Faithful LDS woman ex'd for publicly announcing she doesn't believe JS lived polygamy.

[rpn]

We can have any opinion we want.   What we cannot do and keep our membership after we've been told by our bishop to quit teaching something wrongly, is to continue preaching and teaching it.    That's simple.    No member can preach against what is officially taught and keep their membership.    And the church really has no choice but to withdraw membership if they refuse to stop teaching false information.  If the Church leadership did not take such action others might be lead astray.

I'm sorry for the woman and her family.   And I get how women may object to the plural marriage construct theologically.   But what needs to be done, just needs to be done.

[CV75]

3 hours ago, webbles said:

Just to be pedantic but we don't know that Joseph Smith and Emma were sealed on that date.  It is based off of Joseph's diary - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-december-1842-june-1844-book-2-10-march-1843-14-july-1843/233.  All it says is "<Joseph— & J[ames] Adams [[were married]]>".  It doesn't say to whom.  And there is no documentation that women were even present.  We assume the women were there and since James Adams only had one wife at that time and because Emma starts to be involved in ceremonies that we assume required sealings, we assume Joseph and Emma were sealed on that day.  But, the very next day, it is possible that a plural sealing occurred since Mercy Fielding was sealed and her husband was dead at that time.  So it must have been a posthumous sealing or she was sealed to one of the men present (or both which is the more likely situation with posthumous sealings).

If the work were done for Stiller and Meara, would it be "post-humorous"?

[Navidad]

On 12/15/2025 at 1:42 PM, JVW said:

I believe that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage, due to a misunderstanding in how the radical new doctrine of sealing operates. They used to do adoptions and believe that everyone had to be sealed to the prophet in order to go to heaven. To this day we don't really know anything about what sealing means and I don't fault Joseph for getting sealed to a bunch of women.

I do not believe that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. That is, living a married lifestyle with more than one woman. Anytime he was asked about polygamy he vehemently denied it and condemned the practice. As far as I recall (I don't have time to write a scholarly, well sourced article in this post) all of the women's testimonies in court were given after Joseph was dead and he was unable to defend himself against his accusers. Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants wasn't released until like the 1850s. The angel with the drawn sword story was first told in like the mid-1850s and nearly every other account was 1860s, 1880s, or later and it was all "I heard from a friend who heard it from their dad who heard it from Joseph" type of things.

I do not believe that Joseph was murdered by Brigham Young, but I do think it's possible that Willard Richards murdered Hyrum in jail during the commotion. I saw a pretty persuasive video essay about it once examining the bullet wounds. For the record, Brigham Young is my favorite prophet and I do not believe that the "Brighamite" church went into apostasy and departed from Joseph's teachings and all of that.

I can't explain the D&C 132 thing. Even though it was released posthumously, there strong evidence that Joseph dictated the revelation. This record is from 1843, before Joseph died, and it has all of the juicy polygamy stuff in it https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-12-july-1843-dc-132/5 The strangest thing about 132 is that it contradicts the dead sea scrolls, the Bible, and the Book of Mormon all in one fell swoop! Note this quote from the Damascus Document, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (copied from this article https://oneclimbs.com/2023/09/15/commandments-given-unto-our-fathers/😞

132 says that David will not be exalted because of Uriah. It contradicts the Bible because Isaac didn't have more than one wife but 132 says he did. It contradicts the Book of Mormon because Jacob says that "many wives and concubines is an abomination to God" and 132 says it is not.

Anyways, I had an itch to scratch with polygamy and researched into it for 2-3 years until I reached a personal resolution (which is that half of section 132 is not God's word). Before I started my research journey I wanted to write a letter to the prophet about it, but realized it would be kicked down to the Stake, and the Stake would kick it down to the Bishop, and the Bishop doesn't have any idea so I just minded my own business. I tend to keep my position on the topic somewhat private because it is against the church's official apologetics (which I think are trying to justify an abomination). I imagine that if I went all public about it I would get excommunicated too.

To me it is obvious that polygamy was a Brigham Young thing because it basically started with Brigham Young and ended like a decade after he died. God allowed Brigham to live in error because he lets us humans do that, and then in order to preserve the church he quickly course corrected it using political influence from the U.S. Government. Thank goodness he did!

That's my two cents. I love this topic. Thanks for the video recommendation and the OP. Cheers!

Just a brief comment. Plural marriage did not end within ten years of Brigham Young's death. It is clear from the evidence that plural marriage continued into the 1920s in the Mexican colonies. Brigham Young Jr. was involved in the post-First Manifesto plural marriage in the colonies. Joseph F Smith and most likely, Heber Grant as presidents and a number of apostles continued the process in the colonies until 1924 or so. A. F. Macdonald, as patriarch, performed many of these marriages. Brigham Young Jr. performed 10 of them at once on a train just inside of Mexico. 

[JVW]

17 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Just a brief comment. Plural marriage did not end within ten years of Brigham Young's death. It is clear from the evidence that plural marriage continued into the 1920s in the Mexican colonies. Brigham Young Jr. was involved in the post-First Manifesto plural marriage in the colonies. Joseph F Smith and most likely, Heber Grant as presidents and a number of apostles continued the process in the colonies until 1924 or so. A. F. Macdonald, as patriarch, performed many of these marriages. Brigham Young Jr. performed 10 of them at once on a train just inside of Mexico. 

Thanks, I appreciate the clarification. I meant that the Manifesto was issued that quickly, sorry I should have been more specific.

[MustardSeed]

17 hours ago, bluebell said:

plural marriage is barely a blip

But what a ripple.  
We believe that God will move mountains to obtain His objective, which is to redeem mankind.  But this issue has denigrated us and lost so many.  Seems to me to be a man’s error, and proof to me that God isn’t always in the details. 
Where might we be today, had Joseph not been so curious about Abraham’s lifestyle? 
 

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, rpn said:

We can have any opinion we want.   What we cannot do and keep our membership after we've been told by our bishop to quit teaching something wrongly, is to continue preaching and teaching it.    That's simple.    No member can preach against what is officially taught and keep their membership.    And the church really has no choice but to withdraw membership if they refuse to stop teaching false information.  If the Church leadership did not take such action others might be lead astray.

I'm sorry for the woman and her family.   And I get how women may object to the plural marriage construct theologically.   But what needs to be done, just needs to be done.

Thanks for this input, I believe you're right, some things can be from the bottom up, but this is probably as it should be.

[Tacenda]

31 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

But what a ripple.  
We believe that God will move mountains to obtain His objective, which is to redeem mankind.  But this issue has denigrated us and lost so many.  Seems to me to be a man’s error, and proof to me that God isn’t always in the details. 
Where might we be today, had Joseph not been so curious about Abraham’s lifestyle? 
 

To me it's some bad fruit, but I guess our church is young. I still call it my church, even though not active. And with most religions, they aren't perfect. But this was a humdinger.

[JVW]

38 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

But what a ripple.  
We believe that God will move mountains to obtain His objective, which is to redeem mankind.  But this issue has denigrated us and lost so many.  Seems to me to be a man’s error, and proof to me that God isn’t always in the details. 
Where might we be today, had Joseph not been so curious about Abraham’s lifestyle? 
 

How does it prove that God isn't always in the details?

[webbles]

45 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Just a brief comment. Plural marriage did not end within ten years of Brigham Young's death. It is clear from the evidence that plural marriage continued into the 1920s in the Mexican colonies. Brigham Young Jr. was involved in the post-First Manifesto plural marriage in the colonies. Joseph F Smith and most likely, Heber Grant as presidents and a number of apostles continued the process in the colonies until 1924 or so. A. F. Macdonald, as patriarch, performed many of these marriages. Brigham Young Jr. performed 10 of them at once on a train just inside of Mexico. 

Do you have references for authorized sealings that late?  Because my understanding is that authorization was pretty much removed by the second manifesto (1904) and only a very few after that were accepted.  Brigham Young Jr were all before 1904 as he died in 1903.  I think A. F. Macdonald also died in 1903.  I have an ancestor polygamously married in 1904 which was accepted and another one that was sometime in the 1910s and they were excommunicated for that (both in the Mexican colonies).  Authorized marriages in the 1910s and 1920s are extremely rare, in my understanding.  Most of them usually weren't authorized and would trigger an excommunication once discovered (like my ancestor).

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Senator said:

While I agree that that is technically true, "where the rubber meets the road culturally" is something different.  I was very much raised with the mindset that "when the prophet speaks, the thinking is done" and "the prophet can never lead us astray".  And this is of course before the modern apologetics to explain it all away.

I think a lot depended on how your family prepared you to deal with what you heard at Church.   In my experience the way people describe their experiences at church often lines up with how they describe their experiences with their parents, which makes sense as parents contribute a great deal to our earliest worldview and filters.  Not saying it’s identical, but rather strong influences.

 When I was 7 and younger, my parents were likely (memory and childhood perspective being what it is, not going to insist my view at that age was accurate, lol) what is viewed as all in active LDS.  When first married, they pretty much ran a little branch that had one other active priesthood holder, a deacon iirc.  I remember my dad being the scoutmaster in our San Bruno ward (suburb of San Francisco, lots of Samoans in our ward, I remember fun church parties) as well as gospel doctrine teacher at various times, Mom was den mother and taught the young women.  It feels like we lived at church as that seems like most of my memories outside of school and home.  After my youngest brother was born when I was 9 (we were in a Chicago suburb by that time and church was an hour drive or so it seemed instead of hop in the car and hop out, we were the only LDS in our schools up to high school I believe), Mom had her health tank and with 5 kids, two under the age of 3, she started examining why she was doing things before she did them to remove the unnecessary busy work.  And she talked about her choices to us kids.  And that included a lot of pulling back from Church activity and pushing back on leaders who didn’t understand her POV.  “Foolish traditions” stands out to me, any tradition in our home had to be for a good and highly meaningful purpose, no walking through life on auto pilot (Dad had been a pilot in the AF, so perhaps that is where I picked that slogan up). There were also the discussions of faith and healing and a pretty constant exploration of why the latter didn’t always occur in the presence of the former and as she wasn’t able to attend church as much, her personal study of the scriptures became a constant feature of her life.  We had the usual church books on the shelves up to and including the Journal of Discourses (impossible to read, imo, with its rotten text, probably the only books in the house I didn’t spend much time reading, my bad), but also Jung and Swedenborg, Freud, Joseph Campbell, National Geographic, Time-Life Science series….anything that presented Mom with new ways of viewing scripture and life (her choices were quite eclectic when we got better off and not always wise, but she listened to criticism and adjusted her views when it made sense to her). 

 Analyzing church doctrine and history (Mom was a massive fan of Joseph Smith) was about finding the truth, not explaining mistakes away, so the idea that is what modern apologetics is doing just seems wrong to me even though I recognize there are some apologists with that attitude.  There are more it seems to me that are like me with a very strong curiosity drive that’s been attached to all things church related or even obsessed with religion or anything touching on spirituality as well as a desire to talk about what they pick up and what they can do with it.

I don’t know how much my dad read (Dad liked closed doors and privacy, didn’t go in for chit chat, but loved dissecting people’s thoughts), not sure whether he was more educated by Mom’s sharing or read it himself, but he was also someone who refused to let his time be wasted and since he took over much of what Mom used to do in the home (without complaining or acting like it wasn’t his job, so that was another moment of disorientation when I found out there were actually men who refused to do women’s work when it was needed and made their wives’ lives hell because of that, it wasn’t just a thing to laugh at on sitcoms or restricted to the poor and uneducated), his involvement with Church started including refusals of callings when he didn’t see it as a good use of his time.  He pretty much just ignored any attempts at persuasion or dominance (if the latter attempts ever occurred, Dad was….impressive in his poise and look, he would have made a great gangster, one of the well dressed, good looking, but scary kind).  He either ignored or laughed about any attempts to guilt him into giving in or appeals to his higher nature.

So even as a kid, I would say a year or three after my baptism I had picked up the attitude we were to test what our leaders required of us by osmosis if not by direct instruction.  So on the occasions I heard stuff like ‘the thinking is done’, it either didn’t register or got rewritten in my head on its way to my memory banks because I don’t remember hearing that kind of stuff much and treated it as unusual and uneducated when I did….yes, in many ways I was a snob as a kid.  I was pretty dismissive of it because I knew better (I was very proud of my parents’ knowledge and experience in the Church, they shared stories but of fond memories, not bragging that they were remarkable because the General Authorities always stayed at her home when visiting the ‘mission field’ or because he was the first Eagle Scout of their branch since it was Grandma who cared deeply and we heard that story because Dad was amused by how much she cared given he was always so oblivious to the status stuff; he also was forced to learn to play the accordion).

When I was 13 we ended up back in California less than a 5 minute walk from Church and we were expected to attend everything even if Mom couldn’t and Dad missed stuff because of work. Being painfully shy, I did not enjoy the social side and resisted when I could.  There were a couple very devout traditional families as the core of our ward as well as a few more like mine, very active overall, but not teaching the Church should consume your life, so I know I got exposed to what I view as the Joseph Fielding Smith/Bruce R McKonkie mindset, but I never saw that as a dominant view.  It shocked me when I got to BYU and learned that geology professors had a hard time from members who considered they were apostates and ran into incidents of the modesty police (one of my grandmothers had a fit I would sit with my knees apart when wearing pants, too bad for her as I always been a sprawler, the pews at church have been my lifelong nemesis; the other grandmother had a fit I had bangs and didn’t style my hair as it was as short as I could manage without standing out being terminally shy, but it was never presented as a moral or church thing).  It never occurred to me before that there were so many educated members who didn’t believe in evolution (I don’t remember how I reconciled Bible stories with the science as both were treated as truth in their context in my family, I think I did Religion in Church and Science where it made sense to do science and just figured it would be revealed some day how it fit together because, you know, we were promised continuing revelation and like my mom, I felt like we were getting it from everywhere).  My parents were practical when it came to politics and voted for both parties or rather neither as they voted for the person or the issue and it was a family amusement at how my greatgrandmother who lived in Utah was a rabid democrat, so it also shocked me how conservative Utah was.  Looking back, my extended family in Utah (both parents were born there) didn’t talk politics around me at least or I ignored it and I apparently grew up in less typical wards or I just assumed the quiet members were more like my family than they were…or perhaps both.

Anyway, all that to say my gut reaction when I read comments like this is to feel bad for you guys, it feels you were cheated of some pretty fantastic opportunities to explore the world by someone telling you to construct some unnecessary mental walls.

Edited December 16, 2025 by Calm

[Senator]

54 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think a lot depended on how your family prepared you to deal with what you heard at Church.   In my experience the way people describe their experiences at church often lines up with how they describe their experiences with their parents, which makes sense as parents contribute a great deal to our earliest worldview and filters.  Not saying it’s identical, but rather strong influences.

 When I was 7 and younger, my parents were likely (memory and childhood perspective being what it is, not going to insist my view at that age was accurate, lol) what is viewed as all in active LDS.  When first married, they pretty much ran a little branch that had one other active priesthood holder, a deacon iirc.  I remember my dad being the scoutmaster in our San Bruno ward (suburb of San Francisco, lots of Samoans in our ward, I remember fun church parties) as well as gospel doctrine teacher at various times, Mom was den mother and taught the young women.  It feels like we lived at church as that seems like most of my memories outside of school and home.  After my youngest brother was born when I was 9 (we were in a Chicago suburb by that time and church was an hour drive or so it seemed instead of hop in the car and hop out, we were the only LDS in our schools up to high school I believe), Mom had her health tank and with 5 kids, two under the age of 3, she started examining why she was doing things before she did them to remove the unnecessary busy work.  And she talked about her choices to us kids.  And that included a lot of pulling back from Church activity and pushing back on leaders who didn’t understand her POV.  “Foolish traditions” stands out to me, any tradition in our home had to be for a good and highly meaningful purpose, no walking through life on auto pilot (Dad had been a pilot in the AF, so perhaps that is where I picked that slogan up). There were also the discussions of faith and healing and a pretty constant exploration of why the latter didn’t always occur in the presence of the former and as she wasn’t able to attend church as much, her personal study of the scriptures became a constant feature of her life.  We had the usual church books on the shelves up to and including the Journal of Discourses (impossible to read, imo, with its rotten text, probably the only books in the house I didn’t spend much time reading, my bad), but also Jung and Swedenborg, Freud, Joseph Campbell, National Geographic, Time-Life Science series….anything that presented Mom with new ways of viewing scripture and life (her choices were quite eclectic when we got better off and not always wise, but she listened to criticism and adjusted her views when it made sense to her). 

 Analyzing church doctrine and history (Mom was a massive fan of Joseph Smith) was about finding the truth, not explaining mistakes away, so the idea that is what modern apologetics is doing just seems wrong to me even though I recognize there are some apologists with that attitude.  There are more it seems to me that are like me with a very strong curiosity drive that’s been attached to all things church related or even obsessed with religion or anything touching on spirituality as well as a desire to talk about what they pick up and what they can do with it.

I don’t know how much my dad read (Dad liked closed doors and privacy, didn’t go in for chit chat, but loved dissecting people’s thoughts), not sure whether he was more educated by Mom’s sharing or read it himself, but he was also someone who refused to let his time be wasted and since he took over much of what Mom used to do in the home (without complaining or acting like it wasn’t his job, so that was another moment of disorientation when I found out there were actually men who refused to do women’s work when it was needed and made their wives’ lives hell because of that, it wasn’t just a thing to laugh at on sitcoms or restricted to the poor and uneducated), his involvement with Church started including refusals of callings when he didn’t see it as a good use of his time.  He pretty much just ignored any attempts at persuasion or dominance (if the latter attempts ever occurred, Dad was….impressive in his poise and look, he would have made a great gangster, one of the well dressed, good looking, but scary kind).  He either ignored or laughed about any attempts to guilt him into giving in or appeals to his higher nature.

So even as a kid, I would say a year or three after my baptism I had picked up the attitude we were to test what our leaders required of us by osmosis if not by direct instruction.  So on the occasions I heard stuff like ‘the thinking is done’, it either didn’t register or got rewritten in my head on its way to my memory banks because I don’t remember hearing that kind of stuff much and treated it as unusual and uneducated when I did….yes, in many ways I was a snob as a kid.  I was pretty dismissive of it because I knew better (I was very proud of my parents’ knowledge and experience in the Church, they shared stories but of fond memories, not bragging that they were remarkable because the General Authorities always stayed at her home when visiting the ‘mission field’ or because he was the first Eagle Scout of their branch since it was Grandma who cared deeply and we heard that story because Dad was amused by how much she cared given he was always so oblivious to the status stuff; he also was forced to learn to play the accordion).

When I was 13 we ended up back in California less than a 5 minute walk from Church and we were expected to attend everything even if Mom couldn’t and Dad missed stuff because of work. Being painfully shy, I did not enjoy the social side and resisted when I could.  There were a couple very devout traditional families as the core of our ward as well as a few more like mine, very active overall, but not teaching the Church should consume your life, so I know I got exposed to what I view as the Joseph Fielding Smith/Bruce R McKonkie mindset, but I never saw that as a dominant view.  It shocked me when I got to BYU and learned that geology professors had a hard time from members who considered they were apostates and ran into incidents of the modesty police (one of my grandmothers had a fit I would sit with my knees apart when wearing pants, too bad for her as I always been a sprawler, the pews at church have been my lifelong nemesis; the other grandmother had a fit I had bangs and didn’t style my hair as it was as short as I could manage without standing out being terminally shy, but it was never presented as a moral or church thing).  It never occurred to me before that there were so many educated members who didn’t believe in evolution (I don’t remember how I reconciled Bible stories with the science as both were treated as truth in their context in my family, I think I did Religion in Church and Science where it made sense to do science and just figured it would be revealed some day how it fit together because, you know, we were promised continuing revelation and like my mom, I felt like we were getting it from everywhere).  My parents were practical when it came to politics and voted for both parties or rather neither as they voted for the person or the issue and it was a family amusement at how my greatgrandmother who lived in Utah was a rabid democrat, so it also shocked me how conservative Utah was.  Looking back, my extended family in Utah (both parents were born there) didn’t talk politics around me at least or I ignored it and I apparently grew up in less typical wards or I just assumed the quiet members were more like my family than they were…or perhaps both.

Anyway, all that to say my gut reaction when I read comments like this is to feel bad for you guys, it feels you were cheated of some pretty fantastic opportunities to explore the world by someone telling you to construct some unnecessary mental walls.

I take it you felt like taking stroll down memory lane:)

Yes, I have had to acquire, or rather demand the right to think outside my religious box and recognize the trappings of religion.   Things are better now.

 

Edited December 16, 2025 by Senator

[Senator]

3 minutes ago, Senator said:

 

duplicate

 

Edited December 16, 2025 by Senator

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

Do you have references for authorized sealings that late?  Because my understanding is that authorization was pretty much removed by the second manifesto (1904) and only a very few after that were accepted.  Brigham Young Jr were all before 1904 as he died in 1903.  I think A. F. Macdonald also died in 1903.  I have an ancestor polygamously married in 1904 which was accepted and another one that was sometime in the 1910s and they were excommunicated for that (both in the Mexican colonies).  Authorized marriages in the 1910s and 1920s are extremely rare, in my understanding.  Most of them usually weren't authorized and would trigger an excommunication once discovered (like my ancestor).

Hi Webbles:

I have lots of references. I probably won't be able to get back online tonight, but I can do so tomorrow. Take care, Navidad

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

But what a ripple.  
We believe that God will move mountains to obtain His objective, which is to redeem mankind.  But this issue has denigrated us and lost so many.  Seems to me to be a man’s error, and proof to me that God isn’t always in the details. 
Where might we be today, had Joseph not been so curious about Abraham’s lifestyle? 
 

I see it differently and believe it was of God (though I do not believe it was always practiced in a way that God condoned, same as monogamy), but I get why some do not.

(Edit to add: For me, a large part of my feelings towards it comes from reading the words of the women who practiced it, and why they did.  But I'm glad that we aren't asked to have a testimony of it)

Edited December 17, 2025 by bluebell

[rpn]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

Do you have references for authorized sealings that late? 

Thats when it was shut down and the offshoots them moved to Mexico and in some case began to worship outside of the faith.

[webbles]

41 minutes ago, rpn said:

Thats when it was shut down and the offshoots them moved to Mexico and in some case began to worship outside of the faith.

The Mexican colonies were already up and running before the first manifesto, so not sure what you mean by moving to Mexico.  And I believe most of the polygamous groups are in the US and Canada.  A few are in Mexico.

[MustardSeed]

5 hours ago, JVW said:

How does it prove that God isn't always in the details?

“Proof to me”

[Calm]

20 hours ago, Senator said:

I take it you felt like taking stroll down memory lane:)

Yes, I have had to acquire, or rather demand the right to think outside my religious box and recognize the trappings of religion.   Things are better now.

 

Yeah, I seem to be in that full on mode today, be grateful I cut a massive amount out, lol…added:  not that anyone has to read it, but even if they don’t, it takes up an embarrassingly amount of space.  I need to learn how to feel okay to explain my POV without also explaining how I got there…

Edited December 17, 2025 by Calm

[JVW]

2 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

“Proof to me”

How does it prove to you that God isn't always in the details?

[gopher]

10 hours ago, bluebell said:

I see it differently and believe it was of God (though I do not believe it was always practiced in a way that God condoned, same as monogamy), but I get why some do not.

(Edit to add: For me, a large part of my feelings towards it comes from reading the words of the women who practiced it, and why they did.  But I'm glad that we aren't asked to have a testimony of it)

It's understandable that some may not like the idea of polygamy, especially in the ways it has been implemented, but it's a big leap to declare it wasn't allowed, encouraged and even commanded at times by God.  I love animals and shudder at the thought of animal sacrifice, but it's clear that it was commanded by God to be done by those in the scriptures.  I have no desire to practice polygamy, but I can't dismiss it as man-made when multiple prophets have taught or practiced it.  A stronger case could be made if only a single prophet had taught it, like the Adam-God theory from BY or multiple ear piercings by President Hinckley.

I'm just a bit wary of members who confidently declare polygamy isn't from God.  I've noticed some of the same people have no problem confidently declaring that some day prophets will teach SSM is the will of God even though it's never been allowed, encouraged or commanded by God ever.

If you take religion out of it, it seems there are many in our society today that have no problems with polyamorous relationships.  If the church reinstated polygamy today, it probably wouldn't cause the stir that it did in the 1800s.  But I think it's disrespectful to the early saints who believed it was the will of God and did their best to live it to dismiss it today as being made up by man.  That doesn't mean we can't criticize those who practiced polygamy who were abusive, selfish, unkind, etc.

Just my opinion.

[Senator]

5 hours ago, gopher said:

  But I think it's disrespectful to the early saints who believed it was the will of God and did their best to live it to dismiss it today as being made up by man. 

I don't think it is disrespectful to declare that one does not have a testimony of the divinity of the practice of polygamy by the early saints and simultaneously  grant that the practitioners did actually believe it was Gods will.  They are not dismissing that, by not sharing that belief. 

[edited to add:]  I understand the feeling of dissonance that this may create.  This is what I have been trying to express

Edited December 17, 2025 by Senator

[MustardSeed]

5 hours ago, gopher said:

It's understandable that some may not like the idea of polygamy, especially in the ways it has been implemented, but it's a big leap to declare it wasn't allowed, encouraged and even commanded at times by God.  I love animals and shudder at the thought of animal sacrifice, but it's clear that it was commanded by God to be done by those in the scriptures.  I have no desire to practice polygamy, but I can't dismiss it as man-made when multiple prophets have taught or practiced it.  A stronger case could be made if only a single prophet had taught it, like the Adam-God theory from BY or multiple ear piercings by President Hinckley.

I'm just a bit wary of members who confidently declare polygamy isn't from God.  I've noticed some of the same people have no problem confidently declaring that some day prophets will teach SSM is the will of God even though it's never been allowed, encouraged or commanded by God ever.

If you take religion out of it, it seems there are many in our society today that have no problems with polyamorous relationships.  If the church reinstated polygamy today, it probably wouldn't cause the stir that it did in the 1800s.  But I think it's disrespectful to the early saints who believed it was the will of God and did their best to live it to dismiss it today as being made up by man.  That doesn't mean we can't criticize those who practiced polygamy who were abusive, selfish, unkind, etc.

Just my opinion.

Why can’t two or three prophets be wrong?  If one can be? 

[Senator]

5 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Why can’t two or three prophets be wrong?  If one can be? 

Because Houston, we would really, really, really have a problem!

[JVW]

4 hours ago, gopher said:

It's understandable that some may not like the idea of polygamy, especially in the ways it has been implemented, but it's a big leap to declare it wasn't allowed, encouraged and even commanded at times by God.  I love animals and shudder at the thought of animal sacrifice, but it's clear that it was commanded by God to be done by those in the scriptures.  I have no desire to practice polygamy, but I can't dismiss it as man-made when multiple prophets have taught or practiced it.  A stronger case could be made if only a single prophet had taught it, like the Adam-God theory from BY or multiple ear piercings by President Hinckley.

I'm just a bit wary of members who confidently declare polygamy isn't from God.  I've noticed some of the same people have no problem confidently declaring that some day prophets will teach SSM is the will of God even though it's never been allowed, encouraged or commanded by God ever.

If you take religion out of it, it seems there are many in our society today that have no problems with polyamorous relationships.  If the church reinstated polygamy today, it probably wouldn't cause the stir that it did in the 1800s.  But I think it's disrespectful to the early saints who believed it was the will of God and did their best to live it to dismiss it today as being made up by man.  That doesn't mean we can't criticize those who practiced polygamy who were abusive, selfish, unkind, etc.

Just my opinion.

Polygamy being an abomination is not my opinion. Jacob 2:24 "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord." You will be hard pressed to find any clearer statement in the entire standard works. 

Islam is allowed up to 4 wives in their current religious practices and nobody bats an eye at that. I had a friend in my college days 20 years ago, from Saudi Arabia, who's grandma was the 4th wife, was married at the age of 11, and had 22 children.

I find it hard to explain but I can personally reconcile a prophet teaching a false doctrine in error and God supporting the saints who are impacted by that false doctrine. I believe the testimonies of the women who participated in polygamy and am so glad that God supported them in their circumstances. Even though I don't believe that God commanded polygamy, He didn't clear up the misunderstanding while Brigham was alive even though He could have. So in that sense it was God's will for polygamy to be around for 40 years. Just like it's his will to not prevent fatal illness or various physical, mental, or emotional traumas we all experience.

Current church apologetics don't make any logical sense to me. I can understand why that Jacob 2 verse gets interpreted the way it does, but it can be interpreted differently (see: https://oneclimbs.com/2024/12/22/why-the-conventional-interpretation-of-jacob-230-falls-short/). But if God commands polygamy to bolster the ratio of the Israel population then why didn't the following do polygamy: Adam, Noah, Moses, Isaac, Nephi. And why do I see the instances of polygamy in the Bible as fearing man more than God, or the result of deception? i.e. Abraham laid with his servant at his wife's request because she didn't believe that God could get her pregnant and pressured Abraham into it. Jacob had more than one wife because Laban deceived him, and then he laid with his servants because his wife's had jealousy issues.

Ultimately, the weakness we have is a gift from God (Ether: "I give unto men weakness..."). I view church history having the blemish of polygamy, in addition to other things, as a weakness. So it is a gift from God.

My favorite stories are those that I learn of where God worked through someone's weakness to show His power. Because if He can do so much with the people in those stories, what can He do with me who is even weaker?

- David murdered Uriah to get Bath-Sheba, and that is the bloodline that God chose for Jesus Christ came through.

-The Constitutional Convention was run by a bunch of drunk people (their tab to celebrate the closing of the convention, for 50 people in one night, was ~$16k in 2022 money and amounted to "about two bottles of wine, several shots and a few cups of punch and beer for every guest." see: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/01/20/fact-check-george-washingtons-expensive-bar-tab-real/5947984001/), and we got the Constitution out of it, a document that Apostles testify as having divine authorship (see: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/51oaks?lang=eng).

- Abraham heeded his wife over God's promise and had 8 children with two wives, and yet God's chosen people came through his lineage, with that covenant being renewed by Jacob who did similar things.

[bluebell]

6 hours ago, gopher said:

It's understandable that some may not like the idea of polygamy, especially in the ways it has been implemented, but it's a big leap to declare it wasn't allowed, encouraged and even commanded at times by God.  I love animals and shudder at the thought of animal sacrifice, but it's clear that it was commanded by God to be done by those in the scriptures.  I have no desire to practice polygamy, but I can't dismiss it as man-made when multiple prophets have taught or practiced it.  A stronger case could be made if only a single prophet had taught it, like the Adam-God theory from BY or multiple ear piercings by President Hinckley.

I'm just a bit wary of members who confidently declare polygamy isn't from God.  I've noticed some of the same people have no problem confidently declaring that some day prophets will teach SSM is the will of God even though it's never been allowed, encouraged or commanded by God ever.

If you take religion out of it, it seems there are many in our society today that have no problems with polyamorous relationships.  If the church reinstated polygamy today, it probably wouldn't cause the stir that it did in the 1800s.  But I think it's disrespectful to the early saints who believed it was the will of God and did their best to live it to dismiss it today as being made up by man.  That doesn't mean we can't criticize those who practiced polygamy who were abusive, selfish, unkind, etc.

Just my opinion.

I think some (not all) think that God would never ask anyone to sacrifice as much as polygamy requires some to sacrifice.  But from the scriptures and journals of the early saints, it seems to me that that level of sacrifice is very much on the table for all of us.

I think others (again, not all) think that it's so inherently unfair to women that a God who loves His daughters would never ask such of them.  Again, I don't think there's evidence to support that.

And for some, it's just the optics.  A prophet of God who implements changes to the moral code that allows him to have sex with multiple women and still be considered moral is suspect regardless of anything else.  This one makes the most sense to me, but I still find a lot of flaws in it as a reason alone to reject plural marriage.

And I'm sure there are other reasons (and combinations of reasons) for why people don't believe it could be condoned or commanded by God.  Thankfully, it's a moot point right now so we can all be comfortable in our opinions.  From my perspective, the real danger isn't whether or not God commanded polygamy.  The real danger is whether or not the church confirming the practice was of God is going to contribute to someone losing their testimony and abandoning their covenants. 

Some people have left the church over something someone else was asked to do over a hundred years ago.  To me, that's the only reason the topic is still relevant.  Not because of what we believe about the historical practice but because of how we respond to the historical practice.