Was Joseph Smith Really a Polygamist? A Conversation with Michelle Brady Stone

Michelle Brady Stone joins Ian and Jim in an engaging and lively discussion to make the case that Joseph Smith was not, in fact, a polygamist. 

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with the free Ian Wilkes. And... Based on our last conversation, Ian, you know, I'm sitting here panicking about what it's like to live in a, well, we got a little heated in that last conversation, at least I did. You were trying very, very hard to be respectful, and I'm very grateful for that. But you are also across the border, and I'm kind of jealous. I'm hoping that you're going to let me come be a refugee up there.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Well, you're more than welcome. I thought when he said free, you were referring to the Trump election. Well, I am. I know you are. And I was trying to find anything positive that might come from that. Since our podcast, and I mentioned this on, I did share this with you on our messenger, there's been a significant spike in Americans at inquiring about residency in Canada. Right. Like 10,000 hits in one day.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah. And, you know, I want to escape to Scotland, but none of my family seems to want to go with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Yeah, Scotland, I'd love to move to Scotland. It's a bit windy.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

It's a bit windy. It's a bit chilly. I have, I think, sort of a reverse seasonal affective disorder in that I love rain unless I'm tracting in it. And then I don't love rain. But Scottish weather, I just adore weather like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah, no, me too, me too. And so, yeah, so, yeah, Canada is, yeah, if you want to come to Canada, you hang out with us and get a little bit of freedom. And, you know, we're happy to have you. But, yeah, and very excited about today's podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yes, today's podcast has absolutely nothing to do with that. So I just wanted to sort of get that out of the way. I'm very excited because we've got a really fascinating guest that I've gotten an opportunity to get to know in the last couple of days. She is, I don't know what the official title is, but she's somebody who's got a very large following. She has 118,000 followers. followers on YouTube for her channel. And she does a podcast show called 132 Problems, Revisiting Mormon Polygamy. And our mutual friend, Steven Peinecker, said we need to talk to her. And I think he was right because she, I think, is a very important voice in the conversation. She's got a really fascinating perspective, and so I'm very grateful that she's willing to join us here on our podcast. Please welcome everybody, Michelle Brady-Stone. Michelle, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I'm well. Thank you for inviting me. And I have to say, I felt really left out of that beginning conversation because I was laughing because in 2016, with that election, I was searching, how do I move to Canada? And currently, my husband is looking for properties in Scotland. So there we go. Yeah. He's desperate to move to Scotland. I get too cold, but I'm willing to go.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So maybe you and your husband and me will probably have to end up as roommates. Okay. We'll see what happens. But with all the emigration talk out of the way... Just wanted to bring you on and give you an opportunity. I'm very interested, you know, we've had some conversations now about your perspective and where you are in the church. But I think there are probably a number of people who'll be listening to this who don't know anything about you. And I'm just... want to give you the floor and give you an opportunity to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of background on who you are and where you're coming from.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Okay, so it's a little bit tricky to introduce myself because I think people want to try to, when we meet someone, we want to try to categorize them and try to understand them. And I am the first to admit I don't fit very well into any category. So here is a quick introduction. I am A mother of 13 children who I've spent my life homeschooling. I still have six children at home. I have been a lifelong member of the church. I am very recently descended from fully Mormon polygamist, not a fundamentalist, but my great-grandfather was called by Joseph F. Smith to go to Mexico and take a second wife in 1906, which some of your listeners may know is two years after the second manifesto. So my grandfather was a post-manifesto polygamist called by the who told him, I'm not calling you as the president of the church, I'm calling you as the president of the priesthood, is what we've been passed down in our family. So I was raised believing that polygamy was the highest, holiest law of the gospel, that we would live in Zion, that we would live in the celestial kingdom, and I just... I was taught beautiful stories of my great grandmothers and thought someday I'll understand and it's going to be beautiful. And I genuinely thought that it was a shame that we couldn't live the higher laws so that Jesus could come. That was my perspective for a very long time. And anyway, so I have gone through several different iterations of my faith. I So that's my most sort of conservative perspective. I also have listened to many voices since pretty much the beginning. I'm a voracious student of the scriptures. I also have listened to John DeLinn since the very beginning, at least I did for many, many years. I read a couple of Denver Snuffers books. I've kind of been everywhere. I have I will admit I have struggled to stay in the church there have been multiple times when I have felt very strongly that um I needed to leave but I am one who feels like I receive answers from the divine I guess I could call myself a mystic I've I've always been told to stay in the church has is the answer I've received every time I've hit one of those breaking points I have um Anyway, I have gay children. I am navigating many different worlds in many different ways. So to cut to the chase, about, gosh, it's been over 10 years ago, my husband one day came to me and said, he was reading the Book of Mormon, and he said, I don't think polygamy was ever of God. And that floored me. And in my TBM mindset, I thought, I need to save my apostate husband before he goes fully apostate. And I started studying the scriptures in order to prove to him that polygamy was indeed of God, as I knew because my faithful ancestors and the presidents of the church had always taught. So I started studying, and this has got to be more than 10 years ago. Anyway, I became... I was astonished at how little I knew about it, how naive I was, how ignorant I was. And the more I studied, the more it became clear to me that polygamy was never of God. It threw me into one iteration of a faith crisis, because how could I be so certain about something and be so wrong? And how could I think I know better than all of the church leaders that have said this forever and everybody else? And so I had to seek out support and voices anyway I started a Facebook group in that space to be able to talk about it and as a result many polygamists actually joined particularly polygamist men and they tagged their friends and I ended up being able to engage with the very best scholars of polygamy the theologians who argue in favor of polygamy. So I was able to encounter all of the best arguments in favor of polygamy, which is really valuable for me as a critical thinker. I like to encounter the best arguments on the other side. So I was able to really solidify my views and go, that's the best you've got. Those are the arguments in favor of polygamy. So for a long time, I was in that space where as I didn't delve into the history fully, but I knew that Joseph Smith started polygamy and I knew it wasn't of God. And I was in that space for a long time. I also knew that whatever Joseph Smith was doing was different from what Brigham Young and the later Utah polygamists did. But he was obviously the originator. Anyway, I had an unusually difficult 2020 and 2021. I know it was difficult for everybody. My circumstances were quite extreme during those years. I lost a child in 2020 and I lost another child in 2021. the tragedy of that was magnified by what was happening in the world and um and so that's that was one of the times that I felt like I needed to leave the church it just it was a very difficult time but um anyway after after that period I just felt very strongly kind of as I was um I had I was recovering and I was you know um um I don't know how to explain it it wasn't It wasn't out of my trauma or anything like that. It was just kind of trying to understand my relationship with God. I navigated that. And after I came through that, I just felt a strong confirmation that I needed to talk to other women about what I had learned about polygamy. And that was kind of the instigation for my channel. It's called 132 Problems because it's section 132. For anyone that isn't aware, that is where Mormons get polygamy. That's the only place in our scriptures that is polygamy positive. And then I started my podcast knowing that polygamy wasn't of God, but knowing that Joseph Smith had started it. A year into my podcast, after intensive study, I came to the conclusion that actually Joseph Smith hadn't started it. That was very challenging for me to come to believe. It took a lot to convince me of that. And it took a lot more to convince me to speak aloud about it because I knew the giant... file of crap I would be stepping right into the middle of, right? I'm fighting on every single front. So anyway, for about the last year and a half, that's the space I... Well, for the last two and a half years, I've been doing my podcast. For about the last year and a half, I've become a full-time historian delving into the documents of the restoration. And it's been... Actually, I spend... usually between 60, 70 hours a week, researching, preparing, doing what I'm working on. And it's become, anyway, it's very fulfilling. It's very satisfying. It's very important. I've developed a very thick skin. I'm a lot of people's favorite person to hate. I have a lot of people coming after my membership in the church. And that's, anyway, that's kind of where I am at this point.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

All right. That seems to be a very succinct summation. And I know what it's like to be a person that everybody loves to hate. So I have solidarity with you in that regard. So 60, 70 hours spent a week doing this. That's a lot of hours. Especially with somebody with six children at home. How do you juggle that?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Well, I should clarify, after the difficult time of 2020 and 2021, I no longer homeschooled my children. That was part of that process of just, so my children are in school now, which gives me, frees up a whole lot of time. And as a mother of a large family, I've always been pretty productive, pretty good at getting a lot of things done and not much of a sleeper. Yeah. So my kids know I'm always available. I'm always interruptible, but I usually have, I'm usually on my computer, unfortunately. So other than when I'm directly interacting with them and doing things with them, I'm able, I don't make any money from what I'm doing, but I do have enough coming in that I've been able to hire house help. So I have help cleaning my house, which has freed up a lot of time as well. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

So where is your husband in this? Is your husband equally passionate about this? Or does he just think, oh, here's Michelle going off on her little hobby horse?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yes, the second. He's very sweet. He's very supportive. He doesn't want me to talk to him about it all the time. Very understandably. I laugh that he created a monster. It's his fault. He started all of this, right? He was the one that... That read the scriptures and came and told me that I was wrong about polygamy. So now he's on board. We have a very similar perspective of the gospel. We are both active in the church. We both navigate that in a nuanced way. And so it's not been, we don't have an interfaith marriage by any means, which I'm really thankful for. I

SPEAKER_01 13:28

mean,

SPEAKER_00 13:29

I support people who do, but.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Does he agree with you that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

He agrees with me that polygamy was never of God. He is not yet fully convinced that Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy, but he also doesn't listen to my podcast. He does sometimes, but whenever he's like, I'm not convinced, I'm like, well, you're not listening.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

We talked a little bit. I mean, I've got this weird hobby horse that has nothing to do with the church, but I'm what they call an Oxfordian. I believe that William Shakespeare was the pen name of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. I'm even writing a book about it. And my wife is like, well, you know, good for you. I couldn't care less. And pays absolutely no attention to it. It's like, well, whatever makes you happy and whatever... you'd like to do, then go ahead and do it. So it's just really interesting to see how those kinds of, when you find something that really animates you and is something that you're very passionate about, it's sometimes difficult to find other people who are able to share that. But you seem to have found quite a following. Of those 118,000 followers that I can see on YouTube, how many do you actively sort of engage with on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Oh, it depends. I think I have an interesting situation because I haven't had the time or energy to do them recently, but I did a lot of shorts as well. And those got way more views than my, you know, sometimes my videos are two and a half hours. They're often an hour and a half to two hours. So, so not that, Not everybody that watches the short, say, will watch the full videos. But I do have definitely a very large support system and a very large community of people who are very passionately engaged in these topics. I shouldn't even say it's my community. It's not like I'm the first person that's been in this space. I thought I was. When I started my podcast, I thought it was insane. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever to start a podcast on polygamy in 2022. You know, I couldn't... Like, it seemed totally irrelevant. So it's actually been amazing to see how extremely relevant this topic is to so many people. It really is kind of a... I don't know. It's just... It is as important now as it ever has been. And it's as interesting... It's more interesting now than it ever has been because we have so much more access to sources. Like, everybody can dig it. You know, when I do... my episodes, I'm able to show people the document I'm talking about, and I'm able to link to it so people can go do their own research, which I think is tremendously valuable. We're no longer dependent on gatekeepers to, they have the sources, they tell us what they say. I really like that we can go do our own research in this day and age. It's a huge blessing to us.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, you've talked about how the Joseph Smith Papers project is a real game changer, and I think that's absolutely true. So, yeah, we have access to sources as lay people and we don't have to rely on historians necessarily to filter out what information they feel is, is useful or is not. Uh, so, uh, and I think what you're doing, it's, it's, I mean, I, I am not in, in this space and as I, I've told you before, um, my faith is not contingent in any way on whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I still firmly believe that he was, but I'm not really, I mean, this isn't something where I've investigated the sources as meticulously as you have, or something that I feel really compelled to explore. But it does seem to be a subject that is gaining traction. and surprising a lot of people, including traditional historians. I think I've seen Richard Bushman comment on how surprised he is that all of a sudden we're revisiting polygamy and whether or not Joseph Smith was a polygamist so long after the fact. And more and more people are, I think, coming along to your point of view on that. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's just that there's more access now or is there something else driving this?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Well, no, I very much agree with you. I think, and I won't take the time to trace the whole history of what has happened in the polygamy discussion, but you know, it has been contested from the very beginning, right? This was contested during Joseph Smith's lifetime, the accusations that he was a polygamist, his denials, and that has continued since with this debate. And in the In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, people, the debate continued to some extent, although it's been, I guess I am tracing it a bit. It's been an interesting topic because the church, was a polygamist and the church was the most determined to say that Joseph Smith was a polygamist during the polygamist era of the church. Then we got into the early 1900s and the mid-1900s and it continued on that Joseph was not a polygamist and those were anti-Mormon lies, right? And that continued on for quite a while. Then we got that period of openness, Camelot, in Mormon history when we had Leonard Arrington and D. Michael Quinn was being given access. So new sources were found and they were... the Mormon polygamist sources in the, like for my perspective, the Mormon polygamist in their effort to prove that Joseph Smith had been a polygamist started to create a lot of evidence in order to prove that. And that's what was found again, rediscovered in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And then at the same time, the RLDS church was going through a change where they were going much more progressive. Their top leaders had been trained in progressive Methodist schools. They wanted to become much more ecumenical and much less Mormon, so they were motivated to step away from Joseph Smith. I don't want to speak on behalf of them. This is my understanding, and maybe a member of the community of Christ would have a slightly different take on it, but they did go extremely liberal extremely quickly, and as a result, the church really broke, and some of Most of the largest congregations and the highest tithe paying congregations split off from the church and they continue to be RLDS. They're called the Restoration Branches and the Community of Christ. The biggest issue wasn't even Joseph's polygamy. It was actually the ordination of women. And that happened in the 80s, right? So the community of Christ says that Joseph was never a polygamist, but many of their congregations also don't really look to Joseph Smith as a prophet either, and they don't really rely on the Book of Mormon in the same way. They are, as I said, much less Mormon and much more ecumenical, whereas the restoration branches, the RLDS Church, still adamantly claim that Joseph was a polygamist. That's where Richard and Pamela Price came from, who wrote the series Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy. And so it's been an interesting coming together now because in the 90s and the early 2000s, everyone thought that the case was closed, right? The opposition dropped their case. The tug of war between the RLDS and the Mormon church, the RLDS dropped. And the LDS then said, okay, it's settled that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. But since that time, very little work has been done. And since that time, we've had the Trice's books, which, you know, aren't perfect, and they are very focused on their religion, but they have done incredible work to bring out sources that we as Mormons were not aware of. We've just always ignored the RLDS sources, right? And then we also had Hugo Parejo's work done that showed us that there are actually no descendants, no polygamous descendants of Joseph Smith. He and Emma had not nine biological children, 11 children total, but we have shown through DNA that there are no other children. We've had the Joseph Smith papers open up online where we are seeing things that we have never seen before, that were never part of this discussion. I say often, it's very easy to believe someone's guilty when you've only heard the prosecution, right? We are getting in and digging out sources and people are learning things that they never knew before. So this combination of factors has given us all a whole new landscape that we hadn't seen. And the case Most people who just have read the histories, they've read Richard Bushman, they've read D. Michael Quinn, they've just assumed they're the experts and they know that this is settled and this is ridiculous. And I understand that perspective, but the people that are really digging into it, including the historians, some of whom I'm working closely with, the more they dig into it, they realize this is not what I thought. I thought we had such a strong case. I thought this was settled and they are realizing otherwise. Holy cow, this is not settled at all. There is far less evidence for Joseph's polygamy than I assumed that there was. And there is far more evidence against it. Most of them aren't ready to change their perspective on it. But more and more are realizing that there is absolutely a discussion to be had. And that's what I'm trying to do is say we need to have this discussion because... The case for Joseph's polygamy is not nearly as strong as it should be. Everybody needs to engage so that all sides can separate the wheat from the chaff. We can learn what are the good sources, what are the good arguments, and what are the weak sources and the weak arguments.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Well, I want to bring Ian in on this because I'm very interested, Ian, you know, you are no longer in the church, and I don't know how much this issue animates you or has anything to do with it, but... As Michelle's talking about all of this, what does this do to you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Michelle, I bring a very different perspective, I think, to this conversation. I joined the Church of Sixteen in England. And, you know, went on a mission, came on, got a seal in the temple, served as a bishop, served on a state presidency, you know, did a lot of research, spent some time actually over the years studying polygamy and not to the amount of 60 or 70 hours, I must add. That's like a full-time job. But I was always fascinated in polygamy because it was from a... non-member Church of England, no history or relationship with the church whatsoever, and observing the missionaries trapped in the neighborhoods where I was growing up and seeing them as strange, cultish figures, and hearing stories about polygamy, that they were trying to persuade English girls to go to Salt Lake through these tunnels, And at the end, these women or girls would have to... Where did the Tuttle thing come from? Yeah, this is all across the UK and probably all around the world. But there are strange mysteries that these Mormon mysteries would take people, not kidnap them necessarily, but would brainwash them. I think actually this is what a lot of the Brits think... a lot of people still think this and feel this, that there's some brainwashing involved and that back in the 80s when I joined the church, that there was an effort by the church to bring girls, women over to encourage them and persuade them to enter into polygamous marriages. So the polygamy was the thing that everyone knew about the Mormon church. So soon you mentioned Mormon church in the UK, England, Scotland, whatever, and you saw this on your mission, Jim, a lot, I'm sure. Polygamy was the number one thing. And the church did studies in the UK and across Europe, and probably across the world, and found that polygamy was one of the biggest barriers, limiters, constraints, why people didn't want to join the church. Because polygamy is seen as a very strange, odd practice, notwithstanding it has some of its origins in the Bible, of course. And I think you mentioned that on your blog I've been reading earlier. So, you know, this is an outside... church world perspective polygamy I think it's been a huge topic and issue and still attracts significant interest from all kinds of people in and outside of the church it's very strange I know when Elder Oaks he set me apart on the state presidency and a question I wanted to ask him and I didn't get the chance but I would have asked him this is you know Elder Oaks is sealed to two women so I know we you know the church for political reasons back historically again I'm not an expert here came under pressure to start practicing polygamy it then issued the manifesto the church still practiced it for a period of time and that's my understanding from the essays but at some point it became an official position that it doesn't no longer practice polygamy. Notwithstanding, when you go to the temple, even now, you can actually be sealed to two or more women. You can't do it in the reverse. And so a question I wanted to ask Elder Oaks is, you know, and this is my understanding from speaking with general authorities, that the church still privately, personally, believes in the principle and practice of polygamy, albeit it can't practice it on on the earth today for legal reasons, but in the eternities, that's part of the requirement to achieve eternal life with God. That's a principle that we have to follow. Personally, I always, I thought it was, I didn't take it seriously. The people I grew up with who were in the church, when I joined the church, didn't take it seriously. We always said, you know, when you die, and if that polygamy happens, principle and practice is required. Our minds will be differently. We'll think differently. We'll feel different. This was the default response to the questions of polygamy in seminary or institute or any time it came up. Look, God's mind is not our mind. His laws are higher than ours. When we die, we'll think like him. We'll feel like him. It won't be an issue. I was never interested in polygamy. The idea of having um loads of wives just didn't appeal to me and i won't get into into why it just sounds very expensive to me as well um and and i just you know i i'm trying to you know coordinate a relationship with with one albeit successfully and i'm quite happy to be you know married in a you know a regular uh marriage non-polygamy i just if i had the choice of um you know, in the afterlife of not having polygamy, I wouldn't be interested in polygamy. But I was always fascinated in the principle of the temple where you can be sealed to more than one woman and more than one wife. And they still practice that today. I guess to James' question, some questions that come to my mind, Michelle, is What's driving you to have these conversations? You spend all this time, clearly very passionate. You've delved into the details. You talk about deep dives on your website. What's behind it? Are you trying to, is it a doctrinal thing? Is it something that can help you reconcile your faith? Do you think the church has completely made a mistake in coming out and accepting? I think they've accepted. I think the official church position is that the church has accepted that Joseph Smith did practice polygamy. I've read somewhere on the essays that he had 33 wives, or 32 wives. So my questions are, if you can, is what's driving you in your research? What are you trying to achieve? What are your objectives? How do you reconcile your findings and your research with the church's official position? And what are your thoughts about worthy priesthood men being able to be sealed in today, in 2024, be sealed to more than one woman? So there's three questions that come to my mind. I'd love to get your responses.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Those are great questions, and that's a lot, so I'm going to do my best. Remind me if I don't cover all of them adequately, because I have so much to say, so much in my mind. First of all, the churches... Polygamy is just an awful mess for the church. Terrible, terrible mess, right? Just as you said, it's a black eye and has been for a very long time for the church. And it's left the church with this mess to try to clean up. And there's no good way to clean it up right now. And I think in the way that the church is approaching it, right? And so we are left with this statement. The statement of the church right now is monogamy is the rule, but polygamy is the exception, right? And that is... I just, I, for so many reasons, think that that's a terrible statement to stance to take. First of all, it like the best thing the church has going for it in regard to polygamy is the ignorance of the people. We just don't know the history. We don't know the scriptures. So we are able to believe things like that. That statement cannot be supported scripturally at all. It's based on a very bad, like resting of one verse of Jacob chapter two, which takes it completely out of context, right? And we could get into that. And also it is extremely damaging to women when we do start digging in and do start understanding this. And so, yes, the idea that men can be sealed to two women. Like the church is, I mean, you know, sort of has one foot in polygamy and one foot out of polygamy, right? And like Elder Cook has said, the highest councils of the church believe it has served its purpose. It's not going to come back again. But then we get statements with President Nelson is the first one for a long time who has either paraphrased or referred to or actually quoted verses of section 132 that Previous prophets for many decades have not approached with a 10-foot pole. So our current leadership seems to be a little bit more in favor of eternal polygamy than our past leaders have been. And I guess we have yet to see where it goes. I think it just depends on the perspective of whoever the current leader is, is what we've seen. So I do think that the church has a big problem with polygamy. And I think that in general, the best way through these things is with Transparency and truthfulness and letting go of false traditions. I don't want to be offensive in any way, but I think one of the horrible things that has happened in the church is our temple ban, our history of racism, right? And if the church were still saying things like, well... Full inclusion of all races is the rule, but racism is the exception. And if God ever wants us to exclude a certain race from the temple, he'll tell us to do that. And that's in God's, and we just can't worry about what that would mean for people, right? And saying, well, the reason that existed is because people were fence sitters in heaven. They were less valued. Like we have these really, really bad ideas of man. And then we blame them on God, and then we try to justify them. And I think that that is a very destructive approach to take. And as a woman, it is offensive to me that we are willing to say the things that Brigham Young said about certain races were deplorable. We mourn over those statements. We condemn them and disavow them. And we wish they hadn't happened and they were wrong. We haven't said it in those clear of terms, but yes, Carl Reeves' book has been published by Deseret Book. Let's talk about race and priesthood, right? I know that Jim brought that up yesterday. We're willing to say that. And yet when it comes to women, the things that Brigham Young said about women put the things that he said about other races to shame. We have a huge catalog of extremely destructive, deplorable things said about women Or we're not willing to make those same statements. And while we have, in many ways, I don't think we're fully there yet. I've had conversations with members of the Church of African Descent, and there still is a difficulty. Like, I mourn over the fact that here the church was in Utah during the Civil War in America. The church could have been this big. the city on a hill, this candle on a hill of inclusion. And I think it's a tragedy that we don't have the descendants of James, children, and all of these amazing saints that we had, right? I think it's a tragedy. I am glad that we no longer hold to those statements. I think it is deplorable that the church has not in any similar way, integrated with women and overcome the bad statements and the bans on women. We are so ignorant of our history and we haven't dealt with it in ways that we need to. And so we continue on with... We

SPEAKER_02 35:19

have some connection issues, Jim, I think.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Yeah, this happened yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah. Oh, oh, go ahead. Sorry. I guess we're losing each other.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

We lost you again.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

No, you were saying it does injustice towards women if we don't understand and acknowledge, you know, the historical statements with women, like Brigham Young, and you got a little bit disconnected. But you were talking about, I think you're trying to answer the question, what's driving you, you know, to, I think you're trying to, Bring that justice to women. And you're saying that we're ignorant of some of the historical facts. We just don't know enough. And we need to talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Yes, yes. I do think that it keeps women in a position of uncertainty in their relationship with God, right? How does God view me? If I read Jacob chapters 2 and 3, then I as a woman see that God cares about my feelings, my experience, what my heart yearns for. If I read section 132, I see that God views me as property, as virgins to be given willy-nilly to men with no regard to my views and with threats that I'll be destroyed if I don't just comply with whatever my husband wants to do. When I look at how the church treats Emma Smith, still based on these terrible statements made by early church leaders, for me, I explained this to Jim a automatically because of experiences that I'd had and when I was losing children in those incredibly tragic years. This might sound strange to people, but truly like somehow, this was before I had started my historical research, but Emma Smith got me through that. Like repeatedly, I would just have this overwhelming feeling of Emma made it, I can too. You know, I just developed a real closeness and appreciation and sort of awe for the sacrifices and the toughness and the faith of Emma Smith. And she really became important to me. So as I started to dive into the research, it was actually studying Emma Smith, studying her life, studying all of the things that were said about her during her life compared to the polygamous narrative of her. That was the thing that actually convinced me this is not true. These are not true statements. These are lies. And if they're lies about Emma, There are also lies about Joseph, right? And I started to study it from that perspective. So I automatically center Emma Smith in my perspective on this topic when I look at polygamy. And we have stories that say God sent an angel with a drawn sword that threatened to kill Joseph Smith if he didn't betray his wife. I'm sorry. I mean, it makes me want to swear like a bull crap. no that is not who god is right and so jim and i discussed the ces letter yesterday right so that's why the ces letter is effective because okay i can believe that a man claiming to be a prophet might tell his wife that but i will not believe that god did that and in the lds church our stance is still that god did that god sends angels with swords threatening prophets that they will be beheaded if they don't betray their wives What is that? How are we supposed to believe that, right? And so for me, as a person of faith, when I look at the Book of Mormon and I read that in 3 Nephi chapter 26, it tells us that we will receive this portion first and it is to our condemnation if we don't receive more. If we believe what we've been given, then we will receive more. Or every doctrine comes... When I read Doctrine and Covenants 84, that tells us that we are under condemnation for taking lightly the things that we have received, namely the Book of Mormon. And when I recognize that the Book of Mormon, bar none, is the most anti-polygamy book of scripture that we have in the entire canon, it has a lot to say about polygamy, and it leaves no question. We go from opening chapters, which have Lehi. If we get into the scriptures, I can show you that polygamy is that one of the main reasons he left Jerusalem and one of the main reasons that Jerusalem was threatened with destruction. That is in there. He was told to raise up seed in the covenant. The Lord was supposed to raise up seed and God said, I will, I cannot raise up a seed with people who don't honor my covenant of marriage. Then we go to, um, In Noah, it says he did not do that which was right in the sight of God, for he had many wives and concubines, right? We go to Replichish, who did not do that which was right in the sight of God, for he had many wives and concubines. But out of the blue, we have a scripture that starts out talking about the doctrine of having many wives and concubines. That is what verse 1 of section 132 says, and that's what it calls it. right how do we reconcile these and so then when people get in and learn things i'm just going to go on a little bit of a side track but We don't know any of our history. We don't know that in the original Doctrine and Covenants that was published in 1835 and again in 1844, we had a statement on marriage that was put in by the leaders of the church. Joseph Smith was the head of the committee that was creating, you know, what's the word, editing, I guess, putting together the Doctrine and Covenants. That section was universally voted on. It had common consent. Every organization of the church voted on it. It was called the Statement on Marriage, and it absolutely Absolutely condemns, denies, and decries polygamy. It says that in this church, we say that one man shall have one wife and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death when either is at liberty to marry again. That was section 101 in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, included as 109 in the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith was killed in 1844. So throughout his lifetime, that is what he included in the scriptures. five years after the saints had come to Utah, eight years after Joseph Smith's death, that for the very first time, Brigham Young pulled Section 132 out of his desk and said, I've had this here. Nobody's known about it. Nobody knew it existed, but I've had it. We also have so many sources showing us how Brigham Young and his team of historians were altering documents, getting rid of documents, changing the history. That is very easily provable. I could show you that that was happening. And then it wasn't until 1876, the year before Brigham Young died, that Section 132 was first added to the Doctrine and Covenants and Section 101 was removed. Right. And that most people don't know that. And so so we think of this as like scripture. You can't talk about scripture, say that this canonized scripture shouldn't be this way. Right. Even if even if people want to believe that section 132 did come from Joseph Smith, which I I think is absolutely ridiculous as I have delved into that. He intentionally never published it. He didn't include it in the 1844 Doctrine and Covenants, right? We can't claim that he wanted it published and canonized. So even on that alone, we could say, should we really have canonized scriptures that claim that the doctrine of having many wives and concubines is of God, that claims that women are property to be given willy-nilly as rewards for men, and that threatens women with destruction if they won't get on board with their men's infidelity, right? Do we really want that canonized in our scripture? So I guess what drives me is this genuine belief in the Book of Mormon. I believe what it says. I think it's important for us. I think it is profound that the Book of Mormon has so much to say about polygamy when we claim that it's written for our day, and it calls it an abomination. And so I feel like we're walking around carrying our little pet abomination in our own back pocket while decrying what we see as abomination in the rest of the world. And I see so many areas where we desperately need further light and knowledge. We are in so much need of more truth to be revealed. And I don't know how we can get it when we won't accept the truth that we've been given.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Your passion comes across very strongly. You are a very fierce advocate for your position. And I don't think it's possible not to respect that. And I'm grateful for that. I went and saw a movie last night. Ian and I have talked about doing a podcast on this movie. It's the new one out with Hugh Grant. It's the movie Heretic.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Well, I believe, and Ian, you're seeing it today, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 44:26

I'm seeing it tonight, yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

You haven't seen it yet?

SPEAKER_02 44:29

I'll see it tonight.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

I think in some ways it is the... finest depiction of latter-day saints on film that i have ever seen because these are it's not that these people are perfect but they they are very much recognizable as latter-day saints the two sister missionaries and i don't like horror movies that much and it got really kind of gory near the end and so there's kind of issues there but they had this big lengthy discussion about polygamy and uh the sister missionaries were essentially making the arguments that you're decrying, this idea that it was necessary, that monogamy is the rule, but polygamy is the exception. I don't think they said that specifically, but they did say that polygamy was necessary in order to raise up seed and to have lots of children, and I'm going to agree with you, I think, here, that the data shows that that is not the case, that polygamy did not actually increase the population. So people sort of look at that Jacob chapter two escape clause as a reason to say, well, here's when polygamy is okay, because when we need to raise up seed, uh, the, the historical data does not bear that out. But, um, Hugh Grant, uh, the, the, the bad guy, um, says, look, initially he's very pleasant with the sister missionaries and is talking to them about how wonderful it is that they believe and isn't it nice and I'm looking for faith. And then he says, can I ask you an awkward question? And the question is, what do you think about polygamy? And that's the beginning of sort of the deep dive into the darker parts of where the movie goes, right? But the thing that he raises is he says, Joseph Smith was caught with Fanny Alger. He says Fanny Alger's name. I've always thought it was Alger. It

SPEAKER_00 46:35

is. Lindsay Hudson Park started saying Alger, so now we say Alger. John Bradley talked to some descendants that say it's Alger. I've talked to other descendants who say it's Alger. The correct phonetic pronunciation is Alger. So I stick with Alger.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Well, so I have not reviewed all of your material. And yesterday you asked me, what is the strongest evidence you have that Joseph Smith is a polygamist? And I didn't answer because I'm not really invested in that question in the same way you are. And so I wasn't trying to prove my point. But after watching that, I went, I would very much like to hear Michelle's take on Fannie Alger Alger, because whether or not Joseph was a polygamist, I think the historical record is very clear that whatever relationship he had with Fanny was enough to drive Oliver Cowdery out of the church. We have Oliver Cowdery's statement about the dirty, nasty, filthy scrape or affair, depending on which version of the document you're looking at. But my understanding of that event is that Oliver was troubled by it, considered it adultery, was called before a church court to discuss it, and Joseph Smith didn't deny the relationship, but he denied adultery. I'm getting this from Richard Bushman, warmed over, so I'm probably getting the details wrong. But certainly there's some kind of relationship between Joseph and Fanny that That if it's not a polygamous relationship, it's an adulterous relationship or is it something else? So that to me is, I've got to find a way to reconcile that. And I'd be very interested to hear your perspective.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Sure. And this is something I would love to get into the documents on because when I just talk about it, it might sound ridiculous. What's better is when we get into the documents. Can I first take a tiny little sidetrack? and respond to the raise up seed comment and then come back to Fanny Alger. So this is one thing that I think is really important. It's not merely that. So all of the excuses that we use to justify polygamy have fallen by the wayside, right? It is needed to take care of widows. Well, no, because there were more men than women in Utah. They weren't marrying the widows. They were marrying the little girls, the teenage girls, particularly those whose fathers had died. Also, you don't need to marry a widow to take care of her. If you tell a widow she has to marry you in order to have food and shelter, that's prostitution, right? We also have a perfect example of King Limhi taking care of widows by just asking the men to provide for more in the Book of Mormon, not by marrying them. So that's one excuse. Another is we needed more children born. It's been shown that actually fewer children are born. But also, just I wanted to point out in that escape clause, if you go to 1 Nephi 7, when Lehi tells his sons to go back to get Ishmael and the girls and his daughters, right? And it says that he should not take his family into the wilderness alone, but that his sons should take daughters to wife that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise. Lehi and his descendants were directly commanded to raise up seed. So we can't keep saying that at some other time when God will command people to raise up seed, he'll command polygamy. We have every time God has commanded polygamy, people to multiply and replenish. And every new beginning, it was done in God's perfect establishment of monogamy. Adam and Eve, right? Noah and his wife and all of his sons. And there were eight souls on the ark. Each of Noah's three sons had one wife. Each of the animals were one and one. It wasn't one male and seven females to repopulate the earth, right? Then we have Sariah and Lehi, their sons with one wife each. You can read through and see that the numbers are perfect. So this is like an amazing job of resting the scriptures that the early polygamists did. We also have Hiram Smith on record Levi Richards recorded a sermon that Hironsmith gave when he said that Jacob, the sermon of Jacob is to be seen as a perpetual principle. And he says, if an angel were to appear to you and teach you polygamy, you would be sure to see his cloven foot and the cloud of blackness because people were going around saying that, you know, there were people, there were underground polygamists in Nauvoo. The only difference between people who claim that Joseph was a polygamist, they claimed that there were underground polygamists in Nauvoo and it was being kept a secret and Joseph was in on it. And the big difference is I think actually polygamy was being kept a secret from Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, not that Joseph was part of it. And you can see that by the fact that there were hardly any polygamous marriages during Joseph's lifetime other than those that we claim. And any claims for marriages don't start until like 1869, way after the fact. But as soon as Joseph dies... polygamy goes crazy in Nauvoo and there start to be so many polygamous wives taken and so many babies born. So that's, I know that's a little bit of a sidetrack, but these are some of the things that I think are important to get into. So Fanny Alger was actually a struggle for me in this, in every way. How do we make sense of this, right? Is it an affair? Is it a polygamous child? wife. How do we make sense of it being a polygamous wife when polygamy hadn't been revealed yet? Then we have to go to these other terrible sources. So it's a problem for everybody, except the anti-Mormons or the non-Mormons, the people who have left the church, who are just like, Joseph Smith was a con man and a womanizer, and he was always sleeping with the babysitter.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Oh, shoot. We've lost you again. Yeah, yesterday, it went out, her phone...

SPEAKER_00 52:25

When

SPEAKER_01 52:25

I... Oh, sorry. You were about to say sleeping with the babysitter and then you froze.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Oh, darn it. Yeah. Well, so anyway, the post-Mormon position is the one that's the most easily explained in the Fanny Alger affair. So how do we make sense of what she was, right? Was she a wife? Was she an affair? Was she whatever? And so when I really dug into the documents on that, I can share a couple of different experiences. One challenge I have, I'm hesitant to share insights I have, One challenge I have is it's so easy for people to view me as someone who just is acting out of motivated reasoning because I just desperately need Joseph Smith to be a good guy and I have him on a pedestal. So I need to make that make sense. And I just... That annoys me so much. I'm so frustrated by that. I feel the same way about that as I do about people saying about people who leave the church that they just did it because they wanted to sin and they just never had a testimony to begin with. We make up stories about people so that we don't have to actually see them as people and engage with them, right? So I guess I'm requesting people to please do me the honor of not telling me that that's who I am, when I know that that's not who I am, right? But I will say that before I... History is overwhelming, and the thought of digging into the history just overwhelmed me when I was, you know, when I considered... studying out Joseph Smith and this question before I had decided one way or the other. And I'll share this experience and then I'll share a little bit of the historical record because this was the order it came in for me. I was reading a book that someone sent me that was, it's Whitney Horning's book called Joseph Smith Revealed. And she wrote a book saying Joseph wasn't a polygamist, right? And I was very skeptical of that idea. So I started reading it. There were things that I really appreciated. There were other things that I didn't agree with as I read it, but I got to her Fanny Alger section and it just bothered me again. That story has always bothered me, right? Like, how do I make sense of this? And so I was actually on an airplane. I was flying and I just set the book down because none of it was making sense to me. And I just prayed and I said, Lord, will you help me understand what happened with Fanny Alger? You know, like, can you show me? And this is kind of how I work. So I'm going to share this at the risk of being totally dismissed by people. But I want to continue on, like, listen to a little bit more of it. Anyway, when I prayed that, immediately a scene from my freshman year of college that I didn't even know I remembered came right to mind. And Jim and I talked about it yesterday. We were both in theater. I was a music dance theater major at BYU. And I was in a musical my freshman year. And there were four girls. We were working on a dance number. And we had a pianist who was a guy. And we were going over the vocals after our rehearsals. We were all gathered around the piano. And being freshmen in college, we were all kind of flirty, I guess. One of the girls was giving the pianist a back rub. The rest of us were there laughing and giggling. And all of a sudden, it was not anything other than just you know, like it was innocent flirtation, but all of a sudden that pianist sat up straight, lifted the girl's hands off of his back, walked up and turned white, walked, stood up and walked toward the door and his wife had come in. And so his wife had walked in and he kind of realized I'm having this flirting. You know, these girls are all flirting with me. And so, and I remember my heart sinking and just being like, oh no, I hope that's okay. You know, it was really a good lesson to me of like, oh, I need to be more aware of, you know, the situation. Anyway, that came right to my mind. And I had not even remembered that event. And so it gave me an opening of a way to possibly think about Fanny. Like I just had this, I'm not saying this is what happened with Fanny. I'm saying this is what I feel the Lord brought to my mind to give me an opening of a way to think about Fanny. And what kind of I envisioned is the possibility that, like we do know some things about Fanny. She was very attractive. She was very outgoing. She was very flirtatious. Right. And so if she was flirting with Joseph, Emma saw that and was upset by it, just like the husband, you know, even though, and that, and that, um, you know, and then, and, and so, so just that possibility. And then what was fascinating is as I dug into the historical record, that is the best explanation I can find based on the entire historical record. And I can give you a couple of examples about it. I won't go into the whole, into the entire theme. But yes, it is true that the Fannie Alger situation came up in front of the Kirtland High Council, right? This was in Kirtland before they had gone to Nauvoo. And it was brought up by Oliver Cowdery. But Oliver Cowdery wrote an extensive letter to the Kirtland High Council about all of his allegations about Joseph Smith. He doesn't say anything about Fannie Alger. That is not one of his main issues. It was brought up in the high council discussion, but Joseph Smith explained it adequately to ease all of those high councilman's concerns to the point that they just described it as the girl business, which to me could mean this little girl business thing that happened that was not a big concern. It's important to recognize some of the people who were in that high council meeting, including Thomas B. Marsh, for example, and several others who left the church not soon after that, who were motivated and were doing everything they could to badmouth Joseph Smith, right? Thomas B. Marsh admitted that he spread several lies about Joseph Smith. Oh my goodness, if there had been adultery in there, isn't that one of the things they would have accused Joseph Smith of? And none of them did. And so we can go into the entire history of all of the documentation of that. It's not good documentation, but it shows very clearly that there is almost nothing here. The actual clear stories of Fanny Smith come from Mosiah Hancock, Levi Hancock, and then Mosiah Hancock, like decades later, building on previous claims. You just see that the documentation is extremely poor. And while I get annoyed when people accuse me of motivated reasoning, what I see actually is a lot of motivated reasoning on all of the other sides, the people that won't engage with me. The LDS church under Brigham Young was extremely motivated to claim that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. They're absolutely... Their credibility, their validity as the church, the successors of Joseph Smith depended on it, right? And then we go to today where the LDS church is still motivated to say, the prophets could never lead us astray. Our churches just didn't do anything wrong. They still need to claim that Brigham Young was right. And so Joseph was a polygamist. And then for many, many people who have left the church, that is such a traumatic, huge process for many people to go through a faith crisis, to leave the church. the last thing they want to do is say, oh, would Joseph Smith maybe not have been actually the person I thought that he was, right? And I'm not asking anyone to come back to the church. I'm not doing any kind of evangelizing of that sort. I don't have an end goal of where I want people to be or what I want people to believe. I just want us to look honestly at the documentation and have the rigorous conversations that need to be had without the motivated reasoning I see everywhere. Because for so many of the people that are also now fighting against the church, the main thing that they absolutely need is to claim that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. It's one of the biggest things that we have to say Joseph Smith was a bad guy. And I think it's a shame that the big podcasters in the post LDS space won't have me on because, you know, as, as someone has said, we can't let this get any oxygen, right? They're, they're not willing to engage in these honest discussions because of their motivated reasoning. So I don't know if that helps with your Fannie Alger discussion. I would love to get into the documentation because I think it's interesting to see how, how weak those, um, the documentation actually is and how it's not a good fit at all to claim she's a plural wife. The documents do not show that, and the documents do not show that it was an affair. The best explanation actually turns out to be the one that my mind opened up to, that there was some flirtation, rather innocent flirtation, but that was inappropriate and was explained to completely satisfy the counselors that maybe Oliver Cowdery misunderstood.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

There's a huge disconnect in this conversation and what I understand what the church's position. And I think that's where your work is focused. You know, there's historical and seemingly factual disconnect. You've got this, you've made this claim that Joe Smith wasn't a polygamist. The church has, I think for years, agreed with you. I think it's taught or suggested that Joe Smith wasn't a polygamist. That's what I understand. understood investigating the church and during my early years in the church didn't know or even heard actually that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I understand that happened from Brigham Young going forward. Churches now, for a number of reasons now, come to the position that officially the church states that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. In fact, there is some of the work that the churches...

SPEAKER_01 1:02:15

You glitched out there, Ian. The church has stated...

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

Yeah, so historically, the church has had a position that Joseph Smith, at least I was taught that Joseph Smith, when I was younger in the church and investigating the church and in my early years in the church, that Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy. And now, for different reasons, other facts came to the service and the church positioned now that Joseph Smith did in fact practice polygamy. How familiar are you with the work of Brian C. Hales? I've got an article of his which is titled, Encouraging Joe Smith to Practice Plural Marriage, the Accounts. Apparently there are several accounts, Jim, of the angel and the drawn sword. And Brian Hales says here that in this historical document, which I think the church published, accepts, or in part, he says that the historical record indicates that Joseph Smith contracted his first plural marriage in 1835 or in 1836 in Kirtland, Ohio with Fanny Alger. He says, upon learning of this relationship, his legal wife, Emma, and a close friend of Oliver Cowdery rejected it, considering it adulterous. We've just got into some of that. So the church position or teachings were that Joseph Smith wasn't a polygamist. It now states clearly that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. You're saying he wasn't. You're saying that the history suggests that otherwise. The two questions that come to mind is what, just as a comment here, it appears that Joseph Smith had an affair with Fanny Alger and to cover it up, got together with some of the brethren and said, look, he's had a sexual relationship with Fanny Alger. She's... How old is she at this point? Is she 14? She's 16. No. Well,

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

we don't... You can't say because we don't know what year it happened, right? Dating it is very challenging.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Okay. I've heard 14. I've heard 16. And Jo Smith... She

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

wasn't 14. She was at least 16 based on the dating I've seen. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

And Jo Smith... Maybe 18. How old is it at this stage, Jo Smith? How old is he?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

Oh, way too old. In his 30s at that point.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

And they're old. So for lots of reasons, you know, having an affair... adulterous relationship, which is what I've just quoted there from Brian C. Hales, the position of the prophet, perhaps, and I'm just kind of making this up, in order for this to look as, be a bit more acceptable than it really was, there was this notion that, you know, he had a spiritual connection relationship with her and it was sacred and it was some form or version of polygamy in order for it to be acceptable perhaps that's what really happened but my question is with this big disconnect where the church has been quiet at best now still quiet on the subject of polygamy and quiet and what's this thing to go away i agree from what you said earlier polygamy has been a major problem for the church a major probably the biggest problem That, I think, can race in the priesthood, right? They're the two, in my experience, the two big challenges that the church still hasn't... understood hasn't characterized properly hasn't addressed and would love for these issues to go away so but it now accepts and teaches and positions that Joseph was a polygamist he doesn't want to talk about it anymore he's saying look you know in the essays in the articles he was a polygamist it's done now it was what it was it was back then etc etc it was a different time and and we don't practice polygamy anymore we don't teach it but then as I mentioned earlier uh Elder Oaks has two wives. He's sealed two wives. And that's something you didn't address when I asked earlier, if you don't mind. So my questions are, what was driving the church to bring him to introduce polygamy? Did I characterize that relationship, that incident that happened with Fanny Alger correctly or not? And what's your position on the church's position that it still teaches in some ways or in some way and practices the principle and practice of polygamy in the temple, where a man can go to the temple and be sealed to two wives.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

I want to interject very quickly before I let you go wild here, Michelle, because I know you are familiar with the work of Brian Hales.

UNKNOWN 1:06:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

for one game. I am. But the one point of order I want to establish here is, where did those balloons come from? The one point of order I want to establish here is that I do not think there was ever a time when the church did not teach that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Unless you want to count the time that Joseph Smith was alive. I mean, since Brigham Young I don't know that there's ever been a time, because I grew up in the church and I can't remember a time when I didn't know Joseph Smith was a polygamist. I think that's unusual because that's not discussed in a lot of families and a lot of circumstances, but it was discussed in mine. And if you, section 132 has been in print. Yeah. since, uh, I guess it's 1870 when it was added to the Doctrine and Covenants, but it's been in print since then. And, and it's very clear that the position of the church in section 132 is that this is a revelation that was given to Joseph Smith and therefore Joseph Smith was in fact a polygamist. So, I mean, so I, I think that it's important to note that and, and Either or of you guys are welcome to push back on that, but I just wanted to jump in before, Michelle. I let you loose to answer Ian's questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

When I respond, well, I'll do my best to respond quickly to each of these things. I will say, I think that there's a difference between being a Utah Mormon descendant of polygamists, right, and having the perspective that we have. And I know that the missionaries for a long time did not teach people, did not teach people that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. And I know that the term anti-Mormon lies has been applied to Joseph Smith's polygamy many times. And I can't dig out right now any leadership quotes, but I know definitely that we were trying intentionally to understate, undermine the idea that Joseph was a polygamist. I don't know that it's fair to say I even know some, well, I think it's strange for Utah descendants of polygamists to hear other people say they never knew that Joseph was a polygamist. But I think that people who are outside of Utah and not descendants from women's are very valid and legitimate to say that they were not taught that and they were taught the opposite. Do you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

That was not taught. It was hidden. It was not discussed. I think that's absolutely true.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

And it was claimed to be anti-woman lies. Right. Like it was claimed to be untrue. So that was,

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

yeah. But in terms of the official position of the church, It has never been, the church has never taught since Brigham Young that Joseph was not a polygamist.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:36

Not as an official teaching.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Not as an official teaching, but culturally, we have hidden it, we have refused to discuss it, we have obfuscated, and we have outright lied in a number of cases.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

Yes, I agree with that. And then just really quickly to hit on the Elder Oaks question, since I forgot it last time, and then I have a lot to say on the rest of it. You'll have to, again, make sure I get all of it touched on. But I think it is a Shame. A terrible, terrible shame that we say that men can be sealed to two women and women cannot be sealed to two men. And actually, I get in trouble for being emotional, but sometimes these things do make me emotional because of the fallout that I see. We have a horrible problem in this church for young widows. Women who lose a husband are in this terrible, untouchable class. where they have, it's not the Scarlet A, it's the Scarlet W on their chest, where they are forced to choose either to break their ceiling with their husband, who they loved and who died, and who his family is telling her, you better not break your ceiling with our son. I mean, these situations I know. or having other men in the church refuse to date them and refuse to marry them because he is left alone. The children that they have will be sealed to the first husband. It is an absolute mess. Here we have a situation where Jesus told us to care for the widows and the orphans. And we have a doctrine that is built on the backs and crushes the widows in our church. And it is an absolute mess. It is a shame. I don't have strong enough language. It makes me so upset, right? I have a friend who told me the situation. She was a widow. She married a widower. And so they weren't sealed and they had children together. One time they were driving home and, you know, it wasn't an issue for them because they were both already sealed, but their little child was talking about their primary lesson and saying how glad he was that they were an eternal family. And, you know, because that was the lesson. And one of the older siblings that was broke said, you're not, you weren't an eternal family. You're not sealed to dad. And he said, what? And this child found out that he was sealed to some man who had died who he'd never met, right? And it was devastating and has continued to affect that family's relationship with the church. This is deplorable and inexcusable and needs to stop. We tell women... just have faith we tell women like like elder oaks gave a talk in general conference about how stock started out talking about a letter that a woman wrote saying well i have to share a house in the celestial kingdom and and he laughed and everybody laughed and we we can laugh at the genuine heartache of women that this false doctrine love this it was not okay and so for me We are perfectly happy to tell women, just trust God, God will work it out. Well, you know what? That goes for everybody. If I were, you know, Empress for a day, and I'm not, and I recognize that, but I wish deeply. that the church would recognize that we don't understand everything and we don't know everything that we think we know. And if we would just allow both women and men to be sealed to another spouse after their spouse dies and say, we trust God to work it out. Maybe, you know, receive more light and knowledge. That would be lovely. I think it is a terrible tragedy that we have this inequality in our church. And it's just one of many that needs to be given voice and it needs to be spoken out to. So when you ask what drives me, these are the things that drive me. I think this is not okay. So that's my answer to that question. And then, yes, I am extremely familiar with the work of Brian Hills. Unfortunately, Brian Hills is the one who sets the narrative for the church. You know, we have these utterly deniable gospel doctrine essays that aren't signed. They're not statements of the church. They're just on the church website. No, you know, so that they can, but anyway, and Brian C. Hales was heavily involved in writing the one for the Nauvoo, for Nauvoo polygamy. His trilogy is, oh, I have so much I could say. In my opinion, Brian C. Hales is best seen not as a historian, because he's not, but as an apologist in the negative sense of the word, not the positive sense of the word, right? Brian has been involved in trying to get me excommunicated from the church. He is not willing to engage in discourse, and he does not want these ideas spread. He wants people silenced and punished for daring to disagree with him. He doesn't say that about other issues. It's just him trying to protect his status as the one that, this is my perspective. And I try to, I'm trying to play nicely, but this gets really personal. Engage in honest history. Engage in discourse. Do not use these sneaky behind-the-scenes power games to try to get people deplatformed from historical conferences, which he did. And he's like beside himself that I haven't been excommunicated. He's constantly talking about what local leaders should do, and he's pulling whatever channels he can to try to get people excommunicated. He doesn't know my family. He doesn't know my relationship with the church. I think that is inexcusable again, right? So I think that if we have a good narrative, it should be able to be discussed rigorously and it shouldn't have to be silenced. And so I have personally caught Brian Hales being deeply dishonest with historical documents, claiming he has seen things and claiming they say things that they do not say and vice versa. He claims that the leaders of the church never taught That polygamy was required for exaltation, which is blatantly false. So Brian Hills sets the narrative for the church. And if we want to be in line with the church, we have to believe the church narrative according to Brian Hills. I strongly disagree, which would requires us literally to believe that God did indeed send an angel with a sword. He clarifies it was a drawn sword, not a flaming sword. We have sources that say both. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But we are required to believe that God sent an angel with a sword threatening to kill Joseph if he didn't betray Emma. And Emma was apt to blame for that, for not getting on board with it. That's what we are required to believe. We are required to believe that polygamy, I mean, we are required to believe things that are an intellectual complete contradiction to the actual historical record that we can believe for ourselves, that we can read for ourselves, right? The church's stance on polygamy right now is a complete, complete mess. And it's because they rely on Brian Hales to give them the narrative that they think is the best for them. And I strongly, strongly disagree that it is the best for them. I think it is a terrible narrative for the church to hold to because it is verifiably untrue. And the more that people see that, the more it weakens the credibility of the church, right? We need to be able to trust that the church is telling us the truth. Enough of people feeling like the church lied to them. And we are pushing false narratives on the people. And then we have people trying to enforce those narratives and saying, if you speak aloud and disagree with the narrative I said, I will see that you are excommunicated from the church. I cannot abide that. I don't know what I can't remember what the rest of your question was, Ian, but I'm happy to try to get to the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

No, you've done a fantastic job and your passion, your strength is incredible, actually. And I'm glad you brought up the Brian T. Hills. And I think this, for many of our listeners, they've probably not heard about these issues. What I have to say is I'd love to get you back on again. actually, and do a deep dive on this. It's something that really interests me, and I'd be most interested in that. I just want to go back to another question, and you've answered my question, thank you. I want to go back to another key thread that runs through this conversation, because I think it connects so many things, maybe. What was the objective of the church with polygamy? You know, you've got these big disconnects. You've got the Brian C. Hales position, you've got your position, you've got the church... walking this fine balancing act, you know, didn't want to talk about it, wants to go away, making all these claims, some true, not true. If we go back to the main thrust of polygamy, the main principle, the fundamental objective, if you like, of polygamy, what was it? Was it something as base as men wanting to sleep with more women and justify that in some spiritual cloak, et cetera, the infidelity of men, men taking advantage of women, et cetera? Or was it more spiritual? Was it a command from God? In your research, is there any evidence that God did command you know, men to have polygamy. Because we read about it in the Bible, you know, concubines, and it's referenced in the Book of Mormon. So I guess there's two questions. What was the main objective of the church in introducing the polygamy? What was it trying to achieve? And the second question is, do you accept any evidence, based on your research, that God is ultimately behind this principle and practice and that he commands this principle and practice periodically throughout history. Sometimes he wants it, other times he doesn't. So there's two questions there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:11

So these are more huge questions. I will do my best to answer them as concisely as I possibly can. First of all, no, there is no scriptural evidence that God ever has ever commanded polygamy. Quite the opposite. We have scripture after scripture, including in Joseph Smith's Doctrine and Covenants section 142, thou shalt cleave to thy wife and only thy wife and no one else. And even to look upon a woman to lust after her is adultery, right? And polygamy is declared to be abomination. Verse one of section 132 falsely says that God commanded polygamy. He never did. There's nothing in the historical record. You can see how every time polygamy happened, why it happened, it never was as a result of God, and it always led to terrible, terrible outcomes. By their fruit, she shall know them, right? So we could go into the biblical discussion, but that would be a big discussion. I'm happy to have it. To the other question of where this comes from. So there are many ways to answer this. And I think that different people, all different people are different, right? I think that the majority of the people were convinced that this is actually was of God. There were many people in Utah who did not want to be polygamous, but who wanted exaltation, right? That's definitely the case of many, many people. If we go back to the beginning, This is one thing, and I don't want to... This is a very big and nuanced conversation, so I'll try to give it just kind of from a high-level view, if that's okay. Then we can dig in maybe in our next conversation if you'd like to. But here's kind of a situation. Incredibly powerful men who seem like they have the world in their hands, right? Like, we can look at politicians, athletes, actors, whatever it is. A man that reaches the pinnacle does not have limits, right? for the most part, right? He's not limited in his money, in his wealth, in his access. He can have as many cars as he wants, as many homes as he wants. And most men in that position also can have as many women as they want, right? It's a big challenge for a religious man who reaches the pinnacle because he can have as many, I mean, Brigham Young built home after home after home after home as people, as one of my great-great-grandmothers was starving to death and dug out Lehi, literally died of starvation, right? A man at the pinnacle who is religious needs a way to not be limited to one wife, right? Right. And it's not so much. Well, there are so many discussions we could go to with this. But I think the polygamy naturally grows out of a religious mindset for men at the pinnacle who find a way that God can. removes the limits. We have that with David and Solomon. We have it with many others, right? Polygamy is part of the natural man. We can look back in many different societies, Genghis Khan. And I mean, again and again, like women were seen as booty. And the more powerful you were, the bigger your kingdom was, the bigger your army was, the bigger your palace was, and the bigger your harem was. And that holds true in Mormon polygamy, right? So it's not just lust. It's a bigger... story it's power and lust and being at the top right polygamy is a very testosterone driven institution i'll go into this really quickly because i did an episode on Brain chemistry, polygamy in the male brain, I think is what that episode is called. And it was fascinating to me to study this out. Men's brains, a single man's brain is very testosterone driven. It's very high in testosterone because testosterone is the conquest hormone, right? The hunt and find, you're jockeying for position. Where do I rank in the hierarchy? And I need to get the wife, get the woman, right? That is all very testosterone. Once a man is married, Different brain chemicals take over. His testosterone actually lowers and his oxytocin rises because it's no longer conquest and hunt and find. It's now bond, right? So his brain chemistry actually changes and he's no longer jockeying for position that same way and he's not out on the prowl the same way. He's now bonding. Once that couple has a child, his testosterone again goes down and his oxytocin again rises because it's now bond and protect and provide and defend, right? And you can see this happening when we look at societies where it's like, even, you know, like, movies of different cultures, whereas the young men who want to go to war and the older men who are fathers who are saying, hold on, what other options do we have, right? And that is a genuine result of very positive brain chemistry that happens. And so for me, as someone who believes in God, I look at this and I have looked at polygamy Every single way, sociologically, psychologically, biologically, in every single way, like all things testify of Christ, all things testify of God's establishment of monogamy, right? A fascinating thing is that studies have been done that show that in polygamy, a male brain does not undergo the same changes. Because even when a man is married, if he's polygamous, he's still on the prowl. He's still jockeying for position. I have I've mentioned this before. I have a sister who, you know, polygamists are very heavily involved in construction, especially in Utah and the surrounding areas, right? And she was working for a construction company. And so she was dealing with a lot of polygamist men. And she had several experiences of seeing married men Still on the prowl. It was very foreign to her, but this is what it is. She told me about a story where there was a woman in her prairie dress sitting, nursing the baby, taking care of the toddler, and in walked a pretty girl. And her husband stood up. I mean, it's like this outright flirting that a monogamous man go through a training and a discipline that changes who they are. actually to the level of their brain chemistry, right? And in polygamy, that doesn't happen. And that's how we get a King David who was standing out watching the mikvah on the roof, which was the women's ritual bath. Shocking, right? And his lust was, he was so used to feeding his lust, to not having limits, that even when there was a woman who was already married, he could not handle not having his lust gratified. And so I think polygamy is multifaceted. It's so easy for men to say, oh, I wouldn't want that. But when you are, I don't know, you've been married for a while and there's a young pretty girl, when most monogamous men are trained to say, no, I am committed to my wife, right? But when your wife's had a couple of kids, maybe things are a little bit difficult. You're equally yoked, and it's hard for a man and a woman to—marriage is hard, right? How much easier to be able to just go get that young girl instead? But, you know, who wants to be stuck with a woman in her 40s? When you can have girls that are 15 and 16 is kind of how the mindset changes, right? And so it's very pernicious and it can be subtle until you actually look into it. That was the thing I realized of how naive I was, was in marriage, marriage is hard. It is hard, right? To keep a relationship healthy. And the thing we have going for us is that we're equally yoked. My husband is as invested in our relationship as I am. As soon as polygamy enters, That flies out the window. And what we get is a man who has all of the power and the women who hope to please him and try to be his favorite. And Keep Sweet grows automatically out of that. And we see the beginnings of it in the early Utah polygamist era, right? And so it just devastates us. human relationships in so many different ways. And so, and you know, we do have this story of Brigham Young meeting his last favorite wife and seeing her at the railway station. And here he is in, you know, I'm sorry, a dirty old man, you know, just like David was a dirty old man. When David was an old man, David in the Bible, they couldn't keep him warm. So I don't know, if you can't keep grandpa warm, what do you do? Like put him by the fire, put blankets on him, give him warm soup. No, with David, what they needed to do was find the most beautiful young girl And so they do go through the whole thing. to find Abishag, who is, I don't know, 12, 13, 14, and they have her lie with David. He's too old to consummate, but these are terrible, terrible things to defend. When we read the early Mormons, they're defending these things. They're proclaiming how much God loves his faithful polygamous leaders because he provides for them in this way, right? So yeah, you have Brigham Young at the train station seeing this 22-year-old girl and wanting her. being able to have her, right? And so it really changes the way that, like, it changes the way that polygamous men perceive the world. And I could go into, like, Joseph Smith, if we look at his life, this is one of the evidences to me, he and Emma really were equally yoked. We could read their letters to each other, the way they spoke to each other, the way they relied on each other and trusted each other, how Joseph had Emma involved in his business dealings, how he trusted her, how Joseph put Emma first in as the president of the relief society and told the women to sustain her i'm sorry polygamous men do not do this with women in general and particularly with women who oppose polygamy right we can go to brigham young's sermons that he gave to the um Remember, I think it might have been the elders and the 70. He gave the same, a very similar sermon twice that we have some records available to us of. And if you read what he said, it's a sermon where he told, where he disbanded the Relief Society. He told them that if you see women huddling together, veto the affair. Like he said, women were not allowed to talk to each other. The Relief Society is, what are Relief Societies for? To relieve us of our best men, right? He blamed the Relief Society. And in one of those sermons, He says, any man who is led by a woman will be led directly to hell. No woman will ever get into the celestial kingdom unless she's led there by a man. And a man who follows a woman will go directly to hell. And then he literally says these words, God knew what Eve was. Right? We can see a history of Brigham Young as sort of a woman hater to some extent. We can look at the dynamic between Brigham and his wife and compared to the dynamic between Joseph and his wife. So it just... Polygamy grows out of a different kind of mindset, and then it creates a different kind of mindset. And I think it is very contrary to the kind of godly men that God expects his true followers to be. I

SPEAKER_01 1:29:48

can't thank you enough for that perspective. I think it's really interesting to think of it in that way, and I hadn't thought of it in terms of the the man on the prowl. We want to wind this up here a little bit, but we would very much, I would very much like to have you come back and do more of a deep dive on some of this. I want to share a quick story. So my great-grandfather on my father's side is Heber J. Grant, who was, people don't realize was a polygamist because by the time he became president of the church, two of his three wives had died. And so he sort of presented as a monogamist as president of the church, but he was in fact a polygamist. And one of the wives that had died is my great-grandmother. And at one point, my grandmother, who was Heber J. Grant's last surviving daughter, passed away in 1995, I think it was, was going through some of his letters. his letters to my great-grandmother and letters to his other polygamous wives. And one of Heber J. Grant's grandsons was Truman Madsen, who's my first cousin once removed. And he was going through these letters with my grandmother. And he said to her, Francis, you need to publish these because these are so lovely. And they demonstrate that polygamy was not terrible. And they show how a polygamous relationship Kieber J. Grant practiced polygamy in a magnanimous and wonderful way, and his relationship with his wives was so beautiful. This would be so good for the church if you were to publish these. And my grandmother thought, well, jeez, I don't know. What should I do? And called Spencer W. Kimball, who was the president of the church at the time. And Spencer W. Kimball was on her doorstep that same day. to talk to her about it. And what he said to her was, you are under absolutely no obligation to publish these. And furthermore, there's a lot of polygamy in my family and it isn't lovely. It's really kind of ugly. And so this was the time in the church when it was, let's not talk about this at all. Let's tamp this down. Let's not discuss it. Let's hope it just sort of goes away. And that was the counsel that the president of the church gave my grandmother all those years ago. And I think we are now dealing with a reckoning with this. One of the big problems we have in the church is that we think if we just don't talk about it, if we just sort of move on, that the problem goes away. We're seeing that not just with polygamy, but we're also definitely seeing it with race. I went on tour with the Tabernacle Choir, and we sang in the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel with Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, these traditionally black colleges in Georgia, and sort of tried to say, okay, here we are with this wonderful racial reconciliation that we're having with the world, but it's not getting there because we still haven't reckoned with our legacy on that issue. As Paul Reeve has said, how can you root out racism if we don't look at its roots? And I think the same principle applies with polygamy. Again, you have not convinced me that Joseph Smith was not a polygamist. You have convinced me that we have not addressed this issue head on. Brian Hales apparently used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir. I hear lovely things about him as a human being. I think it's terrible that he's trying to get anybody excommunicated, least of all you. Not least of all, I mean most of all you. But this isn't an indictment of Brian Hales or anybody else. It's a, look, we don't have a choice anymore. We have to look at these things. We have to confront them. We have to to reckon with them. And even if we have to accept that Brigham Young introduced polygamy, even though we've taught that Joseph did, or we have to accept that, no, Joseph did, in fact, teach polygamy, and this is a stain on Joseph. Because right now, it's a stain on all of us. Not necessarily even because polygamy is right or wrong, but because we aren't willing to to confront and accept our history.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:38

Can I just add one thing, just really quickly to what you're saying? I do want to say, I did not want to get into the question of Joseph Smith for huge reasons, because I knew it would eclipse what I see as the far more important message that I want to get out. My overarching message is, polygamy is not of God. And I hope that you're saying that. I don't know that you needed to be convinced of that, but the But that is what our church needs to deal with at its core. As I continue to research, I learned to my great surprise that I also believe it's not of Joseph Smith. But that's not the important issue. The important issue is it's not of God.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:17

I don't know if I'm willing to go there fully. Yeah. I'm willing to consider that. When I got married, my wife said exactly what you're saying. Polygamy is not of God. It was all just nonsense. And I thought, oh, crud. My wife's going to hell. She's not a true believer. And the more I've looked at this, the more I've gotten into this. Whether something is of God or not is... is a really large and in some ways personal question because, you know, we talked yesterday about section 132 and you said, you know, is this of God? And I can point you to parts of section 132 that I absolutely believe are of God. I agree. And then I can point you to parts in section 132 that I think are absolutely abhorrent. And so... Reconciling that, that I think to a large degree is the purpose of mortality, trying to figure out where God's hand is in everything. And so I'm not willing to say that God's hand could not have in any way been involved in polygamy. But I am willing to say that we need to ask that question and we need to confront it and be willing to follow wherever the truth leads.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:43

Yeah, I know we're wrapping up. I just wanted to respond to that one part really quickly and say that's where the historical work helps because it was so, so, I don't know, just like amazing to me when I saw the evidence to show that Joseph Smith did teach the beautiful parts of section that are now in section 132 because Joseph absolutely did. receive a revelation and teach it on eternal marriage that was later tampered with to create 132. So I just wanted to validate that I have the same perspective on section 132. And I think that that's important to recognize that that can be shown in the historical record.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:20

Ian, any parting thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:22

Yeah, just a few. I'll be real quick. Michelle, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I've learned so much from you. I think you're an extraordinary individual. I mean that. And I appreciate your feelings and respect them, your emotions. You know, this is a very important topic and I would love to have a more deeper dive on this for sure. Just some quick thoughts. I... Before you came on to the podcast and had the conversation, I believe Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Now, listening to you, and there's so much more to this conversation than we have time for right now, now I don't know. I've read the Brian C. Hale stuff. I know the church's official position, read the essay. I know this is a major, major issue for the church. Publicly, it denounces polygamy. Privately, we all know, let's face it, it still believes it and practices it in the temple. I think it would like it to go away. I don't think the church wants to talk about this. We want to put it in a box and lock it up. And I think that... That's a mistake from what you guys are saying. I think it's important to talk about this. I am willing to come out and say, and I've always felt this. I'm not sure if I shared this with Jim. I never believed polygamy was of God, ever. Even when I was a bishop or on the state presidency. I mean, that's irrelevant. That little calling is irrelevant. It's how I felt personally in my personal testament. I never accepted the rejection of the blacks in regards to the priesthood. Never. It always felt wrong. I've read. awful, disgusting, grotesque quotes by Brigham Young, mostly, I believe, from what I've read, in regards to the race and the priesthood, that, you know, I found deeply offensive. And I'm a white guy, right? I can't imagine how those black folks felt when they read that or when they come across that stuff. Race and the, you know, the... Rejection of blacks for the priesthood and temple blessings is not of God. Believe me. I agree. It's not of God. I've never believed that. I don't believe it now, but I would love to get you back on if Jim is open to this and having a deeper conversation because I think this is, this and the race of the priesthood, I think the two biggest differences challenges and barriers that the church faces. And it still hasn't yet, how many years now, 150, 160, 170 years, still with all of the intelligence that the church has, still hasn't figured it out. And where is it? I think you described it real, it's a complete mess. It really is. Anyway, I want to thank you so much for coming on and I hope you felt comfortable sharing your thoughts and your feelings.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:14

Oh, I did. I loved our, I loved our conversation. Thank you for letting me go off so many times. I really appreciate you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:21

And we appreciate you. Thank you very much. And we also appreciate all of you spending this time with us, listening to Inside Out. Please be sure to subscribe to our podcast to be notified when new episodes drop. And, uh, We're just grateful for all of our listeners and for everybody that is part of this discussion. And until next time, we will look forward to seeing you on Inside Out. And thank you, Michelle. And thank you, Ian.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:50

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Michelle.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:53

Thank you.