D&C 132 – Joseph Smith’s Polygamy “Revelation” w/ LDS Discussions – 25

Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin 0:00 Foreign. And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. We are here for another very exciting episode in the LDS Discussions) series called Joseph Smith's Polygamy Revelation Doctrine and covenants or DNC132 for those who haven't joined us previously and are just stumbling upon this in whatever way the algorithms serve it to you. We are in the middle of what I think is a really important series where our friend Mike, who has A website called LDS discussions@ LDS discussions.com has taken the time to examine as a convert to the Mormon Church, he has taken the time to provide an analysis of, let's just say 4050 Mormon church truth claims in a way that attempts to be as neutral and as objective as possible so that people who are truly interested in understanding the reality and the truth about the Mormon Church or the LDS Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can do so in, in a way that doesn't feel angry or antagonistic.

John Dehlin 1:20 And so we have done many, many episodes already. You can find this series on Spotify and as its own series under LDS Discussions). You can find it on the Apple Podcast app, There is a YouTube playlist under the Mormon Stories podcast channel and of course you can find it in the traditional Mormon Stories podcast feeds, audio and video.

John Dehlin 1:45 And we hope that you are loving this series and or are going to love this episode. So we're doing, we're covering polygamy in at least five parts, specifically Joseph Smith's polygamy, but also some other things in addition. And we're doing that because that is one of the most important issues that people want to analyze as they're trying to determine the truth and the reality about the Mormon Church. So we're going, we're, we are now into what I believe is our second part in our five part series on polygamy. And what we're going to be doing is a deep dive into DNC132, which is basically Joseph Smith's revelation on polygamy.

John Dehlin 2:27 I should note that Sandra Tanner, who is a legend in the Mormon history Mormon studies field, we did a multi part episode with Sandra on Mormon Stories podcast breaking down DNC132. That will be a much more lengthy analysis than what we're going to be doing today. But I do want to reference that and I'm also going to just say that you can find the essay upon which this entire series is built at LDS discussions.com/ polygamy. So without any further ado, what I'd like to do now is bring on both Mike the the hero and the celebrity of LDS discussions. Hey, Mike. Welcome back, everybody.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:09 How's it going?

John Dehlin 3:10 It's good to have you, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:11 Good to be back.

John Dehlin 3:12 And we're also super excited to have a special guest because you shouldn't talk about polygamy without having a woman in the room, if possible. And we have our dear friend Alicia. Alicia Lee. Is that what you're going by here? Yeah. And Alicia. And Alicia, you've been a dear friend for a while. You do a tick tock channel that is very, very popular, also discussing Mormon Church truth claims. But Alicia, why don't you just quickly introduce yourself to our audience, plug whatever socials you want to plug and just give us a little bit of your background.

Alicia Lee 3:50 Thanks, John. Yeah, I'm Alicia. Alicia Lee. I have a TikTok channel called Faith Unraveled. I didn't deconstruct until I was 41. I was very devoted to the gospel still to this day. Love, love, love the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. These topics are very, very important to me. So coming on today to talk about one of the most important points, to me, this topic is very personal to me, this plurality as it's outlined in DNC 132, mostly because this was such a huge part of my own faith deconstruction.

Alicia Lee 4:32 I've talked a lot about polygamy on my channel, Faith Unraveled. I, I get a little more, I feel like I insert a little more of my personal experience on my TikTok channel. So I'm going to try to keep it a lot more objective here. Just really stick to the doctrine. And I also just want to point out I'm not a historian. I'm just basically a lifelong consult of Mormon doctrine. I was actually preparing for an upcoming seminary calling when I had my faith Deconstruction. I just ended up in a rabbit hole. That's kind of a whole other story.

Alicia Lee 5:07 But yeah, to this day I just feel very called to this conversation. Like I said, I just love the people of the church so much. And this topic especially is very important to me. And just conceptualizing these topics that are outline in Doctrine and Covenants so often in Sunday school classes and Doctrine and Covenants or in gospel doctrine classes. When we look at these, when we look at these topics like DNC132, where, you know, which is kind of thought of as the section on eternal marriage, eternal families, we don't so much get into dissecting the text, we look at more of the implications, like going to the temple and eternal families and, you know, the plan of salvation.

Alicia Lee 5:56 We talk about it in sort of these tangential ways. And it wasn't until I was 41 that I really took a deep dive on what exactly it says in the text and really started to dissect the text. And it wasn't until that moment that I really saw Joseph Smith through a different lens. So I'm going to try as much as I can to not insert my own lens, my own view of him, and just let the viewers kind of take this in and see how they see it, because I feel like there's really only 12 ways when you really start to dissect this text. Either you're going to start to see God in a new light, the way that he's talking about Emma and talking about, really, the sisters of the church, or you're going to see Joseph Smith in a new light.

John Dehlin 6:44 Yeah. Yeah, that's a. That's a really good breakdown and a really good analysis. Well, Alicia, we're really glad you're here, so thank you for joining us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 6:53 Thank you very much.

John Dehlin 6:55 Yeah. Before we jump in, Mike, before we jump into the first slide, is there anything you want to say at the outset? Are you ready to jump in?

Setting the Stage for D&C 132

Mike (LDS Discussions) 7:03 No, just, you know, we've. We had a number of episodes in a row now that have been kind of heavier as far as having an emotional kind of feel to them between the two we did with the race and the priesthood, and now we're into these polygamy episodes. So just to say to everybody out there that, you know, these are tough episodes, are not fun.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 7:20 They're certainly not fun to put the slides together for and to talk about. But I think it's. As Alicia said, this is a central revelation in the church, and so as painful as it might be to go through it, we got to get through it, and it'll be okay when we're done. We'll all be okay. And just to take it slow if you need to, but we're gonna kind of get through these next few episodes and hopefully give everybody a fuller perspective of polygamy in the church. And. And then from that point, you're going to do with it what you want, but we're just here to kind of present what the data says and what the. The history says.

John Dehlin 7:58 All right, thanks, Mike. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna reiterate something that you said, Alicia, and maybe extend on it for me, one of the most important reflections on DNC132 is the reality that I think most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in my experience, have never read it or have never read it really thinking about it or in detail. Because this, this for sure. If you had to pick one chapter or in the, in the, in the case of the Doctrine and Covenants, one section of all of Mormon scripture, which includes the Old Testament, the New Testament Doctrine and Covenants, you know, Pearl of great price, which is the book of Moses and the book of Abraham.

John Dehlin 8:41 If you had to pick one section or chapter, that, and I'm not trying to stack the deck here, but just full stop, one chapter section, that's the most disturbing. If you actually read it, I think it's DNC132 and that's why I'm very confident that most members of the church have just, have just never really taken the time to read it. And I think part of that is because I think in past church curriculum, the church is actively either discouraged reading it or tried to control what parts of it, you know, the church members read or just have avoided it altogether. But, but, but I do think that this is one of the least read chapters or sections and the most disturbing chapters or sections in the entire Mormon canon. Now, Alicia, do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that?

Alicia Lee 9:30 I absolutely agree. And I think what we do is we automatically jump to the implications of having an eternal family and what this doctrine means, and we talk about our loved ones who are deceased and we talk about the beauty of it, but we're not really breaking down what is there. At least in my case, I really didn't break down what was actually written. And I think as we review this text, it's really important, even though I know the majority of your listeners probably already know this, but we really have to frame this as Joseph Smith is speaking, as the mouth piece of God.

Alicia Lee 10:10 And I, I don't think I really fully conceptualized that. And so we have to look at this under that, under that framework and actually see what is it, what exactly is being said. And then, and then we will also talk about here today the implications of what is being said. What does that mean for me as a woman right. In the afterlife? So I think this is going to be really insightful.

John Dehlin 10:32 Yeah, yeah. And I do think I'll also make a reference, I'll make a lot of references during today's episode, but there's a book, and there's a book called the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy by Carolyn Pearson. I'm going to include that in the show notes. And we actually did an episode with Carolyn Pearson about her book. But it's basically about how polygamy still haunts the Mormon Church and specifically Mormon women and many Mormon men to this day. In fact, I had Patrick Mason on Mormon Stories, the church's sort of top believing Mormon scholar. And he just basically flat out said polygamy. Joseph Smith's polygamy looks a lot like sin to me.

John Dehlin 11:13 And I don't feel the need to include DNC132 in my own canon of Mormon scripture. In other words, he basically just the. The Church's top believing Mormon scholar cuts DNC 132 out of his own personal Mormon canon just right off the top. Yeah, that says a lot. Again, this is not trying to stack the deck or influence people. We're just trying to provide some background and context.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 11:40 Yeah. And I can point out, just as being a convert to the church, I was never. We never read DNC132 ever. And so I joined the church and I remember having lessons on eternal families. And you would refer to a few verses in DNC130, but not at any point did they have us read the whole thing, did they have us read kind of those later verses that we're going to cover today. And it wasn't until I started doing the deep dive that I finally read it. And I was talking to Alicia about this before we started today. And I think when you read the entirety of DNC132, especially in the series that we're doing, and you understand the previous episodes about how we've talked about how some of these revelations have come to be and the challenges that Joseph Smith was facing when these revelations came, whether it's the priesthood restoration, the first vision, which I know is not revelation, but a vision, you start to see patterns.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 12:34 And so to your point, John, we're not trying to stack the deck. But I would again reiterate that if you've been following this series along, a lot of these things we're going to talk about today will fit into those common threads that we've been doing. And that's why I always say this really is like a giant puzzle and you're putting these pieces back together.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 12:50 Reading DNC 132 by itself is really difficult, especially when you start to read it at face value. But I think the greater value to me is being able to read it in this larger context of what we're doing, because it shows not just the Texad and C132. But the ways that these things come to be and the ways are implemented, and most importantly, as you guys have already touched on, this is still doctrine today. And so the fact that most members haven't read it, the fact that most members don't know that later part of DNC132, or at least kind of just say, oh, it doesn't apply to me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 13:25 The truth is, this is doctrine. This absolutely applies to every woman in the church and every man in the church. And so whatever you want to do with it, that's up to you. But the fact is, you can't say. One of the things I always used to hear was, I'm so glad we don't have to live in a time with polygamy. And now I look at and I go, you absolutely do. It's just that you're not doing it right now. And so you might live to your 80. So for 80 years you avoid it, but then for eternity you don't. And so I think that's really why this is so important, because it does impact you. This is not history. This is. This is reality.

John Dehlin 13:54 Absolutely. And, you know, we should just say, for those who don't know, the top two Mormon leaders right now are in polygamous marriages in. In heaven or in the afterlife. In other words, they were sealed eternally to their first wives. Their first wives died. This is Russell M. Nelson and Downay jokes. Their first wives died, and now they're eternally sealed to their second wives. And so the top Mormon church leadership believe that they will have multiple wives in the afterlife. That's just a fact. Nobody, nobody is gonna deny that that's true. Yeah. Okay, so without any further ado, why don't we go ahead and jump in first to a recap that you put together, Mike?

Recap of the Previous Episode

Mike (LDS Discussions) 14:39 Yeah, so this is just. If you've watched our last episode or listened to it, this is just a really quick recap because we got through the basic timeline of how polygamy was kind of implemented, and now we're going to get into the text of DNC132, which on the timeline perspective is actually pretty late, because Joseph Smith, by the time DNC132 is dictated, is going to be after he's already married to dozens of women. And so we talked about that timeline, the last episode. So if you haven't watched that, I would watch that first.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 15:13 And one of the things we talked about, which to me is one of the most important things, is that Hyrum Smith is going to request this revelation from Joseph because he believes that he can convince Emma of the doctrines truth, purity and heavenly origin.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 15:28 And what really is just one of those things that for me was an aha moment was when I found out that Hyrum asks Joseph Smith to use the Peep Seer stone, which they call the Urim and Thummim. But as we've talked about in all the previous episodes, that is the same term as the treasure digging peepshear stone that Joseph would have. Joseph Smith declines to use that stone and then rolls off a 3200/word revelation without the use of any stone that he would have used to get early revelations and to translate the Book of Mormon with. And we talked about that in the last episode because I think that's important to show how gifted Joseph Smith was at being able to orally dictate long chunks of text without material around him.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 16:10 And again, as we talked about that, that basically was almost like a full day's work of translating the Book of Mormon that he was able to do in one sitting. And I think that's something that should be noted.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 16:20 And then the last thing we talked about in the last episode was that the church today, if you look at the heading of DNC132, it'll say that there are indications Joseph received as early as 1831.

John Dehlin 16:31 And.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 16:31 And we talked about how the church doesn't want to tell you what that reference is, because that reference was to marry the Native American women or have them as concubines in order to make their children whiter. They literally say to make them white and delightsome.

John Dehlin 16:45 And just to be clear, that was a. That was a revelation allegedly given to Joseph Smith for early Mormon missionaries that were going off to the frontier to preach. To quote Lamanites, they were given permission to take Native American women as Concubines in 1831.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 17:04 Yes. And we have a positive source, W.W. phelps, who. That's a later recollection. And then we have a negative source, which is Ezra Booth. And Ezra Booth was not a fan when he talked about this. So the fact that we have a positive source and a negative source telling us the same thing gives us a really, I think, a solid foundation to know that the 1831 ideas have nothing to do with what we're going to talk about today. And we're literally Joseph Smith telling these missionaries to take the women of the Native Americans as concubines, potentially wives. But there's no mention of ceilings or anything in order to make their posterity wider. And like I said, we have two sources. So for the church to continually say that he probably received this in 1831 is really misleading, especially when they're not giving you that text in the heading, which is for good reason.

John Dehlin 17:49 Yeah, I'm, I don't think many credible historians claim that this revelation even believing, I don't think very many credible believing Mormon scholars believe that this revelation was given in 1831. I think universally universal, almost universally credible Mormon believing Mormon scholars are going to put this revelation in 1843. And that, that brings me to a list of my biggest concerns, you know, with, with DNC 132. Right off the bat these are kind of structural concerns.

Structural Problems Within D&C 132

John Dehlin 18:24 But, but you know, you know, we're taught that Joseph Smith came up with DNC132 because he was reading the Old Testament and the Old Testament kind of, you know, talks about polygamy and so Joseph Smith was kind of pondering on that and then the revelation came as a result. But, but generally speaking, it's understood within broader Christianity that Old Testament polygamy was not commanded by God.

John Dehlin 18:52 You know, like Mike, there's one instance that you've highlighted in the pre show where maybe, you know, it was highlighted in one instance, but generally speaking it's viewed as a cultural practice that is not divine. And if you don't believe me, just look at Islam and Islam and Judaism and you know, they all share this kind of common, you know, Middle Eastern kind of heritage back, you know, pre, pre Christian heritage where men could have up to four wives. And, and so it's, it's more that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon were, were living polygamy as a cultural practice according to the Old Testament than it was ever something God commanded of them.

John Dehlin 19:36 A couple other problems in my view structurally with DNC 132 is that, you know, polygamy contradicts the, the Book of Mormon generally speaking, and the Doctrine and Covenants, you know, or at least the 1835 version of the Doctrine and Covenants. And we, we covered that in a previous episode. But, but we're also going to cover that in a later slide. So I'm not going to like belabor that point, but you have to just understand that, that this was, you know, when Joseph Smith received this revelation, it was scripturally forbidden.

John Dehlin 20:13 Polygamy was scripturally named and forbidden. A couple other problems with DNC132 structurally is that Joseph Smith already had around 30 wives before DNC132 was revealed. And you know, it's just, it's, you know, you wouldn't expect, you know, doc, you know, the word of wisdom, you know, to be observed until after DNC89 had been revealed. You wouldn't expect baptisms for the dead to be happening, you know, before Joseph Smith received the revelation on baptisms for the dead and so on and so forth. And so it makes, it almost makes it look like this was a revelation out of convenience, but not a revelation that came from God and then it was written down by the prophet and then taught to the membership.

John Dehlin 21:05 And by the way, where's the, where's common consent, like the Doctrine and Covenants has a practice called common consent where the general church membership is supposed to vote on and sustain a revel, a revelation or a policy before it's adopted. There was no sustaining of DNC 132 because Joseph was already 30 wives in before he ever received the revelation. And I would say he had already started calling other men to the practice as well. Right, right. Mike and Alicia. Yeah, so that, that makes no sense. But then, but then I think a couple other structural problems with DNC. You've already alluded to this, Mike, that the DNC132 really came as a response to Emma's violent objections.

John Dehlin 21:50 Because what's factual is that Joseph Smith was, I don't know, 22 wives in to his practice of polygamy before, you know, Emma ever was sealed to him. Clearly she got upset when she found out that the 22 wives were already sealed to Joseph before he ever bothered to tell her that he had received this revelation. And Joseph was already in the doghouse with Emma. Because in the early 1830s, Joseph was caught in what I believe is clearly an adulterous affair with a servant in his house, a domestic servant in his house. Fanny Alger. Oliver Cowdery would, would agree with me because Oliver Cowdery, who's in the First Presidency at the time Joseph was in a relationship with Fanny, called Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger a dirty, filthy, nasty affair.

John Dehlin 22:48 I believe is the terms of that that Oliver Cowdery used. And you can't sort of say Oliver Cowdery is a credible witness to the Book of Mormon and a credible scribe. But then when he calls Joseph Smith out for adultery, well, he's no longer credible. Like that's a problem. And so Joseph was in the doghouse for Fanny Alger in that affair. He was in the doghouse for having 22 wives before ever receiving the Revelation or telling Emma about it. And then Emma was fighting him so fiercely that you almost get the impression that Joseph and Hyrum, who Hyrum was also practicing polygamy at the time.

John Dehlin 23:20 It's like Joseph and Hyrum are like, man, what are we going to do? We've got this thing now and we're doing it. But Emma's mad. And it's almost like they sat together and said, well, it looks like we need a revelation to kind of put Emma in her place. And that's a really important context for almost the violent threats that come that we're going to be covering that come out in DNC 132.

John Dehlin 23:44 To me, those violent threats by God or by Jesus towards Emma really, really fit within this context of Joseph and Hyrum saying, how do we force Emma to be okay with this? And so for me, that's really important context to understanding some of the main problems. In addition to the fact that Joseph was not only denying polygamy to Emma and lying about it, he was denying it to the general church membership and he was lying about it and denying it to the general public, both verbally and in the written word, like in the newspapers. So this just had lies and cover ups and deception all over it.

John Dehlin 24:28 That then lead to the necessity of creating an ex post facto revelation to justify the prior bad behavior. Now that's going to sound really strong to our viewers and listeners. But I think Patrick Mason, I think Richard Bushman, I think any credible believing Mormon scholar, which is not Brian Hales in my view, is going to agree with the framing that I just put forward. Now, Alicia, let's give you the first chance to respond to what I said and please disagree with me if you'd like to, or just say you agree or if you want to add any color, we'd love to hear that as well.

Alicia Lee 25:09 Yeah, I don't disagree. I don't disagree with anything you just said. I think where this breaks down for me is that it either it's one of two options and I hate to frame anything in a binary way, but this is canonized scripture. This is LDS canonized scripture. So I know there's this approach of like cafeteria Mormonism. And I love Patrick Mason and I support everybody when in whatever way they want to approach the gospel. Okay. But for me, what this was about was realizing that this is either coming from God or it is coming from Joseph Smith.

Alicia Lee 25:46 And it has to be one of those two. Either it is. These are either the words of God. And so as we're reading through this, and as we're going through this breakdown, I think that was ultimately the thing for me. Is this actually what God said? Did. Did God actually say he was going to destroy Emma if she didn't get on board for this? And is it more likely that this was just Joseph Smith's personal agenda? And if this is Joseph Smith's personal agenda, then we have a real problem because this is canonized Mormon scripture.

John Dehlin 26:13 Yeah. Yeah. And Patrick Mason would say it was Joseph's opinion. Not. Not canonized scripture. Mike, is there anything else you want to say about. About this slide, or did I cover it?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 26:24 No, I mean, I think we'll cover most of these points. I would argue. Not argue, but the mindset that Patrick Mason seemed to give, and I'm sure he would give a lot more nuance to this. I'm not trying to speak for him at all.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 26:37 You hear members, sometimes they'll say, I don't believe that God commanded Joseph Smith into polygamy. And the problem is, as we're going to talk about throughout this episode, is that DNC132 is canonized scripture. If you believe that Joseph Smith made up D and C 132 to justify his actions or you don't want to defend it, the problem is you still then would have to deal with the implications of DNC132 being from Joseph and not from God because of the fact that it's still doctrine today, because of the fact that this is kind of like the selling point of the church, which is eternal family. So I think it's hard for me to accept the stance that Joseph Smith made up polygamy, or he was speaking for himself and speaking as a man and not speaking for God in this revelation because of the fact that this is such a heavy revelation in the church today because of the whole sealings and eternal families.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 27:31 And so to untangle those is a problem. And I think it's one of the reasons that the church tries so hard to say that the revelation really isn't about polygamy. It's about celestial marriage. And polygamy is kind of tacked onto the end. But as you'll see as we go through these next four episodes, you cannot separate the two because Joseph Smith did not separate it. John Taylor is going to get a revelation from God, which is kind of a spoiler for a future episode we're going to do where God literally tells him, you know what part of this is not everlasting. And so polygamy is Absolutely.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 28:01 What is meant by the new and everlasting covenant. And to say Joseph Smith made it up then, or not made it up, but that you're not going to defend it, but then you have to say, well, then how in the world do we still justify the church claiming the sole authority to giving the ability to be with your family together forever if Joseph Smith kind of made up the core revelation?

D&C 132 Contradicts the Book of Mormon

John Dehlin 28:20 Okay, all right. Well, with that, let's go ahead and jump into our first substantive slide, which is entitled the Very first of DNC Contradicts the Book of Mormon, which we've alluded to already. Go ahead, take it away, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 28:35 And so this is just the very first verse of DNC 132, which says, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you've inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord justified my servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, excuse me, touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines. And so this very first verse is just riddled with some problems. And so the first one is, Isaac never had wives or concubines. And so for. For God, through Joseph Smith, to include Isaac in this group is problematic right off the bat.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:12 And then, you know, so we've already got issues with biblical history, and we'll talk more about Abraham in a few slides. But Abraham in this revelation is going to be constantly referred to as if he was commanded and he was not.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:26 But the bigger problem with this first verse is right off the bat here, Joseph Smith is going to directly contradict the Book of Mormon, because in Jacob chapter two, it says, but the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people began to wax in iniquity. They understand not the Scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms because of the things which were written concerning David and Solomon, his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines. Which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord. And so right off the bat, you have verse one saying, not only did I not find it abominable, but I justified it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:04 Whereas the Book of Mormon written, you know, 14 years earlier, is saying, is God directly saying it's abominable? That contradiction right off the bat should raise a lot of red flags for anyone in the church who is noticing this contradiction, because you cannot reconcile these two things.

John Dehlin 30:19 Okay, all right. So that's the first problem. A Significant contradiction with the Book of Mormon. Should we go to the next slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:29 Yeah. So next slide kind of works off of this first one. And this is a slide from Missed in Sunday, which again, it shows the top is the Book of Mormon from Jacob, which I just read. And the bottom is Doctrine and Covenants, verse 38. And so in verse 38 of DNC 132, it says, David also received many wives and concubines and also Solomon from the beginning of creation until this time. And in nothing did they sin, save in those things which they received not of me. And so you've got Jacob saying that it was abominable, and then you've got the Book of Mormon saying that, you know, God saying he justified it, and then later he's saying that they did nothing, did they sin?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 31:08 And so you've now got two verses where God is justifying and defending David and Solomon. Whereas in the Book of Mormon, which we're told is like the most correct book on earth, he's calling it abominable. And so this, right off the bat, is where you start to see Joseph Smith starting to kind of turn morality upside down. We talked about this in the last episode where Joseph Smith is teaching people things that you thought were sin or not sin, which is a lot. In a lot of ways, it's softening up people's moral compass so they're willing to accept practices and ideas that go against every fiber of their being.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 31:43 And we're seeing this now being done in the voice of God, which to me, again, it's a huge red flag, and it's highly problematic.

John Dehlin 31:49 Yeah, yeah. Which is it? Is it highly abominable, or is it not a sin? That's a clear. That's a clear contradiction.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 31:58 Yep.

John Dehlin 31:59 Okay. All right. And Alicia, just jump in anytime you've got. You got something to add.

Alicia Lee 32:04 Yeah, I just. I just think it's interesting that Joseph Smith points to the Old Testament as his rationale for this revelation, but it's his modifications to the Old Testament that he's using to justify this revelation. So other Protestant believers don't believe that this was commanded by God. I think we already said that, but I think it's just really notable that so often in my mind, when there were these kind of issues in my mind, like, wow, that just doesn't seem right. But it's in the Old Testament, and we have to remember that Joseph Smith is, you know, translating. He's qualifying this by making changes and qualifications to what's written in the Old Testament.

Alicia Lee 32:45 Other Protestant believers Don't see this as a commandment by God. And Joseph Smith is saying not only is this a commandment, this is ultimately what's going to exalt these men of the Old Testament. Because this is a law. This is required of God. A commandment of God.

John Dehlin 33:01 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Great point, Alicia. Okay, let's, let's go to the next slide, which is DNC132 misrepresents the Bible to justify Joseph's polygamy.

How the Bible Is Reframed to Justify Polygamy

Mike (LDS Discussions) 33:14 Yeah, and actually this is perfect that Alicia just said that, because here is where Joseph Smith is going to kind of reframe the Bible in a way that fits what he is trying to create. And so verse 34 says, God commanded Abraham and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law. And from Hagar sprang many people. This therefore was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Was Abraham therefore under condemnation? Verily I say unto you, nay, for I the Lord commanded it. Abraham was commanded to offer a son, Isaac. Nevertheless, it was written, thou shalt not kill.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 33:49 Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. And so just to point out, at no point in the Bible does God command Abraham to enter into polygamy. It's non existent. And so Joseph Smith is rewriting the Bible in order to give his credibility to what he's doing. He's trying to justify polygamy by finding these parallels in the Bible that he can use. And so this is again a huge red flag because Joseph is basically rewriting the Bible. And I would argue again that if Abraham was commanded to enter into polygamy, we'd have it in the Bible. And I would definitely argue that when Joseph was doing the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, there would be some addition to show that Abraham was commanded into polygamy by God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 34:32 It's not there. And so Joseph Smith here is creating this out of thin air in order to create this justification among his members. And I think that's something that's a problem when Joseph Smith revised it himself. And one of the things that is a theme in this revelation, which we mentioned last slide, is Joseph is referencing this Abrahamic test, which is in the Bible, to try to flip sin upside down, which is to say, yeah, thou shall not kill, but if God tells you to kill, you better kill. And we're going to talk about this a lot more in these polygamy episodes, because Joseph will do this a lot to these women to say, yeah, I know you're repulsed by this, but I speak for God, and God's telling me that this is what you need to do.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 35:15 And once you start changing the Bible to redefine morality, it leads really good people to do really bad things. And Joseph Smith here is weaving this in the voice of God. And the one thing, the last thing I'll note on this slide, which is just interesting me, I don't really know what to make of it, is that in verse 34, it's almost like Joseph is speaking in his own voice because he says God commanded Abraham, and then in the next verse, he says, nay, for I, the Lord commanded it. It's almost like when he was orally dictating here, he got a little bit confused between speaking for himself and speaking for God. And I find that interesting, although I don't quite know what to make of it.

John Dehlin 35:51 Ooh, that's a good point. Is it. Is it third person or first person? He's switching between third person and first person within a few verses.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 35:58 Yeah, it's like, if you guys like Seinfeld, there's that episode where George Costanza starts speaking in the third person. He's like, george is getting upset. I mean, it just sticks out to me. It's like, why is he speaking as if Joseph is writing it in 34, but then in 35, he switches back? And again, if you come at it from a historical standpoint or from the standpoint of what we're doing in these episodes, it actually makes perfect sense, because in an orally dictated text, Joseph Smith might be kind of losing his track here. And all of a sudden, at 35, he's like, oh, crap, this isn't the voice of God. He switches back to God's voice. But it is noteworthy that you have that change between the first and third person there.

John Dehlin 36:32 Totally. Alicia, I want to get you in here, but I'm just going to give a quick. Just a quick reaction that, you know, not only is it not commanded in the Old Testament, when you read Mormon history kind of in the mid 19th century, and you see how Mormon prophets kind of almost double down and say that polygamy is not just, you know, God's commandment, but it's like a requirement for the highest degree of the celestial kingdom.

John Dehlin 37:00 You know, when you think about how strongly it became urged eventually after Joseph's death, then you wonder, why didn't Jesus talk about it? Why didn't Jesus enter into plural marriages? Why didn't Jesus say, oh, you know, you know, marriage is super important, and polygamous marriage is the highest form of marriage of all instead, and I'm sure we've covered this in the past, and we'll probably cover it in the series. Jesus said there is no marriage in heaven. There's no, you know, people are not given or, you know, divorced in heaven or whatever his words are. But, like, why was Jesus silent on polygamy? Why don't we have it in the Bible?

John Dehlin 37:39 And behold, Jesus took on to him Mary as a wife, and then he took on Martha as a wife, and then he took on, you know, Samantha as a wife. Like, none of that. And then you add to that in the Book of Mormon, again, you've got a clear opportunity. If, if this is the rest of restoration of all things, if Jesus is going to come down and tell his Book of Mormon prophets the pure doctrine unadulterated by the Catholic Church, why isn't polygamy commanded in the. In the Book of Mormon, but instead it's denounced in the Book of Mormon? Like, none of that, none of that makes sense if, if this is going to be a restoration of all things, in my view.

John Dehlin 38:15 And the only other thing I'll add is there's a really important part of Mormon lore that I don't think many people. People are aware of, which is that Joseph Smith apparently taught that he was a descendant of Jesus and that he had the blood of Jesus in his veins. And he also taught.

John Dehlin 38:36 And Joseph F. Smith and Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce. Bruce R. McConkey passed down the teaching that, that. That Jesus was married and, and that Jesus was probably married in polygamous marriages. And I know this because Margaret Pope, who I believe was the sister of Bruce R. McConkey, would teach this at BYU when I was there. She would literally have like a test question, true or false? Jesus was married and likely polygamously married, you know, when he was on the earth. And then the correct answer was true. And I'm probably getting a tiny bit of the details of that story wrong, but anybody who wants to dig into Mormon history will find that it became a teaching within, you know, Hyrum Smith, his descendants, Joseph F.

John Dehlin 39:28 Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, and then the McConkie family, that, that the blood of Jesus ran through the veins of Joseph Smith's descendants and that Jesus, in fact, was not only married, but was likely a polygamist. Now, Alicia, I don't know. Did you ever hear that?

Alicia Lee 39:43 No, I. So glad you mentioned that. And the bit about Jesus, I know everything that I read of Jesus is like, or the text that we have that was attributed to Jesus is Like, it feels like a very solo journey. Like, it never at any point is there, like, this connection between. You can't have salvation unless you're married. And you're right. I mean, I never really have thought about that before, but you're right. The thing that I really wanted to speak to also is just this idea of turning morality upside down. I really want to take a pause here, because for, you know, 99% of people in religion, the reason that they opt into religion is because it is a moral compass, and people view it as, know, a source of morality, a source that teaches you right from wrong.

Alicia Lee 40:31 And so. And the happiness letter, really, you guys are going to outline the happiness letter, I think, at another time, but this is another place that. That this idea is first sort of represented. And it's this idea that what you naturally perceive as right and wrong isn't necessarily in alignment with God's will. And I just want to propose it for me, in reading this text, this was the first time that I realized that in some cases, religion isn't the source of morality. Maybe religion can, in some cases, turn what is actually correct upside down for you so that you get it backwards. And I just look at this so much.

Alicia Lee 41:14 You know, for me, I just always think about the implications and thinking about the implications of, say, the LGBTQ kids in the church and parents feeling like they have to stay strong to the gospel tenants first before that natural impulse as a mother to align with your child. And so we see this all threaded throughout Doctrine and Covenants, where things. Things might not seem correct to you morally, but darn it, this is what God said. So that's what you've got to go with. You are taught here to not trust your inner compass. And that, for me, is huge. It's everything like, why am I opting into a religion if it's really going to take my own moral compass and twist it inside out?

John Dehlin 42:00 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, this is good, Mike. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide, which is that Joseph creates a problem to sell you the solution.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 42:13 Yeah. And so this is one of those things that, for me, I started to notice more obviously once I started doing the deep dive. But you'd mentioned this in your bullet point, but the DNC in 1835 is going to have a section that is going to tell you that all legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church should be held sacred and fulfilled.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 42:35 That is a very direct way of saying that if you are married before you join the Mormon Church, your marriage doesn't just dissolve now. We're going to have Joseph Smith, just about eight years later, say all covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations or expectations that are not made and entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise are of no efficacy, virtue, or force in and after the resurrection from the dead. For all contracts that are not made unto this end have an end when men are dead. And so Joseph here is, in order to create the system of plural marriage, is going to create this problem, which is to say, if you don't enter into this new system of marriage, basically your marriage is no longer valid.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 43:29 And not only is it no longer valid, but you will not be with your family after you die. And this is something that you touched on earlier and Alicia's touched on as well, which is every religion, I can say, this is somebody who converted to Mormonism. Every religion in Christianity fully believes when you die, you're going to be able to find your family again. And so Joseph here is creating a problem in order to sell you the solution to get you on board. And you can see that by the fact that he's directly contradicting the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants with regards to what marriage is valid.

John Dehlin 44:03 Yeah, that, that was one of the hardest changes for me to make was this shift, because it. For decades, I believe that the Mormon Church's teachings on eternal families was by far the coolest and, and best teaching. You know, the, the Mormon Church had to offer by far. And once I realized that, wait a minute, every other Christian church, just, just by default, all families are together forever.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 44:27 Yeah.

John Dehlin 44:27 It's actually Joseph Smith and these teachings about eternal families that are actually dividing families. If you're not a faithful Mormon or if you don't accept a Mormon baptism in the afterlife, or if you don't accept your baptism for the dead, then you're not with your family, then it, then it all of a sudden took a doctrine that I thought was beautiful and kind of made it horrific. And that's, that's my reaction.

Alicia Lee 44:49 Well, and I don't think. I don't. I think the majority of members do think that you're going to see people that you're not sealed to. I mean, have you ever been to an LDS funeral where a friend says, I know I'll see them again, they're not sealed. I mean, so how does that work? And then is there no agency in the next life? Like, you can't associate with who, who you want to associate with? Like, is that Just gone now because you're on the other side. Like how exactly? Like, the functionality of it all just doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 45:20 Yeah, that's a good point.

John Dehlin 45:22 Yeah. Mike, go ahead and jump to the next slide, which is that Joseph concedes that it was Joseph himself that wanted polygamy.

Joseph Smith's Own Desires Behind the Revelation

Mike (LDS Discussions) 45:31 Yeah. And so this is one of those things, like I had mentioned earlier. There's those aha moments when you read these things. And so we read verse one already, but I want to read it again because it tells you directly that it was Joseph Smith who was wanting to know from God why biblical figures could have wives and concubines.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 45:47 Even though, as I mentioned, that's a very bad reading of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. It says, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants, you know, as having many wives and concubines. So this is going to undercut in verse one, this idea that Joseph Smith was a reluctant polygamist, because many want to claim now that, you know, Joseph didn't want to do this, but God sent the angel with the drawn sword. And we will get into that in the next episode.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 46:19 But right here, Joseph is making it clear through the voice of God that Joseph is the one that came up with the idea of how come they got wives and concubines. And so he goes to God to ask us. And I really think it's a small point, but I think it's a really important point because not only are we going to see this here, when we talk about the happiness letter, which is a letter that Joseph Smith himself writes both in his own voice and the voice of God, you're going to see this exact same theme where Joseph Smith is saying, basically, these are the things you get when you have these.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 46:48 I believe in the happiness letter, it's called all of the desires of your heart. And here Joseph Smith is saying in the voice of God that he is the one asking. And I just think that's important to note because it is not God going to Joseph and saying, joseph Smith, you now need to marry these other women, and if you don't, I'm gonna send an angel to kill you. Joseph is going to God to ask him why they got wives and concubines. And I think that has got to be something that we keep in the back of our head as we go through these verses, because it Is Joseph initiating this conversation and not God?

John Dehlin 47:17 Yeah, yeah, it. And. And I think a lot of people, you know, Alicia, when. When you were basically saying, you know, you have to ask yourself, is this from God or is it from Joseph? If it's from Joseph, there's a very probably reasonable explanation of where. Where this comes from. Alicia, maybe you want to share with us what you think might have motivated this, if. If it might have been Joseph.

Alicia Lee 47:43 Do we want to get into what I think, or do we want to leave it up to the viewers? I mean, I think that just all the information presented really paints the picture for itself. I mean, really, the question is, is this something that God commanded and it was so important, but somehow it was left out by Jesus and a number of other places, or was it something that Joseph Smith wanted?

John Dehlin 48:08 Yeah, yeah. And I won't. I. I'm not asking you to opine, so I'll just say it. I'll just say what, you know, for me, I've had a small taste of, like, notoriety or fame or power just because the podcast is, you know, it's been viewed by lots of people these days. And so.

John Dehlin 48:26 And so I sometimes have traveled around the country to meet people who like the podcast. I've had a small taste of, like, fame and power. And I can just say it's alluring. And as soon as you get a taste for that, you'll find that, you know, that just like with rock stars and just like with. With actors and powerful business people and rich people, it's just very natural for you to all of a sudden start to have a wandering eye and start to wonder if there are opportunities for sexual gratification. And. And I. I would say that one option is this came from God. But.

John Dehlin 49:05 But, Mike, the point you're making is, is that it starts with Joseph inquiring. Why is he inquiring? One thing might be that he was a man with. With a high libido who was. Was looking for spiritual justifications or religious justifications for physical behaviors that he wanted to be involved in.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 49:27 Yeah. I would imagine the apologetic argument would be Joseph Smith was studying the Bible, realized that that was a practice, and then was like, well, why am I not doing that? Shouldn't I be doing that if I'm restoring all things? I would, of course, say that to me, as we've done to so many episodes now, kind of outlining how Joseph Smith seems to have revelations that tend to justify the actions he's taking on other issues, that this would indicate to me that Joseph is writing this revelation almost as a way. Because, remember, this revelation is being written to Emma Smith. And so I think this is Joseph trying to say to Emma that this is God saying to him, hey, you asked me why this is.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 50:06 Okay, And I'm going to tell you. But I also think that when we get to the happiness letter, which was written before this, he makes the same kind of reference where he says, you get all the desires of your heart if you ask God for them. And in the happiness letter, you have the same thing as here, where Joseph is asking God because this is what he wants. And so I would argue this is

John Dehlin 50:23 what Joseph wants because it's the desires of his heart. Alicia, you're gonna. You were gonna add something.

Alicia Lee 50:27 Yeah, just real quick. I don't know if I'm necessarily convinced that it was all about sex. I did initially, but the more I kind of look into it, I think that power may have been a big motivating factor for Joseph Smith as well.

John Dehlin 50:39 Yeah. Yeah. 100 motivations are almost literally never just one thing. And so it's. It's a probably a combination like, of. Of trying to make sense of scripture, power and a sex drive. I mean, that's. And I'm not. That just seems. That's one theory for where this came from, if it didn't come from God. But, Mike, that's a great point that the. The Mormon apologetic attempt to portray Joseph Smith as a reluctant polygamist. I just don't think history really allows for that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 51:12 I don't either.

Joseph Redefines Adultery and Polyandrous Marriages

John Dehlin 51:13 All right, let's go to the next slide, which is Joseph redefines adultery in DNC 132.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 51:18 And so we're going to read two verses here. So in verse 41, it says, and as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 51:37 If she be not in the new and everlasting covenant, and she be with another man, she has committed adultery. And so this is an area where Joseph Smith now is making himself the sole arbiter of what is adultery. And. And this teaching is going to be what ultimately leads to the ideas of spiritual wifery. And this is going to put a lot of pressure on women to listen to Joseph Smith's proposals, because he can and will, as we'll outline in these future episodes, he's going to tell them that being with other men would be sin, but being with Joseph Smith is not. And so we will talk about that in the happiness letter because he will absolutely say directly, basically, if you just accept this commandment from God to be with me, you're going to.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 52:17 Not only will you enjoy it. Those are the words in the letter. Not only will you enjoy it, but it'll be right. But if you don't do it, you will be committing sin if you do it with someone else. And so this allows Joseph Smith to wield the redefinition of adultery unto the followers by saying basically that if you do it in this law, you're safe. If you do it outside this law, you're not. And as I mentioned, we'll talk about this a lot more as we go, too. But this is what is going to lead to Joseph Smith's brother, an apostle in the church, and John C.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 52:46 Bennett and other men using these exact teachings to get women to have sexual relationships with him. Because they're going to say, if you do it in the system, you're okay. As long as you don't do it outside of it, you know, we're good. And this is written into the doctrine.

Alicia Lee 53:01 Hey, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 53:02 Yes.

Alicia Lee 53:02 In the previous slide. Can we go back to that? Joseph concedes that it was Joseph himself that wanted polygamy. Because there was something that I wanted to point out there. And again, this is just something that we probably read, like, you know, dozens of times, but can we just pause here for a minute? That the word concubine exists in our canonized scripture.

John Dehlin 53:28 Yeah. Tell us why. Tell us what. Tell us about that word and what that means to you.

Alicia Lee 53:32 Well, I just. I mean, if I were giving a talk, I might say, let's turn to the Webster Dictionary definition of concubine. I mean, think about what that means. The definition of the word concubine is literally mistress. Someone who lives in the home as a mistress. Okay, so going back to. Is this something that God said, or was this Joseph Smith's agenda? Really? Let's just pause on this. This is part of our Mormon scripture. We're not just referencing that a prophet had a concubine. It was part of the cultural practices of the day. We are saying that God commands him to have wives and concubines.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:14 Yeah.

Alicia Lee 54:15 I mean, that's distressing to me, to say the least.

John Dehlin 54:19 Yeah. Like, I've. I've heard the word concubine defined as sexual slave. And you just have to ask, why would God, if you. Whatever. You know, again, this question of, is this Heavenly Father or Joseph Smith. Why would God ever, you know, if God views women as equal to men, if God loves women as much as men, if God cherishes women above all else and holds them on a pedestal, why would he even abide the word concubine in the scriptural canon ever?

Alicia Lee 54:51 Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin 54:52 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:53 I mean, just imagine going into your bishop's interview and you mentioned that you're having an affair with someone, and the bishop's like, well, you know, we're gonna have to have a disciplinary council. And he's like, no, no, no. Not only is it okay, but God justifies it.

John Dehlin 55:06 I mean, she's my concubine, Bishop. She's my concubine.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:09 It's just. It's one of those things where it, like I said earlier, it leads good people to do bad things when you have the voice of God flipping morality upside down. And this is one of those instances where Joseph Smith, in my opinion, is using this revelation to try to justify things that were called abominable in the Book of Mormon, because he needs to flip that upside down in order to justify what's happening in 1843. And we talked about this with the priesthood, restoration, with race in the priesthood, all these different topics where prophets of this church are willing to flip things upside down when needed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:41 And Joseph Smith was really good at it. And we're going to talk about that a lot more as we go through the rest of these episodes. But to Alicia's point, putting the word concubine in there is not by mistake. He needs that in there because he needs to justify those actions in order to justify the current ones that he's doing so that Emma Smith will effectively accept it once and for all. And.

John Dehlin 56:02 And that's because in the Old Testament, wives and concubines are like, they're lumped together. So if Joseph's gonna. If Joseph's gonna claim this is Old Testament based and he's gonna want plural wives, then he's gotta also justify concubines.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:17 I think so, yeah.

Alicia Lee 56:19 My takeaway is that this was to resolve Fanny Alger. That was my takeaway.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:26 Meaning what?

John Dehlin 56:26 What do you. What do you mean? What do you mean?

Alicia Lee 56:29 Well, it needs to be retroactive. Going back to Annie Alger living in the home. I mean, there's no really other way to describe her other than a concubine. So my takeaway is that this revelation and the reference to not only plural wives, but concubines is to resolve Fanny Alger. I guess there was a marriage there, but anyway, that's my takeaway. I don't know if that's correct or not.

John Dehlin 56:56 That's good.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:56 Yeah.

John Dehlin 56:57 Okay, so we're.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:58 The.

John Dehlin 56:59 The next slide is, you know, Polyandrous marriages violate DNC132.41. But I think we should begin by just explaining what polyandry is and what a polyandrous marriage is, because I know that, you know, when I first went through my faith crisis, let's just say 2000, 2001, my friend Paul at Microsoft, he's like, john, it's not the polygamy that's a problem. It's the polyandry. And I'm like, oh, no, no, you're saying it wrong. It's polygamy. He's like, oh, no, no, no. You just don't know what's going on. So, Alicia, do you want to define your understanding of what polyandry means?

Alicia Lee 57:32 My understanding is when it's two men that are married to the same woman.

John Dehlin 57:36 Yeah, yeah. A woman. A woman married to multiple men is another way to think about it. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 57:43 Yeah. Yep.

John Dehlin 57:43 And that's polyandry. Poly means multiple, and Andre means men. So basically, multiple men for a woman. So that's polyandry. And most Mormons have never heard of that word before to this date in 2022. And they certainly don't know what it means if they haven't heard the word. But it turns out that Joseph Smith practiced polyandry. So, Mike, now, having given that background, let's talk about this slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 58:10 Yeah. And so we did talk about this in the last episode. Just really quickly, Joseph Smith, I think eight of his first 11 marriages were polyandrous, where he was marrying women who were already married to other men. Some were in the church, some of the men were in the church, some were not. And so this is being dictated, obviously, years later. And so this verse is really important because it says, and as ye have asked concerning adultery, verily, verily I say unto you, if a man receiveth a wife in the new and everlasting covenant, and if she be with another man, and I have not appointed unto her by the holy anointing, she hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 58:44 And we just read that verse. But now think about this, because what he's saying is, if a man receiveth a wife in this new system of plural marriage, which Joseph Smith's doing in these polyandrous marriages. But the thing is, and this is one of the interesting parts, because the Gospel topics essay is very quick to point out that these women continue to live with their legal husbands and have marital relations with them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 59:06 And they're doing that to make Joseph Smith's image clean. But the problem is Joseph Smith here is effectively leading them directly into adultery because he's literally saying, if she be with another man, I have not appointed her under this new law. She's committing adultery. So Joseph Smith is marrying these women, and even if he doesn't have relations with them, we don't really know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 59:26 But the church wants to tell you, oh no, they continue to live with their first husband and have normal marital relations with them. Well, the moment she has sex with her legal husband under the legal, under the law, she's now in violation of DNC132. And it's really interesting because this is one of those things where Joseph Smith is going to be let off the hook because he's marrying her and he can't commit sin in that regard. But as soon as she goes back to her original husband, she does. And so I feel like this is one of those things that lets Joseph off the hook while creating a huge theological problem for the practice of polyandrous marriages, which Joseph had been doing for years leading up to this revelation.

John Dehlin 1:00:06 Yeah, and people, people won't know. Mormons won't know that Joseph, you know, there's at least one instance of him literally going to a married man, sending that married man on a mission. We talked about this in a previous episode. Sending the married man on a mission and then recruiting his wife, who stays behind, to be Joseph's polygamous wife. That's the type of thing Joseph would do. Some say he entered into polyandrous marriages so that he could. If, if a, if a pregnancy happened, well, then the, the birth, the childbirth would just, it would be assumed that the child was the husband's. The legal husbands, not Joseph's.

John Dehlin 1:00:43 But the other point that I want to make is, and Mike, I'm sure you mentioned this in a later slide, but I think it, it bears mentioning here that DNC 132 also says that a new polygamous spouse number one needs to be approved by the first spouse, which is the law of Sarah. And then secondly, it needs that she needs to be a virgin. And that's. Is that, is that in a subsequent slide, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:01:09 Yeah, we'll be covering.

John Dehlin 1:01:09 Okay. And so again, poly, polyandrust marriages fail for all those reasons that the women can't be virgins if they're married. And the law of Sarah wasn't invoked. So the first wife, you know, at least in Emma's case was it wasn't able to approve it. Alicia, anything else you want to say about polyandry?

Alicia Lee 1:01:30 Well, what I want to say. Consequence is being presented, but it talks about the consequence of destruction. Like, listen to this. She hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed. Like, take that in. It's not just these are the conditions, but this is the consequence if you don't keep these conditions. Emma, she hath committed adultery. I mean, it's so bad that it's almost laughable. Like, can you imagine in, like, a CTR 8 class, the kids are passing around the scriptures and little Tommy gets to. She hath committed adultery and shall be destroyed. I mean, take that in, like, literally bad. It is literally so bad.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:02:18 And imagine. Imagine you're a polyandrus wife of Joseph Smith, and you read DNC132, like, say, 20 or 30 years later, and all of a sudden you get to this part and you look at it and you're like, what the frick? Like, I now am condemned to be destroyed because I married Joseph Smith and I went back and had relations with my first husband. You'd be like, what. What is. What is this crap? And this is what happens when you're. When you're dictating a text on the fly. Because I don't think Joseph Smith at this point is as concerned with that as he would have been maybe a few years earlier.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:02:47 And so to your point, you are condemning these women to be destroyed that you brought in these marriages. And that verse gives Joseph Smith the carve out, so he's in no trouble. And it's just, we're gonna. This is gonna be a theme throughout these verses, which is that all of these threats go to the women. And no matter what Joseph Smith does, God is like, you're cool. He literally is going to write him a blank check and say, you, whatever you do, I am going to justify. But these women you're marrying, they're the ones that need to watch. Watch what they're doing. And this is just horrible because he's going to marry, like, a dozen polyandrous wives that he's now condemning to be destroyed for doing that. Yeah, it's horrible.

Alicia Lee 1:03:23 Yeah. I really feel like that's where the emphasis needs to be. If you are a woman in the church, you need to read DNC132. And, yeah, conceptualize this. Is this really God saying that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:03:37 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:03:37 Do either of you remember how many times destroyed is mentioned in the Indian C132? Like, it's multiple times, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:03:43 It's multiple times. We got, we got a few to go as we go through. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:03:46 Is it ever mentioned in the context of a man being destroyed, or is it always mentioned in the context of a woman being destroyed?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:03:53 I think it's always a woman because I think there are parts where a man could commit adultery, but, like, I don't think there's ever a threat of destruction attached to that.

John Dehlin 1:03:59 Yeah. And then, and then you just think about it back to Alicia's original question, which is, is this Jesus? Because the God of the God of the DNC is Jesus. It's Jehovah according to Mormonism. So what do we know about Jesus? He, you know, an adulterous quote, adulteress is thrown in front of him. Everybody around is like, you know, waiting to see what Jesus is going to say. Jesus doesn't say, for behold, now you shall be destroyed. He says to her, go thy way and sin no more. And in some sense, he was almost more. It seems like he was more upset with the men that were judging her than he was the woman.

John Dehlin 1:04:38 So is Jesus the Jesus, you know, from the New Testament, a guy that's going to basically say, if you're, you know, if, if you are brought into a, you know, polyandrous marriage and then you have sex with your actual legal husband, I'm going to destroy you. Is that, is that the Jesus you know? And if it's not, then where, then what is the scripture? Is this, can this be scripture for you? I guess that's the question that the scripture asks. Okay, I think maybe, maybe we've, we've made the point. Let's, let's go to the next slide, which is wives of un, unfaithful men will be given to another. Yes.

Women Treated as Property in D&C 132

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:05:19 Yeah. And this one is one that hits me a little bit because I'm in a mixed faith marriage. And I think this is one that every member of the Church needs to understand, because this verse is going to make this pretty clear. But in verse 39, it says, David's wives and concubines were given unto him of me by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power. And in none of these things did he sin against me, save in the case of Uriah and his wife. And therefore he hath fallen from his exaltation and received his portion.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:05:46 And he shall not inherit them out of this world, for I gave them unto another, saith the Lord. And so the doctrine of the Church is that if the man is not faithful to the Church. This is not just in the case of marriage that the wife will simply be given to another for eternity. And this has massive implications for those of you in mixed faith marriages and also has massive implications for you where you're both in the same marriage, because it tells you directly that if the male spouse were to fall away, the woman is simply going to be handed off to another man for eternity to have eternal progression for eternal sexual relations.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:06:22 And this is something that women will often say, oh, I don't know that that's the doctrine of the church. It's right there in verse 39.

John Dehlin 1:06:30 Elise, anything you want to add to that one?

Alicia Lee 1:06:33 This one makes me a little more emotional than I expected to be. Just because someone who was very orthodox, I mean, I really took this stuff seriously. And I don't think my husband would mind me mentioning that I took things like temple trips more seriously than he did.

Alicia Lee 1:06:53 You know, PPIs, family, home, things like that. And I don't know if men in the church really understand this pressure that we as women feel. First of all, when I got sealed, I gave myself to my husband as he gave himself to God. And I know that's changed. But when I got married in 1997, that was the case. And that essentially makes my husband the gatekeeper for me. And I have this promise, what a beautiful promise this is, that if he does not fulfill his obligations but I fulfill mine, that no problem, I will be handed off to another family in the next life. And I'm not even clear on the doctrine.

Alicia Lee 1:07:33 Does this mean that I'm going to be handed off to another family, or does this make me a ministering angel? I'm not exactly sure on that doctrine, but I know that I for sure am going to be fine, but I may not have my husband with me. This is an incredible wedge in so many people's marriages because as a woman, you just know everything is hinging on your husband. You know, this eternal promise of being together as an eternal family is hinging on him also making it. And anyway, I just think that this is a wedge in so many marriages. And as Mike mentioned, for a mixed faith marriage, imagine the pressure that exists there.

Alicia Lee 1:08:15 And I think I just had this concept that sort of magically I was just going to want to be with another family. I mean, that I would just want to be a plural wife in another family if my husband didn't do his job and didn't pull his weight to make it. It's just so. It's troubling, to say the least.

John Dehlin 1:08:34 Yeah. All I'll add a few, a few quick things from my perspective on this because it's also very personal to me. One is just a doctrinal point, but also kind of a women's worth and value point all throughout the DNC 132. One of the things that's most disturbing to me is the way women are referenced as objects, almost as if they're cattle to be assigned because, you know, Jesus or Jehovah's speaking and he's constantly saying, if women don't do this, I will give them to another. If you break this rule, then I'll give these women to another. And it's just like what are, you know, it's objects.

John Dehlin 1:09:17 It's like a car you might give to somebody, you might give someone a pen. You don't give a woman to anyone. Right? So like, so just the discussion of women as if they're cattle or chattel or objects all throughout DNC 132 is deeply problematic language for me. Secondly, that is literally what leads to, you know, Warren Jeffs like behavior. If you watched my episode with Elisa Wall, if you've studied the flds, church and polygamy, you've got prophets like Warren Jeffs literally taking wives and children away from men who don't obey the prophet and reassigning the wives and, and, and children to other men if you don't give the prophet enough money or if you tell the prophet you don't, don't like something he's doing.

John Dehlin 1:10:08 And all I'm going to say is that behavior starts with Joseph Smith in DNC132 and you really can't get away with it. And it's deeply problematic. The third point I'm just going to make is that this, this idea of people being reassigned is, is very personal to me. My sister Gina, she's my oldest sister.

John Dehlin 1:10:30 She, you know, wasn't. She was, you know, she wasn't able to find a man to marry in Houston in the 1970s and early 80s. And so she ended up falling in love with a non Mormon who is from Canada. Great guy. And she ended up marrying him and she ended up moving off to Canada with him. And she wasn't active at the time. So she marries this, this non Mormon guy. They go off and start this life together in Canada. And then as soon as they start having kids, you know, all of a sudden Gina's like, oh my gosh, how do I make sure my kids are moral?

John Dehlin 1:11:07 And all of a sudden she gets her testimony back in Mormonism and decides she really wants to raise her kids Mormon even though her husband isn't a member of. And I remember very distinctly as Gina was 20 or 25 years into her marriage, talking to her where she basically said, you know, life's okay, but the truth is I'm stuck with a husband that isn't going to take me to the celestial kingdom. And I know that in the afterlife I'm going to be reassigned to another man. And so, you know, that just makes it so to some extent, I'm kind of just ticking the time away in this life, you know, because I don't believe in divorce.

John Dehlin 1:11:50 So I'm going to be taking the time away in this life until I die and can actually marry my eternal companion. And you know, that, that led to some really unfortunate sad behavior where she didn't really go to doctors and she started to develop cramps and stomach pains and she just ignored it.

Alicia Lee 1:12:08 It.

John Dehlin 1:12:08 And a couple years later, and by the way, she was living in, in, you know, Cary, Illinois, you know, in the northwest suburbs, right there in Chicago, Mike. And Gina starts to pass out and she goes to a doctor in October, let's just say six years ago, she finds out that she has terminal colon cancer.

John Dehlin 1:12:31 And within two months she's dead. And I remember talking to her in November of that year saying, man, Gene, are you sad that you're dying? Are you sad that, you know, you're, you're not going to know your grandkids? And she basically says, no, I'm very much at peace. I've paid my, I've paid up on all my tithing. I've got a current temple recommend and I'm ready to go. And it was this teaching that, you know, non, you know, obedient men who are not actively tithe paying, obedient Mormon men are not going to be able to take their faithful wives to the celestial kingdom. It's a pernicious doctrine that is, that, that has real consequences.

John Dehlin 1:13:16 And it, it was something that led to a really tragic end for my own, my own sister Gina. And I just, I just wanted to kind of say, me too, Alicia. This doctrine is really fraught and is really problematic.

John Dehlin 1:13:29 And, and my, my, my brother in law, John Faust did not deserve to be treated that way in his life. You know, and my sister Gina deserved to love every minute of her life. She didn't deserve to pine for her death where then she could actually marry the man of her dreams.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:13:48 Yeah. And, and you know, speaking as someone who's in a mixed faith marriage Now, I think the, the, the words here are damning not just for the fact that, and again, I'm speaking as a guy, which I know carries a lot of privilege, given that we're talking about polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:14:05 So for me, not believing, I'm still a member of the church, but I'm not believing. And so under the rules of DNC132, my wife will be given to another guy. But not only will my wife be given to another guy, all of the kids of these marriages are given to this other guy too. So DNC132 is basically saying to the women, you and whoever you're sealed to are just going to be handed off to some other dude. You don't know who they're going to be. You're going to be given to another.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:14:28 And I know a lot of people say, well, we have choices, we'll have choices. But the reality is, as we're going to see later on in this episode, your choice is to accept or to be destroyed. So if you're given to another guy with your kids for the eternities to populate planets with and you say no, when you reject that, you're not going to be there, you're going to be destroyed. And so it punishes the guys by taking away your family for eternity and just giving it to some other dude that's going to have sex with your wife. And I realize, I feel like when I say that I'm treating my wife as property and I'm not trying to, I'm just saying, like, if you think about that, like Alicia said earlier, if you taught in a, in a Sunday school class, to some teenagers, hey, eternal marriage and Mormonism is the most amazing thing because if your husband falls away, you're going to be handed off to another guy you don't know for eternity to have sex with all the girls in the class would be like, what the frick are you talking about?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:15:19 But it's right there. And so this is one of those things that, to me, as being in that mixed faith, marriage is really painful. And as Alicia said earlier, it almost becomes silly when you think about the absurdity of God telling Joseph Smith to tell these women, and in this case Emma, that if the husband falls away, don't worry about it, you'll just be given to another guy because you are just a pawn in the eternal plan to populate these planets. And yeah, yeah, I don't want to beat a dead horse here. It's just, it's not just the wife that gets given to another. It's all of their kids as well.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:15:51 And it has a lot of, as you said, John, real, real day implications for people who understand what is being said by, by God through Joseph Smith in this revelation.

John Dehlin 1:16:01 Yeah. Amen. All right, so the next slide is Joseph Fielding Smith, who was one of the presidents of the church. He expands on DNC132. So this is a prophet, seer, and revelator we're talking about about here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:16:14 Yeah, and this is just piggybacking off the last slide because one of the things, I've heard this from many members now, because I've talked about this a lot, like on Twitter and stuff over the years. And when you talk about how women will be given to another, they'll say, they'll point to this Joseph Fielding Smith quote and say he was just speaking as a man. And I used to think that was right because I didn't realize it was in DNC132. But Joseph Fielding Smith says in his, I think it's a book Answers to Gospel Questions, he says, excuse me, when the wife is faithful and desires to obey the divine law and the husband is rebellious or unwilling to obey the will of the Lord, if she maintains her integrity to the best of her ability, she will be given to another husband in eternity and will receive all the blessings of the celestial kingdom.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:16:55 So what he's Saying is what DNC132 says, which is if you're a woman who is faithful to the church, when they say faithful to the will of the Lord, they mean to the will of the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If she is faithful to what the leaders tell her through the church, her reward is that she'll be given to another guy as an eternal husband. And so it just confirms what Joseph Smith says through God in DNC132. And it also makes clear that it's not just, like I mentioned, it's not just talking about if you're unfaithful, you have an affair. It's if you're unfaithful to the commandments that you're given through the church.

John Dehlin 1:17:35 And if God respected women at a minimum, I mean, there's the numeric problem of one man, multiple women. You know, my friend Kim Turner used to say it's like pennies to a dime, right? It's, you're, you're, you're just numerically a fraction of the value if, if one man gets multiple women. But, but if God was really a respecter of Women. He would say, if your husband is unfaithful, you will get to choose the man of your dreams to be married to in the afterlife. But again, it's just this given language that's problematic.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:18:07 Yeah, it's just. It said, like, there'd be a singles ward in the celestial kingdom where you could meet someone new. It would be a lot better than to keep saying given to another. It's just the language. It's the. Yeah, it's the threats to women, where the men are left off the hook, all that stuff.

John Dehlin 1:18:21 Any final word on this, Alicia? Are we ready for the next slide?

Alicia Lee 1:18:23 Yeah, just real quick. I feel disposable. When I read these verses about just the way that God is speaking about his, you know, about Emma and about the women of the church, it makes me feel like God thinks that I am pretty disposable. And for me, personally, it makes me rethink the General Conference structure of having a few of these women sprinkled in here and there, of going into the bishop's hallway and seeing the framed photographs of all of the men in the general presidency and no women. And so, to me, I see this common thread that comes directly from this source of doctrine that's still threaded through the culture of the church today.

John Dehlin 1:19:14 Yeah. I'm so sorry, Alicia. That's. That's sad.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:19 It's true, you know, I mean, like, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but it's like, one of the things about the way that plural marriage or polygamy was set up is that a lot of these men are married to a lot of women. And so if you are one of the women and you leave the man, who does that impact more? Does it impact the woman who has to completely change her life and find a new husband? Or does it impact the man who then has, instead of 18, 17 wives? So there were 10. 10 women divorced Brigham Young, but he married 56 women.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:46 So when a woman left, you think he's like, oh, my goodness, how am I gonna fix my life? He's like, no, I've got 55 more to go. I do think that it makes this system makes women more disposable because of the fact that you are now just one of many. It's not like you are the one, the soulmate. It's like, no, no, you're just one. And as we've talked about in kind of how DNC132 is set up, your purpose is to, you know, raise up seed. And so that's really your only purpose. But if you leave, you've just got other women to do it with.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:20:14 Whereas as a woman, you then have to pick up your life and put it back together. And so it does make you disposable, especially when the men are constantly given a. Free passes. We'll get to. In these, these later verses.

Joseph Smith Granted Unchecked Authority Over Women

John Dehlin 1:20:25 All right, well, let's. The next slide. Maybe we've covered it. So. But let's just. Joseph can use discernment to give women to other men. Let's at least read it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:20:35 We haven't covered it, but we don't need to go into big detail. So verse 44 says, and if she hath not committed adultery, but is innocent, and hath not broken her vow, and she knoweth it, and I reveal it unto you, my servant Joseph, then you shall have power by the power of my holy priesthood to take her and give her unto him that hath not committed adultery, but hath been fulfilled or been faithful, for he shall be made ruler over many. And so this is doing a couple of things.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:02 It's saying that Joseph Smith has the ultimate power to claim via disservant that he believes a husband is not being faithful and in turn can then give her unto another man. And it also, you know, as we've talked about in previous episodes, creates this power of discernment that we've shown fails over and over again with top leaders of the church. And then the last point I'll make is, so the God is telling Joseph that he can give her unto him that has not committed adultery but has been faithful, for he shall be made ruler over many. And so it almost implies that the man is to be made ruler over many women.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:36 And so that's why you can give a woman unto a man who has been faithful. And it's just more of that language that just shows that women really are just the props in the, in the game that the men are playing.

Alicia Lee 1:21:49 Alicia, I agree.

John Dehlin 1:21:51 Yeah, yeah. And again, I already referenced this, but this plays out in really ugly ways with Warren Jeffs and with other fundamentalist Mormon prophets. And it's all, it's, you know, if you, if you attack Warren Jeffs, you have to be consistent and say Warren Jeffs got it not just from Joseph Smith, but from Mormon scripture in DNC 132 that remains canonized. You can't just, you can't just stop with Warren Jeffs. You got to take it all the way up the tree in. In my opinion. Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:21 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:22:22 Yeah. So, all right, the next slide is God endorses Literally anything Joseph Smith decides to do. Way too much power.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:31 Yeah. And so these two verses are going to basically allow Joseph to do whatever he wants. And so it says, and again, verily I say, whomsoever you bless, I will bless, and whomsoever you curse, I will curse, saith the Lord, for I, the Lord am thy God. And again, verily I say unto you, my servant Joseph, that whatsoever you give on earth and to whomsoever you give anyone on earth, by my word and according to my law, it shall be visited with blessings and not cursing and with my power, saith the Lord, and shall be without condemnation on earth and in heaven. And these like, these verses to me are really bizarre because it's effectively telling Joseph Smith, if you curse someone and you threaten someone to damnation, that God's going to fulfill that promise, which is very self serving when you are telling these young women that they will be blessed by God if they submit to your proposals or they'll be destroyed if they don't.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:23:20 And this is going to be a central theme we're going to see in our next episodes where Joseph Smith is going to tell these young girls who are vulnerable, who revere him as a prophet that it cannot be a sin to marry and have sex with him because God commanded it. And on the flip side, if you don't do it, you're gonna, you're gonna then get the condemnation. And this is just basically God telling Joseph, basically, whoever you curse, I'm gonna curse for you. And whatever you do, I'm gonna bless. And I. This just seems very bizarre to me.

John Dehlin 1:23:47 Yeah, it's just way, it's, it's way too much power for one man to have.

Alicia Lee 1:23:52 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:23:53 And the fact that God would tell Joseph to tell the world that Joseph has all this power, you know, if, if God, God should tell some, a bunch of other people that Joseph should have this power. But if it's coming through Joseph, that immediately calls into question the conflict of interest in Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:24:13 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:24:14 Revealing this revelation where he just coincidentally happens to, to gain all power from God to do whatever he wants. Basically it's saying whatever Joseph does is approved by God. And that's just, that's way too much power at that point. He's making himself God in a sense. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:24:31 And when, when God is the one saying that God is telling him whatever he does is good, there's a problem. And it kind of goes, we'll, we'll talk about the angel with the drawn sword in the future episodes. But it's like, why doesn't the angel go to the women first and say, hey, we need you to fulfill this commandment or else we're going to destroy you or Joseph or whatever. But it's always through Joseph. Everything is through Joseph, just as today everything is through Russell Nelson. You know, when people joke that it's a pyramid shape, that's the organizational structure. When one person is the sole arbiter of what God wants and what God doesn't want, it creates a lot of potential problems. And we're seeing it play out here in this revelation.

John Dehlin 1:25:11 Alicia.

Alicia Lee 1:25:12 I think we also see it played out with Warren Jeffs. I mean, I know people don't like to look at that, but if you look at, I even have here somewhere their book of scripture, the FLDS book of Scripture. And I think it goes through, like, Rulon and definitely Warren, some of the stuff that he's written from jail. And it reads so similarly to dnc. And if you look at the way that, like, the Lost Boys are handled and the way that their marriage arrangements are handled, everything goes through the prophet. And it's just so similar to the way that Joseph Smith conducted the church in these early days. And again, I mean, I guess we could say, you know, revelation is ongoing and things can change, but this is in our scriptures.

John Dehlin 1:25:56 So, yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of irresponsible and questionable. I'm just, I'm just riffing here. But, but if, if God wants, if God can't just talk to us all directly, right? Why can't God talk to us all directly? Oh, I don't know, because we need faith or something. And so he's going to call prophets, and then the prophets tell us what God wants, and it's like, okay, that's a bit of stretch. But then if, if it's, if we're going to take it one step further and say that anything the prophet Joseph says is of God, then why isn't it just God telling us to begin with?

John Dehlin 1:26:32 Like, and then if, if Joseph can't make any mistakes, then again, that's just way too much power. And it's almost irresponsible of God to do that. And again, I love your point, Mike, that if God really loved women, if God really respected women, he would have given this revelation to all the women, and they would have all come forward and said, hey, all the women in the Mormon Church, we all received a witness from God that, like, Joseph has this power, and we all received it. So now we know, but God didn't do that. Joseph Saying God gave him all that power. It's just way, way too much power. Way too much power to give one human. All right, the next slide. Oh, go ahead, Alicia.

Alicia Lee 1:27:14 I was gonna say, it's just very clear that women here in this narrative, women are an accessory. So who are we an accessory to? That's what I wanna know. Am I an accessory to God? That's what I wanna know. And that's what occurs to me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:27 Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately you are, but. Yeah. And that's why, you know, when. When you. Whenever you hear. Whenever you hear a leader of the church, that you have to trust in the Lord, what they're really saying is you have to trust in the leaders of the church. And that's why. Why, if you apply that rule of thumb when you look at past leaders of the church, when you look at the statements that are now disavowed, it makes a lot more sense, because you're saying you have to trust in Brigham Young, that members of black skin can have the priesthood, because if you trusted in the Lord back then, your sense of discernment would have failed you because you would have believed it because the prophet was telling you.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:28:00 And now, 140 years later, you'd be like, well, either God was wrong or Brigham Young was wrong. And that's why so often when you hear that phrase, you have to trust in the Lord, it really is a code for saying you have to trust in the leaders of the church. And as I've said earlier, like John just said, when you give the leaders of the church that much authority and power to flip your moral compass upside down, it leads really good people to do really bad things.

Alicia Lee 1:28:24 Yeah, absolutely.

Emma Smith Threatened, Coerced, and Commanded

John Dehlin 1:28:26 All right, well, the next slide is God rescinds whatever offer Joseph made to Emma.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:28:34 And this is an interesting verse because it kind of doesn't make sense unless you realize this. This revelation is being given to try to calm Emma down. But it says, verily I say unto you a Cam commandment I gave give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your first. I put first in parentheses your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her. For I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, and by covenant and sacrifice. And so we don't quite know with certainty what this is referring to, because some people believe that Emma Smith was going to try to take a second husband for her own, which a lot of people think might be William Law, because William Clayton had written in his journal that Emma said that she had thought that she thought that if he would indulge himself, she would too.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:29:25 Other people say that she was threatening to get a divorce from him and that they were trying to find a way to make that work. We don't quite know what that is because obviously we don't have enough sources.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:29:35 But clearly Joseph Smith offered something to Emma. We just don't know what exactly it was. And the one thing I just want to point out is it's really interesting to me that God turns this offer and rescinding the offer to an Abrahamic test for Emma, but for Joseph, he gets to continually marry and have sex with other women. So if this is truly about Abrahamic tests, God would go to Joseph and say, joseph, I need you to marry Fanny Alger and have sex with her fully, to fully implement this law. And then Joseph would go to Mary, Fanny, and maybe they'd head to the bedroom.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:30:08 And God be like, dude, just kidding. Abrahamic test, I want to make sure you're loyal. But it's interesting that that is allowed to go through fully over and over and over again with dozens of women. And yet with Emma Smith, when there's something being offered to her that she wants, that Joseph doesn't want her to have, it turns into an Abrahamic test that's pulled back. It's really convenient to Joseph Smith once again in this revelation that he's getting what he wants. She can't have what she wants.

Alicia Lee 1:30:30 It's a great point.

John Dehlin 1:30:32 A reference, a good reference that I have to this question about Emma and William Law is an episode I did with Grant Palmer. The late Grant Palmer, before he passed away. There's a Mormon Stories episode where Grant Palmer talks about sexual allegations against Joseph Smith, and he provides his support for the idea that. That at some point, Emma said to Joseph, look, man, you're getting all these women. I want multiple men. And then Joseph said, all right, well, I'll. I'll give you William Law, who's at the time in the first presidency of the church. I guess you get the sense that William Law and his wife weren't totally down for that.

John Dehlin 1:31:11 But. But Joseph, you know, it appears as though maybe according to Grant Palmer, Joseph offered William Lotto Emma as a consolation prize. And. And that's. So check out the Grant Palmer episode if you want to hear Grant Palmer's argument for that. Anything you want to add to that, Alicia?

Alicia Lee 1:31:28 No, that's great. I love Palmer.

John Dehlin 1:31:30 Yeah, he's Great. Okay, the next slide is God commands Emma to accept the women given to Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:40 Yeah. And so this is more. Not seeing the slide right now.

John Dehlin 1:31:45 Here you go.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:46 Oh, there we go. This is more of. You know, I keep trying to put the word given to in quotes because it's in there, but just to. Just to really hammer home the fact that this phrase is used so often in this revelation. So it says, and let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph and who are virtuous and pure before me. And those who are not pure and have said they were pure shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God. For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice. And I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things, for he hath been faithful over a few things.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:18 And from henceforth I will strengthen him. And so this puts women into this position of being properties we've talked about over and over, or eternal jewels for the men, as God makes clear that the women are given unto my servant Joseph and that he shall be ruler over many things. And this is another area where God is going to set Joseph Smith apart from everyone else in the church. And we saw this with the priesthood restoration, where Joseph continually had to set himself up further and further as he was being questioned. In this case, he's being questioned from Emma, and he has to do the same thing, which is to put himself above Emma Smith in order to force her to accept that he has the ultimate authority here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:55 And, you know, one of the things that this makes me think of is just think of a man today telling his wife that she must accept his extramarital relationships because the women that he's cheating on her with are. Are really pure and virtuous. Do you think the woman's gonna be like, oh, my goodness, I feel so much better now that you're having sex with other women that are pure. I. I just don't understand why, for Emma, this would be calming. This would be like the most, you know, the idea that she should feel better and accept these women because God, through Joseph, says they're pure.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:33:21 It's just. It doesn't work. You know, I. I just. This is what, another area where it feels like Joseph is trying to justify his actions to Emma in a way that he thinks will make it more enticing. But in reality, I don't understand. I don't think there's any woman who would be okay with her husband having all of these relationships, because the women that he's cheating on her with or having extramarital relationships with are pure. And if they do something outside of that marriage, that. Or outside that relationship that's not pure, they'll be destroyed. I don't think any woman's gonna be like, oh, my goodness, I feel so much better now. I just.

John Dehlin 1:33:52 Alicia, you can speak as one woman.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:33:54 Yeah.

Alicia Lee 1:33:55 I have a lot to say about this one. I'll try to be concise. So this is the first time that really I took in that this is God threatening Emma into submission. Okay. And I want to think back to this, as this is a theme that continues to this day, I would argue is still threaded throughout our culture. And what's really interesting about this, to me, is that the way that I've seen it, at least in the last 10 years, that this has been sort of passed off to the general women of the church, the general leader, women, female leaders of the church.

Alicia Lee 1:34:34 We've seen it a few times. One is specifically, and I'm just going to call it out, there is a talk called and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. It's a talk by Julie Beck. It was my favorite talk. I literally have portions of this talk that are memorized. Because what this talk is about is if the women of the church want the best blessing that can possibly be poured out unto you, which is the gift of the Spirit, that it is your obligation to be obedient, to obey your temple covenants, to not be selfish, not take too much time for yourself.

Alicia Lee 1:35:13 It has a verbiage where it talks about not seeking appreciation, not seeking praise. And if you do these things, that you will have the best gift, which is the gift of the Spirit. And that, to me, is just completely another reference to this, to this message of submission.

Alicia Lee 1:35:34 There was another, I think they call it a sister to sister event where general women's leaders answered questions from the audience. And one of the sisters had asked, how do I handle this priesthood holder who's really dismissive during my meetings?

Alicia Lee 1:35:48 And the response was that your obligation as a woman is to be long suffering, to be patient, to be loving, to not be critical. We do not criticize. I think that was an actual quote from the meeting. And so when I look back at these original verses of 132, I think that it is arguable that this message of submission, God, you know, pushing women into submission is still threaded throughout our culture today. We are admonished to be submissive, to be loving, to take the Lord's counsel. To be obedient. It's still. It's still there. That's what I would argue.

John Dehlin 1:36:32 Yeah, absolutely.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:36:34 Yeah. And that talk was from a BYU event. And yeah, she said, we do not criticize leaders ever, ever, ever. I believe was her exact quote. And yeah, you're right. And to what you said, Alicia, earlier, when you are at the mercy of your husband to get to the celestial kingdom, like you said earlier when you knew that your salvation, exaltation hinged on your husband's, it does force you to be more submissive because you don't want to do something that would make your husband leave you and find another. And this revelation is very clear that it's very easy for men to find another because they'll be given to them, whereas a woman will be destroyed if she doesn't go along.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:11 And to say that there is not at least some impact of that on the modern day church, I think would really miss the experiences, at least that I've heard from a lot of people. And Alicia, you've said it yourself that you do feel like you need to be more perfect because the men have more of a free pass than the women do. And so you have to effectively do a better job at kind of crossing all those T's than. Than the men do. And that is riddled in this, this revelation.

John Dehlin 1:37:41 Yeah. All right, well, we've got a lot of. We've got a lot of slides to go, so I don't want. I don't want to rush, but we've got a lot, a lot of goes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:48 Yeah, we do. And so this one is the one that most people will know about. And this is where Emma is basically threatened with destruction if she does not come along with this. And so he says, and I command my handmaiden, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment, she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord. For I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law. But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he has said, and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him a hundredfold in this world of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands and lands, wives and children and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:38:28 And so God has made it clear here that whatever offer Emma was given has been rescinded, non negotiable, and she will be destroyed if she were to leave Joseph Smith or partake in the same practice of Joseph Smith of having an extramarital relation. And meanwhile, Joseph Smith is being told he will be blessed with abiding and cleaving unto many other women, while Emma will be destroyed if she were to abide and cleave on to another. And Emma gets rewarded with having to sit and watch it all happen regardless of what she does. And then the final part is just saying again that God is saying that wives and children are basically, you know, crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds, which is a way of saying that wives are kind of like that, you know, another jewel in the eternal crown.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:08 And it's just, it keeps being laid out here. It's just really frustrating to watch. If you, like Alicia said at the beginning, I would love to see this read to a group of teenagers in Sunday school and try to explain the context of the fact that you as a woman in the church, you will be destroyed if you do not agree with polygamy.

John Dehlin 1:39:27 Yeah, yeah, I'm going to say that, that I'm going to give another scriptural evidence for why this scripture can't be doctrine. I'm going to read from Doctrine and Covenants, section 121 verse, verse 41 and 42. You know, God says, or Jesus says in D&C. 121, 41. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood only by persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love and unfeigned by kindness and pure knowledge which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile.

John Dehlin 1:40:13 You know, that's, that's basically God talking about what unrighteous dominion is. And if you go on later in DNC 121, it says anyone who, who acts in a way that's coercive. Amen to the priesthood of that man. I, I think DNC132 violates DNC121 because this is coercive language that's threatening with existence. And if you go to Luna, Lindsay Corbin's book Recovering Agency, Luna lays out the 31, 31 signs of a high demand religion or another, you know, more shocking word to use for that sometimes is cult. But, but Lindsay calls it dispensing of existence. Whenever you're threatening someone with destruction, that's the sign of a cult.

John Dehlin 1:41:05 And so I'm going to just call out DNC 13254 through 55 as violating DNC 121 as, as being unrighteous dominion and as being the sure sign of a, of a coercive, abusive organization. Alicia, anything you want to add?

Alicia Lee 1:41:23 I mean, I just think these contradictions are really interesting. And of course, we have our pool of people that always remind me on TikTok that not everyone believes that Joseph Smith wrote 132. That's the only way to explain these contradictions. But the fact is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints accepts this as Joseph Smith. It's revelation, it's canonized the scripture, as we've mentioned. So I just think it's interesting, these contradictions. That was a really good point though, John.

John Dehlin 1:41:47 It's just not the Jesus any of us really believe in. The Jesus is going to, I mean, think about how difficult polygamy is going to be to accept, right? Like it means you're sharing your husband with not just one other woman, but possibly in Brigham Young case, 50 other women. That's not a trivial. That's not a trivial decision. And there may just be some women that just aren't down for that. But, but DNC132 basically says, do it or you'll be destroyed. And that's coercive and manipulative. And that's all. That's all I have to say. To quote Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:42:23 No. And the two points I would add is one, and this is one of those areas where in the church as a convert, I was always told about how great free agency was. You have the free agency, agency to choose to drink coffee if you want to, but there are consequences. But I would argue in this case, do you really have free agency if you're a woman when your choice is accept this or be destroyed? I just don't think you could do that. And then the second point I would make is, you know, as John said, you know, we're told that the world's not ready for polygamy, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:42:49 And people aren't going to be willing to accept this. And it's always funny because you'll hear the apologetic that the church couldn't let people with black skin into the church until 1978 because the world wasn't ready for it. And yet God was willing to force this upon the church in the 1830s when clearly the world was not ready for it. It's just, it's another contradiction that just shows that God doesn't quite. The God of Mormonism is very indecisive, very always changing, and very much like just Contradictory in all of the things that are revealed once you look at them at face value.

John Dehlin 1:43:20 Yeah. All right, let's go to the next slide, which is that God grants Emma a quid pro quo to forgive Joseph Smith.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:43:28 And so kind of going on that theme of kind of coercive words, it says, and again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses. And then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me, and I, the Lord thy God will bless her and multiply her and make her heart to rejoice. And so Joseph Smith is literally having extramarital relationships behind his wife's back, whatever you want to call them, they're beyond his. His marriage with her. And then God is telling her that she has to forgive Joseph if she wants God to forgive her. This is, you know, it's a quid pro quo.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:05 It's like saying, okay, you forgive Joseph, and then I'll forgive you. And this lines up with Joseph Smith's 1831's teachings that there's no sin if there's no accuser. And so here Joseph is telling Emma through God, that if she basically stops accusing Joseph of, you know, basically adultery, then she will then be forgiven. But if she keeps accusing her, then all of the hellfire is going to be brought down on her, which is literally what he says in 1841, which we'll get to in the next slide. But it's really interesting that Joseph's own words in 1841 kind of make it into this revelation two years later.

John Dehlin 1:44:40 Yeah. Yep.

Alicia Lee 1:44:41 Mike, did you say there is no sin if there is no accuser?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:45 That's what Joseph Smith said.

John Dehlin 1:44:46 It's in the Happiness Letter episode.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:48 Yeah, well, it's in our next slide. It's actually from an 1841 sermon, and it's right as polygamy is ramping up. And so, yeah, I mean, this is how he's flipping morality upside down. And it just is interesting how this language that we'll get into the next slide is going to make. Made its way into 18 into a revelation in 1843 in the voice of God.

John Dehlin 1:45:05 Did you have an observation about that, Alicia?

Alicia Lee 1:45:08 I just think it's wild.

John Dehlin 1:45:09 Yeah.

Alicia Lee 1:45:11 Just taking it in.

John Dehlin 1:45:12 Yeah. Yeah. The Happiness Letter is a great episode that you'll hear, you viewers and listeners here. I'll just quickly say that as a parent, this idea, because when you go back to this, you know, he's not just threatening Emma with destruction, but he's also saying, but if you do what I say. Let Joseph have sex with other women. I'm going to give you infinite blessings. It just, as a parent, it just feels so manipulative. I can't imagine telling a kid, you know, mow the lawn. And if you don't mow the lawn, I'll punch you in the face and beat you up to a bloody pulp. But if you do mow the lawn, then I'll give you $1,000. Like, what kind of parent would use extreme forms of manipulation? Again, it violates DNC121, but it's just un. It's just uncivil and it's not Christlike or loving, at least as the way that I conceive parenting.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:09 Yeah, and I'll take that one step further because we talk about this all the way back in our first, first episode on Treasure Digging, that Joseph Smith basically is asking members of the church to do all these things for him. And the promise is no longer a physical treasure. It's an eternal reward. So in your analogy there, John, you're saying, mow the lawn, I'm going to punch your face. But if you do it, I'm going to give you $1,000. But what Joseph Smith would be saying is, mow the lawn. I'm going to punch you in the face. But if you do it, I'm going to give you something in the next life that I never have to produce here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:36 And I think that's what's interesting, because Joseph Smith is telling Emma to accept these horrific things happening in reality so that he can offer something in the afterlife, which he never asked, actually give her, so he could promise her whatever he wants. Because he knows in his head, I don't have to do any of that because, you know, that's after I die. And I think that is where that treasure digging kind of mentality of you got to keep digging for the treasure really allowed Joseph to create this theology where he could keep people digging because no longer will he have to stop when he can't find the treasure because he doesn't have to deliver anything.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:47:06 And it shows here because he's asking for all of these physical things in the. In the immediate future for himself and promising all of these women, including Emma, something he never has to deliver.

John Dehlin 1:47:17 It's like, mow the lawn or I'll beat you to a bloody pulp, or let me have sex with other women. No, sorry. Or, or mow the lawn and the checks in the mail. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:47:25 Yeah, yeah. And you'll get it after you die. I mean, it's just. It's a really convenient way to make promises you never have to fulfill.

John Dehlin 1:47:33 Yeah. All right, the next slide is God invoking very similar language to Joseph's own from 1841.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:47:40 Yeah. So we read this in the last episode, and, Alicia, this is what I was talking about with the no sin, no accuser. This is from Joseph's sermon in 1841. He says, I charged the saints not to follow the example of the adversary in accusing the brethren, and said, if you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser, you will enter heaven. And if you follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my backload. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:13 For charity covereth a multitude of sins. What many people call sin is not sin. I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down. So this is Joseph Smith flipping morality upside down. He's giving this teaching right as he's ramping up polygamy. And he's doing it because just as we're showing now at DNC132, he's telling these women, guys, if you don't accuse me of wrongdoing, I am not going to come after you. But if you accuse me of wrongdoing, you're on your own. And this just really puts a lot of pressure, if you believe Joseph Smith to be a prophet, to do whatever he says, because if you don't, you know, there are a lot of threats await you.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:49 And this is really Joseph Smith laying out the. Laying the marker down and saying, if I tell you to do it, it's not sin because it's from God.

John Dehlin 1:48:58 Got it.

Alicia Lee 1:49:00 This reminded me of Dallin Oaks. It is wrong to criticize leaders even if the criticism is true.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:06 Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.

Alicia Lee 1:49:08 It felt like a common thread to me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:10 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:49:10 Yeah. And that's the number two ranking Mormon church leader in the world today, saying that it's. It's. It's evil to criticize Mormon church leaders even if the criticism's accurate. That's. That's. That's just wrong on every level. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:27 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:49:27 So we're revisiting a theme that God writes Joseph Smith a blank check.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:32 Can you go back one slide? I think we skipped one.

John Dehlin 1:49:34 Oh, we did?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:35 I think so.

John Dehlin 1:49:36 Okay. Okay. Sorry.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:37 And this will be a really quick one, but this is just kind of. Kind of an interesting one, because in verse 57, God says through Joseph, and again I say, let not my servant Joseph put his property out of his hands, lest an enemy come and destroy him. For Satan seeketh to destroy. For I am the Lord thy God, and he is my servant. And behold, and lo, I am with him as I was with Abraham thy father, even unto his exaltation and glory. And this is interesting because not only is this very self serving for Joseph Smith to say, I can't put my property out of my hands, but that very same day Joseph is going to do that very thing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:50:11 And so if you're watching this, I'm not going to read it because it's just a ton of words, but this is from the Joseph Smith Paper project, which is a paragraph of all of the property Joseph is going to deed over to Emma Smith after he writes this revelation. And so it's really interesting that in the revelation he's like, you cannot put property out of your hands. And then later that day, I mean, apparently, I'm guessing after Emma reads it, he's going to give her a whole paragraph with the property. I mean, it's just super detailed. It's like all the tracks of parcels of land and it's just lot number four, block number 99.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:50:41 It just goes on forever. So if you're watching it, you could see it. It's also on LDSdiscussions.com but so the very day he's told not to give property away, he gives her a whole bunch of property. And I find that to show just how flexible Joseph Smith is with these revelations, that he's literally going to contradict it the same day he gives it.

John Dehlin 1:51:00 Yeah, and that almost looks like a bribe. It's like, Emma, let me have these other women and I'll give you a bunch of land in return. Is that the way God works? I don't know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:51:09 Yeah, sure. Well, it sure seems like he's making deals with her because I, obviously this revelation didn't do what, what Hyrum thought it would. And I think that it shows that when you give a whole, whole paragraph worth of land like that, that it, it's not just one small piece. And so to do that on the same day that you're writing a revelation, it, it's interesting.

John Dehlin 1:51:28 And I, I, and I have to just say, I know we're taking, this episode is taking time, but it's because it's so important. But I'm just going to say it. God could have solved the Emma problem him very easily. He could have Just gone to Emma and told Emma that what, what he wanted Emma to do. But he didn't do that. Why does God not love Emma? Was she not worth it? Are women not worthy? Like God could have solved the Emma problem just by communicating directly with Emma. Or if he didn't, or if he didn't want to appear to her, which, which maybe she deserved with such a significant request, he at least could have spoken to her through her brain, through her ears, through her heart, through the Holy Ghost.

John Dehlin 1:52:11 Why wasn't God able to inspire Emma? Don't tell me that it's because I'm at a hard heart. Don't tell me it's because she was faithless. I, I, you know what, What Mormon has ever sacrificed more than Emma? I, I don't know that, that you could find many men or women who sacrificed more than Emma. So don't tell me she was faithless. God, why didn't you just talk to the woman? You know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:52:34 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:52:35 Alicia, am I, am I being unfair there?

Alicia Lee 1:52:38 No, I totally resonate with everything you just said. Absolutely. It's just another, you know, and I think that for a lot of these issues, we, they're chalked up to like, oh, it was the cultural practices of the day, except that this is written into our scripture, so it's not just, you know, like a women's lib issue. And we've made progress and we need to view things differently. If, if God's able to speak to a woman today and she's worthy of that, then why, why wouldn't at that point God have just, you know, had just spoken directly to Emma, so. And I think I know the answer to that. But yeah, yeah, we'll let the listeners draw their own conclusions.

John Dehlin 1:53:22 Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:22 No, it's just, it shows that, you know, we're told God has got to order, yet at the same time, we're told that instead of just visiting Emma. Emma. And sending an angel down to her and say, hey, this is what needs to be done, he forces this very convoluted response from Joseph, which is problematic from the get go. And as John said, it just doesn't feel like a God of order. It feels like a man who's speaking for God and trying to make everything fit to his current day needs, which is what we've been showing in all these episodes. And that's where it adds up.

John Dehlin 1:53:50 So let's go to the next slide, which is God writes Joseph a blank check.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:54 Yeah. And this is kind of what we've been hinting about, basically through this Whole episode, which is that God is in this revelation, is basically over and over telling Emma that nothing Joseph can do is wrong. And so this is three verses. It says now, as touching the law of the priesthood, there are many things pertaining there unto. Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was Aaron, by mine own voice and by the voice of him that sent me, and I have endowed with him the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name and according to my law and by my word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify him.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:54:29 Let no one therefore set on my servant Joseph, for I will justify him, for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God. So just as we outlined with the priesthood restoration, the first vision, every time Joseph Smith starts to get put into a box and he's forced into a jam, his credibility is being questioned. He is really good at using revelations to separate himself from everyone else. And here he is just saying, basically, if Joseph does anything, by my word, he cannot be sinning, except Joseph's the one giving the word. And so that's where you get the ultimate authority, just being written out to Joseph in the form of a blank check, just saying, whatever you're going to do, it's good.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:55:08 And I think that's, as John said earlier, it's too much power for one person to have when no one else is allowed to get it for themself.

Alicia Lee 1:55:16 Yeah. My favorite example of this is when William Clayton, who's married to sisters, wants to take their youngest sister as a wife. So he asked Joseph Smith permission. I think it was William Clayton. And Joseph Smith said, oh, I've had a revelation. You can't take three sisters into one family. It's going to create too much drama. But by chance, could we arrange for me to take her instead? And she was 17, and she declined. But it's just laughable. It is these, like, revelations, like, oh, I gotta pivot here. And, you know, oh, no, you're not allowed to speak. Or the Lord's. The Lord's revealed it to me. You can't take a third sister, but I'm gonna take her instead. You know, it's just like, oh, gosh, it's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:55:58 It's rough. And like, you said that when you claim to be the only one that can have that discernment. And all of a sudden. And there's stories of Brigham Young, I think, doing that a lot too, where all of a sudden someone asks for a woman to marry. And all of a sudden he's like, no, no, she's not right for you. And all of a sudden he marries her. And oftentimes they happen to be the young, attractive ones. And that just, again, just shows how this system can be so easily abused by people that claim to speak for God.

John Dehlin 1:56:20 Yeah. All right, let's go to the next slide, which we've referenced earlier in this episode, the Law of Sarah, and getting specific about polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:56:29 Yeah. And so this is where the law of Sarah, which is so often kind of referred to by the Church, comes in and it says, and again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood, if any man espouse a virgin and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified. Then is he justified. He cannot commit adultery, for they are given unto him. For he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth to him and to no one else. And if he hath ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:57:03 Therefore is he justified. So, as we mentioned earlier, Joseph Smith is going to break this rule in just about every way because Emma does not give consent for his early marriages, and he espoused many non virgins via polyandry. And so this puts women again, over and over again, as being almost labeled as property, as the phrase given unto him, I think is in three times in these two verses, which is a really common theme. And as John mentioned earlier, a lot of times you'll hear people now say that virgin didn't mean what we think of as virgin, but virgin actually just meant someone who was pure of heart.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:57:34 And so I looked up the Webster's 1828 Dictionary, and I looked up virgin, and the definition was a woman who has had no carnal knowledge of man. Which is pretty clear that virgin in 1828 meant someone who had not had sex yet. So the apologetic that virgin meant pure is absolute crap. Just like saying that skin didn't mean skin. We did the priesthood episodes. This is trying to retrofit in other definitions in order to give Joseph an out. So this revelation is violated in. In basically every single way. And it puts a lot of women with a threat of damnation, as we mentioned earlier, that married him in polyandrous relationships.

John Dehlin 1:58:14 I'll add just a couple things. It's. It's not just saying given unto, it's saying Belongeth unto.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:58:19 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:58:20 And then it's like, maybe it's one, maybe it's 10. You know, it's just like, let's do 20. It's almost like an auction. Like, like, do I hear 30? Do I hear 50? And then, you know, what about women who did have sex, you know, before marriage? What if. What if they weren't virgins? Like, why is God all of a sudden caring about your status and sexuality? I mean, how many modern Christians or Latter Day Saints or Muslims did have premarital sex? And as long as they believe in the atonement and repentance, according to Mormon doctrine, their sins, though scarlet shall be white as snow. So why is God even using the word virgin here at all?

John Dehlin 1:59:03 Why does God care about their sexual history as it relates to polygamy? Especially if Joseph Smith is just going to disregard it all? Why would God throw the word virgin in there in the first place? Elisha, you may have feelings about this.

Alicia Lee 1:59:17 Well, virginity aside, I get asked all the time if I still believe in God. And I guess that's a complex question with a complex answer. But what I will say is that I don't believe in a God who would make the statement, for they belong to him and they are given unto him, therefore he is justified. And, you know, I just think this is. I don't believe in a God who views me as property of my husband. I don't believe in a God that views me as a prize, as an accessory. So that's what really stood out to me with the Law of Sarah.

John Dehlin 1:59:48 Okay, all right. So the word virgins, that. That's not getting under your skin necessarily.

Alicia Lee 1:59:54 Oh, first, sure it is, but I guess that's another tangent.

John Dehlin 1:59:57 Okay, okay. All right, so. So the next slide is women that Joseph Smith had married before DNC132. We referenced this earlier, but now we've got the list.

Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Concerns About Young Ages

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:00:11 Yeah. And this, it's not. We're not going to read off all the names. So if you're watching this, you can see it. If you're listening, it's about 30 women. I know there are some questions on some of the exact dating on some of them. So it could be that there are a few that were not married before DNC132, but we have about 30 women who, we have records that were married before this revelation was dictated. And I think that shows you immediately that the law of Sarah was never being used. So if we want to believe Joseph Smith got this in 1831, he is directly violating this in every one of his relationships.

John Dehlin 2:00:44 Alicia, I almost want you to read some of those names, because it's almost like they deserve to be named, right?

Alicia Lee 2:00:50 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:00:51 All right. See how fast you can go.

Alicia Lee 2:00:53 Yeah. I mean, the ones that stand out to me, Lucy Walker, because I've read her journal entries. If any of our listeners haven't had an opportunity to read some of the journal entries of these women, I'm absolutely not take. I think whatever consensual relationship that you're in as an adult is fine with me. What we're talking about here, the problem isn't polygamy. The problem is coercion and power. And when we look at the journal entries of specifically Helen Mark Kimball and Lucy Walker, Lucy Walker, who had lost her mother, and she was making this decision to go into this plurality with the promise that she would be with her family for eternity and that.

Alicia Lee 2:01:35 I believe it was Lucy Walker, that. And maybe one of you can correct me if I'm wrong here, that the gates of heaven would be closed to her if she declined. And she's got her deceased mother. She's got all these siblings, and it's just so painful to see that these decisions were not being made out of agency. These decisions were being made under power and coercion. And it is painful to read. Lucy Walker had wished that she could die. She wished she would have rather been buried. She viewed herself as a human sacrifice. Helen Mark Kimball talked about all of the activities that she would no longer.

Alicia Lee 2:02:15 That would no longer be available to her. And people always argue this idea of, like, well, whether they had sex or not, you know, we don't have evidence that they had sex. Even if they didn't have sex, he was taking her and pulling her aside, removing her from, you know, dances and this opportunity to, you know, socialize and to interact. And she was devastated about this. Absolutely devastated. But just remember, her parents were also on board for this, and they viewed this as like, we're gonna get to be with Joseph Smith in the next life. So this is, like, for the parents, this is like, a really big thing for their daughter to be sealed of the prophet Joseph Smith.

Alicia Lee 2:02:55 And it's just so painful to read. And if you haven't had an opportunity, there's not journal entries for everyone. But for those two in particular, Lucy Walker and Helen Mark Kimball, read their words. Listen to what this experience was like for them going into this.

Alicia Lee 2:03:12 This plurality. It was very painful. It was a very, very dark time in Mormon history. I think, whether you're a believer or not, I think we can all agree that this was a very dark time in Mormon history.

John Dehlin 2:03:25 I'll just add my two cents as well. I want to give a shout out to. To Todd Compton's book in Sacred Loneliness. And there's a Mormon Stories episode with Todd Compton. He's the one that did the work to kind of write the. The history of all of Joseph Smith's plural wives. It's a great book and it's a great Mormon Stories episode. It's a classic. It's in the first 30 episodes, I'm pretty sure of 1700 or whatever. And also a shout out to Lindsay Hansen Parks here, polygamy episode, which, at least in its original form, just went through each of Joseph Smith's plural wives and talked about, you know, the plural marriages in the history.

John Dehlin 2:04:06 I'll, you know, I'll say, of course, Fanny Alger. If we're looking at this list, Fanny Alger was the adulterous affair. She was a domestic helper in the home. So there's coercion there. You know, we. We can't forget, you know, sorry. Helen Markimble, who is 14 years old, and she was threatened not only, you know, with Dan Nation, as I understand it, but promise that her family would all be saved if she. If she submitted. And then, of course, there's Mirinda, Nancy Johnson Hyde, I believe, and that's the one whose husband was sent off on a mission and then she was propositioned. But. But the main point of all of this, if just not to lose kind of the main point is that all of these marriages were entered into without Emma's consent.

John Dehlin 2:04:57 So they were all. All these marriages were violations of the law of Sarah because Emma was not consulted first. Right. Is that the point, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:05:06 Yeah, that's just to show the names. I mean, Alicia did a good job, I think, just outlining that it's not these, you know, and I feel. I actually, now that I feel, you know, look at it, you should not have a list of names because, as you mentioned, each of one of those women have their own story. But for the purposes of this, this particular episode, it's just to show that these are all the women he had entered into relationships with before he dictates this revelation. And many of them would have been before the law of Sarah was likely ever thought up by Joseph, because that seems to be a creation that he comes up with pretty much on the spot, which we'll get into in a few slides as to how you can kind of show that.

John Dehlin 2:05:45 I also need to take this time to mention something that, that viewers and listeners often remind me of. There's no such thing as marriage with a 14 year old. You know, if it's, if it's a minor and especially if there's coercion with a man and who has superpowers, it's not marriage. It's either assault or rape or maybe some other stronger word. But you can't really call it marriage when it involves a 14 or a 15 year old and a man who's claiming to have the power of God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:19 Well, yeah, once you add that in. Yeah, the power of God part. And the thing is there were women, there were girls that got married when they were 14 or 15 back then. It's just they'd be married to someone maybe who was 20, not I think he was 37 at that time or 38, 36, somewhere in there. So when you're over double their age saying, and you're getting the consent of the girl because you're claiming it's through a divine power, I think that is where you start to see just a lot of abuse. And Alicia said earlier a lot of people say, well, he didn't have sex with her.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:46 We don't know. There's no evidence that he did. That doesn't mean he didn't. They were married. They could have under the laws of DNC 132, they should have. But it doesn't matter because as Alicia said that it's still being used to control these women, to control what they can do, who they can talk to, who they, you know, it takes away their chance at true love. It takes away their chance at.

John Dehlin 2:07:07 Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:07:07 Being able to find a husband for attorney that they want to spend attorney with. Not some old guy who claims. Older guy who claims, I need you because God told me.

Alicia Lee 2:07:14 Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin 2:07:16 Any final thought on that, Alicia?

Alicia Lee 2:07:18 I just wish I could remember which one of those was 12 years old. She was approached by Joseph Smith and told that she would be. I want to say it was like.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:07:26 It was, it was.

Alicia Lee 2:07:28 Yeah, yeah. So she's 12 years old, she's moved with her family and, and I guess Joseph Smith is in the home and says to her, you will be one of my plural wives. So just think that through. Yeah, she's 12.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:07:42 Yeah. And we covered that in the last episode. And I will say I don't believe that that quote is true. I think she's trying to retrofit this early revelation in so that it makes more sense for the church because I think they do are aware of the fact that they need to get it in before Fanny Alger. But the fact is, like you had mentioned earlier, it's like the either or thing. Either you got to believe that Joseph Smith is kind of, you know.

John Dehlin 2:08:06 Propositioning a 12 year old.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:07 Yeah, propositioning a 12 year old. Or that these women and the church itself are willing to make up stories after the fact to retrofit back in, and neither one of them is a real good outcome.

Alicia Lee 2:08:16 Yeah, got it. Yeah, Good insight. Great insight.

John Dehlin 2:08:21 All right, well, let's go to the next slide, which is that women are given to men to make babies. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:26 And I know that title sounds kind of abrasive, but let's just read the verse. So it says, but if one or either of the 10 virgins after she is espoused shall be with another man, she has committed adultery and shall be destroyed. For they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth according to my commandment and to fulfill the promise which was given by my father before the foundation of the world and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds that they may bear the souls of men, for heron is the work of my father continued, that he may be glorified. And so they're telling every woman in the church that what they have to look forward to for eternity is you are given to men to basically be eternal baby making machines to one man and no one else, so that you can glorify two men, your husband and God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:09 And so I know that sounds abrasive, but just read it. They're telling you that you are given to a man and that your job is to replenish the earth which is going to be these planets you're going to create, you know, as gods and was a priestesses or whatever. I mean, it's right there.

John Dehlin 2:09:23 Let's let Alicia weigh in on that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:25 Yes.

Alicia Lee 2:09:26 I just think it's laughable that this is heaven to someone. This is someone's idea of heaven. I mean, if this is contrived, this is like someone's idea of heaven. I don't know anyone that would agree that this was an idea of heaven that would be suitable for anyone. That we're just going to make babies for eternity. I mean, I, I don't think my husband would want that. So I just think it's funny to think about this. Like who actually, who actually thinks this sounds like heaven. And to the extent that if you don't even make it to the highest level, you won't even need the reproductive parts. Right. Joseph Building Smith. I mean, it's just Anyway, we just

John Dehlin 2:10:09 have to laugh and I'll, I'll refer people to the. There's a cartoon. Well, there's a, there's a movie that was released in the 80s called the God Makers that was created by Ed Decker, who I've interviewed on Mormon stories. And there's a cartoon that was like created, you know, by I think the, the makers of Hanna Barbera cartoons. But it basically just shows the, the vision of DNC132 illustrated through cartoon in the, in the heavens where, where in fact women end up becoming baby making machines of making gazillions and gazillions of spirit children babies. And that's, that's what, you know, it all comes from, from this scripture. So we don't need to belabor the point. But.

Alicia Lee 2:10:55 Yeah, well. And it's considered anti Mormon doctrine. I mean that, that, that film, if you want to call it, is considered anti Mormon doctrine. And it literally comes out of our doctrine.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11:05 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't speak to it specifically because I've actually never watched it, but it's in there. And so people get really upset when you say, oh, we're not going to have sex forever. And I guess you could make the argument in DNC132 that you're given to replenish this earth, but there have been so many teachings that tell you that there's eternal progression and that that's what you're going to be. You're going to be populating planets. It's just, it's one of those things that probably sounded good at the time. And now you look at it, it just seems very cartoonish. So the church is like, oh, I don't know, we teach that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11:32 It's like, but you did. And so like I talked about earlier, when you talk about Patrick Mason saying he doesn't defend DNC 132, there are implications to trying to say we don't believe in certain things that are doctrine and those are implications that are not ones they want to deal with.

John Dehlin 2:11:47 Yep. All right, let's go back to a theme. We can probably cover this quickly. That women must accept polygamy or be destroyed.

Polygamy Made Mandatory and the Law of Sarah Revoked

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11:54 Yeah. And so this one is just another kind of rehash. It does feel sometimes like when Joseph is orally dictating these, he repeats himself a lot, which I guess is going to happen when you're doing that. But it says, and again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife who holds the keys of the, of his power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God. For I will destroy her. For I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:12:22 So it's just very simple. Every woman in the church today needs to understand this. You will either accept your husband's polygamous brides in this life or the next, or you will be destroyed as you watch your husband do it anyway. And it just isn't this awful convenient for all men in this revelation?

John Dehlin 2:12:39 Yeah, it is. All right, well, let's jump to the next slide. If it's okay, God revokes the law of Sarah just four verses after creating it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:12:52 Yep. And so this one's interesting because four verses earlier, we talked about the law of Sarah. So now in verse 65, it says, Therefore it shall be law lawful in me if she receive not this law for him to receive all things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word. And she then becomes a transgressor. And he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law. When I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife. So, first of all, I'm putting this in all caps. God never commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:13:23 This is Joseph Smith completely screwing up biblical history in order to justify what he's doing, he's misusing the Bible because he needs to rationalize his decisions and his actions. Second, this is exactly what you expect to see from an orally dictated scripture. We talked about this in the Book of Mormon when Joseph Smith would make mistakes in the text of the Book of Mormon and then he'd either fix it immediately or like a verse or two later. And we read a bunch of those in the episode about Book of Mormon authorship. This is a perfect example, because in verse 61, Joseph Smith's gonna create the law of Sarah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:13:55 And now he's orally dictating this, and he's going to realize, oh, frick, I just gave Emma Smith, my wife, the ultimate out. She can tell me no, and I am screwed. And so all of a sudden, he's going to have to fix that four verses later in the voice of God, because otherwise Joseph Smith could be stopped dead in his tracks by Emma because he wrote it in the voice of God. And so this is God changing his mind four verses later. And I think this is a really good Tell that Joseph Smith is kind of writing this as he goes. This is not something he memorized 13 or 14 years earlier or 12 years earlier.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:14:31 And again, isn't it amazing that not only does women have to accept their husbands having sex with other women, but if she refuses to accept this, she is the one that becomes a transgressor in the eyes of God? So it's just. This is an amazing verse to me.

John Dehlin 2:14:43 I want to know if Joseph Smith ever used the word frick. But, Alicia, let's hear your reaction. And then I have a question. Quick reaction.

Alicia Lee 2:14:50 I just had to look this up because it's actually in the same section that God says that he is not a God of confusion. Yeah, there's that.

John Dehlin 2:15:02 Yeah, that is confusing. I mean, my. My, that's a great point. And my point was, what. What does it mean to tell Emma? You get to choose Joseph's subsequent wives. You get to approve them and then to say, but if you don't approve them, Joseph gets to have them anyway. Like, you could say, it allows Emma the chance to show her obedience. But what. What type of God is that? What type of consent is that to say, I give you the choice, but if you don't approve, we're doing it anyway.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:15:35 Just. I mean, like, again, just imagine going to your wife and being like, hey, baby, so here's the deal. I want to marry and have sex with Mary. She is super pure and virtuous. And you have two choices. You can either accept this marriage and allow me to go over there and spend some nights with her, or God's gonna destroy you, and I'm gonna go down there and do it anyways.

John Dehlin 2:15:55 Just.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:15:56 Just make your decision, baby. But just know I love you like Alicia. It sounds facetious. That's what it is.

John Dehlin 2:16:02 Let's hear Alicia's reaction.

Alicia Lee 2:16:03 I'm trying not to laugh because when we put it into modern context, it really is so ridiculous. Like, the absurdity is funny. But I'm trying not to laugh because I really am trying to hold space for the fact that this was reality for Emma, and I just can't imagine what this would have been like. And then I start to go through the idea of, like, did she even have an option for a divorce? Where would she have gone at this point? And I. We haven't really talked about this much, but the implications of her destruction, I mean, what is. If Joseph Smith is the author of this and not God?

Alicia Lee 2:16:43 Like, what are the implications of that? Like, what is he really trying to say? Is he threatening her? Like, does she really have nowhere to go because at this point she feels that her life is in danger? I think based on this text from 132, we have every reason to believe that this may have been an actual threat to Emma from Joseph Smith. I don't think it's far fetched when you're using this kind of language about destruction and if you don't accept is a really just an ugly. An ugly thing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:15 Yeah, I mean, I've heard some people say that this is when Joseph is getting really into masonry. And you know, in masonry people do, you know, kind of disappear. And there's a lot of actual, you know, violent penalties, as we know from the temple ceremony. But, you know, I think either way, it's like if Emma does believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet, I think there's indications to say that she really did believe it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:38 I think the threat of eternal damnation, eternal destruction, is very powerful. And again, it's also something that Joseph doesn't have to produce. You can make promises and you can make threats for eternity that you never have to actually deliver on, but it still sends the message. It's like, we'll talk about the happiness letter a lot, but it's kind of like a mob thing. Wouldn't it be a shame if all these things happened to you in the afterlife?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:59 And to my earlier example of asking your wife to take to sake a second wife, I'm not trying to make fun of it. I'm saying that you need to put this doctrine into practice to understand what every woman in the church is subjected to still today for eternity. So yeah, it does sound funny when you sit there and go, I want to go take a second wife, marry down the street. And you have two choices, to accept it or be destroyed by God as I do it anyways. But that is what the doctrine says. So we need to stop. Sometimes the church wants to kind of gloss over this and not actually look at how this, the implications and the practice of it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:18:35 And I think that's something we have to do in order to better understand how this still hovers over every member of the church today.

Alicia Lee 2:18:41 Couldn't agree more. Yeah, I think putting it into, contextualizing it into like modern terms is really actually important that we do that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:18:50 It is.

Alicia Lee 2:18:50 It may sound funny, but this is the reality of it. So looking at it that way, I think is really important.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:18:57 Yeah, like if someone hears me say that and they go, why are you mocking my beliefs? I would say if you find that to be mocking, then you need to Revisit what those beliefs are, because I am strictly speaking as to how this works in practice, in reality. And if that bothers you, that's not me. That's not me that's bothering you. It's the fact that that is what your beliefs are that you didn't know before. Because I would have never have known that as an active member. And to think about, I cannot picture polygamy was the thing that was always bothering me as a convert because I mentioned this last episode.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:19:30 So I don't need to rehash all, but my wife and I started dating when we were in high school. And so you're always jealous of when you're out with other groups of friends. I know that's super normal high school stuff, but the thought of, then all of a sudden you join this church and you hear about polygamy and I'm like, I cannot picture putting my wife through that. Knowing how when we were in high school we'd get jealous of each other just being with other groups of people for a long period of time or something. To put my wife through this idea that she has to then watch is I leave the house and go spend the night somewhere else, or knowing that I'm driving some other woman around town would kill her.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:20:00 And so to think that this stuff would still be in the eternities was what really kind of kept me from being able to fully accept a lot of the teaching of the church. And so that's why I think you need to put this into reality because this is what every woman is going to be subjected to into the eternities if you believe what the church created in these scriptures.

John Dehlin 2:20:25 Amen. I'm going to add just as an aside, that this is something that believing Mormons just completely reject. But I think there are certain teachings that, that should be mandatory not just, not just for every investigator to the church, but for every, let's just say child or youth in the church. And you know, an example would be, you know, how many Africans or African Americans who have black skin were baptized into the Mormon Church without being taught that the church taught the dark skin was a curse from Cain, that Mormon scriptures teach the dark skin is a curse from Cain and a product of, you know, wickedness in the pre existence.

John Dehlin 2:21:11 How many tens or hundreds of thousands of of Africans or African Americans have been baptized in the church. And then they found out that this was the church's teaching and the church's practice for, you know, 150 years. That's unconscionable right. And I think this, this DNC 132 entire.

John Dehlin 2:21:31 I don't know. Is exegesis the right word? Like this entire analysis that we're doing should be mandatory teaching not just for every investigator, but for every teenager. Because it's so comprehensively disturbing and revolting that everybody deserves. Is just a matter of basic informed consent. Everybody deserves to know this before they decide to sign up. Because again, DNC132, as we're going to say in a couple more slides again, is still canon. It's still Mormon scripture, it's still on the books and it's still being practiced by. But you can, you can reach Mormon adulthood and in some odd way have never actually read what this DNC132 is saying. It should be mandatory for all members and for all investigators. Any. Any disagreement there?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:22:26 No.

Alicia Lee 2:22:27 Well, not only do I agree, I mean, look at what the actual approach is in. Instead of, instead of that option. It's, it's. Anyone who talks about it is considered anti Mormon. Oh, they're talking about anti Mormon stuff again. Like just literally talking about the doctrine as it's written is considered anti Mormon.

John Dehlin 2:22:48 Yeah.

Alicia Lee 2:22:48 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:22:49 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:22:49 Yeah. If you're telling people to avoid looking at the church's teachings at face value, then you've got a problem. And we see that over and over again as we've been going through all these episodes. It's like you, you talk about it at face value and they're like, oh my goodness, it's anti Mormon. It's like, no, I'm literally just talking about what is still canon. And to your point, John, the fact is most people don't know the specifics, those later verses, because they just don't teach them.

John Dehlin 2:23:10 Like, Mike, is this something you would have liked. Would you have liked to. Had, you know, the missionaries, Mormon missionaries will do six discussions. Would you have wanted a seventh discussion before you joined the church, which was, hey, Mike. Hey, there's this, there's this one teaching that's really, you know, challenging for a lot of Mormons and non Mormons. So let's just spend our seventh missionary discussion just reading DNC 132 just so that you know what you're really signing up for? Mike, would you have valued that and would that have made a difference for you before you decided to give your life 10% of your income? 10%, you know, so much of your time and your eternal commitment in your children to the church? Would you have liked to know that before you made the decision to get

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:23:54 baptized yes, but as you basically pointed out, had they done that seventh discussion, I never joined and I'm not going to do all those things. And I also think, think that not only should that be part of the preach my gospel, but that should be part of the temple prep class. Because this is what you're going into the temple to basically agree to. And as we've talked about over and over again, oftentimes in the church they have the milk before meat thing and you're agreeing to things you don't really understand. And in this case, most people are agreeing into this, thinking the celestial marriage is like the first, what, 20 or 30 verses, whatever it is, and then they leave out the rest, which you're also agreeing to.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:24:26 And I think, you know, if you're born in the church, you might not know these specifics, just as I didn't know as a convert. And so, yeah, I think it should be in the missionary discussions. I also think it should be in the temple prep class.

John Dehlin 2:24:36 Yeah, yep. All right, well, we've got some closing point slides, kind of analyzing, but we've got a final slide that's kind of giving. This is the final like textual analysis we're doing before we get to some summary points. Is that right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:24:52 Yeah. So this is the final one before we do just some quick apologetics. But this is verse 66 and it just says, and now as pertaining saying to this law, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you hereafter. Therefore let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen. And so this is just like I said, it's not terribly noteworthy. It's just noting that Joseph Smith is clearly aware that the implement implementation of polygamy is causing a lot of issues. And by leaving the revelation more open ended, it really gives him a lot more freedom to go in and change, add or subtract as needs arise, especially given how Emma might react.

John Dehlin 2:25:29 But I just think it's noteworthy that, that it's 2022 and no further polygamy revelation ever came other than to take it away. Yeah, right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:40 Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 2:25:41 And it didn't come as a. Go ahead.

Alicia Lee 2:25:44 Oh, I'm sorry, I literally have the same note here because I do think it's notable because we haven't had any. We had initially these big, you know, interesting. It's just the grandeur of these early revelations and it's kind of disappeared. But the flds still do have those big revelations that change the way that their people eat and they're what they're allowed to play with and their marriage and all that kind of thing. So it's interesting to look at that deviation, how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints doesn't seem to have these big revelations anymore like they did in the beginning days. But FLDS have, and we can see how that's turned out.

John Dehlin 2:26:23 Not to mention Denver Snuffer, who also has his own revelations. Like all sorts of conservative Mormons are still getting revelations, but not the LDS Church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:32 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Joseph Smith Violates His Own Revelation

John Dehlin 2:26:34 So, Mike, you do an analysis of ways that Joseph Smith violates his own revelation in DNC132. This is kind of a summative point, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:43 Yeah, we could go through this quick. So it's just to say that Joseph Smith is going to violate almost every aspect of. Of DNC 132, which is stunning given that the Church is going to claim that Joseph Smith knew of this since 1831. And so, as we've mentioned, polyandry directly violates DNC 132 because they would not be virgins at the time of marriage. And as we talked about, the dictionary is very clear from 1828 that a virgin is someone who did not previously have carnal knowledge of men, which would mean sex. It also directly violates DNC132, as the women who then would live with their legal husbands would be in violation of it because they would then be with a man that they were not bound to by the new and everlasting covenant.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:27:20 Joseph Smith is going to deed land to Emma on the very same day that God tells him not to deed Emma any land. And then, as we just talked about, the law of Sarah is violated by Joseph Smith repeatedly, dozens of times before he dictates DNC132, which is likely why he's going to nuke that just a few verses later. I think once he realizes the power that would give to a woman if the law of Sarah was going to be upheld without that, you know, removal four verses later.

John Dehlin 2:27:48 And, and I don't think we've made this point sufficiently. He violates, you know, the 1835 DNC 101, which forbids polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:00 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:28:00 Right. So that's violating scripture. Not to mention the Book of Mormon scripture that also denounces polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:07 Yes. Violating all the other scriptures along with violating the. The exact revelation he's dictating in 1843.

John Dehlin 2:28:14 Yeah. Like, what's the value of revelation in Scripture if it's just so, you know, viable?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:21 Yeah, it is. I Mean, this just shows that he's writing this in 1843 after he's already violated all these points. And then you kind of look at it and you're like, is it because he doesn't know that Emma, like, Emma probably doesn't know about a lot of this stuff? So maybe because he's writing this revelation to Emma, he doesn't realize she's going to know he's already violating it. But for us today, we can look at that and go, you're literally violating all these rules you're setting forth, which makes no sense if this is truly from God.

Alicia Lee 2:28:45 There's also this really interesting apologetics stance that's not totally common, but there are a lot, a lot of people that I just discovered talking to believing members who just think that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet and that's why he was breaking all these rules and that he had just gone sideways and that maybe even polygamy was a deviation from God's, you know, direction. And so I think this is really interesting, a really interesting stance, because then it's like, well, then why is this still canonized scripture that the church accepts? You know, so it's just kind of like, how do you. You can't. You can't hold both.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:22 You can't. Because then you'd go, well, if Joseph was a fallen prophet, then shouldn't the future prophets have known which parts were. Were doctrine, which weren't. Because, remember, this is not going to be canonized until, what, the 1870s. So clearly God would have gone to one of them, be like, guys, Joseph went off the rails, but we are not going to put that in the doctrine because this is. This was something he did. We need to stop it. But instead they go full throttle saying that it's from God. And Brigham Young says, you can't enter heaven if you're not. Whatever. I forgot the phrase if you're not a believer in polygamy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:50 So, I mean, it goes the opposite way. So I do know that apologetic exists a lot, but I also would then say, you know, we talk about the implications a lot. It's like, what are the implications of that? Because everything in the church flows throughout the idea that this is doctrine because none of the other prophets are aware that it's all that it is, you know, made up.

John Dehlin 2:30:10 And I'll, in Patrick Mason's defense, and people like him, he has another option somewhere between everything Joseph said was, was of God and Joseph was a fallen prophet. He literally says, I can't. I can't conclude that Joseph became a fallen prophet because he still likes the kingfaller discourse that came out of Nauvoo after a lot of this polygamy happened. So. So the way Patrick and the way I dealt with this back when I was still a believer is, is that God has a really low bar for his prophets. The prophets can be racist, prophets can be sexist, prophets can be homophobic. Prophets can. Can even murder. Like in the case of Moses. Moses murdered, I think, you know, one of his slave masters or slave drivers. And Noah got drunk. And Patrick would say that the Bible allows for deeply flawed men to still be prophets.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:31:05 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:31:06 And, you know, that's fine if people. If that's how people view it, that's. We have no condemnation of that. Now we come to my least favorite part of your episodes, Mike, which is where we give. And I think it's an important part. It's just my least favorite. It's where we give acknowledgment to horribly flawed, terribly reasoned justifications for all. All this bad, bad behavior. Where we talk about Mormon apologetics. So let's talk about the first one, which is that God wasn't specific enough.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:31:40 Yeah. And this is directly from the church's Gospel topics essay, where they say, although the Lord commanded the adoption and later the cessation of plural marriage, in the latter days days, he did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment. And I just want to point out right off the bat that plural marriage is not over. It is still the doctrine of the church. As you mentioned earlier in the episode, John Russell M. Nelson and Dallin H. Oaks are both eternal polygamists. They're both sealed to multiple women, and they absolutely believe they will be with both of them for the eternity. They can populate worlds with them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:32:11 That's just a fact. And the manifestos that kind of ended polygamy are often referred to as inspired declarations. They don't really call them revelations in the same way that they call DNC132, because it's not overriding DNC132. It's just a declaration to end it for now. And so I just want to get that out of the way. But what I do want to do is go through these next. I think there's two slides just to show how clear God is actually being in this revelation when he gives instructions.

John Dehlin 2:32:43 Yeah. Gordon B. Hinckley, when he was interviewed by Larry King. I think it's an important point to reference that Larry King calls, you know, Gordon McHinkley in the Mormon Church out on polygamy. And I think Gordon McHinkley refers to it as a fleck, a little fleck of history.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:32:57 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:32:57 And I think he says, hey, we don't practice it anymore. And that's. I think that's fundamentally. I mean, it's clever and it's kind of humorous and maybe charismatic or. Or even savvy, but it's not honest to just dismiss polygamy as a fleck of history that we're no longer practicing. Alicia, how do you feel about that?

Alicia Lee 2:33:21 Yeah, I would definitely agree. I mean, again, I know. I feel like I just keep repeating the same point, but it's still in our scriptures. It still applies today. We have eternally polygamy already existing. And I think to just gloss over it like that is just not honest.

John Dehlin 2:33:40 Yeah, it's not honest.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:42 It's not.

John Dehlin 2:33:42 It's not what we want our prophets to be doing. All right, the next slide is God tells us that DNC132 is clear and from a house of order.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:50 Yeah, and so I just want to read this because this is kind of going to answer that apologetic that God's not clear. So, you know God in DNC132, as Alicia pointed out earlier, behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion. So God is saying right off the bat, I am not confusing here. I'm being pretty strict. And so I'm going to summarize some of the verses. So these next two slides kind of just go over that. So verse 15 says that marriage is not performed in the new and everlasting covenant will end at death, making all marriages on earth null and void, except the ones performed by Joseph Smith and the church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:34:23 Verse 41 says, if a woman enters into the new and everlasting covenant and then be with another man, she has committed adultery and will be destroyed. As I said, this is not going to end well for Polyandrus wives. Verse 44 says, if a woman is faithful, but the husband breaks the vow, then the woman will be given to another who is pure, and only Joseph holds the power to do that. Verse 51 says Emma is not allowed to partake of the offer which Joseph made to her, which was either to take an additional husband or to offer divorce instead. DNC132 rescinds it, calling it an Abrahamic test.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:34:54 And go to the next slide. We'll just read through all these real quick. Verse 54. Go back 1. Ergo, verse 54 says, Emma shall abide and cleave to Joseph Smith, but she does not accept Joseph's polygamy. She'll be destroyed. Verse 57 says, Joseph should not put any of his property out of his hands, for Satan seeketh to destroy. Verses 61 and 62 says men are only allowed to marry virgins, yet Joseph is going to marry 11 women who are already married to other men. Verse 61 says that men must gain the consent of the first wife, although four verses later, in 65, they take that away.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:35:28 Verse 63 says the commandment is to take virgins and replenish and multiply the earth, but if those virgins be with another man, they'll be destroyed. Again, this makes clear that women are to be given to men, which is a theme. But just to say that all of those verses are actually pretty clear on how to live by this rule. And so to say that God wasn't. Wasn't very clear in the essay, I think overlooks the fact that DNC 132 actually includes a lot of rules. It's just the church doesn't really want to tell the members what those rules are because of the fact that Joseph Smith is going to break them.

John Dehlin 2:36:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a great example of how specific God can get. And the DNC is full of super specific. It's like, go and take the copyright and go to Canada and sell the copyright. And Martin Harris, give Joseph all your money. Give him whatever you want. Like. Like you really just can't claim that, you know, that God was just too vague in general about polygamy. It was really clear and explicit.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:26 It was. I mean, it's almost like too clear at points. You know, when they talk about a man espouse a Virgin, they have 10 others. I mean, it's very clear. And yet the church wants to go, oh, he didn't really know how to do it. It's like, no, I mean, if that's not clear, I don't know what is. You know, I think that's where it gets out down to.

John Dehlin 2:36:40 That's a great, great point. All right, let's do the next slide, which is the idea that Joseph had to be threatened with an angel and a flaming sword and that he almost wanted to die because it was so horrific for him to have to sleep with all these women. Joseph, the reluctant polygamist.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:57 Yeah, and so this is from the essay as well. It says when God commands a difficult task, he sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage his people to obey. Consistently with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully. And as we mentioned earlier, Joseph Smith is one that wants to know about polygamy. He literally puts in the first verse, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand where an eye the Lord justified my servants as having wives and concubines.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:37:40 So this is basically the church is saying, Joseph didn't really want to do this, but God was really the one that just was doing it. And, but then DNC132 is the exact opposite. It's God saying, since you asked me why they had wives and concubines, I'm going to tell you, and I feel like that alone should tell you that those two statements cannot be reconciled in a way that's going to be faith promoting.

John Dehlin 2:38:01 Also, you already referenced the happiness letter and Joseph saying, hey, if you have a desire of your heart, God can make you happy and give you what you need. And that was all in the context of Joseph trying to persuade Nancy Rigdon to, to have sex with him. And so clearly this reluctant polygamous thing just doesn't add up. Joseph wanted to have sex with teenage girls. I think the evidence is undeniable. Alicia, what's your take?

Alicia Lee 2:38:29 Yeah, well, I just keep thinking about this group of people that believe that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy.

John Dehlin 2:38:35 Yeah.

Alicia Lee 2:38:36 And there is this discrepancy between doctrine and Covenants 132 and sections of the Book of Mormon, at least one section of the Book of Mormon. And I think that we have enough evidence that we can be confident in knowing that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. So I don't know. Then it makes me think about the, the Book of Mormon and where that, I don't know, it's just, it's a, you know, these are, this is problematic.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:39:04 Yeah, that's just it.

John Dehlin 2:39:06 Yeah. Yeah. Who is going to believe that a 38 year old man is reluctant to be able to have sex with 30 women, half of them being teenagers? Like, who's buying that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:39:18 You know, And I heard someone make this, this kind of joke once and it's not, it's going to come off as abrasive. But the angel. We'll go over the angel with the drawn sword story in the next episode. But the angel with the Drawn Sword story is almost like Joseph Smith giving, like, you know, a drug to a woman to make her submit. Because if God really wanted this to happen, he would have sent the angel to the women. But instead, Joseph Smith is going to bring the story, but he's not going to bring the story up until the women say no. So once they say no, this is how he's going to use the story to pressure them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:39:48 And so to me, the church using that to say he's reluctant is not really true because he's using that story to pressure the women after they've said no. If he was truly reluctant, those stories of the angel with the Drawn sword would come long before he proposed to anyone. But instead, they're coming after he proposes to women who say no. And he uses that to get them to submit to his proposal. And so I feel like the essay is being dishonest there because it's trying to make it sound like the angel came to Joseph completely uninvited. But the reality is the angel only came through Joseph to the, you know, in the story, to these women after they said no. It's a much different story than the church portrays in the essay.

John Dehlin 2:40:26 Alicia, what's your take on the psychology of that of like, oh, oh, Nancy, God's gonna kill me if you don't let me have sex with you. What's your take on the psychology of that?

Alicia Lee 2:40:36 Yeah, so I was just gonna say one thing that occurred to me early on during my deconstruction was that Joseph Smith is blaming God on his bad behavior. I mean, that's the other way. I don't know if faithful members could sort of embrace that. If you are a faithful person and you feel like you've had, you know, a lifelong relationship with God through prayer, is this something that you can imagine God commanding Joseph to do? And if not, can you imagine that he's actually blaming this horrible, horrible behavior on Jesus, on God? And I think when you think about it that way, it just really reconceptualizes it that you actually can feel defensive.

Alicia Lee 2:41:23 I mean, especially people who identify as Christians that, like, that's really offensive that he's blaming God on all of this bad behavior. And that's what he turns to every single time. Oh, you know, I didn't want to. And that's the popular apologetic stance on it, is that like, well, he didn't want to. God was commanding him to do this. Well, in my view, he's essentially blaming God.

John Dehlin 2:41:47 Yeah, yeah. And a lot of Christians that I talk to feel like they're mad at the Mormon Church for ruining God for. For so many people. Because if this is how God behaves, so many Mormons leave the church and become agnostics and atheists, which. There's nothing wrong with that, but my Christian friends don't like it. All right, let's go to the next slide, which is that the revelation almost feels like two revelations in one.

Church Apologetics and How D&C 132 Is Taught Today

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:42:16 And so one of the apologetics I talked about this earlier is they'll say that the early part of the revelation is strictly monogamous marriage, and then the second part is plural marriage, and they try to separate the two, because obviously the fact that the new and everlasting covenant has the words everlasting in it should tell you that it should not have ended. And so they'll say that it's really two revelations in one. The first one is about celestial marriage, which is monogamous. The second part is about plural marriage to Emma. And I just. I feel like we've talked about this in previous episodes, but. And we were going to cover this a lot in the Happiness Letter, but Joseph Smith is very gifted at using flowery language before dropping the threats to people.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:42:52 And so this revelation would not be very impactful to Emma. If Joseph starts in the second half where he's threatening her nonstop, he has to use biblical justification to explain why he's having all of these marriages, all these marriages outside of his legal marriage. And so, of course, Joseph is going to not really touch upon polygamy earlier because he needs to effectively recreate the marriage system as we talked about, by creating the problem to sell you a solution. But he has to do that before then he drops the hammer with polygamy. And I feel like this apologetic would be outright rejected by every single early member and leader of the church because they considered new and everlasting covenant to mean polygamy. There's just no. Lindsay Hansen park talks about this in a lot of her podcasts. There's no way to separate that.

John Dehlin 2:43:37 Anything. Not Alicia.

Alicia Lee 2:43:41 I gotta think through that one. That's. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:43:44 Yeah. All right, well, so that takes us to. We've. We've got four slides left, I think. So those of you who are with us, we're. We're probably going to bump up to three hours, so we appreciate your endurance, but I think everything. Every slide has been meaningful to me, at least. So. So the next slide is what the church cites from DNC132 in the 2022 come follow me manual.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:44:09 Yeah. So this is Something, we talked about this earlier about how the church does not teach members the whole DNC132, and they cherry pick verses to make it sound like it's strictly about celestial marriage. Then they'll pick out one or two to try to justify polygamy, because of course we know about that. And so as a convert, as we talked about earlier, we never Once looked at DNC132 in any depth beyond a few verses to talk about ceilings. And so we. I looked at the 2020. It's actually the 2021 come follow me manual. Since last year was on the dnc. Here are the verses that are referred to in any way in the entire lesson. Verses 1 and 2, 7, 13, 15 through 19, 13 through 25, 29 through 40, and number 50.

John Dehlin 2:44:49 And can I just ask you, Mike, do any of those verses contain the word virgin? I'm just curious.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:44:55 I don't think.

John Dehlin 2:44:56 Do any of them contain the word destruction?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:44:59 I don't actually, I don't think they. Yeah, I don't think they do because I think all of that comes after 40. And that's what I was actually kind of curious because I saw verse 50 was referenced in the lesson. I thought, okay, well that's getting into the interesting part of it. But when they cite verse 50, they use it to tell members that those who participated in polygamy should inspire us when we were asked to make our own sacrifices in obedience. And so they're using the horrific things that the women had to go through at that time to basically say if they could do it, then you can clearly do what you're being asked to do for the church today.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:45:30 And so, you know, like I said, the cited verses that the Church is going to use in its come following manual. And remember, this is all about the dnc. This is not. This should include everything in the, in the, in the revelation, especially the fact that this is still doctrine. But it ends right as Joseph Smith is about to begin. The specifics on polygamy as well as, like you said, all the explicit threats of destruction, not just to Emma, but to any woman who does not accept polygamy for eternity. And, and it's almost as if the church doesn't want their members to see it.

John Dehlin 2:46:01 I mean, of course the church doesn't want their members to read it. And in fact, that's where we kind of began. Most members don't see it. There's so, you know, there's so much Mormon scripture, they just never get around to it, especially because the manuals Specifically divert people away from it. Yeah. And, you know, putting all joking aside, one of the core missions of Mormon Stories podcast and the Open Stories foundation is around this idea of informed consent that people deserve to know what they're believing, what they're committing their lives to, what they're committing 10% of their income to, what they're committing two years of missionary service to, what they're getting, you know, what understandings they're getting married under.

John Dehlin 2:46:42 When they make decisions about career and education and children, they deserve to know what they're getting into. And when the church, and the Mormon church just objectively has 200 years of hiding information from its members, from the general public, and, or whitewashing or, or massaging its history so that people won't really understand what, what, what it really believes and what it really teaches and it's just fundamentally coercive and dishonest. Alicia, what do you, what do you have to say?

Alicia Lee 2:47:19 Well, I love that, John and Mike, I love that you worked in the come follow me approach, because think about this. If you, if you are a Sunday school teacher and this is what you're teaching, you know, your primary goal is to keep it faith promoting, right? So what are you going to do with these topics? You're going to take micro angle and you're going to create a tangent to get people sharing things that are faith promoting. So what are you going to talk about? You're going to talk about eternal families. You're going to talk about, you know, deceased loved ones. You're going to put, you know, there's going to be a lot of elevation, emotion, conversation going on there so that, that you can walk away from 132 feeling like it was faith promoting.

Alicia Lee 2:47:55 There's not a dissection of the text. There aren't cross references to past revelations. You know, this kind of critical lens isn't used during a Sunday school lesson, plain and simple.

John Dehlin 2:48:08 And it, and it just really should. All right, we've made this point, but let's just, let's make sure we list it as we come to a close. DNC 132 is still the doctrine of the church.

Modern Leaders Respond to Polygamy Questions

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:48:21 And actually, if you're. Okay, I want to do two things really quick. One is you had mentioned earlier about Gordon B. Hinckley calling polygamy a little fleck of history. And I wanted to look it up because I remember he had talked about polygamy there and it was controversial. So actually what he said about the flicks of history was he was being asked about why the church banned members of black skin from the priesthood. And to that he said, quit worrying about those little flicks of history.

John Dehlin 2:48:46 Okay? So I took that out of context. That was.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:48:49 And that's almost worse, to be honest, to say that banning people black skin is a little flick of history. But for polygamy, during that same interview, he said, I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal, it is not legal, and this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. And so he's doing that thing where he says one thing to Larry King and then obviously to the Church, you give a little wink and a nod to say, yeah, academics, it's not doctrinal, but it's in DNC132. So that is Gordon B. Hinckley kind of doing that kind of double speak where he's trying to carefully say, we don't practice it to Larry King, while in reality it's absolutely doctrinal. It's in. It's in the dnc, as we've talked about this whole episode.

John Dehlin 2:49:25 So how can he condemn it like that? Makes no sense to condemn it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:49:30 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:49:31 And so, you know, and he means condemns the current practice of it, but he doesn't say that. It's just. It's deceptive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:49:39 It's very dishonest.

John Dehlin 2:49:40 Alicia.

Alicia Lee 2:49:41 I think it was John Larsen that said it's like one of the greatest examples of propaganda. Watching how the Church has reframed the term new and everlasting covenant or celestial marriage. It's, like, still there, and now members of the church just only think of that as meaning like temple marriage, an eternal family, a celestial marriage. And not realizing that for decades these terms were specifically plurality. That is explicitly what they referred to. So I love that quote that it's just been like this amazing work of propaganda that the Church has reworked those terms so that members can read it and just think, we're talking about temple marriage.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:50:25 Yeah, it's 100% true. And that's why we've talked in a lot of these episodes of how the Church redefines their own scriptures that are done at face value. We talked about with the Curse of dark Skin, and in this case, they have reworked the new and everlasting covenant to be monogamous marriage, celestial marriage, but they're the same thing. And so, again, for Gordon B. Hinckley to say it's not doctrinal is an outright lie, because if that were true, DNC132 would not be canonized.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:50:52 I Think that's almost worse than what John said because it's very dishonest. But, yeah, as we talked about, the reality is that this is still the doctrine of the Church. And so the Church claims they no longer practice polygamy, and that is just not true. So both Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks are eternal polygamists. They both chose to marry women that were not previously sealed, which means they will have both wives for eternity. And I can't look into Nelson and Oakes heads to say, did they purposefully pick out a woman that wasn't sealed? But I would say if you're a man in the church and your first wife dies, you're going to probably want to look for a woman who was not previously sealed, because then she's yours for eternity.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:51:29 And I think that's a really also kind of a damaging practice within the church, too, because as you could see, Russell Nelson, Dallin Oaks both took a woman, as they were already pretty old, who would be able to be sealed to them and be given unto them for eternity. And so, as we've been talking about, if you're wondering why this bothers so many women today, it's because this doctrine. And if you're wondering why the church doesn't cite the verses in DNC 132 that are horrific to many people, it's because it's still a doctrine of the church. And. And that's really what it comes down to.

John Dehlin 2:52:01 Yeah, absolutely. And this takes us to the next slide, which is polygamist. Honestly, polygamous down H. Oaks joking about polygamy. And I'm gonna. I want to make sure we give Alicia the first chance to respond to this video. But, Mike, what do you want to say to set it up?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:52:20 This is just this from, I think, two or three years ago. And it's Dallin Oaks. He's addressing a woman who had sent him a letter because she's afraid of what the eternal implications are for polygamy. And remember that Dallin Oaks is someone who is already an eternal polygamist. He's already married to a second wife, so he knows exactly what the situation is. And now listen to how. Not only how he's going to kind of respond to her worry, but listen to how the members of the church laugh at her fears.

John Dehlin 2:52:45 And this is Donate Church speaking at a. At an LDS general Conference, which Mormons take as being equivalent to God speaking to them. A letter I received some time ago introduces the subject of my talk. The writer was contemplating a temple marriage to a Man whose eternal companion had died, she would be a second wife. She asked this question, would she be able to have her own house in the next life, or would she have to live with her husband and his first wife? I just told her to trust the Lord. All right, Alicia, we want to let you have first reaction to that. I mean, he's trying to be funny a little bit, right?

Alicia Lee 2:53:41 He's trying to be witty, just incredibly dismissive and belittling to this idea, which is just so incredibly damaging to the sisters of the church, to the women of the church. I take this doctrine from 132 as having long term consequences. This is not just a joke about property or kitchens or sharing household duties. These are serious, serious implications here that we see in 132. And I would argue that they are still threaded throughout our culture.

Alicia Lee 2:54:22 I would argue that this position of God, you know, positioning Emma into submission to her husband, servitude, you could say, to her husband. I would say that this has serious consequences. And we don't know what goes on in the walls of people's homes. But I would guess that this has consequences that maybe none of us here are even aware of. People who take this doctrine really seriously. So just making light of it and then to hear the audience just kind of humored by it, I think is really sad and it's really dismissive. And I think that anyone who is an active member of the church should give consideration to this doctrine and really ask yourself what this means and what are the consequences and what are the implications of this on us today?

Alicia Lee 2:55:13 And if you believe in the next life, what are the implications for the next life? And do you really think that that's what God has intended for you as a woman or as a guy?

John Dehlin 2:55:23 Yeah. And I. I am going to reference again Carolyn Pearson's amazing book, the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, along with my interview with her, which is also very, very good in terms of just how amazing she is. She's a real gift to Mormons, and she's still a faithful, believing Mormon, by the way. But it's easy for someone raised in the Mormon church in the 80s and 90s and 2000s and beyond to just kind of really think that polygamy is a thing of the past. But what Carolyn Pearson shares is letters and correspondence and experiences of how polygamy, to this day in 2022, continues to torment women and men within the Mormon Church in very real and meaningful and significant and traumatic ways.

John Dehlin 2:56:10 And I'm not going to be able to do it justice at the end of this episode, but I am going to refer everyone to that episode. So, Mike, bring us home. What is. What are the conclusions we have about DNC132? And you're muted, Mike, so you have to unmute yourself.

Series Wrap-Up and Final Reflections

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:56:27 Yeah. So this is our second episode in kind of the miniseries of polygamy episodes in the greater series that we're doing. And we're trying to set the stage now for how Joseph Smith, the timeline of how it got implemented, and then how the revelation impacts what Joseph Smith is going to do within this kind of new plural marriage system. And so the next episodes will kind of take this. So I hopefully, if you've watched these two, it'll make the next ones a lot more helpful to those who are trying to figure all this stuff out. And we've highlighted this over and over again. But the problems with DNC132 are vast and they go beyond just this ethical issue.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:57:06 Sometimes we get so focused on what Joseph Smith, how he acted with regards to DNC132. But the thing I just want to point out once more is that he uses this idea that Abraham was commanded into polygamy as justification, and that is flat out not in the Bible. So he is using an incorrect biblical reference to justify a revelation. And that is really problematic once you realize that he is using in the voice of God something that didn't happen in order to justify his actions. And this text is written in 1843, but a year later, in 1842, Joseph Smith is going to write a letter to Nancy Rigdon that's going to follow very similar patterns to D&C132 with very similar justifications.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:57:49 We're going to cover that in the Happiness Letter episode. So these two episodes are almost going to be like sister episodes to each other. And just to finish, say, it's going to get worse from here as far as comfort level. But we needed to establish the timeline. We needed to establish the text of DNC132 so that you can understand as we get into the accounts of Joseph Smith proposing to these women who revere him as a prophet of God, that we could see how coercive and manipulative it can be and how it contradicts his own revelation from God in DNC 132. So, like I said, we've got three more to go.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:58:24 It's going to be a lot more uncomfortable. But hopefully by doing these first two episodes, we've laid the groundwork so you can better understand as we go Forward, kind of what's going on and what the implications are, as Alicia said, for the eternity, so that people can make those decisions as to do you believe that a loving God would condone this or not? And like Alicia said, you could do with it what you want, but everyone should know this.

John Dehlin 2:58:47 Wait, did you just say it gets more uncomfortable in future episodes?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:58:50 Is that what I just heard you say? Yeah, it gets a lot more uncomfortable in future episodes.

John Dehlin 2:58:54 Okay, well, that's interesting.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:58:57 Yeah, it's going to get worse.

John Dehlin 2:58:58 Alicia, you are a lovely, brilliant, and wise panelist on this podcast. I am so delighted that you joined us. You are just like a bright sunshine of wisdom and truth. Will you please tell everyone how to find you and your TikTok channel and the good work that you do?

Alicia Lee 2:59:18 Oh, sure. Okay. So Faith Unraveled is my TikTok channel. I actually just started a new TikTok channel called Soul Unravel, where I'm talking about my reconstruction process. Kind of like climbing out of the deconstruction, climbing out of the darkness, trying to rebuild, trying to reconfigure some semblance of spirituality in my life and doing a lot of things like talking about meditation. And basically, I'm not really teaching anything as much as I am just sharing my experiment. I'm doing right now the artist's way. Just really trying to get in touch with, you know, creativity, the inner voice. And that's kind of the staple of that new platform, is just trying to reclaim my inner voice After 41 years of devout, believing Mormonism.

Alicia Lee 3:00:05 But Faith Unraveled is probably where most people would be interested to follow me, because that's where I talk about deconstruction, and I talked about. About church history. I do talk a lot about polygamy. And, yeah, it's just a great community there. So I love. I love the ex Mormon community on TikTok. It's been a really great place, healing place for me to connect with people. So I love it so much.

John Dehlin 3:00:28 And I'm just going to say I've been. I've been working on you, Alicia, to come on Mormon Stories podcast at some point, when you're ready, when the time is right to tell your story. So I'll just put that out as a teaser. Maybe someday we'll have Alicia in studio. If. If and when that works for you, Alicia.

Alicia Lee 3:00:47 Yeah, it feels like a big move, getting up and, like, telling your whole story, but I feel like I'm getting closer. So maybe, maybe sometime. Maybe sometime this next year.

John Dehlin 3:00:56 All right, well, Alicia, you're delightful. And I hope you. Will you come back? Will you come back?

Alicia Lee 3:01:00 You know what? You have been such a huge, monumental part of our family's deconstruction, John, and we just appreciate you and the show so much. And we're actually donors to the show. We just, it has been a huge lifeline for us. So I just want to say thank you for that. And Mike, you are doing incredible work. When I saw all of your work that you do for this show, I was just, just blown away. So anyway, thank you to you both.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:01:26 Thank you so much. Yeah, I may have to drag you back on the show again, so we'll see.

Alicia Lee 3:01:30 Okay. Okay. This was fun.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:01:33 Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for hanging in there. For thanks to everyone who is watching or listening who made it through three hours. Thank you so much. It's hard to do it. We wanted to make sure we covered it in a way that did it justice, and hopefully we did in a way that gives a lot more context and hopefully it'll help for the next few episodes as well.

John Dehlin 3:01:51 It was great. And Mike, again, the website's LDS discussions.com the essay for this episode is LDS discussions.com polygamy. But Mike, you do great work. This series is really changing hearts and minds. It's, it's educating, enlightening people and I just can't thank you so much for your amazing work. You. You've done more studying and reading and learning and teaching as a convert than. Than 99.99 of anyone who's ever with pioneer ancestry, who's ever born and born and raised in the church. You've, you've done amazing work, Mike. So thank you.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:02:30 Thanks everybody.

Alicia Lee 3:02:31 Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 3:02:31 Thank you guys so much.

Closing Remarks and Support the Podcast

John Dehlin 3:02:33 All right, you guys take care. And thanks again to everyone who is joined us today on Mormon Stories podcast. We want to remind you that the LDS discussion series and I think this is something like episode 25ish in the series. We've got at least 24 more episodes previously recorded and maybe even 25 or more episodes to come. We've put them all in isolated, you know, offerings. You can find us on Spotify. You can listen to us on Spotify at LDS Discussions) or on Mormon Stories on Spotify or you can watch these videos on LDS Discussions) on Spotify. So that's super cool. You can also listen to LDS discussions on the podcast more on the LDS on the Apple Podcast app under LDS Discussions) or under Mormon Stories on the Apple Podcast app.

John Dehlin 3:03:28 And of course, all these videos are available in the Mormon stories podcast. Face YouTube channel and on Facebook, the More Stories podcast Facebook channel and there's a playlist on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel where you can watch these episodes there in order as well. If you've got a really, really, really long trip where you want to have that time go by really fast. So please spread the word. Please subscribe to us on YouTube, follow us on all the apps like us.

John Dehlin 3:04:03 Thumbs up this, share it with as many people as you can and then I'll just end by saying that we can only do this with the financial support of you, our viewers and listeners. Many of you donate thanks to those who do.

John Dehlin 3:04:16 We lose donors every month for a number of reasons including people just fall on financial hard times or lose interest or whatever. So we always need every month new donors to sign up to be able to maintain our services through Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories Foundation. So if you have it within your heart to give either for yourself or for future generations, you can go to mormonstories.org click on the donate button at the top of the page. Sign up to become a monthly donor or a one time donor. All your donations are tax deductible in the U S We're transparent in our finances and we spend every dollar that we can going towards the mission of the Open Storage foundation which is informed consent for Mormons and non Mormons and investigators and for promoting healing and growth for people who are questioning the church, supporting transition for those who are questioning the Mormon Church and providing healing and growth in community for progressive and post Mormons everywhere.

John Dehlin 3:05:16 So that's what we're doing. Thanks for the support. Be kind to each other, Be loved to each other. Be kind to each other. Love each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care everybody.

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