in the church and finding value in the church and finding connection to God in the church and finding of like feeling compelled to stay in the church. Do you think that that is not Viable, not possible, and not intellectually honest.
[1:06:01] Mark Curtis: It depends on where you are. I know a lot of people that still participate in church, they still enjoy it. Like, um, I’ve gone several times in the last couple of years and it’s not a big deal. I don’t lose my mind. I just, and I just don’t, you know, some of the core teachings, I just, I hear it over the pulpit and I say, whatever, like it’s OK. Like I’m not threatened by it. It doesn’t. You don’t have to believe everything you hear at church, right? You also don’t have to like disbelieve it. I mean, there’s some good stuff in there, mixed in. So just, I think the better we are at separating all that as far as like getting our ideals. And our values from it, the better off we’ll be. And if you want to belong to it for the social reasons, that’s fine too. My kids go to church, my two boys, that’s OK. I baptized both of them in the church, um, even though the bishop interviewed me and asked about my priesthood and I said I don’t have any, and so they still let me, you know, so like, yeah, so there’s there’s little things like that where I don’t know. It’s OK. Like if my boys want to go on missions, like, cool, I’ll pat them on the back. I’ll help them get there and you know, I went on a mission. I don’t have any regrets for it. I’m not trying to stop anybody else from doing it, but I think people do need to make the decision themselves and not be pressured by family or bishops or whoever. I think more people should step up to the plate. And take responsibility for their faith and their choices and their activities and why they do what they do as long as people are doing that and they’re fully committed, like I say awesome. OK, have a reason to believe Paul says, you know, have a reason to believe what you do and I I think that’s, that’s what I’m after. I’d like more people to do that, but that’s just my opinion.
[1:07:37] Michelle: Yeah, I like that. And, and I, and I do want to just also share my perspective. I know I say it a lot, but I actually really want people to stay in full activity in the church as much as possible because I think it’s so valuable, not even as a go in and change the church. I just think that You know, I think the church is such a blessing to us, and I really actually I’m a big believer in that like the, the Lord’s invitation to repent is always there for all of us, which just means change our mind on some things, right? I have great hope for, um, the church, and I actually really love so much about the church and find so much value there and so much truth and so much hope. And I do think that the, um, you, you know, I think that the restoration is absolutely kept alive in the church from My perspective. So this is my last very self-serving question, and then I’ll let you say anything you want. So Mark, for all of these people claiming that I am single-handedly leading people out of the church on this topic, how much of a role did I and my podcast play in your journey on this topic and your journey with your activity in the church?
[1:08:41] Mark Curtis: I don’t think any. I mean, I watch a lot of your episodes and you do some good research and I appreciate that, but I also watch stuff from Brian Hailes or whoever. I watch both sides because I think it’s helpful, but you know, my decisions personally didn’t have anything to do with you or anybody, really, you know.
[1:08:59] Michelle: And you had already formed your, like you had already come to where you were before I even started my podcast is my understanding, right? Like,
[1:09:06] Mark Curtis: it was an evolution. I was on my way to that and and you were certainly helpful, you know, I got to give credit to you as well as like my moderators. Hemlock knots like Peter Brown, right, Dustin Grady, Jessica Long, uh, Jeremy, all these guys that that helped me moderate, like, and then, and then all the community like my timeline and my website was basically putting together a bunch of stuff that other people sent me. Other people pointed me to this. So I had a ton of help. I don’t, I don’t want to take credit for Hemlock knots other than I was the guy that sat down and coded the website and put it up. That’s basically it. I started these groups, but like the community is, is running the show right now. And, and they, they deserve the credit because they are the researchers who helped me put stuff on the timeline and I, I just was data entry basically, you know,
[1:09:57] Michelle: I love that. So it really has been a collaborative effort, yeah,
[1:10:04] Mark Curtis: you know, and you know what I mean. I’ve got, I’ve got books right here that I’ve, I’ve got sources from. I go to this and, and, and this, these guys were hugely helpful in my journey as well. There’s, there’s good valuable stuff in there for anyone wanting to learn all sides of it, and I recommend you don’t jump into a camp and just be black or white, but it’s, it’s not. You know, Dodgers versus Yankees here like we’re all just trying to play baseball, which is the sport of like trying to figure out what happened and so it doesn’t matter what team you’re on, just keep, keep learning, keep practicing. And so I think any source that is cited is a good thing, but take it one step further. OK, there’s a source here. What’s the quality of the source? Where did the source come from? So keep, you know, keep digging, don’t just give up. Oh, if so and so said it, I believe it. Question, question solved, it’s over.
[1:10:58] Michelle: Absolutely, I completely agree with that. Sources are everything. The quality of the source, where does it come from and what’s out there, yeah, weed them out, you know,
[1:11:09] Mark Curtis: or at least demote them on their credibility. Put them on the list of reasons to believe, you know.
[1:11:15] Michelle: And you know what, I love that really objective quantifiable way you have laid it out so people can see, am I prioritizing this source out of motivated reasoning or because it warrants it, it deserves to be pri pri um prioritized, right? I think that’s a really good thing. For people to say, where does this source objectively lie and how am I using it? I, I think that’s a good exercise for everyone to go through.
[1:11:41] Mark Curtis: I think so. That’s what I’m trying to do is to help people have resources where they can better without spending hours and hours digging through stuff and so yeah, but like we don’t, he’s like we don’t really care what you believe. Like you believe whatever you want, but like if you want to discuss the the sources behind your beliefs, like then that’s that’s a good place to go, I think in regards to church history.
[1:12:02] Michelle: That’s great. And then, and then, yeah, and I appreciate you saying, I appreciate that you like, like enjoy my podcast or, or have been from it because I that’s, that really is a compliment to me because of all of the work that you’ve already done. But I do want to also set the record straight. I, I’m so frustrated by all of the people saying that I am leaving people out of the church. I think. The more true, um, the more true statement is this topic is messy for the church, right? This is, this topic, polygamy and Joseph’s polygamy has been something that has been leading people out of the church from the very beginning, just like you talked about in 1844, we had a huge, like, um, Succession crisis and people went all different directions and I continued when the RLDS missionaries came here, they’ve gained many, many converts in Utah by saying, hey, Joseph didn’t do this, right? So if there is some threat to the institutional church, it is from the narrative. It’s, I mean, it’s from the historical record of what happened. And so that’s, that’s what I want to keep telling people. Like, Mountain Neo’s massacre is a really challenging topic for the church narrative. So the question is who’s to blame? Fonn Brody for not Fonn Brodie, who was it the Juanita Brooks? We’re talking about the Mountain Meadows massacre and bringing it. Bringing it out of the shadows or the people who committed the murders, right? I think that it’s really important to recognize that people like Mark or people like me that are helping or even people like Brian Hailes because his narrative has led many, many people out of the church his book and it’s, it’s not that people, it’s not people talking about it that’s the problem. It’s just that it’s a big. Messy part of our history that deserves to be dealt with honestly without fear, without the motivation.
[1:13:55] Mark Curtis: And the official story is that Joseph Smith. And so is that gonna help keep people in the church? I don’t know, like you’re you’re throwing your founder under the bus so that the #2 guy in charge can maintain his credibility. It’s just weird.
[1:14:11] Michelle: How does that work? It is. And it’s worse even than he lied. It’s that he was, I mean, they call him a, um, pedophile, and I mean, there, if these stories were all true, then he really is manipulating young girls using his power and and You know, it’s, it’s a terrible, terrible story, which is why your stepson fell in so deep, right? Like the CES letter does so much damage to people because we tell the same story. We tell the same narrative just in our version, God made him do it. So we throw God under the bus in our version.
[1:14:43] Mark Curtis: Yeah, and then we wonder why the missionary efforts are struggling these days and it’s so hard for missionaries to get people to pay attention, you know, I think the more it’s kind of like. If you’ve got personal issues and trauma from your past and there’s, you made mistakes in your life, like you can sweep them under the rug and you can gaslight everybody the rest of your life and say nothing happened here, or you can just bring them out, be honest about it, and just be authentic. And I think that is where I think a lot of people would actually have a positive view of the church is if they could deal with taking out the trash appropriately, even if they made mistakes, who cares, but lying about it. And and calling people crazy and kicking them out of your congregation if they if they’re struggling with this like that I think is doing way more damage than them actually being like, if they were to come out with a PR press release tomorrow and say, we fully understand that our history has been pockmarked with bad decisions by some of the leaders, inconsistent statements with mistakes were made, you know, and, uh, if they were just to say, but you know, today. We want to move past that. This is what we stand for today. We want honesty and transparency. We want people to know the doctrine of Christ as taught in the scriptures. We want our leaders to be in alignment with what God taught in the scriptures, and we are committed, moving forward. To have a church that can provide that for the families out there as well as the fellowship and and the service opportunities. Like, can you imagine reading that on the front page of Deseret New? Like I would be like, yes, thank you. Like, like my, my opinion of a church is now way more than it was because instead of just hiding it and gaslighting every single person who tries to bring this into the the limelight. It just doesn’t work. It’s, it’s bad therapy and it’s, you know, someone once described it as institutional narcissism, and it’s kind of the same thing we’re like, it is, it is, and it’s really sad. I think they need to get away from the mental illness of trying to keep this organization’s record clean because nobody’s buying it anymore. Everyone knows the problems. 132 problems is the name of your like there’s problems here and so dismissing them is no longer a valid. Solution, I think. Just be honest.
[1:16:56] Michelle: My gosh, when you were saying that, I just got chills. It’s, it’s given me a whole new thing to hope for. I think that is would be
[1:17:04] Mark Curtis: would be good for you, church leaders, incredible. You guys did something that nobody could do for 10 years or whatever it was. I’m not sure how long it’s been, but anyway. I think that would be refreshing. It’s it’s sort of like when you, when you know someone’s lying and someone steps up and say, you know what, you’re right. There are some inconsistencies here. We’re going to deal with it. We’re going to make the best of it even though it’s, it’s a public relations nightmare. We are committed to being transparent.
[1:17:31] Michelle: And you know what, just like you’re saying, it’s a much less, it’s much less of a public relations nightmare than the current state of affairs. This is a public relations.
[1:17:40] Mark Curtis: It’s, it is a nightmare. Yeah, so I studied public relations in college. I’m in corporate marketing as my career. This is a can of worms. I would want this to go away if I was in charge of the public public relations of the church, like, but there’s only one way to do it, and that’s just be honest with the people.
[1:17:58] Michelle: The word, the word is repentance. That’s the word. It’s it’s like we can practice what we preach. That’s like step one of repentance, acknowledgment, right? Then just apologize for the mistakes and set a new course going forward, turn. Away from the mistakes of the past. That’s all it is.
[1:18:16] Mark Curtis: And we don’t blame, we don’t blame Russell M. Nelson for what Brigham Young did. It’s, it’s not his fault. I think people will be a little more understanding, but he needs to make the distinction between like, hey, this stuff was an error. However, we still stand for the good stuff. No, I think you just have to do it that way. And and I’m I’m frustrated with the church mostly because of, of the deception and the lying and the How they treat people who bring up issues that are trying to help the church to become clean with with their history.
[1:18:46] Michelle: That is such a good point right there. People aren’t leaving because of the history. People are leaving because of
[1:18:52] Mark Curtis: the lying, because the lying and the deception and the rewriting of history, that is, that was a nail in the coffin for me. The fact that they had to rewrite history again in the Saints Volume One, come on guys, that’s not gonna do anything.
[1:19:09] Michelle: OK, so that was your. OK.
[1:19:12] Mark Curtis: I mean, it was when I saw how the narrative had changed over time, I’m like, oh, I know what’s happening here and it ain’t good. Like this is not if one of my family members were to do this with my, like I’d be pissed, right? Like like this is deception and and it’s, it’s not just the errors, mistakes were made. Whatever like this is intentional whitewashing of history, and I think that’s, that seems a lot darker than someone just coming forth, yeah, it’s kind of messy, but we’re going to try to clean it up, you know, don’t let that get you hung up on, you know, there’s other ways to navigate it, um, we’re just not seeing those publicly. Oh my gosh. You’re seeing like CES teachers being fired for bringing up these things in the classroom and trying to explain the complexity of situations like what is this?
[1:20:02] Michelle: And people having to fight for their membership, like how many people are out there calling for my excommunication, including Brian Hill’s like that’s, or I guess we don’t call it that way. We we’ve used the euphemism. What is it like revocation of membership or end of membership privileges, whatever we call it now, it’s still like, yeah. Yeah, right. And, and to have people, I think that that is the nightmare they’re facing where anyone who watches me, for example, or who delves into your sources and your website or watches your episodes, it’s so clear that all we are trying to do is get into the evidence and find truth. That’s abundantly clear to everyone. So it puts the church, the people, not, it puts Brian Hales, the people pushing that narrative into a terrible position. Where if they excommunicate us for just trying to get to the truth, it makes it that much more obvious what they are doing, which is lying to protect the narrative, which is what their PR disaster actually is. I hope I think that your PR expertise and the way that you just promoted going about that is like the most refreshing version I have heard. I hope that people will listen and pay attention.
[1:21:12] Mark Curtis: I mean they won’t be a huge fallout. I mean, not everybody will respond positively to it, but at least
[1:21:21] Michelle: you know what they’ll know that we don’t want. I, I have an episode that I wanted to release a while ago. I just, uh, I’ve been distracted with so many things, but it’s called A Way Forward, which is proposing some things that the church could do, and I’m glad I haven’t recorded yet because I want to include some of what we talked about. But what I have said or what I I am saying in this episode is look at what has happened every time the church has repented, which just means changed a bad policy whether they fully acknowledge it or not. In 1904 when the church actually went away from polygamy or even 1890. Church growth up until that point had been very stagnant, very slow. Polygamy was killing the growth of the church. Any advantage people want to claim that might have come through having more babies through polygamy, which actually didn’t happen, was more than um. Counterbalanced by the lack of converts during that period, but as soon as they repented of that and stopped polygamy, the growth through the 20th century was profound up until we bumped up again to racism, right? And so then the church growth stagnated, the church started getting all kinds of terrible PR because of our racist policy. The church did the unthinkable and changed that. Both of those things were unthinkable to change. The fallout was immense. They were actual practices, right? But once that changed, the growth of the church through the 80s and 90s and early 2000s was unprecedented, right? So that’s what I’m trying to propose. While there may be some pushback and some fallout. Changing this now, stepping away from polygamy, which we’re not even practicing now, would be far easier than it was in 1890, 1904, far easier than changing the racist pan of 18 of 1978, right? And we, but we could expect a similar thing to happen right now. The church is just drowning and bad PR and our membership is really dwindling and our missionary efforts are dwindling as well. But I think that if we were to take this step of again repenting and like you said, being actually transparent and actually honest about our history. I can’t imagine what would happen with the growth of the church because there’s so much to offer if they’ll just stop lying to us.
[1:23:32] Mark Curtis: And God faith and Jesus when they when they come out and say the priest man lifted. So they come out and say, we received a new revelation. God’s now OK with having the priesthood. And like, yeah, but the rest of the world is like, what? Like You’re blaming God for this. Well, now, if they, if they would have come out and said this instead, here’s a I know the PR training, what if this came out instead? As a church, we’ve realized that prior generations of leadership, whether it was culturally or just a personal bias or bigotry, they initiated policies that were not commandments from God. They were just policies derived from well-meaning men, but we realize now that those were done in error and we deeply apologize to the African American community. But as a church, we now want to move forward with everybody having equal rights to the priesthood, and we apologize for the, the actions of prior leadership. And we believe that this is the way that God would have us do that now. You’re not saying you got a revelation. You’re not blaming God for like they’re not ready yet. Oh, now they’re ready. Like that did more damage to little twist and the manipulation that was attached to that story. They should have just come out and said, look, we screwed up. People that lived a long time ago, they had their biases. We’re really sorry. We value everybody, including African Americans. We want everybody in the church to be equal. Like that would be a positive message to everyone but cool. No problem.
[1:25:01] Michelle: Right, right. And do you know what, it would have also, especially if they had been able to say like, This was a mistake like you said, and we value all of like God loves all of his children and we value the um the um the African American communities and we are redoubling our efforts to try to do the good that we can in those communities through missionary efforts and also through charitable efforts, right? Like I think that to actually embrace that community would have been amazing. And so, but I guess the point I’m making, even just like in 1890 and 1904, even the partial half steps at, um, repentance still bore good fruit, right? It’s still better that we got rid of the priesthood that even though, even, yeah, it’s better, even though the bad way we did it has made that problem continue. The church still has a lot of racism, like talking to Marvin Perkins or other. Um, black members of the church or, um, members of the Church of African descent still are frustrated by how hard it is to engage with our church because of how much leftover, bad, bad perspective there is there. So we need to do better and so
[1:26:14] Mark Curtis: yeah. We can’t fix what was done in the past as far as the church making blunders with PR issues, but moving forward, I think they would be wiser to to take an objective, like honest approach of what really happened, you know, people would resonate with that better, I think.
[1:26:31] Michelle: 100%. I love it
[1:26:32] Mark Curtis: and politicians, politicians when they make mistakes or corporate officers that make horrendous mistakes, their PR people say to them, you go in front of the camera, you admit you did wrong, you apologize, and they put it to rest. And that’s what politicians do. We are trained in the PR industry to, hey, accountability is the best way out here, buddy. You get squirrely on camera, you make excuses, the media is going to file you.
[1:26:59] Michelle: That’s always, we always know that the mistake isn’t the problem. The lying about the mistake is the problem like.
[1:27:07] Mark Curtis: It’s OK that you broke the glass jar, little kid in the kitchen. Just don’t blame your little brother for it, you know, don’t blame it up, admit it. Yeah, no big deal, right? We still love you.
[1:27:21] Michelle: OK, OK, I’m like, can we start a campaign, Mark, for church PR? That’s no,
[1:27:26] Mark Curtis: you don’t want that. The first thing I would do is give everybody their timing back, you know, you don’t want that, so.
[1:27:34] Michelle: OK, never mind, not for church PR. Just, just listen to what he’s saying. But, um, this has been so productive and so valuable. I really appreciate you taking the time. Is there anything else you want to thank you.
[1:27:46] Mark Curtis: This has gone pretty long, but thank you for having me on and thanks for being open to some of the crazy ideas that come from others. I think you do a good job of like letting lots of voices on and on the show and and for that I, I tip my hat to you, yeah.
[1:27:58] Michelle: Thank you, Mark. Thanks and thank you for all of the incredible work you have done. You have done a lot to move this all forward. I do. I hope that more and more voices that are interested in this topic will join the Loch knots and engage in productive ways. I think it’s so useful that I, I love the historians that are there. I hope, right? Any polygamists or any people that just think that are just members of the church that think we should not be talking about this, go ahead and join and maybe you’ll. to make your point or maybe you’ll be able to understand why people think we should be talking about.
[1:28:33] Mark Curtis: And for people in the community, like I do, I really hope that they’ll be kind to people who show up, have different views, like, please be nice to each other. Like, you know, that’s what I want the community to be healthy. I want it to be like respectful. So like I I don’t like some of the stuff that I see occasionally with like us versus them and these big heated debates and I know it’s gonna happen and I’m stirring the pot by just creating a channel but like. Hopefully we can look past the differences and just focus on like, OK, let’s all try to learn from this thing. Whatever your conclusions are, nobody cares. We’ll respect them, right? Let them worship, what they may and that we,
[1:29:13] Michelle: I do, I do want people have been triggered and damaged by these topics. So for a lot of People, there is a lot of hurt and that shows up in some of the ways that people engage on both sides. So, so I think on every side, like, let’s all try to take a couple of deep breaths, give it a half hour before you respond to something, right? And then if you see someone responding, um, in a triggered state, try to also be compassionate and patient with that and understand where. That’s coming from. And that’s how I think we all can work, work to get things better and better as we engage, which I think is what we’re all hoping for.
[1:29:50] Mark Curtis: So if you read something on there that you don’t agree with someone’s comment, you don’t have to. It’s all right. It’s OK to just be like. It’s all right. Yeah, or an angry face or you know whatever, but you don’t have to respond and berate them. I mean. That’s right.
[1:30:05] Michelle: Perfect. Well, my gosh, this has been such a good conversation. I’m really glad we finally got an official, um, recorded conversation. We’ve had some great ones and have been. Informal, but yeah, I’m looking forward to continuing to engage and yeah, I do hope that people will use the website. Go to the Facebook group, watch the debates. I, you know what, I’ve been wanting to, um, do some future debates, so maybe I’ll tap you and see if you have even enough interest in the topic to be.
[1:30:32] Mark Curtis: I, I like the format. Like I think both sides of the debates had some really, really good stuff and I was hoping for that. I think both sides presented really, really well, that they did their research and so. That was a that was a while ago.
[1:30:45] Michelle: There’s been this, this things are moving so fast on this topic. There’s so much work being done that it’s time for another, it’s time for another engagement. So, hey, we’ll look forward to it. Well, thank you, Mark. I will talk to you later. Thanks for today. Another huge shout out to Mark Curtis for coming on and talking to all of us today, but also for all of the work that he has done. If you’re not in the Hemlock Knots Facebook group, I strongly recommend joining. One thing I love about it is the diversity of voices that are there and a lot of historians engaged. It’s really, um, a good. to be. It’s one of those good spaces on the internet. And also, I know Mark has been releasing more videos, and I highly recommend those. So again, I’ve just so many incredible people have done great work in this space for many years, and Mark is definitely one of those. So thank you for joining us, and I will see you next time.
