Please consider supporting this podcast:
Should the RLDS church’s changed perspective on Joseph’s polygamy carry weight for us in our search for truth? What convinced the RLDS church leaders to change their stance? What can we learn from them? And why should it matter?
Links
Papers
The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy (Richard Howard’s Paper)
The Last Smith Presidents and the Transformation of the RLDS Church
Adjustment or Apostasy? The Reorganized Church in the Late Twentieth Century
https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Reorganized_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter_Day_Saints_(RLDS_Church)
Videos
Richard Howard Interview
RLDS Documentary
Bill Russell Interview
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. We in this episode are continuing our investigation into the question of Joseph’s polygamy. Um, but still, for those that are new to this channel, please start back at the beginning because the scriptural. Quick case about polygamy, I think it’s the far more important discussion. But here we are now. And so today we are going to tackle the claim that even the RLDS church admits that Joseph was a polygamist. So that’s what we’re going to get into. Thank you for joining us as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. For years it has seemed like whenever I hear the topic of Joseph’s polygamy being discussed, one of the main things that comes up is even the RLDS Church admits that Joseph was a polygamist. That seems to be one of the like kind of central claims we have to say it’s settled, it’s done, the science is settled. This isn’t a question any longer. So I thought it would be useful to really get into this and investigate it and see what we can find out. First of all, I want to explain for anyone that maybe doesn’t, doesn’t know why this, why this is such a key point for people to make to prove that Joseph was a polygamist. The RLDS Church, the reorganized the um Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which we’re going to go into. Um, which now I want to clarify, yes, I know they have changed their name to the Community of Christ, and so I honor that. I respect it. I’m going to say RLDS most of the time in this episode because these things happened when they were still, still the RLDS Church before they changed their name. So I’ll clear that out and it’s OK if you call me a Mormon. I still use that word as well. So, um, so that’s acknowledged, but um they were their foundation was based on the idea that Joseph was not a polygamist. Some other things too that we’ll get into. So for them to change and say that Joseph might have been a polygamist, we’re also going to look into what they actually say and what what claim they actually changed sounds like it it gives us the impression that it went so far against their interest, but the The evidence was so overwhelming that they just had to acknowledge it. They couldn’t keep believing that anymore. So that’s what we’re going to get in and study because I think there’s a lot to learn there. This has been a fun investigation, uh, you know, like there’s always so much more than you expect to find. But so first we’re going to go ahead and explain a little bit about the history of the RLDS Church. I think for many of us as members of the Utah-based, you know, Brigham’s, um, the, the, the church that followed Brigham, that Utah-based LDS Church, we don’t tend to know quite as much about the other churches in our restoration tradition. So we’re going to talk about that. Then we’re going to talk about how that church kind of grew and progressed over. The years, what led to their changed narratives and, um, kind of what evidence they used and what we should think about that, right? So that’s, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I hope you will find it fascinating and useful because I think that anytime you ever hear someone say, even though RLDS Church admits that after this, you will be able to respond very effectively because there are some good responses. So Going back to the history of the RLDS church, our common understanding is that it was started by Emma, right, that this was Emma’s church.
[00:03:29] That’s actually not true at all. So let’s paint a really quick overview so, you know, we’ll go back to the martyrdom. Joseph is killed. Emma is left with 4 children and expecting her 5th. I wrote down the kids’ ages. I think Julia had Julia was 13, her adopted twin. Joseph Smith the 3rd, I mean Joseph Smith and the 3rd was 11. Frederick had just turned 8. His father died 7 days after his 8th birthday. Alexander also had a June birthday, so he had just turned 6. And so she had a 13-year-old and 11-year-old, a barely 8-year-old, a barely 6-year-old, and she was 5.5 months pregnant with David Hirum. And so that was her situation that it was massive. traumatic, right? Like, I just think of the life that these kids had lived, um, being chased out of place after place, never having security, the privations, the cold, the fear that they would have experienced so many times seeing their father persecuted and then finally taken from them so violently and violently finally killed, you know, I’m just thinking of Joseph Smith the 3rd and some of the experiences that he had. Um, it really, I think. um, you know, kind of definitely contributed to the to the man he became, um, and after the people left Navvo, Emma was left. It was a really tough situation with Brigham Young, and she was left with all of the church debts. Joseph had bought many things in his own name, on his own credit, and she was left with all of that. Debt and no way to pay for it. The, um, Navvo was a ghost town. She had very little property. They tried to start the store again. They tried all kinds of things and nothing worked because they were in a ghost town. So they struggled for years and years. In fact, I’ve, I’ve read before, but I’ll read again the letter that Emma wrote to Joseph the 3rd when he was almost 40. So this is how long they had been dealing with this. She says, Joseph, I cannot be thankful that those old debts trouble you. Those are the debts from the church, from Joseph Smith Jr. I know that you’ve done the very best you know how they have been a source of anxiety for me for years, yet I am hoping that they will never be permitted to distress you. I have often turned those hard matters over and over in my mind and wondered why such hard blows should have been dealt on you, and have never been able to come to any satisfactory conclusion. And have had to rest on the blessed promise that all things shall work together for the good of those that love God and keep His commandments. So that was, you know, I think that this really forged a close relationship between this mother and this boy, this 11 year old boy who all of a sudden After being so traumatized, was now the man of the house in, you, you know, in this, in this, um, historical period, and he took those burdens on. I think he really tried to protect his mother,
[00:06:12] and she tried to protect him, and they just became really close and, and they were just trying to get by, just trying to survive. And, um, from everything, from every source I have read or found, and I welcome people to fight other than, I will say other. Than William Law that I just was reading, and he’s the only one I find that is very harsh harshly critical of Emma. I don’t find that to be reliable. Every single thing I read talks about how just good both Emma and Joseph Smith III were. They were highly respected, highly highly regarded and thought of. Um, Joseph Smith the 3rd with the name Joseph Smith should have been a pariah, you know, considering. How the community felt about his father, and yet he was elected to public office repeatedly. He he was the justice of the peace and um he, you know, he became a lawyer. He was trusted and looked up to him in the community. They, he was assigned to give public speeches, so they really were just good, good, highly thought of people. What is very clear is that neither of them had any intention of starting a church. I, I looked and I wasn’t able to find what their religious tradition was after Navu. Well, they, they were still in Navvo, but after the expulsion from Navu. I can’t find any information about if they joined a congregation or if they just continued to do their own worship at home. So if anyone has information on that, I think it’s interesting, but I wasn’t able to find it. But in any case, they did not want to, um, it sounds to me like they didn’t really want to join a church, and they did not want to start a church. And so we’re going to talk really quickly about the succession crisis. I um I’m not sure which order I am putting these episodes in. So I’ve done a um interview with a man named John Hayacek. So if you’ve already watched that, you’ve already heard some about this, um, about James String. If if I’m releasing this one first, then you’ll hear more about it when you listen to the interview with him. So whichever way this goes, but um it’s a fas story to set up the foundation of the RLDS Church and where they came from, right? So we’re going to go to the succession crisis after Joseph’s death. Um, Brigham Young, and as the leader of the 12, made his claim, right? Sydney Rigdon as the surviving member of the first presidency made his claim, and then there was a man named James String. He actually had been a member of the church for less than a year. I think he’d been a Baptist minister. And then he had been converted and come and he had become fast friends with Joseph Smith. Joseph himself had baptized him. Um, Hiruman Joseph ordained him as an elder. He was sent to establish a branch in Voy, Wisconsin. And um that’s and that’s who he was. And so he was, I believe in Voy when word came to him about Joseph’s death, but a week before the martyrdom, he had received a letter in the mail. And so this is his claim, and you’ll hear John Hayzek talk about it more like this letter is legit, it hasn’t been
[00:09:12] disproven or debunked. There is some question about how much authority it gives to him. But anyway, he got this letter and he came back to Navu, presented the letter saying Joseph had named him as his successor. And so he actually was the second strongest claim. Most of the, which is, which is really amazing because he was unknown. He didn’t have the name recognition, the connections. He hadn’t been a member very long. Brigham Young and Here and, and many of the other apostles had been the ones that had converted these people and brought them in, right? They were the connection, the first connection they had to the church, and they had that personal connection, so their names were very well known. And they had a lot of personal connections, so it’s no wonder that they had the biggest following. But the fact that James Strang, with the letter from because of the letter from Joseph, and there were other elements to his um claimed claimed um position, like I think that they also believed that the leader of the church needed to be a true sense of the prophet in terms of receiving revelation and a translator and So James um claimed to be able to do all of these things, claimed to receive revelation, claimed to be a translator. There was another piece of it too that I’m not remembering, and he was named the successor by Joseph Smith in this letter. So that’s why he was able to get such a big following and actually from what I can see, it looks like Joseph Smith’s family aligned with James String. They didn’t go with any of them. They stayed, but they um they lent support to James String, not to Brigham Young, which I think was part of where that rift came from. So anyway, it was really, really interesting. I’ll put some pictures of the letter so that you can see it, and I think it’d be a fascinating episode to get into more later on cause it’s it’s a really interesting story. So anyway, The thing that is so strange is that, well, so I think a lot of the people that followed James Strang maybe knew about Brigham’s and Here’s polygamy. It was still kind of under wraps, but I think that there were like, you know, there were elders going around saying Joseph said we could do this, and we don’t know exactly who was involved with this, but I, I mean from some of the stories we have, we know that Brigham and Hebrew were trying to get wives and you can Believe Joseph was involved with that or not, you know, that those are big discussions for another day. We’re talking about this story, but anyway, many of String’s followers, I think were following him kind of as the option that wasn’t the polygamy option, right? So he had a lot of followers that were hoping that he would not pursue polygamy and amazingly, incredibly boggled my mind, he took a plural wife just a few years later in 1849, so. So many of the people who had followed him became completely, um, you know, like they they were so let down and then William Smith, Joseph’s brother, that’s a weird story too that that there’s so much there, but he came out and he for a little while, um, they followed him cause he was talking about the line of succession that should be lineal, it should be the lineage just like it always was in the Old Testament. That was an interesting claim,
[00:12:13] right? Abraham Isaac, Jacob, like the The um prophet ship always goes in the lineage and so they were making that claim as well. So anyway, so some started following William Smith, but then he turned out to be a polygamist. It’s so weird. And so, um, so a man named Jason Briggs, who I actually like this. Guy, he seems like a good man. He had, um, sort of a second, um, he was out in a forest in a grove, praying he was so demoralized about the situation, feeling like the restoration was over. It had all gone to polygamy, you know, like what’s going to happen. So he was out praying and he had a revelation. So that’s what I was going to say almost a second, um, you know, sacred grove experience in the in the founding tradition of the RLDS Church. So he um was, was just so sad and I’m trying to find. Where it was that that I wrote this. Oh, here’s what it says. Um, it’s a long revelation. I will link it and you can read it. It’s actually quite beautiful. And, um, part of what it says is verily, my people shall be redeemed and my law shall be kept, which I revealed unto my servant Joseph Smith. In my own due time, I will call upon the seat of Joseph Smith, and he shall preside over the high priesthood of my church. So we’ll get into that a little more later, but it was really interesting. So he was told. That Joseph had been given the true law and had lived it, and that it would continue to be lived as opposed to what it also claims as as as not God’s law, but the law of Balaam, which is Satan, right? And um and that, and he was told that until the seed of Joseph is raised up. So that’s really interesting. Um, Joseph Smith, the um the third, I believe, was a teenager at the time that this happened, I think it was in 1851, um, if I’m recalling. And so anyway, so, um, Jason Briggs took this back and showed it to some of the others that were in his same situation. Anyway, they started the reorganization. They, they thought the church had had a period of disorganization um while all of this was happening. It was, you know, after the martyrdom, there was just the church was disorganized and so they were reorganizing the church and getting it ready for when the seat of Joseph could take his rightful position and And he was also given an answer about William Smith, which was, which was really interesting as well. He was told that William was allowed to, um, um,
[00:14:47] I, I think I’ll read that later as well, but that he was allowed to be in this position, but that he had traded his birth traded his birthright for a massive pottage because he had gone after these adulterous ways that others had been going after. So that’s the founding story of the RLDS Church, isn’t that interesting? So, um, Briggs and some others organized this church. And then a few years later, I think 1856, they sent the first delegation to Navvo to ask Joseph Smith the Third to come and lead their church, as as had been revealed to them that would happen. And they got an adamant, no, no way, not happening. Like that was like that’s why we set up what Joseph Smith the 3rd had watched happen to his father and his family because he was the leader of a church. Joseph Smith the 3rd had become a lawyer. He’d gotten Married, he had set up a life and he was not going to go this direction. I think he was just in his early twenties at the time. Yeah, he was. And, um, and he had no interest, but the RLDS Church had had this answer, so they continued to send delegations. And I couldn’t find the details, but Joseph Smith III had this the confirmation, the spiritual witness, that this was what he was called to do. So even against his own personal interest in 1860, he agreed to become the leader of the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was the fulfillment of that revelation that Jason Briggs had had that and that that it’s actually quite a beautiful founding story. And while I am a dedicated, faithful, devoted member of the LDS Church, I personally, this is my take. I can’t help but see God’s hand in this, kind of spreading the um seeds of the restoration. In different directions because each part has different pieces, right? Like, like anyway, that’s that’s how I see it and And it’s interesting because they had the same revelations, so the RLDS Church, as well as any other breakoffs also claimed the one true church. No doctrine covenants 126, is it that this is the only true and living church with which I am well pleased. Every church of the restoration applies that only to themselves and only to themselves, and I think that’s something that we should at least know and consider because it’s interesting, right? How can we prove which one of us it applies to. Other than who we followed in the succession crisis, which was obviously up for debate, right? So, so it’s an interesting story in any case. OK, so that’s the founding story of the um RLDS Church. So you can see that the main, the core of it, it was a restoration. Church, the Book of Mormon, the um Joseph Smith is the prophet, you know, all of these same
[00:17:37] ideals and ideas and beliefs, the restoration of the the true church of God. But the difference is that there are some of just like the Utah Church, its central doctrine really became polygamy. The RLDS church’s kind of core doctrine really became not polygamy and lineal succession, that this is succession should go from father to son or at least stay in the family, right, if not father to son. So those were the main differences and it was tough, I think for the. LDS Church because they were threading this really small needle of, yes, the restoration, yes, the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but no, not the rigamites. We can, we can say the gamites just like the strangites, right? I know that’s not what we any of us call ourselves, but just to be descriptive. And so they were trying to say, we’re the non-polygamy, non- Utah. Mormon church, so it’s really been a tough um needle to thread, I think, and I think that it added to a uh it was a lot of the reason that they struggled to grow as much as the Utah-based church. Also, you know, the Utah-based church was completely out. It wasn’t Utah. It was out of the wilderness, out of the United States completely on their own, and um they were surrounded by There are Christian neighbors on every side, right? So they were trying to be different but weren’t apart and um and then started out a little bit smaller as well after all of those rough beginnings. So anyway, so that’s the story. And if there are any RLDS, uh, well, members of the community of Christ or any of the now break offs, please feel free to contact me. I actually, when I was a girl, my mom had a sales rep that well, well, my, there there was a bright music. There was a Bright Music sales rep. She sold Bright Music, who was a bishop in the RLDS Church and it because it was in the 80s and 90s, well, it would have probably been the 80s. And, um, and I remember we went on, she came on some of the work vacations that, and, um, and I just remember her with the fondest memories. And I’ve tried to find her. She used to live in Salt Lake, but I think she’s moved. Now, so if anyone knows Nidra Troyer, um, I just have the best memories. Of Nidra Troyer, and she was one of the first female, maybe the first female bishop in Salt Lake. I think that she now, or after that went on to become the equivalent of a patriarch in our church. And, um, and so anyway, I tried to track her down and wasn’t able to because I really wanted to run this past an active faithful leader in the RLDS Church. Um, so anyway, so I’m doing my best just on my own research and listening to as many voices as I’ve been able to. OK, so Let’s see where I’m going now. So that’s, that’s kind of the history and background of the RLDS Church,
[00:20:17] right? So with that understanding, it is easier to understand how after 100 plus years of, well, let’s see, yeah, 1860, so 150, I don’t know, can’t do the math, 162 years, there it is, of proclaiming that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist. Nope, I did the math wrong because they changed. Back in the 80s. But after that many years of proclaiming that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, to change seems like that was a big thing to happen. So we’re going to continue on with the history of the ALDS Church so that you can get a little more context for context for that to understand what the story really is. OK, so, The, um, we are now going to look a little bit into the succession of the RLDS Church, right? So it was Joseph Smith the 3rd, and then he actually had 3 wives, but not in polygamy. He was a widow, he was a 3 time widower. His first wife died and then his tuberculosis, his second wife died in an accident. And then um he married a third wife, so he ended up with 15 children, right? I think most of them were with his second wife. I think he had 5 with his first wife, 7 with his second wife, and then then 3 more boys with his last wife. And so it’s interesting that, um, you know, he was not a polygamist who had 3 wives. But so after Joseph Smith the 3rd, he had a very long presidency because he started as a as a Young man in his 20s and lived to an old age. So he was the president I think for 54 years. And then after him came three of his sons in a row. So it didn’t go father son, it went Joseph Smith the 3rd, and then um his son Frederick served, and then Israel and then W. Wallace, and that got us all the way to 1978. So it was a grandson of Joseph Smith that was the president of the RLDS Church until 1978. Isn’t that crazy? Like our, our lineage has not gone quite like that, you know, so they were very connected to that original family. I found that interesting. And so each one of those leaders broke with tradition in different ways, different important ways. um W. Wallace. That 3rd son that, um, became the president, he was the first to step down and, um, become the, I guess, President Emeritus is what we’d call it, and, and have his successor become the president of the church while he was still alive. So he chose his son, Wallace B. So it went W. Wallace, who was still the, um, son of Joseph Smith the 3rd, and then his son,
[00:22:41] Wallace B. He was actually an ophthalmologist, and he spent 2 years, he, you know, retired from his practice, took 2 years to kind of get trained in theology and the church, and then he stepped into that position of authority, and he was the last in the lineal succession because with all of the changes the church made, that was another one they made. So anyway, there’s some of the history of the RLDS church, right? So now I’ve been reading so many journal articles and different papers to try to get a sense of get a better sense of the RLDS Church. It’s a fascinating, fascinating history. So, Again, they were in the middle of Christendom, right, and trying to be a part, but also trying to get along with their neighbors, trying to figure out what they were doing. They were trying to send missionaries abroad and they found that it really wasn’t working for them to bring their own message. They really wanted to do what they called ecumenicalism, which is We don’t know the word ecumenical because it’s not part of our church, sadly, but it’s where like Christian churches work together instead of against each other. So instead of saying join our church, they are, they kind of work together to say, here we are all the Christian churches helping to improve your lives and to bring you to Christ, right? So there’s a lot more um focus on cooperation rather than difference. They are trying to look for commonality that they can do together, right? So that’s what the um all of these different and um different. Pressures were on the RLDS church. They also um really they didn’t, um they, they struggled financially in different ways at different times, so that, you know, they sent their leaders to the theological schools in the community. So I think Saint Paul’s was a big one which was I. If I’m getting this right, it’s a very liberal Methodist school. So most of the people who became leaders in the RLDS Church were trained in theological schools that really would have been the groups that opposed the LDS, right? That opposed the, the Mormon story and the Mormonness of, um, of, of the RLDS church as well, but especially of the Utah Church. So anyway, there were a lot of, it was a very different climate and environment. That the RLDS church was in compared to the LDS Church. And so, um, I’m going to read from an article. I, I will link all of these articles and you know, this is, um, it, it, I’m, I’m just going to read some quotes. By the 1960s, so this is under that um W. Wallace, I believe, the RLDS Church was clearly undergoing a theological reconstruction. Downplaying the distinctive latter-day Saint aspect of the RLDS theological heritage,
[00:25:16] more emphasis was given to the concepts that they lay that they held in common with their Protestant neighbors in the Midwest, so they were really trying to be more Christian and less Mormon, right? Also, all of their leaders were trained in Christian theology, and so um it was a natural progression for them. Quick clarification. When I am saying Christian in this context, I am only referring to the anti-Mormon elements of Christian churches. It would have been more accurate to say Protestant, because I am in no way wanting to imply that Mormons are not Christians because Mormons very much are Christians. So W. Wallace Smith, um, oh, he intentionally, so he was that last son of Joseph the Third, right? And um that served until 1978, 1958 to 1978, he intentionally called counselors and apostles who were highly educated and extremely liberal. So they had all of them had PhDs from the Different liberal um colleges where they had been trained and Protestant seminaries and liberal universities. So these leaders, it’s the quote is these leaders found that the true church claims associated with such tradition, such traditional teachings as Jesus Christ’s establishment of a church, the great apostasy, and a restoration, um, that those failed to find support in historical evidence. So, So that’s, that’s the quote from this article, right? So the these people were trained in secularism, liberalism, Christianity, and so they came and they were like there you you can’t prove historically that there needed to be a restoration or that there’s a one true church, right? And It’s interesting because right, those aren’t necessarily historical questions. Those are faith questions, right? And so wherever we fall on it, I just want to point the um point out the trajectory that the RLDS Church was on. So these people who felt like you can’t, there’s no evidence for these claims, they became the new leaders of the church, so this was their Perspective, right? And then it goes on from there. The revisionists came to see the traditional one true church idea and concepts associated with it as an unfortunate combination of ignorance and arrogance. And so combined with that perspective, and, and you know, I do, I have to acknowledge, I have some sympathy for this perspective. I, I don’t love our one true church claim either. I think it’s more divisive. I, I’ve compared it to like. If I were to say we’re the one true family, we’re the one family that God likes how we’re raising our children, and right, it kind of would get that same element. I, I think it’s better to go, hey, this is what I love about our family rather than our family is better than anyone else’s family, right? I, so I understand that, but it is interesting to see how they came to it and how they handled it in a different way, right? And so, um. So they really wanted to downplay it, to downplay
[00:28:09] anything to do with their Mormonism, really. And so, um, it says that W. Wallace Smith sought culturally linked persons endowed with high powers of intellect and spirituality. As a team, they enlisted a growing cadre of theologically and historically trained educators and administrators from those liberal Christian schools that were steeped in the anti-Joseph precepts, um, and it’s they, they gathered those administrators pushing the RLDS Church away from its sectarian identity towards something like an ecumenical denomination. So sectarian is, you know, they’re, they’re different from the others, more into like, they’re just the same as everybody else. This Dramatic shift had its cost in terms of backlash and resistance from thousands of members clinging to, they really like that word clinging when they’re talking about the traditional members. It feels a little demeaning to me, clinging to more traditional views and understandings and hopes. The vision of the church’s mission had changed. The RLDS Church would never return to its former sectarian identity and character. So um that’s, that was what was happening in the church all along, but especially under W. Wallace starting in the late 50s through the 60s and into the 70s and 80s. The 80s is when it really exploded. And so really you can see that their goal was to minimize their Mormonness and maximize their liberal secular Christianness. They wanted, they were motivated. They had a desire and a goal to step away from Joseph Smith, to step away from a literal belief in the Book of Mormon of any kind. And, and even from the Book of Mormon. And so like, anyway, I’ll get into, I’ll get into where they are now, what and how it looks to me. But this was what they were motivated to do, right? They were trying to really downplay anything Mormon about themselves and really just join this Christian group. They wanted to be just another Christian church rather than something distinct or different. And so, and, and just I don’t want to make it sound like I’m putting good or I’m trying to just tell the story, not judge the story either way, right? And so, um, all of the ministers and leaders again were sent to study at places like Saint Paul’s or the, you know, like these very liberal, um, secular or or Protestant universities, and that’s, that’s where they were all trained. So um so it was in this climate, you need to know the name Richard Howard, Dick Howard. He was one of these educated, um, secular liberal, forward thinking um leaders. He was called as the official historian of the church for for quite a while. He worked in the history department for a long time and then he became the official church historian. So, Um, he, let’s see, I guess he was the official church historian from 1966 to 1994, and he was um the quote is, he was among those engaged in theological and historical revisionism. So they were also revising their church history that um. That let’s see, there had been another,
[00:31:15] another man had written a book. It’s Robert Flanders. He was the first RLDS historian, so actually Richard Howard wasn’t the first one to do this. Flanders had come before him. I believe he had left the church. He wrote a book called Navu Kingdom on the Mississippi, which was the first kind of RLDS work that that talked about Joseph involved in polygamy, and it was quite a scandal, but it was what Richard Howard had grown up with and been trained in and loved it and taught to just accept as truth. So just like when I talked to Todd Compton, he was like, oh, I always knew Joseph was a polygamist. I had read Von Brody’s book, right? That was the kind of Richard Howard, like he had read Robert Flanders’s book, so he knew that. Joseph was a polygamist, even though it went completely for him against um the church theology that they had. So, um, in the 19 in the late 1960s, the Joint council, so that’s the first presidency, the 12 um and the presiding Bishopric is called the Joint Council. Another thing that happened, they were holding meetings that were kept secret from the church members. So these were kind of secret meetings with professors from the Saint Paul School of Theology. To be trained in scripture, history, and theology. So they were actually having the um professors from this very liberal Methodist seminary come and train their church leaders that caused another huge scandal in the church when that was revealed. And um so, so it was, it was really, you know, really something the church was making serious moves. And so, um, another huge huge departure. Most church members as assumed that being church president was a divine calling for life, but Wallace Wallace Smith, W. Wallace Smith, I said. That he, he chose to step down and um and have his younger son and then so he, I mean, to step down and have his son take his place while he was yet living and then Wallace B did the same thing, he stepped down, but he broke even further by choosing. Anan Smith, I think it was Grant McMurray that he chose. I, I hope I haven’t missed someone, but I think it was Grant McMurray who interestingly was the church historian. So it’s like, um, anyway, it’s so different from our church. It it would be like the people who our church excommunicated becoming the president of the church in a way, right? Like it’s just mind blowing how different this is, but their church was pushing forward into this more secular liberal um Christian way of thinking, where our church has really tried to hold back, right? And I mean, we’re we’re very different, but just in in the terms of that. So they had 7 major changes that this paper talked about. The two that I’m going to talk about are doctrinal revisionism and his historical revisionism. They changed their doctrine completely. They changed their history completely. So, um.
[00:34:09] Let’s see. Yeah, it says Wallace B, so that’s the, um, the son, the great grandson of Joseph, right? That, um, that he was the first one to fully embrace the revisionist thinking. He was like, OK, we are changing things. So he went just full bore gung ho into this new direction when he became the president. So Um, that’s when they just stopped being anything that resembled Mormonism. Like, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll talk about their website in a minute, but I haven’t been able to find, like, it’s really hard to find anything about the Book of Mormon on their website, which is just interesting. It’s very different from, from our church, right? And so, um, I think that there are, you know, things we could criticize and admire in both traditions. So, um, let’s see, it is now, so, so they went this complete way where it is now described as a peace church. So It’s not a Mormon church or a restoration church. It’s a peace church and its core doctrine seems to me to be nonviolence and social justice. That’s, that’s mainly what I get. So perusing the website again, I haven’t found any scriptures. This is their logo. And, um, you can see that if you, if you click on ways to get involved, they list, these are, these are the ways you can be involved in the church as a, as a member. Diversity and inclusion, ecumenical and interfaith ministries. So remember, ecumenical means with the other. Churches, because we’re like them. Environmental justice, health and wholeness, human rights and peace and justice. And so, so it’s very, you know, to our ears, it’s very different and, and it has a very different, um, focus and agenda. I like a lot of it, but it is very different from anything that the Mormon Church is doing. And so, um, their list of enduring principles is also nice. That’s kind of the things like the enduring principles, what they have carried on. I, I like them a lot, but again, If you click on any of these topics, no scriptures are listed anywhere. They, they sound like nice ideals that I hope to be able to live up to, right? And so it’s interesting to see how very different the church is now. When it started out, it was the rigamites and the Josephites, I guess we could say the LDS and the RLDS one was. Polygamy and a line of succession through the 12, the other was not polygamy and a line of succession through descendants. That that was,
[00:36:25] but other than that, they were the same and they’ve completely gone into completely different things. It’s really interesting. So Um, I, I’m gonna share some quotes. I watched several documentaries and interviews, and so here’s a quote from um a documentary. One of the church leaders says, I think the community of Christ story is different from the Quakers and the Mennonites. So you see, he, that’s who he compares himself to the Quakers and the Mennonites, because those are Um, churches that, uh, I, I can’t think of the word peace churches, you know, anti-violence. Um, we, we, it, he says, we participated in violence in northern Missouri. We have this militant legacy. Now Joseph Smith the 3rd started distancing us from that, but it’s a very powerful story that we are a violent church that is repenting and has now ended up in a peace position, or ending up toward a peace position, a nonviolent position. This, this gives hope in the world for lots of religions that have that also have a violent history. We’re not a pure peace church, but praise God, we’re a repenting peace church. So you can, you can hear what they’re talking about, right? Like we, we were violent in the past, we did have guns, but now we’re not. So they are really accepting and embracing the most um sort of anti-Mormon version of what happened in Missouri and Navvo and uh you know, and I, I’m sure there’s room for all of those perspectives, but they really seem to paint themselves as the violent ones, but now they’re repenting of that. So, um, anyway, my experience going through this, I, I, I’d like to know what you guys think. It, it feels like a lot of it feels lovely and nice and beautiful. It feels kind of lacking or sort of just vanilla, you know, I’m kind of curious how you would really get into it. Oh, they have a temple, they build a temple. There’s also a lot of, I guess that’s true in every church, but I see in here a lot of sort of irony or This, you know, things that don’t really go together. Um, they have a temple, but um he describes it as a temple without dividing walls. So they have one temple in their one head location, but it’s supposed to be a sign of peace for the entire world. It’s, it’s just really interesting how they try to make it go together. I can’t even get a sense of what their temple is for other than that they had a revelation to build a temple. So, OK, so that’s the um theological revisionism and now the historical revisionism. That’s mostly about Joseph Smith, right, and the history of the church.
[00:38:48] So, um, it, I’ll read from this again. Although his father’s 2, his father, two uncles, and a grandfather, Joseph Smith the 3rd, his predecessors as church presidents, had all declared sometimes adamantly that Joseph Smith Jr. had never initiated, taught, or practiced plural marriage. Wallis B was rather easily convinced that Joseph was a polygamist. He heard one presentation on it and was like, and told Richard Howard to look into it. So they were really like, I almost looking for ways out of being connected to Joseph Smith is the impress maybe that’s overstating it. That’s the impression I get. And so in 1977, he asked church historian Richard Howard to study it out and write a paper to educate RLDS church members about the about the fact that Joseph had been. The, the, you know, had been Utah’s version of who he was and so, so it’s really interesting. So anyway, that was Richard Howard was assigned that in 1877. He kind of left it on the back burner, but he finally presented his paper in in I mean 1977. He finally presented his paper in 1982. And that he presented it to the joint council again, that’s all of the leaders. It underwent several revisions and then in what feels like kind of a, you know how the LDS Church is struggling, we’re struggling with our history, so Um, they did the Gospel Topics essays and put them on the website, but didn’t announce them, didn’t release them, didn’t print them, didn’t talk about them, so it was kind of like they’re there if someone wanted to go find them. The um the RLDS church did something similar with Richard Howard’s paper. I find it interesting. They didn’t put it in a church publication, but they allowed Richard Howard, who was the official church historian who had done it by assignment. They allowed him to publish it in a non-church paper, so it was kind of a same like halfway committing to it, right? But still, the article obviously caused a firestorm with what was already happening that traditional members were really, really concerned about. This was just like another huge thing and so um. Richard Price, this is when Richard Price went into action. He took out a full page ad in the local newspaper rebutting Howard’s paper. And so, um, Howard felt a little hung out to dry by the church because the church didn’t necessarily jump on to what he was teaching, but he had been told to do it. So anyway, that’s, that’s kind of how it, how it went. Um, so I want to clarify here, let’s see, um. It actually, we’re gonna talk about this more, but it actually is not accurate to say that the RLDS church admits it because they don’t. If you read through Richard’s, well, we’ll get to Richard Howard’s paper, but even still, Um, the RLDS perspective that’s on their website is that they do not take a stand. Um, that’s, so it’s,
[00:41:44] it’s not true at all. They say, um, under church history principles, drawing our own conclusions, the church has a long standing tradition that it does not legislate or mandate positions on matters of church history. Historians should be free to draw their own conclusions after thorough consideration of evidence. So the only thing that RLDS Church actually officially did is say, OK, this is no longer a core belief. You don’t have to believe this to be RLDS, right? But they didn’t say, OK, Joseph was a polygamist. They just, um, you know, they were motivated to want to say that, but they still just said, you can believe what you want. And so maybe if they had stopped there, it would have been enough to stop the giant schism that happened, but they just kept pushing forward in liberal moves in more and more ways. So the year after Richard Howard’s paper came out, um, a revelation was presented that among other things allowed women. To have the priesthood, it allowed for the ordination of women, and that caused a firestorm because this was back in 1983. So I think we’re still, I know that there are lots of feelings about this in our church today, you know, but this was 40 years ago that the RLDS church, and without it says that that issue had been brewing for 15 years, but they just kind of like Walla B was so forward and progressive that he just did it, right? And so Then at the next World Conference or a world conference a few years later, um, the traditional side, it’s more much more like um kind of parliamentary procedure type government and in the RLDS church than the LDS churches. So, and the opposition, I guess we could say, tried to bring a motion to have that, um, to, to, you know, take back the possibility of the ordination of women, and in another change from tradition. Um, Wallaby actually used a really strong arm tactic. Um, Frederick, his, his, I guess, great uncle, had done something similar, um, early on in the church, and it had caused a schism because he ruled to, um, no, no, my way, it’s going to be my way. I’m the leader of the church. But surprisingly, Wallace B did the same thing. He said only the president of the church can bring a revelation, so only the president of the church can call for a revelation to be reconsidered, and he wouldn’t even hear their motion. And that actually is what broke the church. It was a schism that took it’s, I, I can’t find the exact numbers, but they say it’s between 1/4 to 3, so 25% to 33% of the active church members felt pushed out of their church. I, I guess I That feels painful to me cause I know how,
[00:44:32] you know, how much I’ve loved staying in my church, even when I have struggled at times and how much it means to me. And if you think about your ward. The people that are actively coming, this was active church members, like 1/4 to 3 of your church leaving, it’s just brutal. It’s really brutal, and they were a much smaller church, right? So it just like ripped them down the middle and all of those people that felt like their, I mean really their church had left them. They had just gone. Like light speed full into this liberal secular ecumenical perspective where people were left going, I still believe in the Book of Mormon, I still believe in Joseph Smith, right? And And so that’s, so it takes a lot to get you to leave your faith transition, but that many people did, and including in that are the prices, Richard and Pamela Price, many others, they um mostly just set up small congregations. I know there’s the remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then many others that call themselves Restoration ranches, I believe. And so, um, I know that for a long time, many of them hoped that the church would come back after it got this crazy. Liberal stuff out of its system, but um that hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen. So, so this is, this is where they are now. So anyway, I think that it’s important to recognize that that the um the people who believed that anything traditional about the church, the Book of Mormon, the divine calling of Joseph Smith or Um, you, you know, any of that, they kind of got pushed out of the church, and it’s really interesting too. This is an irony I see that, you know, they call themselves a peace church, but really this kind of a strong arm tactic saying nope, this is how it is, we’re not going to discuss it. And then that division, that’s really like, that’s a violent thing to have happen, right? I don’t mean physically violent, but like using power like that and ripping people’s church away from them is really violent. So it’s, there are some deep ironies there, right? Like they’re a peace church and and often when you hear them talk about the traditionalists that they use words like they have to cling to this like like there seems to be quite a Sort of they hold them in lower regard, you know, they can kind of talk about them sometimes in a rather demeaning way or they’re just so backward or yeah, you know, and. And they even like I’ve heard different quotes about, well, it’s good cause they’re not in our church anymore, so they’re not holding us back and they can do their thing and it just, it makes me think of like a hand, I have a foot, I have no need of the hand, I have no need of the like the body of Christ. It’s important to try to keep together and maybe that’s part of our struggle. Anyway, it’s been good for me to go through this cause I know a lot of more um liberal progressive Mormons can feel the same way about our church feeling like they need to move this direction, but There are, you know,
[00:47:13] everybody’s in this church as well, so it makes me have a little bit more, um, well, I’ve already had just so much patience and, you know, like tried not to judge our church leadership cause that’s a hard job. And here we see, you know, they, they went that super liberal direction and look what happened, right? It caused a lot of pain for a lot of people. I’m going to share some quotes just to demonstrate um this new perspective and how much it has changed. So, Um, a common sentiment that you hear from the RLDS is we used to see Jesus through Joseph’s eyes. Now we try to see Joseph through Jesus’s eyes. So if you think about that’s what that’s really saying, that’s, that’s, that’s a pretty big deal, right? They’re saying they used to believe in Joseph’s version of Jesus, so like the restoration, you know, like the, the Mormons, they’re they’re Trinitarians. And now, right, so all of the accusations that come at Mormons from the Christians, they’re on that side of it now, right? So, so they have rejected Joseph’s theology and now they, now that they understand Jesus better, they can see that Joseph was a bad guy. So that’s a pretty hard one. Bill Russell was also an RLDS historian. I think he might have been after Dick Howard, but In any case, this is a quote from him. He says that RLDS historians are much more appreciative of Joseph Smith III than we are of Joseph Smith Jr. He was a good guy, unlike his father. So that’s interesting, right? And I’ll put some links below to the clips where these came from, or, you know, everything will be linked below as always in the description. And then I’m going to play just two little segments of this interview with Richard Howard. He doesn’t give interviews. I know there are many people who really wanted to interview him, but I’ve only been able to find a couple of interviews he gave where, you know, he was able to write his answers. So it’s obvious that he had pre pre-written questions that he was able to write his answers to and with, you know, so, so he’s, I’m sure he won’t. I’ve tried to reach out and I’m sure I won’t be able to talk to him, but um. I just want to share a little bit of the glint in his eye when he giggles about how upset people were and how he’s, you know, they accuse him of trying to take their faith. And so it’s just really interesting to watch. But my essay documented quite a different reality, which many of them did not like one bit. Well, the next month, I was really going on now, you know, I’m really obsessed. The next month, I contextualize Joseph Smith’s famous Civil War prophecy given on Christmas Day in 1832.
[00:49:55] Well, By the time folks finished reading my essay, several of them chose to ask me whether I was trying to prove that Joseph Smith was not really a prophet. I don’t recall my reply. A little bit later, he and the interviewer also chuckle when he admits that he years before had referred to the Book of Mormon as a 19th century document in a class that he was teaching and laughs about how that caused, you know, caused some problems. So what he’s saying is, right, that Joseph Smith wrote it. So it’s the exact same thing, things that the anti-Mormons, non-Mormons at least, but even the anti-Mormons or those who leave the church say that’s where The RLDS is right, and that’s where they were before they did all of made all of these changes and you can hear Richard Howard and these other leaders being so dismissive of their backward, you know, the the church members that just believe they’re just clinging to their traditional values. He even says that, yeah, he talks really dismissively of people who are clinging to their values, to their traditional views and values and beliefs and so. It is kind of hard to argue that this wasn’t that he didn’t have some motive, right, to move the church in this direction, or at the very least it’s hard to claim that he took much care about it, right? And so things continued to go and to, you know, like I said, that led to the schism. And that large portion who left the church, um, they started, well, anyone who really had a traditional perspective of Joseph Smith wasn’t able to stay, right? So that includes the prices. So here’s another ironic thing that, so Richard and Pamela Price went to one of these restoration branches, I believe they led one. And they wrote their books and um we, I also always hear that the Price’s books are debunked, you know, Richard and Paula Price’s books, Joseph thought polygamy polygamy that they’re debunked and that the RLDS admitted, so they could kind of paint this picture that Richard and Pamela Price were trying to write these books, but the RLDS Church debunked them or someone has. Actually, that’s not true at all. The opposite is true. Um, Richard Howard wrote his paper and it was after that. That paper came out in ’82 and it was after that that um Richard and Pamela Price went to work. They published their first large volume in 2000 and they have published, I think 2006, 20. 13 something like that. So no one has debunked those books that they are ignored. People ignore them, but they don’t get in and actually deal with the very good research that is in those books. And so anyways, so we need to really pay attention to how things are, um, you know, how things are communicated to us and what we believe. So. So now that we understand this, the essential point of going over all of this was so that we could understand that it is not at all the case that the RLDS Church faced this terrible reality that the evidence was just overwhelming and they had to accept the fact that they had been wrong. It was that could have not been more opposite from what it actually was. They were
[00:53:03] looking to minimize. The Mormonist step away from Joseph Smith, and I think they were eager to take the opportunity to believe that Joseph was a polygamist. That that’s exactly, you know, like it took one lecture to get Wallace B convinced, and he has signed the paper and so now we’re going to go into the paper that Richard Howard wrote that is considered the like bombshell that made the RLDS change their mind, right? And I just I think it’s, I think you’ll be surprised. I was very surprised as I really dug in and read into it. It starts by claiming, well, pointing out that the RLD, the reorganization was founded on opposing polygamy and um lineal succession. He then claims that it was Joseph Smith the 3rd that added sort of a new emphasis in claiming that his father wasn’t a polygamist, that before they just. Post polygamy, but they didn’t say anything about Joseph’s polygamy. That’s weird for a lot of reasons. First of all, the church wasn’t really fully reorganized until this speech was given in 1860 when Joseph Smith III came to be a part of it. And, um, you know, and I don’t think that the leaders of it were like believing that Joseph was a polygamist. That, that wasn’t a statement made. So anyway, he quotes Joseph Smith the 3rd in saying that if there’s one thing I hate, it is this Brigham. Doctrine, um, here it is. There is but one principle taught by the leaders of any faction of this people that I hold in utter abhorrence. That is the principle taught by Brigham Young and those who believe in him. I have been told that my father taught such doctrines. I have never believed it and can never believe and never can believe it. So he’s saying that Joseph Smith the 3rd is the one that brought this new emphasis of claiming that um Joseph wasn’t a polygamist and it wasn’t believed before then. Now that’s strange, like, like I said, for a lot of reasons, but also one thing I want to point out is it’s weird that we don’t take Joseph Smith the 3rd’s testimony more seriously. Like we, we just throw out Emma and Joseph the Third saying they were they’re they’re motivated to lie as if as if everyone. In Utah wasn’t, we accept all of those claims, but throw out their claims. Also, I think, let’s remember, Joseph Smith III was 11 when his father died and his father was a prophet who cared about what his children were taught. He was always telling Emma, teach my children, you know, when he, when he was in prison, that’s what his letters would say, teach, teach the children and So I would think that if Joseph had restored this highest holy doctrine, he would have taught his son, who would most likely be his heir, right? That’s how Brigham set it up. He was hoping to have Brigham Young Junior be. The next president and so it’s really strange that we don’t give this more credence that like like show me any other child living in polygamy that doesn’t know his father is a polygamist, right? Like it just it especially if if everyone knew it just like Richard Howard is here is claiming that he kind of, you know, everyone in Navo knew that Joseph was a polygamist. It’s kind of the
[00:55:57] The bias he brings to this. Well then, wouldn’t his 11 year old son have been hearing rumors from friends, you, you, you know how that goes like. It’s really bizarre that we just throw Joseph Smith the 3rd out. So I want to point that out. Then I also want to, before I get into the um really weak evidence that Richard Howard uses to back up this claim, I want to talk about something else. The founding revelation of the reorganization, right after the sacred Grove, they have their founding revelation by Jason Briggs. And it very clearly declares that Joseph was not a polygamist. So, um, let me read a little bit of it. He said, My people shall be redeemed and my law shall be kept, which I revealed unto my servant, Joseph Smith Jr. Right? I revealed my law unto Joseph Smith Jr. He, Jason is so troubled because of all of these people living polygamy, and he’s saying, no, there will Be a people that will live the law that I gave to Joseph Smith and, and, and it’s contrasted a few a little bit later by saying wolves have entered the flock. So he’s contrasting Joseph Smith Jr. and wolves have entered the flock. And then it talks about the law of the law of lineage by which the holy priesthood is transmitted in all generations. So that’s what we talked about. That’s where they got that idea as well. And then, um, Briggs was also, as I said, deeply troubled by William Smith because he also had um become a polygamist when he had wanted to follow the succession, so this is what the revelation said to him. The keys which were taught him by my servant Joseph were of me that I might prove him therewith. But as Esau despised his birthright, so has William Smith despised my law and forfeited that which pertained to him as an apostle and the high priest in my church. So it says that he and his spokesman are rejected of me, for they have wholly forsaken my law and given themselves to all manner of uncleanness and prostituted my law and the keys of power entrusted to. Them to the lusts of the flesh and have run greedily greedily in the way of adultery. So this is really interesting because this founding revelation of Briggs talks about the lineal succession, which they continue and talks about opposing polygamy and declares that wolves have entered the flock. Um, William has sold his birthright for a massive pottage and has been rejected because he pursued polygamy, and it declares that Joseph didn’t. So this is a really Strange claim and I think very dishonest that nowhere in this entire paper does Richard Howard even Howard even refer to this founding revelation that declares gives them their mandate. So, so we can see right off that I don’t think that this is very great historical work. I think this is very motivated and somewhat dishonest. And so um he then goes on though and does quote two sources. The first one is Sheen and the second one is Marks. And so I’m going to try and hurry to get on to get onto those. So Isaac Sheen, he has an interesting story. He, um, kind of had the similar, similar path. He didn’t join the reorganization until 1859, and, um, and he wasn’t closely associated with Joseph Smith before that, you know, but he joined in 1859. He was a printer, so he, that he became gung ho as soon as he joined the rest of the. Reorganization and he started printing their first newspaper in January of 1860. It was called The True Latter-day Saints Herald, which is fun to to see the, you know,
[00:59:29] just the contest between the LDS and the RLDS. And so in his very first publication, he included an article that he had written in another paper. He had written it clear back in 1852, and you know, he’s just trying to get a paper ready, I assume, so he’s just including an article he wrote a long time ago. And he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge, but in that article, it came out in 1852, so I’m assuming in the end of the year, so I’m assuming in reaction to 1852 was when the LDS Church revealed polygamy and revealed what they claimed to be the revelation that became 132. our scriptures. So I’m it seems very clear that he’s reacting to that. And um he said he he just quoted in it that Joseph Smith repented of polygamy. He said that just like that, you know, the LDS Church could repent because Joseph Smith had repented. So it implied. That he had been a polygamist but then had repented again, no firsthand knowledge, no way he would know this at all, right? And um, let me see if I can find the exact quote. Joseph Smith repented of his connection with this doctrine and said that it was of the devil. He caused the revelation on that subject to be burned. And when he voluntarily came to Navu and resigned, um, resigned himself into the Arms of his enemies, he said that he was going to Carthage to die. At that time, he also said that if it had not been for that a cursed spiritual wife doctrine, he would not have come to that. By his conduct at that time, he proved the sincerity of his repentance and of his profession as a prophet. So this was Isaac Sheen’s attempt to make sense of this. I mean, this is, this is my hypo my speculation, right, based on the timing. That the um the special conference was released from the LDS Church in August of 1852. This was in October of 1852, and he’s trying to rebut what they were saying. He had no firsthand information, and he was just saying it based on what Brigham Young said, trying to make sense of it. He made the mistake of just recopying that article he had written. That was a defense of Joseph Smith in his first article of the um his new newspaper for the RLDS Church, and it caused an outrage. It really became an outrage. It says another paper I’ll link says RLDS leaders were appalled at this very public admission by one of their own that Joseph Smith had authorized polygamy with a revelation. So actually this was a mistake from the beginning. Sheen seemed to learn from his mistake. He was forgiven and accepted into the church and went on to publish his newspaper for many years with no future slip ups like that. And so he never again made any such statements. So the fact that Richard Howard is using this little quote from Sheen with that history I’ve given you to claim that the RLDS Church didn’t always claim that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist and by implication that Joseph was a polygamist. I hope I said that right. I, I always say, listen to what I mean, not what I say because I get my words mixed up. But the point is that is weak, right? That I couldn’t believe he used that. It’s so dishonest and so Um, then the next one though, the next one he used is William Marks, and I have to confess, William Marks was one of the main reasons that it took me so long to believe that Joseph wasn’t involved in polygamy to some degree. Like, like, so William Marks,
[01:02:46] let’s talk a little bit about him, a genuinely good guy, a guy of a ton of integrity. Um, he was on the high council in Navvo and then he became the state president of Navvo. He was, um, Just a good man. He’s mentioned twice in the Doctrine of Covenants, 117 and 124, and it’s hard to like call him a bad guy. He was kind of chased out of Navu, you know, he, he was who Emma looked to. He was, he was trying to kind of protect Emma and help take care of her and help her get her business in order after Joseph’s death, but he didn’t align with Brigham Young. So in all of the violence, he left Navu before, um, because it sounds like he was threatened. He eventually becomes a member of the first presidency of the RLDS Church, so he really doesn’t have a motive at all to say that Joseph is a polygamist. That’s why, you know, this is actually a valid claim to say, OK, he was just telling the truth. He just had a ton of integrity, and even though it didn’t. Serve him well, he had to tell what he believed to be true about Joseph. So, um, I’m going to read, he, he gave the same story three different times and um and it’s with only slight variations. So, and Howard includes all three of them in his paper. So the first one I’m going to read was in that first edition of the True Latter Day Saints Journal. That January 1860 newspaper, he said, Brother Joseph said that he wanted to converse with me on the affairs of the of the church, and we retired by ourselves. I will give his words verbatim, for they are indelibly stamped upon my mind. He said he had desired for a long time to have a talk with me on the subject of polygamy. He said it eventually would prove the overthrow of the church. And we should soon be obliged to leave the United States and state unless it could be speedily put down. He was satisfied that it was a cursed doctrine and that there must be every exertion made to put it down. He said that he would go before the congregation and proclaim against it, and I must go into the high council, and he would prefer charge and he would, um, prefer, I guess, bring charges against those in transgression, and I must sever them from the church unless they made ample satisfaction. There was more much more said, but this was the substance. The mob commenced to gather about Carthage in a few days thereafter, therefore, there was nothing done concerning it. So, um, so you’re getting the substance, he’s he’s enlisting marks to help him. But Marx has the feeling that he was involved in it before. It’s a little more clear in this version. This was a letter seven years earlier, and it’s more explicit. This was also include he included, like I said, all three of these. About 3 weeks before his death, I met him one morning in the street, and he said to me, Brother Marks, I have something to communicate to you. We retired to a bye place and sat down together and he said, We are a ruined people. I asked, how so? He said, this doctrine of polygamy or spiritual wife system, which has brought been. And practiced among us will prove our destruction and overthrow. I have been deceived, said he. In reference to the practice.
[01:05:44] It is wrong. It is a curse to mankind, and we shall have to leave the United States soon unless it can be put down and its practice stopped in the church. Now, said he, Brother Marks, you have not received this doctrine, and how glad I am. I want you, I want you to go into the high council, and I will have charges preferred against all who practice this doctrine, and I want you to try. Them by the laws of the church and cut them off. And if they will not, if they will not repent and cease the practice of this doctrine, and said he, I will go into the stand and preach against it with all my might. And in this way we may rid the church of this damnable heresy. And he has one more version where he says it was 2 weeks before Joseph was killed. Same thing, I want to talk to you, went by ourselves. He says this polygamy business in the church must be stopped or the church is ruined, and we can’t stay in the United States. I have been deceived in this thing, and it must be put down. And so, um, so anyway, those are the three versions he gives that last one was in 1863, and this, like I said, was a tough one. I thought, OK, Joseph was involved somehow, but again, digging into this deeper, it has been like, oh my gosh, it only makes sense in a completely different understanding. I think what happened here. Is that Marx, who was a very genuine, sincere guy, misunderstood what Joseph was saying. Joseph said, I have been deceived when he was talking about polygamy, but he wasn’t saying I have been deceived about polygamy. He’s saying I have been deceived about the brethren, about those who are practicing polygamy, and the reason. Why I say this is first of all, he’s asking, he’s telling Marx, I need you to start helping me. I will preach about it and I need you to excommunicate people. Joseph Smith was already preaching about it, right? We’ve, we’ve read in the previous episodes all of the sermons he gave. Those all were before this would have happened because this was only 2 or 3 weeks before his death, depending on You know which version Marx was giving and so, um, so he was already he’s if he were saying, I have been deceived and I realized this doctrine is bad and we need to start excommunicating people, explain how he’s already done so many excommunications and already given so many speeches about it. It’s so. to me that what he is saying, what he’s doing here is enlisting marks as the state president saying, I need you to start excommunicating people. I’m gonna be preaching about this like crazy, and you excommunicate and help me. Help me put this down. That’s the only way it makes sense is if he’s saying I was deceived and how many brethren, for example, in Brigham and Here. I, you know, like, like that there’s a story by William Smith. I’ll get into another time where he, he was told, you know, he was like, as soon as I get done with this, I’ll start dealing with them. I’ll start dealing with them.
[01:08:28] He just learns continually that it’s more and more people than he thought because he was so trusting and so he’s getting Marx to help him. So I, I, I have a couple of other ways to think about this. This episode is getting long, so I Have to be quick, but if Joseph, who was a sincere, honest person, right, if he really were like, oh my gosh, I’ve been deceived. I was wrong. OK, let’s think about his repentance process when he made the small mistake of trusting Martin Harris with the transcript, right? With the manuscript pages, the depths he went to in repentance, how quick he was to repent of things, right? If, if he had actually Been involved in polygamy and then realized it was wrong. That would mean he realized he was an adulterer, that he had done this to all of these women, that he had misled his flock, his congregation, like how deep would his repentance have been? It, it would have been unbearable. It would not have been a little like a side with Marx. Hey, I realized I was wrong, so let’s take care of this, right? Also, how would he have approached Emma and addressed her? What about the women he had taken as wives, right? Like, wouldn’t he, I mean, really think about this. So we’ll move on. I won’t go into it too much, but really think about who he would have talked to, who he would have repented to. Also, he knowing Joseph Smith, he would have repented before the church as well, right? He would have, like, it’s just so. Crazy to believe. And Emma, I think that if she said yes, he, you, you know, he repented of it. That would have been something very easy for her to acknowledge, to admit if this was true. They could have all been on the same page. And so for all of those reasons, I think that it actually is not believable. If you think about all of the people that he had been deceived by the, um, the, um, Chauncey and Francis Higbee, right at the They named their Higbee brothers, and John Bennett and person after person, he had been deceived repeatedly. He had been deceived in trusting people that weren’t trustworthy. So anyway,
[01:10:41] I think that it makes complete sense. I think that if Joseph had lived, he could have said, Oh no, that’s what I meant, and cleared it up in a, in a second. It’s an easy misunderstanding to to, to understand, right? It’s easy to Understand how he could have gotten that wrong in what he said, but genuinely, genuinely thought that’s what he was saying. And so in his own integrity, um, said that. Now I also want to say he only printed it again in that first, that first episode. The other time it had come before that, and then the other one was in a private letter sent 3 years later. So it wasn’t like he was out preaching this or that this was the RLDS church debate or anything like that. This was just Marx’s own personal experience and belief. And so that that he was trying to make sense of, I guess. But anyway, in any case, I think that that is really clear to go, oh my, as soon as I realized that Marx’s statement didn’t make sense in any other way because of all of the implications of what repentance would mean, that solved that for me and it was like, oh my goodness, OK, that’s clear now. That makes a lot more sense. So, um, OK, there’s a lot more to cover. Um, also, the other thing just really quickly on that, if Joseph had realized he was wrong, wouldn’t he have gone out and tried to redeem the brethren that he had misled, right? Wouldn’t he have started preaching and saying, I just, it seems really strange to me to believe that Joseph was, I, I mean, if you know anything about Joseph Smith, to believe this story that he realized he was wrong, but Just told Marx in secret, but never told it to any of the other leaders and never also it doesn’t fit at all with the LDS perspective, right? Like we can’t have Joseph Smith repenting of polygamy. Like none of the affidavits that we have that claim to prove polygamy say that at all. And so, anyway, OK, so it, it, it goes on then to, he, he goes on to make a lot of other claims that are really Interesting, but the irony is, again, it’s so one sided. It uses marks and that really weak quote from Sheen, but it doesn’t ever address their original revelation. And it also, it just, it really, it’s trying to claim two things. It’s trying to claim that the RLDS Church didn’t start out claiming that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, so they don’t have to continue to claim Joseph is a polygamist. It’s kind of the Main thing he goes about, right, that that the main point he’s making in the paper and then he comes up with his own um explanation of how um of how he thinks polygamy came about. But some of his other things that he talks about to say that polygamy wasn’t always part of the RLDS Church or Joseph’s
[01:13:25] polygamy wasn’t always an important part of the RLDS Church, is he talks about some meetings, I mean some letters between Zenus Gurley Jr. So Gurley, who I’ve mentioned Zenus Gurley, was a member of the, I believe he was an apostle. He was one of the original founders of the church, and his son didn’t hold a calling and seems like kind of an unpleasant guy. And he pretty harshly keeps coming after Joseph the 3rd saying, I think your father was guilty. I think your father was guilty and you need to let me print my version in the newspaper, right? And, and Joseph in the official church publications, and Joseph the 3rd is responding saying, um, no, because that would really, really hurt the church and you don’t have any information about it. You weren’t even born, right? Like, and so he says, um, here’s what he says. I don’t know what evidence you may be. In possession of different or more direct than I have seen or heard. I know, however, that you know personally nothing about it. And therefore, that your belief is from secondary classes of evidence. These, it is your privilege to receive to receive as conclusive to you. I have the the privilege to reject and disbelieve them. And this without lessening my esteem for you. So Joseph III is being always kind, but these really harsh attacks coming from, um, The son of Zenus Zenus Gurley Junior, and he’s and and he’s insisting that he get to print and and he’s basically saying that would really do dramatic harm to the church. We have the LDS already coming after us if we in our own publications show that some members have disagreements, that will really hurt us and really there’s no reason he should do it. It’s basically like claiming if People write letters to the headquarters and say, I disagree with this, that the church should have to print all of those letters and and that somehow people disagreeing with the policy of the church affects what the policy of the church, you know, is is is um can therefore claim that that wasn’t the policy of the church, if that makes sense. So anyway, I also think that that’s pretty weak. He doesn’t include any of the Evidence of people who did agree that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, of which there would be ample. And so anyway, um, he, he, there’s one other thing that I really want to talk about that’s really important, where he talks about all of the affidavits and um I need to find it, but he talks about how there are so many affidavits, hundreds of affidavits through the 80s and 90s that the RLDS produced claiming that Joseph was not a polygamist. That was jaw dropping to me because of course there are. The LDS are busy getting all of their affidavits, so the RLDS would be doing the same thing. But guess what? I have never seen any of those. I’ve never heard about any of those. Have any of you, like, where are all of the affidavits that are saying Joseph was innocent? That’s a big deal. He said that there are hundreds of pages of them. And it’s really interesting cause he just kind of some lumps them all in together and throw. Them out and says that kind of evidence isn’t reliable. So he, he mentions them, but then doesn’t address anything written in any of them. Now, the important thing to recognize is our whole narrative of who Joseph of Joseph
[01:16:32] Smith’s polygamy is based in those affidavits, the LDS affidavits. That’s like where we get everything about who his wives were and what he was doing and everything we have that the LDS Church, it’s part of our narrative, I think unfortunately. It’s the biggest thing that every Anti-Mormon, anti-Joseph person has against him. And now the RLDS have adopted it because they also are really anti-Joseph. And so I want to get into those affidavits and know why they’re not taken seriously. Why aren’t they taken at least as seriously as the as the LDS affidavits? I think that I’m, that’s, that’s, I’m pointing to Salt Lake. That’s north. Um, that’s what I think should absolutely happen. And it’s important also to recognize. The Temple Lot case, the LDS Church wasn’t actually involved in that directly. We’re going to do a new future episode on that, but the RLDS Church was, and they won the case. The judge thought that RLDS claims were much more um legitimate. He had some pretty harsh words for the LDS claims, um, specifically the women that testified, and so, um, so these like Really in the actual court of law, the RLDS case won. It was overturned later on a technicality when it was appealed, but it wasn’t retried and it was just a technicality. I was just watching a thing about Warren Jeffs. The same thing happened with him. He was convicted in Utah. They appealed. It was overturned on a technicality. Does that mean Warren Jeffs was innocent? That’s exactly what happened with the Temple Lot case. So, I want these affidavits. That is a really big deal. There are hundreds of pages of affidavits. Saying that Joseph wasn’t a polygamist, people testifying to that, and I think that we should have access to those. I’m going to start doing my job, my best to track them down. If someone already has them, please tell me where they are, because I think it’s really important. And so this has already been pretty long, but he goes on from there to kind of come up with his own case of how um polygamy emerged in Navu. He, for him it grew, he, he, and it’s all based. Completely in speculation. He does not have good sources for really any of this, but he thinks he hypothesizes or postulates that it grew out of baptisms for the dead. They had this unique doctrine of baptisms for the dead, which by the way, the RLDS never adopted, they never liked, and he as a anti, um, like, like as a anti-Joseph, anti-Mormon type, he started really, I mean, he really wanted more ways to oppose Joseph. So he said that. This kind of indoctrinal innovation of baptisms for the dead led to ceilings, you know, he refers to what I talked about last time in 128 and um led to ceilings which led to being sealed to a dead spouse, which then led to um
[01:19:29] celestial. Polygamy if if someone had had had spouses die, which then he just says, which led to literal polygamy and it just makes the claim that many people were being polygamist in Utah because it grew naturally. He calls it an accident of history or different things. Anyway, so that’s the version he comes up with again. No historical evidence. On the one hand, he says that Joseph wasn’t really doing doing polygamy, but that he opened the theological door for it. On the other hand, he fully lets us, like, you know, this paper was used to claim that Joseph was doing everything that the Utah affidavits say that he was doing. And so I’m going to leave it there because this has been a long episode and I didn’t know how much you guys wanted to get into. There’s a lot more we could talk about with this paper. I’ll link it below. But in short, to sum it up, The important thing to know about the claim that even the RLDS admitted is first of all, the RLDS Church actually, the community of Christ, now that’s another change they made as they changed their name. They do not actually admit that Joseph was a polygamist. They just um allow for the possibility. Then also that it did not at all go against. their self-interest to say that. It’s very much what they wanted to say. That’s that it was very much in their motivation to do that. Anyone who went against their interest, anyone who believed in Joseph’s innocence, left the church. They did not find the case convincing at all. The prices spent decades refuting it, and that has yet to be refused. And so there was no actual evidence. There’s no evidence presented in this paper of any kind of Joseph’s polygamy, nothing at all. He doesn’t even talk about the evidence he finds compelling. The strongest piece of evidence in it is the William Marks quote, which we’ve just gone over and um and anyway, and it wasn’t unique to this. And so then. The last thing is, yeah, like I said, anyone who this was a motivated part of this massive move towards secularization and liberalization and, you know, standard Christianity away from Mormonism and those who were motivated to those who did still believe in Joseph Smith. Left the church. They were pretty much like kind of forced out. There wasn’t a space for them anymore in the church. So the community of Christ LDS Church is still completely opposed to polygamy. That’s important to point out, important to point out, but now they are also opposed to Joseph Smith, so they really share a similar view to, you know, the, the people that oppose the church in the exact same way that it’s not that different from like the CES letter or John Dehlin. It’s kind of that same perspective. And um and so it’s the opposite of what we claim actually. It’s the opposite. They were highly motivated to do it and it’s not, I’m sorry, I don’t want to, but it’s not a well written, it’s not good history. This is not a good piece. I, I like you should read through it and see how strong of a case you think he makes cause it’s not good at all. So, and it resulted in all of these, all of this push toward liberal um this progressive push they made and created a huge schism in the church. So if we want to know what the RLDS really think in terms of the people who
[01:22:50] are the inheritors of that church that started with the revelation of Jason Briggs, that reorganization. We should look to the restoration branches. That’s Richard and Pamela Price, right? All of that’s where we should be looking to get this other side of it. So I want to dig in and find those affidavits, and I invite anyone to dig into the books of Richard and Pamela Price, because now I think they’re even more worthwhile than I thought because I kind of had always heard that they were debunked. Not true. So anyway, thank you for joining this long episode. I hope that you do feel more empowered if anyone ever says even the RLDS admitted that you can say, ah yeah, let’s talk about that. So thank you for joining me on this deep dive and I will see you next time.
