The Rise & Fall of John C. Bennett – Pt 1 w/ LDS Discussions Ep. 49

Introduction and Guest Welcome

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm John Dehlin. It is December 20, 2023 and I'm excited to announce this is a LDS discussions edition of Mormon Stories podcast. We are going to be covering a three part series on John C. Bennett, one of the most infamous and scandalous and problematic and I would say even most important characters in the early history of Mormonism. So get ready. We're going talking about abortions, we're going to be talking about polygamy, we're going to be talking about spiritual wifery, we're going to be talking about all sorts of homosexuality in Nauvoo. All sorts of stuff that's, that's unknown relatively to most people. Most Mormons definitely really fun and interesting and in some cases disturbing stuff. And I'm so excited to have back on Mormon stories podcast our two compadres. When it comes to LDS discussions, we have Mike from LDSdiscussions.com hey Mike, how's it been going?

Mike 1:05 It's good. I had a nice break from our last, our last episode was in the spring, so it's nice to have a chance to kind of take that break and get refreshed and, and excited because I think in this series I'm actually gonna be the one learning a lot. So I'm excited to, to go through it. And you know, like you said, John C. Bennett is a character that is so integral to, to what happens in Nauvoo and it's also something we covered in our previous episodes, but it was more about some of the things about him as opposed to kind of giving a more, more depth to, to what he went through within the church. So I think it's going to be a really interesting one and hopefully we'll add to our previous episodes as well.

John Dehlin 1:41 And Mike, why hast thou forsaken us? Where have you been, brother?

Mike 1:45 I was so burned out after our last episodes that when we, we finished what we had planned, we did get through what we had originally planned. So it's not like we cut in the middle. And I, I remember getting done with that one and just being like, I need a break. And our last episode aired more recently and I just want to say before we get going that I have gotten a lot of emails that have been so kind and I will reply to them. I have been very busy with work the last couple months. So this, I think our last episode aired like three or four weeks ago. So if you did email and you haven't heard back, I will get back to you, I promise. But I just. I didn't want to give, like, a generic reply to people, so I figured I would be better off just waiting until I had time to actually reply personally, as opposed to just copying and pasting. So just want to throw that out there real quick.

John Dehlin 2:24 Well, we're delighted to have you back, Mike. I know my viewership and listenership just loves your. Your work and you've. You've been an important of influencing a lot of people. And with that, I'm also happy to bring back Nemo from Nemo the Mormon across the Pond. Hey, Nemo.

Nemo 2:39 Hi. How you doing?

John Dehlin 2:41 How's it been? How's life?

Nemo 2:42 Not bad. I'm enjoying the beard that you've grown. It's been so long since. Since we've done this, that. And isn't John's beard similar to mine and yet in a very distinct way different? Let us know in the comments how they differ, per chance. No, it's looking great, John, and it's. It's nice to be back.

John Dehlin 2:59 I'm giving Boomer energy. I think I'm quoting you there. I'm giving Boomer energy.

Nemo 3:03 Yeah.

John Dehlin 3:06 Nemo, you. You were. You were analyzing the total views on YouTube of the LDS discussion series, and you have some happy news to share with us.

Nemo 3:17 Yeah, well, I mean, just the ones I'm in because, you know, that's all that really matters to me. There's 1.5 million views on those videos, so I'm sure the entire series has got somewhere in the region of 2 million. And that's just video, not even audio.

John Dehlin 3:29 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's probably 4 million. And I have so many people. I mean, a lot of people say that Mormon stories or, you know, CES letter have been really influential in their journey. I have so many people now telling me that the LDS discussion series has been instrumental in their coming to understand Mormonism better, which is a key goal value of the Open Stories foundation is just informed consent. So, Nemo and Mike, you guys have been a really important part of that, so thank you.

Mike 3:55 Yeah. I would just point out real quick that 1.5 million views is great, but I've been told by a number of people it'd be closer to three if Nemo wasn't on them.

Nemo 4:01 So I do have a suspicion that would be the case.

John Dehlin 4:05 No, I think people come for the accent. I think that's the only reason they're here. Really.

Nemo 4:09 Well, actually, we've got a seminary graduation diploma. That's why they come here.

John Dehlin 4:13 Okay.

Mike 4:13 I've got. I'M not making this up either. I've had people have said, if only you could be as succinct as Nemo, you would do a much better. I'm like, I know, I wish I could. He does a much better job of getting to the point quicker. I'm more rambling. So that if Nemo could, could find a way to, like, teach a course on how to be more succinct. Money. Yeah, yeah, Cash.

John Dehlin 4:34 We'll all try and be like Nemo. All right, so really quickly, for those, those who are joining us, new the, the purpose of the LDS discussion series is as, as neutrally and as dispassionately and as objectively as possible to sort of understand Mormon history, Mormon truth claims, so that you viewers and listeners can reach your own informed decisions. We're not trying to stack the deck. We really are trying to look at all sides. And every once in a while we lose our, our cool. But our commitment is to try and be as neutral, as objective as possible. And with that, I'm so excited. There's this new person in the bottom right quadrant of our screen. Who is this person that says Julia. Julia, who are you? Welcome and thanks. Thanks for joining us. Tell us about yourself.

Julia's Background and Approach to Mormon History

Julia 5:24 So my name is Julia. I, I, I'm on TikTok. I'm under analyzing Mormonism and Instagram and YouTube as well. So. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 5:32 And, and you are. I, I'd say at this point, an amateur historian. I guess the fact that we pay you makes you a professional historian.

Julia 5:40 Well, maybe. Well, so in, I was just gonna say in three weeks, I'm gonna start my master's degree in history. So that's gonna be, I'm really excited about that.

John Dehlin 5:47 So for some reason, I thought that was in the fall. So you're actually starting in January.

Julia 5:51 They masters differently. I'm used to the BYU Idaho track system. So they're like, yeah, it's, it's spring, but like, it's January, so I don't.

John Dehlin 5:59 And do you know what you're going to be trying, right as of now? Do you know what you're going to be focusing on in your masters?

Julia 6:06 American history is probably what I'm going to be focusing on.

John Dehlin 6:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You give. If we're talking about giving, you're giving sort of Juanita Brooks, Fawn Brody vibes, you know.

Julia 6:19 Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll take it.

John Dehlin 6:23 No, but I'll just vouch for Julia. If you check out her tick tocks or her Instagrams, she is a she is a first rate thinker and a real promising historian. And I'm just honored, Julia, to be able to be a small part of your emergence onto the Mormon history, Mormon studies scene. So thanks for joining us.

Mike 6:45 Yeah, I'd like to just say, you know, watching what Julia's done over the last, I don't know how long, two or three years, you've been posting stuff, something like that. And she has a very good approach of, of going through it and showing the receipts. I know that sounds cliche, but a lot of times when you see people who talk, either from apologetics or critic, they'll just state stuff as fact. And she's like, no, no, here's this obscure book that has this obscure source. And she does a good job of putting it out there and not being obnoxious or purposefully antagonistic. And that's the approach we've been trying to take here, is to put these issues out there in a way that's saying, here's all the sources, you know, and we try in every episode to cover the apologetics and just try to be, I know that no one's going to think, oh, they're being super fair to the church, but you know, we do try to cover everything. And Julie has done a very good job of doing that without having that kind of, you know, she, she's be put this way, she's very careful in how she presents it. So she's not just putting stuff out there that's garbage. And I think that is such a cool thing to see because she's covering a lot of stuff in way more depth than we've been covering and finding sources that I certainly haven't seen. So it's a very cool thing. And so for her to put all this together on John C. Bennett is very fun because like I said, I don't know a lot about him. So I'm excited to see all of the, in all of the details that maybe I've skipped over myself when I'm trying to read some of these topics.

John Dehlin 8:01 So, Julie, it sounds like you have the mike/ LDS discussion Seal of approval slash endorsement. How does that feel?

Nemo 8:07 I'd like to add mine.

Julia 8:08 Great. Yeah.

Nemo 8:09 Oh, Nemo, Julia, get on. We both bring the receipts. Like the thing I noticed about Julia's shorts straight away was she's doing the same thing I do, which is bring the sources as well. And that's always was my approach. And it's really cool to see Julia do it.

John Dehlin 8:22 And yeah, so, so I, I think I'll say that our plan for 2024 is to do. I don't know if we want to shoot for weekly or every other week, but we're going to try and just keep the LDS discussion series rocking. And hopefully between Mike, Julia and Nemo developing their own episodes, we'll have some great stuff for you in 2024. And we don't want to just do this to do it, but I do think that there's probably enough content to at least go another year. Should we try? Should we try and go another year?

Mike 8:52 We'll see. How many episodes have we done? It's like 40s. In the 40s, right. Which is kind of crazy to think about, but let's try.

John Dehlin 8:59 How about we try?

Mike 9:00 Yeah. And I think one thing that we've talked about, too, is just when people have topics they want to hear about, you can email John, and we could try to see which ones make the most sense to do. And also there are a lot of more current apologetics that maybe would be good to go over just to kind of explain kind of how the apologetics have moved and then also how they fit into what we do have historically. And then, you know, with John C. Bennett, it's, you know, it's the same thing. It's like we're trying to put out there what we have. And, you know, one of the things I'll say right off the bat, too, is with John C. Bennett, and I don't know if the rest of you would agree with me, he is a character that, if you're an apologist or you're a faithful member, the moment you hear his name, you're like, he's a scoundrel. You can't trust anything he says. And then if you're a critic, a lot of critics are like, he knew some inside information, which means everything he says is true. And I think what we'll see in this series is that it's never black and white like that. And so you have to look at these different topics and then look at the surrounding evidence and the surrounding documents to try to make the best decisions you can. But you certainly will not be able to, after the series, write them off as just some. Some idiot making stuff up because he has information he would not possibly have been able to get without being very well trusted by Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin 10:12 Yeah, well, I mean, I think we'll find out. I think he was co president of the church at one point in the first presidency, so you can't write him off. So. So let's, let's dive in Julia did the research for this episode. It's going to be a three part series. I'm super excited. I'm going to go ahead and promote Julia to second square because this is kind of her show today.

Mike 10:39 But what did that mean?

Nemo 10:40 I ended up at bottom square?

John Dehlin 10:41 John, you want that? Is that better? Okay. All right, so. And I'll just say one last thing is it wasn't until I think I was 30 years old, lifelong Mormon, returned missionary, where I ever heard the name John C. Bennett at all. So the, the idea, Mike, I, I don't mean to disagree with you, or maybe I do. The idea that the average Mormon would think of him as a scoundrel. My position would be the average Mormon would have never heard of his name, even though he was as important as, as, you know, Sidney Rigdon, I would say in the Nauvoo time period. But let's not steal, let's not steal Julia's thunder. So, Julia.

Mike 11:18 Oh, hey, one, one real quick thing is when you're watching this series, what I would highly recommend is to read the chapters of the Saints book that cover John C. Bennett, because that was one of the first experiences I ever had, really reading about him. And it's very interesting. And one of the things I've noticed about Saints about a lot of people who ended up leaving the churches, they start off as like this really bright character where the, you know, the, the writers of the book are kind of making, oh, my goodness, they were drawn to the gospel, they're drawn to Joseph Smith. And then once they leave, they're like, this guy was the worst person in the world. And so read those chapters and along with this to get, you know, that perspective as well, because I. John's right. Most people, I don't think, heard of John C. Bennett unless you're looking into this stuff. But my point is more, if you read apologetic sources, they'll meet like, oh, it's John C. Benny. You can't trust that guy. And I think what you'll see here is you cannot write him off without looking at all of the things he knew, because he clearly knew. That doesn't mean everything he says is true. It just means that you can't just write it off because you don't want to agree with what he's saying.

John Dehlin 12:11 All right, Julia, this is your show. We're going to try and give you the majority of the time. So let's jump in. I'll run the slides. Where should we begin?

Julia 12:19 Yeah, so I just wanted to point out that there's Two main sources that I'm getting all this. All these slides from. And I didn't even think about reading these Saints books. I should have done that. But. So there's two main books, and one of them is this one right here. It was published in 1997. Is that what the slide says by Andrew FC?

John Dehlin 12:34 Yeah, 1997. Yeah.

Julia 12:35 Right. So it's out of print. It's really hard to find. I think I had to grab this one on ebay or something like that. So I apologize if you guys can't find it while I'm promoting it.

John Dehlin 12:43 So the life of Dr. John Cook Bennett. Yeah.

Julia 12:46 Okay. So this is where. This is a great book, great source for him. And then the next book, if you go to the next slide, is his own expose where he. That he wrote the. Called the History of the Saints or an Expose on. Of Joe Smith and Mormonism, and that was published in 1842. So these are the main two texts that I'm getting all this information from, other than you'll see other sources coming in. But yeah.

John Dehlin 13:07 All right. Bringing the receipts and his own autobiography. That should count for something. So.

Julia 13:11 And we won't go into that very much today because we're talking. He doesn't write this till after he's excommunicated. So. But yeah.

John C. Bennett's Early Life and Background

John Dehlin 13:18 All right, let's jump in.

Julia 13:19 Okay, so John Bennett's. John C. Bennett's time in Mormonism encompasses less than two years. So he was baptized in September of 1840, and he was excommunicated May of 1842. But he began a correspondence with Joseph Smith in 1840s. So they wrote letters back and forth, and you can read all those letters, and then he was baptized in September of that year.

John Dehlin 13:37 Okay, all right, so think about 1844 years before Joseph was killed, basically. All right.

Julia 13:45 Okay. So pre Mormonism. So John C. Bennett was involved in the Campbellite movement, and he was also a Methodist preacher. So he's got a background. I think a lot of the people in the church have other religious aspects of their background. Anyway, so Joseph and Joseph Smith and Bennett had actually met in 1832 while he was working with Alexander Campbell, but Joseph did not remember him. And that. And so the letters were sort of them getting reacquainted people at that. This is one thing I think is super interesting, is so. So we'll talk about this more later. But John C. Bennett, he has. He's really big with tomatoes and he's really big with chickens and other things, but people. People thought that tomatoes were toxic at the time. But. But he was really. He knew that they weren't. And he was really promoting their health benefits. Of course, he was really incorrect on what they would. How they would help you. There's. It really doesn't have a lot of eating a. Tomatoes aren't really going to help you. But he, but at least. At least he knew that they weren't toxic. So I thought that was funny.

Nemo 14:36 I mean, of course, the Blue Zone diets of the Mediterranean Council.

John Dehlin 14:40 Well, I mean, that's on brand with the early 1800s in colonial America because, you know, where were tomatoes developed? They were developed in Mesoamerica. What did, what did eight. 19th century, early, you know, Americans think about Native Americans. They were dark, loathsome, filthy people outside of the Book of Mormon. So of course the food that they eat and develop is going to be poisonous and toxic. Right, right. All right, let's keep going.

Julia 15:06 Okay. So one other thing that's. Oh, hang on. There was one more thing.

John Dehlin 15:09 Okay, yeah, keep going.

Julia 15:10 So Bennett tried to get a university established in Ohio, but was unsuccessful. But despite this, Bennett. Bennett issued degrees from the university without there being any actual classes. So this is probably an important part. So he's. He's basically fabricating these degrees and he's just kind of handing them out.

Nemo 15:26 He's a progenitor of selling online courses. Like early on. He's one of those guys.

Mike 15:30 Well, it's the educational. It's the educational equivalent of the Kirtland Safety Society.

John Dehlin 15:35 Right.

Mike 15:35 Both in Ohio. Both, you know, we rejected and did it anyways. And both ultimately were not real authorized. Right.

Nemo 15:42 No, that. That's fair.

John Dehlin 15:43 Yeah.

Nemo 15:43 I mean, at that time in frontier America, you could kind of just do this stuff. Like, I think, I think on a serious note, you can just. There was. Yeah. You were able to write stuff and declare stuff.

John Dehlin 15:55 So, Julie, by your estimation, was he kind of a fraud and a scoundrel before he ever joined up with Joseph Smith? Would you say that's fair or not fair?

Julia 16:03 That's kind of a heavy word, but probably like, even with his own medical license. We'll talk about this too. But like, he, he had a certificate that allowed him to, to act like a doctor, but I don't think he had very much schooling. But, but the church will say, you know, like, oh, they'll give apologists, like, oh, everyone was doing it, so it's fine. So, like, I guess if you want to say it that way, you can say, oh, everyone was doing similar things. Like people didn't have medical licenses. Like, I Don't know. So it depends on how you want to approach it.

John Dehlin 16:31 All right, well, let's jump into Physician.

Mike 16:33 Julie, I have one other question for you. I don't. I don't want to budge in too much, but do you know what he was. What Joseph Smith and John C. Bennett were working with Alexander campbell on in 1832? Because Alexander Campbell was. Was. Was ripping the Book of Mormon to shreds at that point.

Julia 16:47 That's a good question. I haven't actually delved into that part, but that's a really good question. I should write that down and.

Mike 16:52 Yeah, we can look at that for the next one. Just because I'm curious, because that was the same year he gave the quote, which I've read on these episodes a few times. And it's basically him just bashing the fact that the Book of Mormon is. I've just got part of it right here. But this prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi in his Book of Mormon every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last 10 years. He decides all the great controversies. And I know he lists all the controversies. He's just basically saying Joseph Smith is putting into this Book of Mormon all of these very modern questions that everyone's just wondering about. And so that's why I was curious, because that's the same year I didn't know if there was any more detail there.

Julia 17:27 So that was set in 1832 or 18.

Mike 17:29 Yeah, yeah, because he wrote. He wrote. It says Alexander Campbell delusions in an analysis of the Book of Mormon. It was published in 1832. So I did. I just didn't know if there was, like, maybe. Maybe Joseph Smith was also corresponding. Basically trying to push back. I. I didn't know, but. Or maybe they were working before Campbell wrote this later in the year or something. I just didn't know if it said more detail about that.

Julia 17:52 Well, I'll have to look that up, but there's a couple more slides or there's a quote from John C. Benz expose that may have something to do with that. So we'll. I'll bring that up in a second. Yeah.

John Dehlin 18:01 All right, let's jump to the physician.

Julia 18:04 Does someone else want to read this one?

John Dehlin 18:06 Go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo 18:07 Okay. John C. Bennett had a certificate that let him practice medicine. When he moved to Nauvoo. He planned to practice medicine there. According to his biographer, Bennett was not a good physician. Joseph Smith III later said that when Bennett extracted his tooth, he almost died due to loss of Blood. Even Emma Smith was not impressed by Bennett and refused to take medicine he prescribed when she was sick.

Julia 18:31 Yeah. So. Yeah. So I thought that was really funny that he's. His biographer's. Like, clearly he was not a good physician. There's other times where he does help people and he does do a good job. So I don't know.

John Dehlin 18:41 But anyway, maybe we should have physician in quotes in that slide.

Julia 18:46 But also back then, people were phys physicians who didn't have the medical background that we expect today, so.

John Dehlin 18:52 Sure.

Julia 18:53 Yeah.

Nemo 18:53 Well, again, like with the university where he was just giving out certificates for classes that don't exist, there's. Yeah, I guess that's the point I was trying to make about frontier America. Right. Things were different.

Julia 19:03 Yeah.

Bennett's Conversion and Rise in Nauvoo

John Dehlin 19:04 All right, let's talk about his conversion to Mormonism.

Julia 19:06 Okay, so this is the quote that might tie into Alexander Campbell. So in his expose, Bennett claimed to have never believed the Mormon doctrines, which I think is interesting. So he says. It at length occurred to me that the surest and speediest way to overthrow the imposter and expose his iniquity to the world would be to profess myself a convert to his doctrines and join him at the seat of his dominion. I felt confident that from. From my standing in society and the offices I held under the state of Illinois, I should be received by the Mormons with open arms, and that the course I was resolved to pursue would enable me to get behind the curtain and behold, at my leisure, the secret wires of the fabric and likewise those who move them.

John Dehlin 19:43 So is he basically saying it's a power play to join Mormonism?

Julia 19:47 Yeah, like, I. I want to expose this guy. I want to. Yeah. And so if this. If Alexander Campbell really did say that, or if he did believe that and Bennett was part of the Camplite movement, then this could tie in to say, like, oh, I want to get in there and figure out what's happening. Like, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 20:04 I mean, there's a chance that's revisionist, and there's a chance that if it's not revisionist, then it questions, I guess, Joseph's spirit of discernment. Right.

Mike 20:14 Yeah. To me, this sounds like somebody who is riding down the street, falls off their skateboard, jumps up and says, I meant to do that. It just feels like somebody who, like, let's put this way, as you go through these. Present these presentations that Julie's put together, if your intention really is to infiltrate Joseph Smith and expose him, he did one of the worst jobs you could possibly have done. There are so many ways he could have done it if that really was his goal. So this feels like an area, like I talked about earlier, where there's this gray area where you have to kind of decide like where he's trying to pump himself up versus where he's actually giving good info. And that's why it's not all black and white. But yeah, this. This feels very self serving to me.

Julia 20:49 Yeah, I was gonna say. And later, later in the next. In this part two, you'll see Bennett sets himself up as the hero in a lot of his stories when he's trying to expose polygamy. So, like, yeah, he's just. Yeah, I agree with you.

John Dehlin 21:01 He's a. He's. Is. Is he at times an unreliable narrator? Is that what we're saying?

Julia 21:05 Oh, yeah.

Mike 21:05 Oh, yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin 21:06 Okay. All right, let's go to his patriarchal blessing.

Julia 21:09 Okay. So I just thought this was interesting because it reminded me a lot of the Lori Valo, Chad dabell type stuff that we're hearing about now and Ruby, Frankie and stuff. So John C. Bennett got his blessing on September 21st of 1840. So. So really quickly after he was baptized, he was blessed to have to have great power among the children of men and shall have influence among the great and noble, even to prevail on many and bring them to the knowledge of the truth. Thou shalt prevail over thy enemies. It went on to say that God's favor shall rest upon thee in dreams and visions, so very similar to what we hear nowadays. And that he would have power to heal the sick, cause the lame to leap with, to leap like a heart, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. So in his blessing, he's being blessed to be a good physician and their voices shall salute thine ears. It also promised that thou shalt have power over the winds and the waves, and they shall obey thy voice when thou shalt speak in the name of Jesus Christ. And interestingly, his blessing wanted to say that if thou should step aside from the path of rectitude at any time because of temptation, the Lord shall call after thee because of the integrity of thine heart, and thou shalt return to the path from whence thou hast strayed.

John Dehlin 22:17 Okay, well, that. That's a false prophecy.

Julia 22:20 Well, I think most of this is like, if he's not a good physician, but he's being blessed to be good and to heal and also to come back once he leaves. Yeah.

John Dehlin 22:28 And I don't think they mean through modern medicine practices. I think they're giving Him, Jesus, like, powers to heal the lame. And they have.

Mike 22:38 They've got a lot of that in the other ones. When we did our episode, this is the stuff you see where it's just like, these are claimed to be revelation directly from God through these patriarchs. And I don't know if this was given by. I don't know who gave him this. This blessing. But, yeah, it just shows, again, the power of discernment is gone. You know? What's that?

Nemo 22:55 Was Joseph Smith Senior not the patriarch at the time?

John Dehlin 22:57 I think so.

Mike 22:57 I didn't know if he still was at that point or if he had passed away, but either way, yeah, it's definitely another area where you're like, this is direct revelation of God and it's a failed prophecy. That's a problem. We showed that in the patriarchal blessings episode. But, yeah, it just. It just shows how unreliable they are, I guess.

John Dehlin 23:17 Go ahead.

Julia 23:17 Oh, I was just gonna say, it also made me wonder if. If. I don't know if other people's blessings say this, but to have that in there makes me wonder if. If whoever was giving him the blessing knew enough about Bennett to know that he was maybe gonna make a run for it or maybe not as reliable or, like, I don't know. I just had that thought too. Like, do they know he's gonna leave?

John Dehlin 23:35 Yeah. And, Mike, you mentioning past episodes reminds me of something we say every episode, which is that it's great if you've joined us for the first time, but these LDS discussion series build on each other, and you'll get much more out of them. If you start from episode one and go in order, you can find the playlist on YouTube, the LDS discussions playlist. And this podcast has its own series, both on Spotify and on Apple podcasts. And we do recommend you watching them in. In sequence.

Nemo 24:05 Yeah.

John Dehlin 24:05 All right, Julia, should we jump? Oh, go ahead. Real quick.

Mike 24:08 Not that it really matters a ton, but Joseph Smith Senior died seven days before this was given, so I don't know who gave it to him, but. Okay, it wasn't him. That's not a huge deal, but it's just someone else.

John Dehlin 24:17 Okay.

Julia 24:18 All right, I'll have to look at that. Who. Who that was specifically that gave that.

The Nauvoo City Charter and Local Power

John Dehlin 24:22 All right, so now it's time for the rise of John C. Bennett. Is that right?

Julia 24:25 Yep. Yeah, the rise.

John Dehlin 24:26 All right.

Julia 24:27 Okay, so the novice city charter is probably the. One of the biggest things about John C. Bennett. He was key in getting the Navajo city charter written and passed. So Joseph will brag that he wrote it. So we can't really. We can't blame Bennett for everything that's in there. So he was practicing and trying to get things through the legislature. And so that's one of the reasons why he was key in this. In October of 1840, Bennett and Robert. Robert B. Thompson, Joseph Smith's personal secretary, were appointed to a committee to draft a bill for the incorporation of the town of Nauvoo and other purposes. In late November, Bennett went to the Springfield to lobby for the bill to incorporate the city of Nauvoo. The proposed charter was presented to the Senate, and it was strongly supported by many. According to Thomas Ford, then a justice on the Illinois Supreme Court, the vote was taken. The A's and nays were not called for. No one opposed it, but all were busy and active in hurrying it through. Ford also reported that the bill was never read except by its title. So I thought that was really interesting.

John Dehlin 25:24 What's interesting? What's interesting about that?

Julia 25:26 Well, so the people will say, well, we'll talk about it later, but there's a lot of problems in the Nauvoo City charter. It gives the mayor of Nauvoo, the one in charge, way too much power. And so I think if it had been read, people might have been more concerned by it and maybe not have been so enthusiastic to just push it through. And so, yeah, it's just interesting to me that it was never actually read. It was just presented because all these places are trying to start up and trying to. To. Yeah. Just begin. Like Nauvoo.

John Dehlin 25:52 And Julia, what's your understanding of what a city charter is and does? Just for those who don't even know what we're talking about here, do you. Do you even have a way to describe that?

Julia 26:00 I don't even know if I. If you guys have another.

John Dehlin 26:02 Maybe it's just like the Constitution for a city. The balance of power, the. The structure, you know, the mayor, the city council, who does what. Yeah, the legal system. Like, I'm guessing it's everything that would go into the balance of power. The governance, the rule of law. And apparently that this. This charter gave a lot of power to Joseph Smith. Is that. Is that basically what we should. Maybe more than any one man should normally have. Is that fair to say?

Nemo 26:34 And there was no common consent really involved, even from the very beginning. Gave a vote.

Mike 26:40 Yeah.

Nemo 26:41 Also, just looking at DNC 135, that would have been Hiram Smith as the patriarch.

John Dehlin 26:47 Okay.

Nemo 26:47 Will have given that blessing to John C. Bennett.

John Dehlin 26:49 Thanks, Nemo. All right, let's go to the next slide on the city charter continued.

Julia 26:55 Okay, so on their website, the church tells us that the Nauvoo City charter guaranteed the local government's right to pass laws, form a city militia, and issue rights of habeas corpus, meaning the right to appeal, arrestment, or imprisonment. So that's really important. The Nauvoo charter prevented Joseph Smith's extradition to Missouri, and it was very attractive to criminals. And this is something I found really interesting. Researcher Mary Ann Clements put it this way. She says, because of the Nauvoo City Charter, you actually have criminals who are coming in, who are purchasing land in Nauvoo, who are joining the church in some cases. And it does seem to be after 1843, after Joseph Smith has definitely proven that he could get out of extradition, that they're tightening up the charter and making it harder for people to. Harder for people to arrest people inside of Nauvoo. So.

John Dehlin 27:37 So wait, so because the charter was designed to protect Joseph Smith's past dubious and. Or criminal behavior, are you saying it became a haven for other criminals?

Julia 27:48 Yeah, yeah. Because I think because he's in a different state, and Missouri's. He's wanted in Missouri for other reasons, and so they can't arrest him, though, and take him out of the state. So a lot of people are like, oh, let's just go to Nauvoo, and then we'll be safe there. So, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of power, way too much power in this Nova City charter.

Nemo 28:07 Nemo, can I throw a little contemporary topic up there real quick? I've often said that one of the reasons the Church struggles with abuse and the case of abuse and condemning certain things is because if you were to look at the life of Joseph Smith, you would also have to condemn some of his actions, some of his inappropriate uses of power to try and gain sexual favor with women and. And such. And what I'm seeing here is almost a metaphor for what the Church is going through right now with things like the Bisbee case, where they're saying, well, there's a doctrine that prevents bishops from telling the authorities about abuse, and the Church is therefore applying the exemption based on that doctrine. Now, if people know that that doctrine exists and if the Church keeps getting press about this, it could almost become the sort of place. And I've said this before, the Church doesn't want to be seen as a place where abusers can come and get away with it, because you don't want to attract those kinds of people who, under the pretense of trying to join the church, know they're going to have access to vulnerable people. And you've got the same thing here with this charter. You've got, oh, criminals have realized, if I go to Nauvoo and do stuff, I won't be taken out of state to, you know, face my crimes or whatever. Great. Awesome. I'll go there. The church does not want that again, but because they have a. They have from their founding and, you know, from Joseph Smith's time doing that, putting this charter together. Unfortunately, by trying to protect themselves, they have made this, wow, people can come.

John Dehlin 29:38 It's like, just like Boy Scouts was a haven for pedophiles, Navu became a haven for criminals. That's powerful.

Nemo 29:45 Yeah, essentially. Yeah.

John Dehlin 29:46 Yeah. All right, Julia, let's talk about apologetic discussion of the Nava City charter.

Julia 29:53 Yeah. Does someone were to read this top quote?

John Dehlin 29:55 I'll. I'll do it this time, and then Mike can do the next one. So this is the Fair Mormon Nauvoo city charter. For those who don't know, Fair Mormon is the apologetic, one of the apologetic Mormon institutions. And it says, quote, the Nauvoo charter granted great power to the city, but it was not unique in this respect. In other words, they did bad things, too. So it's not so bad. The other charters in Illinois were similar. Nauvoo's court system was more restrictive than other cities since it was under the jurisdiction of the country Court, while other cities were not. The powers granted Nauvoo were not seized by the Saints. They were granted lawfully and could have been removed lawfully by the legislature. All right, for a second, why are we laughing?

Nemo 30:47 Because it's basically like saying, oh, well, the exemptions we gave that we got to protect ourselves, well, they were legal. It's the same thing the Church does with abuse now. It's like, well, hey, hey, hey, we obeyed the law. But. But fair Mormon time and time again, or, sorry to be correct, they're not fair Mormon anymore because Mormon is a victory for Satan. So they've rebranded. They're just fair now. They. They have gone down this route of, well, the rules were followed. Doesn't matter if it was moral or not. And I think actually the church needs to do a better job. An apologist needs to do a better job of expecting the church to be a moral arbiter, because that's the function that the religion should serve, not just, well, the church obeyed the law, so nothing bad happened. Here because things can be legal but not necessarily moral.

Mike 31:32 Well, and it reminds me too of like when you have in. In the US especially, and I'm sure it's true for you, Nemo, but they'll pass this massive bill, right? And then like three days later, someone will be like, what the crap was thrown into the state to this bill in the last minute and throw all the spending or all these little laws in there. And then people are like, well, you can't complain about that because Congress passed it. It's like, well, Congress didn't read it, so they didn't know it was in there. And it's the same thing here where it's like, it sounds like they got the charter passed without reading the bill. And then the. The fair Mormon now is saying, well, they passed it. Dude, don't. It's not. You can't complain about it.

Nemo 32:06 It.

Mike 32:06 But it's not really examining the fact that they wrote it intentionally to be protecting Joseph Smith. And from a believer standpoint, you can make the argument that Joseph Smith was being chased by Missouri and that it was a necessary thing to do. I'm not going to argue that one way or the other. I'm just saying that you can't blame, I guess, the circumstances when they clearly wrote a very powerful charter and got it passed without reading it. I just feel like it's. It's a bit of a. I don't. I don't know what the word would be. Almost like a. Yeah, it's just a bad argument.

John Dehlin 32:38 Yeah. Julie, what were you gonna say? Oh, yeah, and there's more. There's more on the slide too. So.

Julia 32:42 Yeah, just those two things. Yeah. It's like everyone's doing it, so we're okay. Everyone's got bad charters. And then like, what you just said, Mike, is like, hang on, I'm spacing. What was it?

Nemo 32:53 Was that. Well, it was legal, so what's the problem?

Julia 32:56 Okay. Yeah.

Mike 32:57 So, yeah, it's almost like. It's almost like saying, well, we made it a super powerful charter, but no one else caught it. So, you know, what are you gonna do? It doesn't make it right. It just.

John Dehlin 33:06 It.

Mike 33:07 They're right in the sense of they gotta pass lawfully, but they're also ignoring the fact that was also on the slide, which is that people did notice at the time.

Julia 33:15 Yeah. What we're doing is doing it right.

Nemo 33:17 Everyone else is. Doing an argument is an appeal to popularity and it just doesn't wash. Right.

Mike 33:22 Especially when you're supposed to be God's One true church, which we've talked about in so many circumstances.

Nemo 33:26 It's.

Mike 33:27 It really is one of those arguments that at some point you just roll your eyes because it's like, it doesn't make it right. It just makes it what other people are doing that you're also, you know, the church on one hand is like, everyone else is so corrupt on the other hand. Well, everyone else is doing it too. It's like, which is it? You know, take your pick. So.

Julia 33:42 Yeah.

John Dehlin 33:42 All right.

Julia 33:43 What.

John Dehlin 33:43 Anything else from the second half of that slide, Julia?

Julia 33:45 Yeah, I just want to read. I'll just read the second part. So several contemporaneous newspapers. So the church is trying so far more is trying to say everyone was doing it. It's fine it was granted lawfully. But I just wanted to point out several contemporaneous newspapers, including the Warsaw Signal and the Sangamon Journal, along with John C. Bennett and even William Lott in the Nauvoo Expositor, criticized the amount of power the Nauvoo City charter granted the Saints and their leader. So regardless of whether the charter was unique or not, it gave Joseph too much power. And so like, yeah, people back. People during that time did not like this.

Mike 34:12 Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like the argument. I'll make this real quick, but they'll say with polygamy sometimes. Well, polygamy wasn't technically illegal at the time, which you know, it was, but whatever. Or you know, marrying a 14 year old or a 15 year old girl wasn't illegal. It's like people noticed at the time this was wrong. So you can't make the argument that it's presentism or whatever. It's like people did notice. They slipped it through. And so for fair to make the argument that it was totally legal, it really is skipping over really important details which they would point out if the argument was. Was being made the other way around.

John Dehlin 34:42 All right, let's go to Abraham Lincoln weighing in.

Julia 34:44 Yeah, I just thought this was interesting. So even Abraham Lincoln, who's. Whose name the Mormons had erased from the electoral ticket in November, had the magnanimity to vote for the bill. He came forward after the final vote to congratulate Bennett. So I just thought that was interesting. So Bennett has a little. Or not Bennett. Abraham Lincoln has a little bit of play in Mormon history and the Mormons didn't like him, but he was just like, hey, congratulations on getting this charter passed. And I just thought that was interesting.

Nemo 35:09 What a nice dude.

Julia 35:10 Yeah.

Bennett's Roles in Nauvoo Government and Institutions

John Dehlin 35:12 All right, let's go to the quartermaster general.

Julia 35:16 Yeah. So Bennett served as a quartermaster general from 1840 to 1842. And does somebody want to give the definition of what a quartermaster general is?

John Dehlin 35:23 Go for Mike.

Mike 35:24 A quartermaster general is the staff officer in charge of supplies for a whole army. He is in charge of quartermaster units and personnel. So those tasked with providing supplies for military forces and units.

Nemo 35:37 Okay, yeah, he's like HR and warehouse voted to.

Mike 35:41 Yeah, it's like a logistics officer kind of thing. Right. So.

John Dehlin 35:44 But then he gets. Then he gets a promotion. So let's talk about him becoming mayor of Nauvoo. That's a pretty big deal.

Julia 35:50 Yeah. Yeah. So on February 1st of 1841, Bennett, John C. Bennett, was elected the first mayor of Nauvoo. He said five priorities for his initial agenda as mayor. So the first one, he wanted to prohibit all bars, tippling houses and dram shops. So those are all places that sell liquor. And the second one was to create the Nauvoo University because he has background in starting schools. He does such a great job. Number three is to organize the Nauvoo Legion. Four was to construct a wing dam in the Mississippi. And five was to drain the lowlands bordering the Mississippi.

John Dehlin 36:19 So really quickly, people raised Mormon not aware of its history or wondering why Joseph City, the. The pure city created by Joseph Smith in his final four years, why they would have bars, tippling houses and dram shops at all. I think that's curious, right? Given the word of wisdom and the way Mormons are today, is it fair to say that John C. Bennett would have never been made mayor without Joseph's consent? Is that fair to say, Julia?

Julia 36:49 Yeah, I would think so. And. And the. His biographer points out that. And we'll talk about this, too, that even though he was the mayor, Joseph was the one pulling the strings. He's like the puppet, and Joseph's the puppet master. So. So, yeah, I would say that he would not have been put as mayor without Joseph.

John Dehlin 37:03 Okay.

Mike 37:04 Yeah. And this is one of those things. Just to keep this. This slide. I know it doesn't have a ton of specifics about the Mormon Church, but keep this slide in mind as we go through the series, because John C. Bennett is not becoming Mayor Navu unless he is one of the most trusted people that Joseph Smith has. And that's just what John said. He's not getting there without Joseph Smith. He's being put there on very deliberately. So you got to remember that as we go through this, because again, as apologists want to say, oh, he was Just a scoundrel who did all these horrible things without anyone knowing about it. It's like. No, he was clearly trusted and was clearly involved in everything going on at this time.

Nemo 37:37 And that. I just want to point out that the ban on alcohol and whatnot didn't last particularly long. I'm just looking at Fair's website now. On the 12th of December, 1843, the City Council in Nauvoo passed a law allowing the mayor, that is Joseph Smith at the time, to sell spirits. So when Joseph set up a bar in the Nauvoo mansion house. A bar. A house whose size and construction and all of that jazz was dictated from on high by revelation down to how much money people could put into it, which we've gone over in an episode. The bar that was established in. That for weary travelers was made legal by the council in 1843. So it didn't last.

John Dehlin 38:15 Nemo, I. I find your presentism disturbing.

Julia 38:18 Hey, hey.

Nemo 38:20 I'm just saying.

John Dehlin 38:20 What happened. I'm kidding.

Mike 38:22 Yeah.

John Dehlin 38:22 No, apologists would say we can't apply modern Mormon mores on word of wisdom to the Nauvoo period. It was. It was not made a commandment until later.

Nemo 38:34 Indeed.

John Dehlin 38:34 You know.

Nemo 38:34 Yeah. Well, Joseph drank the night before he was martyred, and that's all we need to say on that matter, really. It was a different time.

Mike 38:39 Yeah.

John Dehlin 38:40 All right, Julia, let's talk about the Nava City Council.

Julia 38:43 Yeah. So the Nova City Council is made up of these different individuals. And so. So John C. Bennett was the mayor, and there's four aldermen. There's William Marks, New K. Whitney, Samuel H. Smith, and Daniel H. Well, and then they have nine counselors, and Joseph Smith is one of them. Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Charles C. Rich, John T. Barnett, Wilson Law, Don Carlos, John P. Green, and Vincent Knight. So I recognize a lot of these names because they're. They're husbands of the wives Joseph later takes. But anyway. Yeah. So it's just. It's just setting up the council. And who's in charge of what in Nauvoo?

John Dehlin 39:13 I don't know if it's right, but it seems like some of those names are also implicated in the Mountain Meadows massacre for some reason. Daniel Wells and Charles Rich. I don't know if that's right.

Julia 39:25 I don't know either.

John Dehlin 39:26 But at least Daniel Wells is the

Nemo 39:28 lore on that list of. Who's the one on that list again?

Julia 39:32 There's Wilson Law, who's William Law's brother.

Nemo 39:34 He's William Law's Brother. I was going to ask.

Julia 39:36 Yeah.

Nemo 39:36 Relative of William. Okay.

Julia 39:37 Yeah.

John Dehlin 39:38 All right. So any. Anything significant about that list? Other than what, Polygamy and possibly mountain meadows?

Julia 39:46 Yeah, that's probably it.

Nemo 39:46 Joseph's brother.

John Dehlin 39:47 Listen. Nepotism, right? Joseph's brother.

Julia 39:50 Yeah, that's true.

John Dehlin 39:51 John C. Lee's. Don Carlos is Joseph's brother. So kind of stacking. Sidney, Rigdon and Hiram. Oh, Hiram. So Don Carlos, Hiram, Samuel. So there's like.

Julia 40:02 There's a lot.

John Dehlin 40:03 Three of Joseph's family. John Bennett's brother. That's like almost 50. Nepotism right there. That's funny.

Nemo 40:13 Neil K. Whitney's significant. Was it his store?

John Dehlin 40:15 His store, yeah. All right, let's go to the roles of the mayor and Nauvoo.

Julia 40:24 Yeah. Does someone want to read this one?

John Dehlin 40:25 I think it's Nemo's turn.

Nemo 40:26 I'll tell you that the principle of separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government was not built into the Nauvoo Charter. Oh, boy. The mayor's primary responsibility was to preside over the city council. In addition, the mayor served as the chief justice of the Nauvoo Court of Appeals, with the aldermen acting as associate justices. Whilst this lack of checks and balances was not unusual in Illinois at the time and in many communities today, it did lead to a concentration of power in the mayor's office. Since Bennett had written the legislation placing power in the hands of the mayor and then immediately run for office, one might conclude that Bennett was power hungry. Whatever the structural arrangements of the city government, the power behind Bennett was Smith. I think that is a very fair point, is that even if this looks like it benefits Bennett, the person who ultimately benefits is Joseph Smith because he is the one controlling things, keeping things around.

John Dehlin 41:25 And I'm gonna. I'm gonna pull my card. As a political science major and as a former watcher of Schoolhouse Rock as a child, we. We all. We all know that the. The United States government and. And probably we got this from. From Great Britain is divided into three main branches, right? Executive, legislative, and judicial. And they're intentionally separated so that they can be a counterbalance. So if the executive branch gets too powerful, the combination of the legislative and the judicial can override and keep a balance, a separation of powers between the three branches. But if the. If the mayor of Nauvoo is the head of the city council, which is the legislative body, and if the mayor of Nauvoo is also the chief justice, it's literally a monarchy, which. Which Nemo. I think you'll agree is not necessarily a good thing. Or. Or am I wrong?

Nemo 42:18 I would. I would absolutely not say things against the idea of Monarchy Forum. No, I think you're absolutely right that I said, oh, boy. I couldn't quite hold myself back from reacting to just how bad a concentration of power that is to have someone with fingers in that many pies and with no checks and balances. Because we have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little power, as they see it, they begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Ain't that right, Joe?

John Dehlin 42:54 Well, you know, go ahead, go ahead, Mike.

Mike 42:56 I was just gonna say when we did our episode, like on the priesthood restoration, that was one of the things I point out. When you look at the timeline, Joseph Smith is continually coming up with revelations that set himself above, above, above. Every time there's someone else who's like, no, I'm. I'm at the same authority as. He's like, not anymore. Just got revelation. And this feels like now that they have an actual city to run, that exact same approach is coming where he's like, okay, I'm making it so that I can do whatever I want. And basically it's now codified in a loss, so there's no one who can really stop me. And so it definitely is, as Julia pointed out, feels very intentional that John C. Bennett helped write the charter, became the mayor. It's almost like he was writing this knowing that he was taking it over.

Nemo 43:34 Can I ask a really, really quick aside? And we don't have to go into detail at all, but obviously Salt Lake City and Utah as a state more generally, has its history founded by Mormons. We've seen here what happens when Mormons write a city charter. What is the city charter of Salt Lake like or generally?

John Dehlin 43:51 I have no idea, but I think it's more traditional. There's a mayor, there's a governor of the state. He. He is more of the. The executive, you know, officer, But. But there's a. There's a house and a senate, a bicarbonate, a bicameral legislature. Yeah, Yeah.

Nemo 44:11 I was just wondering about the city of Salt Lake, whether. Whether it's charter is a little bit quirky, but.

John Dehlin 44:16 Oh, say, I think it's the same type of thing. There's a mayor, there's a city council. I don't think the mayor is the head of the city council. No. So. Good question, Nemo. I'm just going to also say it's a Little bit ironic that especially since the rise of Ezra Tap Benson, that. But also with the doctrine and covenants that generally Mormons believe that the, that the U. S. Constitution is inspired of God and you know, in modern day times.

Nemo 44:42 What's that Dan Lake jokes? Did a whole talk on it a couple conferences ago. The divinely inspired United States constitution.

John Dehlin 44:48 Yeah. So I guess it's a little bit weird to me that we would, we would hold up the U. S. Constitution as being inspired and it's structured as a. As a tricameral sort of the three, three part balanced government. But then in the government that Joseph Smith custom builds, he really seeks to erode the balance of power. That's a weird irony. And, and freaking. Julia, we haven't given you any, any space to opine on this. So, Julia, anything you want to say about this slide? We apologize.

Julia 45:19 No, you guys cover that really well. Can you, can you show it again?

John Dehlin 45:22 Okay. Yeah.

Julia 45:23 You guys covered that really well.

John Dehlin 45:24 Okay. All right.

Julia 45:25 Yeah.

John Dehlin 45:26 All right, so let's go to University of Nauvoo, University of John C. Bennett.

Julia 45:31 Yeah, so the University of Nauvoo was founded in 1841. So wait, I just want to say something too. So I'm, I grew up in Missouri, so Nauvoo is not very far. And I grew up going to Nauvoo all the time. Like it was like almost every year, every other year as a child. And I've never, I had never heard of the University of Nauvoo when we just went a year ago with my, like, as an ex Mormon and. Yeah. Never heard of this. So this is all new to me.

John Dehlin 45:53 Cool.

Julia 45:54 Yeah. Anyway, okay, so it was founded in 1841. Terrell Givens wrote, the University of Nauvoo was founded in an era when, as Richard Hofstadter writes, most colleges were precarious little institutions, domination ridden, poverty stricken. In fact, no colleges at all, but glorified high schools or academies that presumed to offer degrees. Navajo university had no campus, but it was still a university and more than aspiration. So I thought that was interesting. So it's not really so. It's just, it's what you think of like home, almost like homeschool, I guess. There's no real campus for this.

John Dehlin 46:28 Okay. Yeah, interesting. All right.

Julia 46:32 And then In January of 1841, Joseph Smith wrote, the University of Nauvoo will enable us to teach our children wisdom, to instruct them in all knowledge and learning in the arts, science and learned professions. We hope to make this institution one of the great lights of the world and by it and through it to diffuse the kind of knowledge which will be practiced, which will be practicable. Sorry. Which will be practical utility and for the public good and also for the private and individual happiness.

John Dehlin 46:58 So what does all that mean?

Julia 46:59 I like that quote. I liked that it was like gaining knowledge and things like that. I think it's interesting that how quickly the university failed. But I do appreciate his saying that

John Dehlin 47:11 the aspirations, the intentions had at least some good to them.

Julia 47:14 Right, right. Yeah.

John Dehlin 47:15 I mean, Mormonism's code is often like the glory of God is intelligence. Right. I don't think it's fair to say the Mormon Church is against education. I just think they're against education that might deteriorate faith. Right. Otherwise, I think the church is generally pro education.

Julia 47:29 Well, and I push that a little bit with, with as far as women, in regards to women getting an education, I feel that's very different than. Than a man's education.

John Dehlin 47:37 So I'm so glad you're in our panel, Julia.

Nemo 47:41 Otherwise we would have sailed right past that. It makes me think of BYU though.

John Dehlin 47:44 Right.

Nemo 47:44 And it seems like a pattern time and time again that Joseph Smith will try some things and they will fail. And I think this is where Brigham Young was very successful as an organizational mind that he was able to actually bring to pass a lot of things that Joseph Smith tried to do and wasn't able to necessarily do. So you've got now Brigham Young University, which is, I mean, could I call it a shining light? It's John's alma mater, but still.

John Dehlin 48:11 Hey, watch out, Nemo. Be careful. Be very careful.

Nemo 48:15 What is it? A cougar? Is that what they call you?

John Dehlin 48:18 Watch out, Nemo. You're treading on thin, thin ice. Actually, I'm three times. I'm. I'm three times the Aggie of Utah State University. I have three degrees, technically, three degrees from Utah State and one from byu. So I'm three times the Aggie that I am the cougar.

Nemo 48:32 What's an Aggie?

John Dehlin 48:34 Utah State is the. It's agricultural person.

Julia 48:38 Oh.

John Dehlin 48:38 Anyway, we're off track.

Nemo 48:41 No, but the point is that, you know, like you said, education is of a value. And when the church was able to set up a university properly, they have done and it has continued and worked. They've tried to set up Nava University again, by the way. I was just doing a quick bit.

Julia 48:54 Oh, I think it was a 2016. I think I did or something.

Nemo 48:57 2009 to 2010. It lasted one year and then they kind of turned it into a bit of an online program that kind of is just, just lost the ages.

John Dehlin 49:05 Fascinating.

Julia 49:06 Yeah. I wonder why that didn't take off.

Nemo 49:08 They cited insufficient funds and donations as the reason for its closure. Which if the church had wanted it to succeed, they could apply to that.

Mike 49:16 If only there was a place that had money.

Julia 49:18 There's nobody in Nauvoo. There's no maybe there's nobody in Rex. So I don't know. I don't know if that's a good argument.

John Dehlin 49:23 Universities are super expensive. I, I, for some reason I think BYU costs, the BYU's cost the church like a billion dollars a year if you add up all the, and I'm making that number up, but it's a lot of money. So it's non trivial thing to try and run a Division 1 reputable university, you know.

Mike 49:40 Yeah.

John Dehlin 49:41 All right, let's go to the next slide on University of Nauvoo. Julia.

Julia 49:44 Okay, so the university plan to offer languages, German, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Mathematics, chemistry, geology, literature and history. So a lot of the things you'd expect a university to offer. The faculty included Sidney Rigdon, Orson Spencer and Orson Pratt, the president of the University of Utah. So the current president now, David P. Gardner, or the 10th president, I mean he believes that it was probably superior to the average secondary schools of the time. So he's saying that this was an actual good thing that was happening. On August 16 of 1841, the Times and Seasons announced that the Department of English Literature is now in successful operation and advised that the university was ready to offer a general course of mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, geometry. And it lists off a bunch of other things. So one thing that I think is interesting, and then they later added a music department, so it seems like it was taking off. Well and, or at least according to

John Dehlin 50:32 their newspaper, it's even got differential and integral calculus, astronomy, chemistry, like that. That would have been dangerous if it had continued for too long.

Nemo 50:43 Well, if they've done astronomy and like started talking about the effect of Kolob on interplanetary bodies.

John Dehlin 50:49 Exactly. Gotta shut that. I don't swear, but you gotta shut that shit down.

Nemo 50:55 Yeah, well, I mean, and on that vein with the, with the six foot Quakers on the moon have been eligible to enroll. You know, that was also a believed thing at the time by some of the individuals on the faculty. So for them to be teaching about astronomy would have been dangerous indeed, I think.

Julia 51:10 Well, and then like Joseph's take on Hebrew too is an interesting thing.

Mike 51:16 Sorry, that's what I was gonna say. No, I was gonna say that the Hebrew thing would be amazing because you'd start learning that all of the things Joseph Smith is pulling from the Bible

Nemo 51:21 is completely done courses in reformed Egyptian.

John Dehlin 51:25 Yeah, exactly.

Mike 51:27 And that's, you know, not to be sincere question.

Nemo 51:29 I'm not being funny.

Mike 51:30 No, I mean, it is. That's the thing. Like, if they had had the curriculums on their own scriptures, I would kill to see those because they would look so bad in 2023. Because now we know so much more about the history of the Bible and the history of. Of the Book of Mormon itself. And you know that it would. This would be very bad. And I. So I wish they had done it because I wish we could have more documentation to actually compare against what we know today. So I kind of wish it had survived.

Julia 51:57 Well, to some degree, I still feel like we're kind of doing this. This might be off topic, but I. I went to byu, Idaho, and I remember taking one in one of my classes. We were learning about evolution. And the professor, I don't know why he did this. Well, I guess I know why. But he said we're going to learn about evolution, but we know that this is false because of the. What our church believes and the church, the world being only 6,000 years old and things and how we came from Adam and Eve. And so he precursed everything by saying this is false. But then he went and taught us about all these. About evolution and how the evolution especially of humanity. And anyway, I thought that was really interesting. So maybe they would. Maybe they would have still presented it that way.

Mike 52:28 Oh, I'm sure they would have because you got. They always had that kind of mindset of like, oh, the world doesn't believe us, but we know we have the truth. But at the same time, I just wish we had it just so we can look at like the curriculum on. On Egyptology or something like that. Or like, like Nemo said, astronomy is such a big thing in the book of Abraham. To kind of see that almost like doubled down even more would be very interesting. So I do wish we had. I wish I had survived in that. In that regard.

Julia 52:50 Yeah.

John Dehlin 52:52 So that. Julia, this is a little foreshadowing, but the next slide is chancellor of the university. So what are, what are Bennett's titles at this point? He's mayor, he's the head of the militia, quartermaster. Quartermaster, head of the city council, chief judge. And now he's going to be like, any one of those jobs should be like its own job. And yet are you telling us that he was now made the Chancellor of the university too?

Julia 53:20 Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin 53:21 That's crazy power, and that's too much for any one dude to do.

Nemo 53:25 But we see this in the modern church now, right? We see that not only are members of the quorum of the 12. Members of the quorum of the 12, they're also head of certain church boards, the head of certain church departments. They wear several hats.

John Dehlin 53:37 Yeah.

Nemo 53:38 Between them. So it's. It's nothing.

John Dehlin 53:40 Don't forget home teacher, you know, don't forget, you know, minister. Minister.

Nemo 53:43 Always. Always minister.

John Dehlin 53:45 All right, Julia, take. Take it away.

Julia 53:47 Yes. On the 3rd of of February of 1841, he's saying. This is from his expose. I was unanimously elected Chancellor of the University of the City of Nauvoo as well as will hereafter appear, we are glad to see the action of the Council on the subject of education and that they have chosen the Board of Regents and appointed as Chancellor and Register of the University of the City of Nauvoo. The appointment, we think, does great credit to the council and we have no doubt but that the board will. Will assiduously engage in the great and all important work of education. And that was published in the Times and Seasons. So, yeah, he was. He's the Chancellor of the university. So, yeah, he's got a lot of hats.

John Dehlin 54:21 And if. And if that weren't enough, we've got more. He's Major General now too.

Julia 54:25 Yeah. Yes. On February. February 4th of 1841, John C. Benna was elected Major General and Inspector General in the Nauvoo Legion. And this is from the. You can find that in the Nauvoo Legion Minute book. And by 1842, the Nauvoo Legion had become the. The largest military unit in the United States. And I think that's really important because, like, that's really intimidating if you think about that, if you're not a Mormon. Joseph Smith was appointed as the Lieutenant General who outranks the Major General and Inspector General. And the Major General typically commands divisions sized units of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers.

John Dehlin 54:57 One of the most shocking things I remember reading about in Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History, is just how intimidated the surrounding towns and cities became at this accumulation of power in Nauvoo. And as I understand it, and we may get to this at some point, the. The Nauvoo Legion is marching around neighboring towns as sort of this display of force to threaten people to back off and not interfere in what's going on in Nauvoo. And you know, and of course, eventually Joseph Smith orders the printing press to be destroyed. The Nauvoo Expositor, which is an example of the, the egregious out, you know, over display of power. And I think Joseph's martyrdom was tied to, in part to just people around in surrounding towns and in the state being freaked out by this excessive accumulation of power. And, and the Nauvoo Legion was a big part of that. So this is a non insignificant part of late Joseph Smith church history, in my view.

Nemo 56:08 Am I right in understanding that the charge of treason against Joseph Smith, treason against the state of Illinois was for refusing to, to allow the state militia into the city? Right.

Mike 56:18 I don't.

Nemo 56:19 And the fact that he, the fact that he had a military force cap, I believe I understand that that's part of it. Because they wanted to come in to sort out what was going on with the burning of the printing press and he refused to allow them in. And that. And that was treasonous. But the size of the militia, when you put it into that context that they were the biggest military force at the time, that's not an insignificant, oh, we're not letting you in. That's a. Well, there's nothing we can do about it as the state of Illinois. So this guy is genuinely dangerous to the integrity of our state because he has a military force capable of undermining our ability to keep him in check. Like, I think that's the simplest way to put that. That's. It's not just that all people didn't like Joseph Smith is that those actions presented a genuine threat to the state, the stability of the state of Illinois. Yeah.

Mike 57:05 And they said with the, you know, the martyrdom after the Expositor is burned, that some of the people who were involved had, I believe, said that one of the reasons was they did not believe he would ever be tried in a fair trial because they had used so many legal tactics to undermine the ability of them to, to extradite him and to actually try them. And so there's this building fear from all the people that are not Mormon outside of there. That one. They're consolidating power now. They're consolidating an army, they're circumventing the law. And so you have all of these things and it just makes all of these people on the outside very, like, fearful, very suspicious. And then at some point, and again, I'm not saying it's right, I wish Joseph Smith had lived. I do not in Any way, I'm not happy that he was killed. I wish he had lived a long life and done a lot more, but that led to that boiling over, because all of a sudden, you see him getting away with it, and it's. There's a Breaking Bad moment where Jesse's like, he can't keep getting away with this. And I think that was what people felt because he had constantly used these laws in Nauvoo to. To keep escaping. And so eventually you've got an army and all these things. It just makes people so afraid. And. And that leads to. To decisions like that, which are unfortunately not good. But it is what happens when people get really nervous and they see a growing threat.

John Dehlin 58:22 Yeah. Any other insight, Julia, from you?

Julia 58:26 No, I think that was good.

Bennett Added to the First Presidency

John Dehlin 58:27 Okay. Well, if this. If all this weren't enough, with John C. Bennett's accumulation of power and position, he's then added to the First Presidency.

Julia 58:36 Yeah. Yeah. So on the seventh day of April of 1841, he says, I was elected to the first presidency of the Mormon Church, as will be seen by the reference on the conference minutes published in the Times and Seasons. And then he says, so the Times and Season says John C. Bennett was presented with the First Presidency as Assistant president until President Rigdon's health should be restored. So he's second chair in the church.

John Dehlin 58:59 I mean, if ever there were a glaring fracture of knowing what we're going to learn about John C. Bennett later, if ever there were a glaring instance of a failure of discernment and of revelation on the part of Joseph Smith, it's this decision. Am I wrong? Am I overstating that?

Julia 59:25 That's good. Yeah.

Mike 59:26 It's been. It's been seven or eight months since he got his patriarchal blessing. He's now mayor. He's running university. He's basically second command of an army, and he's in the first president in seven or eight months.

John Dehlin 59:36 Like I just said, he's been a member. Right.

Mike 59:38 Yeah.

Nemo 59:40 Joseph Smith is. Is really, really good at keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Mike 59:44 Exactly. Yeah. That's just it. And I. I'm 99 sure it was Lindsay Hansen park who had said this in a podcast. It could have been with you or you're plugging me. And she had mentioned how a lot of times when people talk about church history, they're like, oh, my goodness, Joseph Smith was betrayed by all these people, these horrible people. And she's like, no, he picked these people because they were able to do what he needed them to do. They just Ultimately, you know, at some point there was a falling out for all sorts of reasons. These people are not there by accident. You know, the discernment thing, obviously, we. As we've talked about previous episodes, I don't believe that's a real thing. As we can illustrate in 100 different ways within Mormonism, this was Joseph Smith's own personal discernment. He wanted John C. Bennett there because this was a guy who was able to do what he needed done, who he trusted. Ultimately, it's going to come back to bite him. But he is not there by accident. Joseph Smith is putting him here in seven or eight months. You know, this is why when apologists make this argument that John C. Bennett was always a scoundrel, it's like, no, this is Joseph Smith putting every trust he can in this guy after seven or eight months and having him involved in everything he's doing. And you cannot get away from that.

John Dehlin 1:00:45 Yeah. And if that weren't enough, we gotta. We gotta talk about ketchup. Julia.

Julia 1:00:51 I just wanted to add this. So as the mayor of Nauvoo, and he published a lot concerning the tomato. And so in one of the times and seasons, there was a fun little excerpt where it says, Dr. Bennett is of the opinion that the most of the bilious affections to which our citizens are subject to during the hot season can be prevented by the free use of the tomato. We are of the same opinion. And as health is essential to our happiness and prosperity as a people, we would earnestly recommend its culture to our fellow citizens and its general use for the culinary practices. Purposes. Culinary purposes. Do not. Do not neglect it. So I just thought that was really fun.

John Dehlin 1:01:23 I mean, that's. I mean, kudos to freaking John C. Bennett, because who doesn't love the tomato, right? Can you imagine? I. I think of French fries as a ketchup delivery vehicle.

Nemo 1:01:36 I say tomato, you say tomato. It's an important fruit.

John Dehlin 1:01:42 It's crucial. It's essential. It's almost like it is the blood of my veins.

Julia 1:01:47 Well, and then. And then later in. I think it's part three, John C. Venn invents certain chickens that will. That are popular today. So nice. So. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo 1:01:55 Well. And Utah. Hang on. Utahns love ketchup so much that you have decided that it is not enough to eat it on its own. You must combine it with mayonnaise, which is disgusting.

John Dehlin 1:02:05 We love ketchup so much, we dilute it with mayonnaise and make fries.

Mike 1:02:08 Oh, awful.

Nemo 1:02:10 And it was brought to me with everything just this pink sauce on the

Mike 1:02:13 side, it's so gross looking. It's like, why is that YouTube?

Nemo 1:02:16 Oh, it's not. It's.

John Dehlin 1:02:17 This person's smart, these two people down below, this guy, this guy, not so smart.

Mike 1:02:24 Let's take something that's great and then put something awful and make it look like it's infected.

John Dehlin 1:02:31 Did you just call fry sauce pus? Is that what you just did?

Mike 1:02:35 I mean, that's what it looks like, yeah.

John Dehlin 1:02:39 Mike, you're kicked off of LDS discussion.

Mike 1:02:41 I want you all to think of that next time you dip your fry in one of those cups of ooze.

Nemo 1:02:46 This is the quality content and analysis that people come here for.

John Dehlin 1:02:51 Yeah, if we jump the shark, if we just officially jumped the shark too early.

Mike 1:02:55 All right, the next episode is going to be on the benefits and criticisms of fry sauce. For sure.

John Dehlin 1:03:02 It's definitely a Mormon topic. All right, so if all this weren't enough, what is the Master in Chancery? Julia?

Julia 1:03:08 Yeah, so he's even higher now. Another hat to add. So on the 6th day of May of 1841, Bennett was appointed Master and Chancery of poor Hancock County. So a Master in Chancery is an office appointed by a court of equity to assist the court in English law, refers to a senior official or clerk of a Court of Chancery, who assists the chancellor in various duties such as inquiring into matters referred to by the court, examining cases, taking oaths and affidavits which he. You'll see how he puts that into practice later, hearing testimony and computing damages.

John Dehlin 1:03:40 How can he be the head of the, like the Chief justice and the Master and Chancery?

Nemo 1:03:47 He's, he's the mayor, he's second in command of the military, he's second in command of the church. Now he's got his fingers in the judicial system as well, but not just the judge part.

Mike 1:03:58 Yeah, I mean, John, can you put that slide back up real quick?

John Dehlin 1:04:02 Yeah, sure.

Mike 1:04:03 Just I want people to understand, remember, this is Joseph Smith's right hand man who has now got basically, I don't want to call him a spy, but he's got a guy who could go back to Joseph and tell him all the testimony being done, all of the oaths, all of the cases being brought up. And so all of this stuff is starting to happen now is we'll get into in the next few, the next few episodes, all of these crazy things, all these accusations are happening which Joseph Smith is involved in. And he's got somebody inside the court who gets to hear all of it. Before it gets out. And I think that's a really important place for him to be.

John Dehlin 1:04:33 Do you know what this reminds me of is Putin. So Putin was president for whatever Russia's constitution allowed. And then even though he was like at the height of his power, he bizarrely stepped down and let someone else become president. But it was pretty clear that Putin was always sort of that, that president that succeeded Putin was always a puppet. And that became really clear when eventually that president goes away, Putin reascends to the presidency and has been president of Russia ever since. So yeah, it really feels like something similar is going on in Nauvoo.

Mike 1:05:10 Well, and just to put it like, I don't want to do it like the mob or the mafia, but let's just say you're some giant corporation. Like say you're Walmart in Arkansas. Right. So you, you, you're Walmart, you're in Arkansas and you're able to appoint somebody to Walmart's main police force in the area. And they get to listen to all of the oaths and testimony of all the people that might bring lawsuits against you for all sorts of things. All people are making accusations against your product. And then you've got somebody who can go back to you on the side. Like, here's what people are saying, here's what's coming through. What do we need to do? It's, it's a, it's a really unethical thing to have your right hand man be involved in all of these things. Especially as we get to in these next few episodes where Joseph Smith himself is embroiled in a lot of problems, whether it's polygamy or people arguing about land deeds and stuff like that. And so it really, this one feels more unethical than the other ones to me personally.

Nemo 1:05:57 So John, are you saying that John C. Bennett is Joseph Smith's Dimitri Medfordev?

John Dehlin 1:06:03 Exactly. Google for the win. Nemo and Google for the win.

Nemo 1:06:06 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:06:07 That's good, Julie, anything else you want to say about that?

Julia 1:06:11 No, I think that was good. He's just. Yeah, he's got a lot of power.

John Dehlin 1:06:15 Yeah. Way too much power. Okay. And then grand secretary of the Masonic Lodge. That's almost like comedy. Like you can't make this stuff up. Right. He's the head of the Masonic Lodge.

Nemo 1:06:27 Like, is there a society? Yes. Can I be president of it? Sure.

Julia 1:06:31 Well, so there wasn't one. There wasn't a Masonic society yet. So this is Bennett. So Bennett actively sought to launch the Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo usually in order to create a Masonic Lodge, you ask the nearest existing lodge to sponsor you and then after a year of operation, under dispension, the new lodge would grant, would be granted a charter. So Bennett was key in getting this started. He wrote to the nearest lodge in June of 1841, was denied, and then wrote again in October and December, December 29th of 1841. And then they were able to fully start the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge. So there wasn't one. So yeah, like you said, Nemo is the society here. Let's make one. Can I be in charge of it? So

John Dehlin 1:07:08 I mean it's just, it's just unbelievable. And I, I did not know, you know, obviously the Mormon Temple ceremony currently was plagiarized in large part from the Masonic Lodge, even more so before it was sanitized multiple times by the Church. I had no idea John C. Bennett was at ground zero. Yeah, you know, Nauvoo Masonic Lodge.

Julia 1:07:30 Yeah. And there's some controversial history there where John C. Bennett, before he came to Nauvoo, he was kicked out of, of the lodge there, where he was at. And so there was, there was dispute there where whether he should be in this lodge because he had been kicked out before. But then another witness said, no, I don't remember him being kicked out at all. I think he was a really good Mason. So, so he, they let that slide. But that was interesting to me that he's already having a lot of trouble elsewhere.

John Dehlin 1:07:55 So I, so I, I, I think it's worth just stating. Isn't it mind boggling? You know, all Mormons have heard of Martin Harris. All Mormons have heard of Oliver, Oliver Cowdery. All Mormons have heard of Brigham Young, you know, Emma Smith. Like there's so many early Mormons that, that every Mormon will have heard of growing up. Isn't it bizarre that there was no more powerful man in Nauvoo, second to Joseph Smith and John C. Bennett and that pretty much all of us reached into our 20s to 40s before we as lifelong Mormons ever heard the name John C. Bennett. Isn't that another example of how much power the Mormon Church has over controlling information to its members? Isn't that mind boggling?

Julia 1:08:44 Yeah, yeah.

Nemo 1:08:45 Well, like I made the joke earlier, I have a seminary graduation diploma right there and I didn't learn about John C. Bennett and I paid attention. I went to every single one of my seminary lessons. I got 100% attendance and I did not.

John Dehlin 1:08:58 Yeah, never heard the name with anyone. Never heard the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's do the overview. Let's summarize. Julia, all his positions, and then I have a question.

Julia 1:09:08 Yeah. So this is just the whole list of all the hats that he's wearing. So September of 1840, he was baptized. September 21st, he gets his patriarchal blessing. February 1st of the next year, becomes mayor. February 3rd. So just a couple days later, the chancellor of the university. And then the next day, he becomes the Major General and Inspector General. And then April 7th of 1841, the Assistant to the President. And then May 6th of 1841, Master in Chancery. And then December of 1841, he becomes the grand secretary of the Nava Masonic Lodge.

Mike 1:09:35 So.

John Dehlin 1:09:35 So I. I have two questions. The first question is, what in the freak was Joseph Smith doing if John C. Bennett was doing all this stuff? I don't know if there's a. Do any, like. Do any of you have an answer to that? Like, what was he doing?

Nemo 1:09:49 I mean, Joseph had plenty of titles, too, but, yeah, I don't know. He was busy translating the Kinderhook plates or like.

John Dehlin 1:10:00 I mean, he was marrying a lot of women. He was marrying in pot. He was marrying and possibly bedding a lot of women.

Julia 1:10:07 Well, during this time. During this. During. During Bennett's. We'll talk about this more later. During Bennett's time, Joseph took on 10 had. He had. Was taking or had already taken at least 10 or 11 wives. So it has your answer.

John Dehlin 1:10:19 There's your answer.

Julia 1:10:21 Well, 1843, I think, was. Whenever he took on the most wives.

John Dehlin 1:10:24 I'm still. 10 wives. That's a lot.

Julia 1:10:27 Yeah.

Mike 1:10:27 Well, I think. I think by. By the time he's elected to. Or selected for the. The Masonic Lodge, I think he only has, like three or four. So it's. It's really about to ramp up now. I. He's doing the Book of Abraham at this point. He's also. I think he's still fighting a lot of legal battles with Missouri. I mean, he's, you know, he's doing a lot, I think, you know, for Joseph Smith, I think he is an ideas guy. And I think to. To Nemo's point earlier, Joseph Smith had all these ideas, and a lot of them fail. And Brigham Young was a guy who didn't. He wasn't very creative. He was kind of a. You know, he's not my favorite person, but he was able to make things happen because he was a, you know, a kind of a dictator type of a personality that got things done. I think Joseph Smith needed Someone who could get these things done, keep an eye on things for him. And so I think he wasn't. I don't want to say he wasn't interested in running these things, but I think he couldn't run all of these things at once. And so he just kept handing them off to the same person, which is a little odd unless you realize he wants to make sure it's someone he can trust.

John Dehlin 1:11:29 I'll say. One of the things I remember about no Man Knows My history is that Joseph was constantly on the run from Missouri officials that wanted. That wanted to take him in. And that, of course, got worse when the governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs, there was an assassination attempt on his life, which was in May of 1842. But wasn't Joseph constantly on the run from. From. From the law? Julia?

Julia 1:11:58 Yeah, yeah. And with that one, we'll talk about that later. Because John C. Bennett really, really wanted to Joseph to be arrested and tried for the murder of Lil Rogues, or to be, at least in part. He didn't think Joseph did the murder, but he certainly thought he was guilty of that. So I thought that was really interesting,

John Dehlin 1:12:13 like, of order, like of ordering it.

Julia 1:12:14 Right, right.

John Dehlin 1:12:15 Yeah. The only other thing I was going to say is, like, for anyone who's watched Game of Thrones or any, you know, succession or anything, if I'm Joseph Smith and I'm giving John C. Bennett all this power, it's. It's not going to take me long to worry that John C. Bennett is going to take over and usurp my power. Right? Yeah, because that's way too much power. You want to. If you want to maintain complete power, then you want to divide power amongst a lot of people and have them balancing each other out. You don't want to invest pretty much all the power in one person, unless

Nemo 1:12:51 you're paranoid whether that's where the. Where the fallout came from. The ultimate fallout that led to John C. Bennett leaving.

John Dehlin 1:12:58 I mean, I guess do with Joseph's

Nemo 1:12:59 like, actually, this guy. I've made this guy a bit too powerful. I'm gonna have to alienate him.

Mike 1:13:05 I think the problem too is, well, I don't want to steal Julius Sunder, but I. I personally think that John C. Bennett was someone he tried. We talked in our earlier episodes during the priesthood restoration, he had these bishops that were like, no, we're equal with you. And, and they're. They're calling him out on these land deals. I mean, Joseph Smith was always dealing with that infighting. You know, you got to Zion's camp, and everyone's questioning him. And I think John C. Bennett is this fresh face. He comes in, they clearly must get along well. And I think, didn't John C. Bennett live with Joseph Smith for a period of time, too? I think.

Nemo 1:13:36 Right.

Mike 1:13:36 Didn't he? I thought.

Julia 1:13:37 I think so. In the Mansion House. At least I thought he did.

Mike 1:13:39 Yeah. And it just feels like Joseph Smith, I think, feels like it's in hands that he could control. And then to your point earlier, every TV show and movie has that point where someone's like, wait a second, I can take this a step further or I could do it myself. And. And that. And that's ultimately where things splinter, because all of a sudden, Joseph Smith's giving him too much power. John C. Bennett uses it, and then all of a sudden, other people start talking about it, which we'll get to. And all of a sudden, then Joseph Smith has been like, I had nothing to do with this. This guy is a scoundrel. And then you see everything fall apart.

John Dehlin 1:14:09 Well, let's not steal Julia's thunder. Julia, tell us about the fall. The fall of John C. Bennett.

The Beginning of Bennett's Fall from Grace

Julia 1:14:16 Yeah. So the. The fall. It's kind of hard to pinpoint when exactly what exactly pushed all this, but on May 11th of 1842, Joseph Smith and others signed a statement to disfellowship Bennett, but it was not made public. After this, some of the brethren conducted an investigation on Bennett and learned that he was actually married and they had. They had formally separated. So he wasn't. I don't think Bennett was trying to lie in that, but they. They. They tracked on his wife, and she said, oh, no, we've separated. And so. Yeah. And so they found out that he was actually married and that he had been unfaithful to her during their time together. So mostly they're just finding out that he is. I don't know. I don't want to. I guess sexually promiscuous is an okay thing to say because of what we'll uncover later, but.

Nemo 1:14:56 I'm sorry, Joseph Smith is accusing a man of being unfaithful to his wife.

Julia 1:15:06 Well, I don't know if Joseph. I don't know if it was him specifically, but.

Mike 1:15:09 Okay.

Julia 1:15:10 But everyone else was getting really concerned, too, because, yeah, a lot of stuff's coming out with Bennett's and spiritual wifery. So.

Nemo 1:15:17 Yes, because I know the whole spiritual wifery differentiation to polygamy is like, well, it's wrong when you do it, but right when we do it is basically what that Is.

Mike 1:15:24 And this seems to be, this seems

Nemo 1:15:27 to be the start of that sort of. Well, it's wrong for him to be unfaithful to his wife, but we have special rules.

John Dehlin 1:15:32 I don't know if this is a total coincidence, but I googled when Lilburn bought when the assassination attempt of Lilburn Boggs was just because I was curious. Do you guys know the date?

Julia 1:15:45 I can't remember. Is it May 11th?

John Dehlin 1:15:47 It's May 6th, 1842. So it's five days. Five days before he's disfellowshipped. Now that could be just a totally unrelated coincidence, but it's interesting if, if it's true what one of you just said, which was that, that John C. Bennett wanted Joseph blamed for the assassination.

Julia 1:16:06 Yeah.

Nemo 1:16:07 Yeah.

Mike 1:16:08 I don't, did they ever. I don't remember him being blamed too much, but I could be very wrong.

Julia 1:16:13 Well, Bennett was certainly pushing for him to be blamed. He really wanted Joseph tried for that.

Nemo 1:16:17 So if Ben is like, hang on, I don't think this is right. I think Joseph should take the fall for this that's happened that leads to Joseph going, oh, this man who's got all this power is now gunning for me. We're gonna have to get rid of him. Right.

John Dehlin 1:16:31 So, so Julia, are we going to be talking later about what we think

Julia 1:16:35 happened with Lilburn Bogs, or. What do you mean?

John Dehlin 1:16:38 No, no, with, with John C. Bennett and, and this letter, this letter that you're showing here. Fellowshipment. When, When? Because I know this is a three part series. Are we about to talk about that?

Julia 1:16:49 I hope so. I hope, I think it might be in these next slides. If not, you should say whatever. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:16:53 All right, let's keep going. So, so I'm, I'm just dying to know. So the next slide is called Brothels in Nauvoo. What the heck.

Julia 1:17:01 Yeah, so I just, just, just keep in mind that, that, that, that notice before was not made public. So they've signed this, but no one, the membership overall doesn't know about this.

John Dehlin 1:17:10 I mean, I, I, I'm nearly just guessed that if he's doing polygamy, spiritual wifery stuff and he's been given all that power and Joseph's supposed to have the power of discernment. They, they want to keep this hush hush. Right?

Julia 1:17:24 Right.

Nemo 1:17:24 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:17:24 Yeah. Okay.

Julia 1:17:25 Yeah. But going back to the brothels. Yeah, okay, back to the brothels. Yeah. So this is May 14th. So this is just three days later, the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting brothels in the city. So I Wonder why it took them this long. But an eyewitness later claimed that Bennett. Yeah, so? An eyewitness later claimed that Bennett had built a brothel. The city council ordered it ripped down as a public nuisance. Lorenzo D. Wasson, Smith's nephew, reported that he had knowledge of Bennett and his prostitutes. Whatever Bennett's connection with brothel, if any, it is unimaginable that it could have been. That it could have survived without the knowledge of the leaders of the church, yet no action was taken against it for at least a year. And this is from Andrew Smith, his biographer. And then his biographer also adds that it could have been an integral part of the emerging system of sexual experimentation that then underway in Nauvoo, as Bennett later implied.

John Dehlin 1:18:15 Man. So you're saying that the. A member of the Mormon Church First Presidency instituted a brothel in Nauvoo? Well, under Joseph Smith's nose.

Julia 1:18:26 We don't know the exact ties, but that's what it seems like. That's what this witness is saying, is that this brothel was there, and it wasn't until 1842, after it had been running for a while, that the. The. They passed the ordinance to get it taken down.

John Dehlin 1:18:38 And then the other thing I don't understand is, if he's the head of the city council, it looks like the city council is defying him by ordering this brothel to be destroyed. So they're challenging his power. Am I reading that right?

Julia 1:18:50 Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me.

John Dehlin 1:18:52 Huh. I did not know that John Bennett likely started a brothel in Nauvoo.

Julia 1:18:58 There's other different names that are passed around, too, but, yeah, his is one of them. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:19:02 Wow. This is a big deal as far as I'm concerned. And again, why is Joseph Smith. Why is God telling Joseph Smith? I mean, I would assume that a member of the First Presidency of the Mormon Church is called by inspiration. So why is God telling Joseph Smith to call John C. Bennett into the First Presidency if he's going to make a brothel?

Julia 1:19:23 That's a good question. And then you have. We have later reports. We have later reports of Sarah Pratt. Orson Pratt's the apostle's wife. She says that Joseph was attending these brothels as well. So that's interesting to me.

John Dehlin 1:19:36 Julie, we got to make a short out of this one. Write that down.

Julia 1:19:39 Okay.

John Dehlin 1:19:40 Julia does our shorts on Mormon stories. All right, well, the brothel. Did y' all have Nemo? Mike, did you have any brothel comments?

Nemo 1:19:49 I think the point about the sexual experimentation going on at the time, I think is actually quite Fair in that you could view polygamy as sexually experimentational. Like, it's not the normal way of having relationships. It's very useful and effective for Joseph to build up power, etc. But yeah, I think. I think this idea of trying more casual sexual relationships than just the formal between man and wife is ultimately going to undergird polygamy in some way because it is a deviation from the norm. So, yeah.

John Dehlin 1:20:19 How about you, Mike? Are you more pro or more anti brothel? What's your position on brothels?

Mike 1:20:27 But yeah, you know, I think there was. I'm trying to think of. I think it was John Larsen in his Early Mormon expressions episodes, and he. He was going through. I used to listen to him when I first started doing this, and in a lot of them, he would point out how whenever someone accused Joseph Smith of doing something, he would then basically level the charge back at them in some way. And it does feel like that here. Like, it's almost like John C. Bennett is getting accused of sexual improprieties and Joseph Smith is implicated, which we'll get into more in the next few slides. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, look at what this guy's been doing. And it's like you almost are trying to get out ahead of it. So all the church members think that John C. Bennett is the dirty old man and Joseph Smith is the righteous guy doing plural marriage as opposed to brothels and spiritual wifery. So it. It really does feel.

Nemo 1:21:08 But what am I? Defense?

Mike 1:21:09 Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin 1:21:10 Julia's nodding. So we have Julia's blessing on that.

Julia 1:21:13 Yeah, yeah. It made me think of. It made me think just really fast of John C. Bennett. I think one of the things that discredits him is because he was also involved in this spiritual life free or in getting these women. But then you have William Law, who later spoke out against Joseph, and he was not involved in that. So it seems like one of. Bennett would have helped his case better if he. If he had not also engaged in those things. But that's kind of the purpose. Yeah.

Mike 1:21:36 And it also goes back to that first quote where John C. Ben's like, yeah, I did this all to infiltrate him. It's like, no, you didn't, you idiot. Because if you did, this is not what you'd be doing. You know, you'd be exposing this right now instead of, you know, doing or

Julia 1:21:48 not also engaging in it. Yeah, exactly.

Nemo 1:21:49 Yeah.

Mike 1:21:50 It's like, you know, be like, I get caught having an affair and I'm like, my wife's like, I know you had an affair. It's like, listen, baby, I was trying to expose this woman. It wasn't about me at all. It's about them. You know, it's like. It's kind of. Come on.

John Dehlin 1:22:00 But again, we're. We're repeating ourselves. But did any of you learn growing up that. That the mayor of Nauvoo and a member of the First Presidency likely implemented a brothel? Did. When any of us. Did any of you travel to Nauvoo? You probably didn't even. But when you try. Or you. Mike, when. When you went to Nauvoo to. To learn about the early history of the church, did the church. Mormon Church missionaries ever take you by the place where the. Where the. Where the brothel was implemented by the mayor and First Presidency?

Julia 1:22:30 That would have been so fun.

Nemo 1:22:31 Not part of the Nauvoo pageant, as far as I'm aware.

Mike 1:22:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 1:22:35 So somehow this was conveniently correlated out of Mormon. Mormon history. And if there weren't enough. Let's go to the next slide, which is sexual allegations.

Julia 1:22:48 Yeah. So on the 17th of May of 1842. So this is again, a few days later, having been made acquainted with some of the conduct of John C. Bennett, which was given in testimony under oath before Alderman George W. Harris. So this is also. George W. Harris is one of Joseph's. How do I say this? Joseph was married to his wife. I don't know how to say that. Lucinda Harris was his second polygamous wife anyway. By several females who testified that John C. Bennett endeavored to seduce them and accomplish his designs by saying it was right and that it was one of the mysteries of God which was to be revealed when the people was strong enough in the faith to bear such mysteries that it was perfectly right to have illicit intercourse with females, providing no one knew it but themselves.

John Dehlin 1:23:25 Yeah. So women. Women in Nauvoo are claiming that John C. Bennett's trying to seduce them. And we know that Joseph Smith has brought on 10 wives at this point. So it's. It's obviously hard not to make a parallel. It's John C. Bennett's. Joseph's right hand man. Joseph is now collecting wives like. Like eggs in a. In a. In. You know, he's up to a dozen by this point. John C. Benny Bennett. Bennett's doing it, too. Julia. It's hard not to kind of, you know, think that this is. This is that the fish rots from the head. Julie, you first. Then Nemo.

Julia 1:24:03 Oh, no, have Nemo go first.

John Dehlin 1:24:04 Okay, Nemo.

Nemo 1:24:05 I just I'm gonna need Mike's help with this. But there is a case in Doctrine and Covenants where someone basically claims the ability to have revelations also because they see Joseph Smith going around doing it and they're like, yeah, I can do that too.

Mike 1:24:19 Yeah. Hiram Page.

Nemo 1:24:21 Hiram Page. So I was drawing a blank on the name. Yeah. So Hiram Page. This is a Hiram Page instant again, almost is. John C. Bennett sees Joseph Smith doing this. He's his right hand man. How does he not know about what Joseph Smith's been up to with these 10 wives at this point? And so then he's, he's doing that. He sees Joseph Smith, he's like, well, I'm gonna have me a part of this too, because if it's right for Joseph, I, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to have it. But Joseph has to establish himself somehow as unique and different. Especially he has to nip that in the bird and go, no, no, no, that's not, that's not you, that's me. Julia.

Julia 1:24:57 No. Yeah, that was just. I was gonna point out too. Is that the, the timeline of all this? So they, so they disfellowship him. They don't make that public. And then they're making these things published in the time public in the times and seasons, and people are knowing about this and then later he'll publish it. And there's sort of a power play, which we'll talk about here, about why Joseph's withholding some of this information and not making it public right away.

Nemo 1:25:17 Yeah. John, you have the call.

John Dehlin 1:25:19 It's interesting that there's, he's, he's trying to say there's nothing wrong with it. Like, I don't know that the law of chastity was formalized by 1842, yet within Mormonism. Right.

Nemo 1:25:33 But adultery is a well known thing.

Mike 1:25:35 Yeah.

Nemo 1:25:36 So he's basically trying to say this isn't adultery. God's saying it's, it's fine.

John Dehlin 1:25:40 But I mean, that's starting to remind me of like the Happiness Letter. Like what's bad in one circumstance.

Mike 1:25:45 This is from the Happiness Letter episode. Yeah, this, this, the slide, the next slide we literally covered in the Happiness Letter because this is what really is going on in the background. Joseph Smith is marrying all these women. There's a lot of chatter. And so Joseph Smith now is trying to get ahead of it by saying these people are doing it. But you know, he's. To the public, he's not telling him that he's doing. He's denying it in public. Right. And so. And behind the scenes, he's got to clamp this down because the last thing he wants is knowing that his right hand man is seducing women using the same kind of ideas Joseph Smith was. And so this is the whole joke of like, you know, spiritual wifery is from the devil, but plural marriage is awesome. You know, and I'm stealing that. I believe it's from Lindsey Hansen Park. I think she says, like, I think she. Whatever. I think it might have been way back when, when you did an episode with her on the essay, and I think it was her. She said something like, spiritual wifery is terrible. Plural marriage is awesome. And that's what this is. It's trying to make a distinction where there's no difference.

Sexual Allegations, Resignation, and Disfellowship

John Dehlin 1:26:37 Yeah, well, let's go on, because there's another slide that says sexual allegations continued.

Julia 1:26:43 Yeah. Did someone else want to read this one? This is from the. His biographer, Andrew Smith.

Nemo 1:26:47 I believe it's John's turn.

John Dehlin 1:26:48 Okay, I'll do it. John C. Bennett was accused of seducing Catherine Warren, Matilda Nyman's. Nyman's sister Margaret, and several unidentified women. Bennett never denied the charges of adultery. On one occasion, he reportedly admitted that he had sexual relations with six or seven women in Nauvoo. He confessed to William Law and others that he had done wrong. That he would not deny, but he would deny that he had used Joseph Smith's name to accomplish his designs on anyone. Interesting. So was he acting with Joseph's support or was he using Joseph Smith's name to do devious things?

Mike 1:27:36 So can I jump in on this one? Because this is what we covered in the Happiness Letter. So basically, it's not just John C. Bennett who's being caught into this. So Joseph Smith's own brother is involved. William Smith is in on this. And they're telling, in these testimonies, these women are telling that William Smith and John C. Bennett and I think there's like two or three other guys are telling them they learn these things from Joseph Smith and that you can basically have sex and not be sinning. And this is also part of that teaching Joseph Smith had at the time, which is if there's no sin, there's no accuser. So Joseph Smith is teaching that publicly. So these guys who know what Joseph Smith is doing with polygamy are going to these women and saying, listen, if we do this and you don't talk about it and I don't talk about it, it's fine, because that's what Joseph Smith is teaching and he's also doing polygamy. And so this isn't just the John C. Bennett thing. This is also the William Smith thing. The difference is when William Smith is under trial, Joseph Smith jumps up and says, basically, if you will look it up real quick, I will not listen to the. To this abuse of my family one second longer. And I think he says something like, if there's one more instance of it, there'll be blood or something like that. So basically, Joseph Smith protects his brother here, but he's gonna throw John C. Bennett under the bus and then run him over about 10 times.

John Dehlin 1:28:47 Julia, did you have any additional thoughts or comments about that?

Julia 1:28:51 No, not specifically. I think the next slide kind of ties it into.

John Dehlin 1:28:54 Let's jump to it then. John C. Bennett signs a statement.

Julia 1:28:58 Okay, so on the 17th of May of 1842, Bennett also signed a statement vowing that he never taught anything in the least contrary to the. The strictest prince, strictest principles of the gospel or a virtue or of the laws of God or man under any circumstances or upon any occasion, either directly or indirectly, in word or deed by Joseph Smith. And that he never knew that the said Smith to countenance any improper conduct whatsoever, whatever, either in public or private. And that he never did teach to me in private that any illicit intercourse with. With females was under any circumstances justifiable. And that I never knew him so him so to teach others.

John Dehlin 1:29:36 But read that source.

Julia 1:29:38 Okay, so that's from the history of the church.

Nemo 1:29:40 Massive damage control, isn't it?

Julia 1:29:42 Yes.

John Dehlin 1:29:43 I mean, Julie, I want to hear your reaction to that first and then I want to hear everyone else.

Julia 1:29:46 Well, like if I'm. So I. And maybe I talk about this on another side too. But so I. There's a practice in the Mormon Church, especially during Joseph Smith's time, where they bring a signed state, they bring an already written statement. We have this with the witnesses, the three and the eight witnesses, and in all these other circumstances with polygamy specifically. But he brings this already signed state, this already written statement that John C. Bennett has to sign. And like I never. This was never authorized by Joseph. I was just doing this on my own. And he's just removing Joseph from the situation. So I. First of all, that's really problematic to me. But also this is from written the history of the church. Maybe, maybe I'll talk about later in later slides because them Joseph's trying to play this game where he's. He's. Because he is living polygamy and he's Trying. So polygamy is correct to him, but spiritual wifery is different, but they're so similar that he has to be careful what he publishes in the newspapers and what he. What he. What he says publicly and what he doesn't.

John Dehlin 1:30:36 Because that's a lawyerly. That's a lawyerly statement.

Julia 1:30:39 Right, Right, Exactly.

John Dehlin 1:30:41 Yeah. Just to. Not. Because it says. Never did teach me in private that in illegal, illicit intercourse with females was under any circumstances justifiable. Like, isn't that lawyerly language? Because I'm sure Joseph would say that the new and everlasting covenant of celestial marriage is neither illegal nor illicit.

Nemo 1:31:07 Right, exactly. It's the same with. He never was taught anything in the least contrary to the strictest principles of the gospel because he'll just go. All the laws of God. He'll say, it's a law of God, it's a principle of the gospel, and it's virtuous when Joseph Smith does it.

Mike 1:31:21 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:31:21 So it's kind of lawyerly. Yeah, to me.

Julia 1:31:23 Yeah. Oh, no, Very much so, Mike.

Mike 1:31:26 No, it feels like a statement that he wants in his back pocket. So when. If John C. Bennett comes out and says that Joseph Smith is doing this, he could just pull out the statement, say, look what John C. Bennett admitted to. And it just. Yeah, it feels like a very. Like, it almost feels like if you're signing a statement at, like a settlement or something for a trial, and you're basically making this person sign a document that says, I. I accept no wrongdoing, and all that because you want to have something that you could release to other people to say, yeah, I'm cool. I'm clear. This guy was making it up. And, you know, like Julia said, this. This is a pattern that you see, like, with the witness statements, where people are just going to be given the statement and you sign it, and then the church can then use it to. Or Joseph Smith can use it to effectively, you know, make a claim to whatever is necessary at the time.

John Dehlin 1:32:11 And. And just because I. I want to keep these under two hours, and I want to make sure we get through it. Let's. Let's jump to the next slide where John C. Bennett resigns as mayor.

Julia 1:32:21 Yeah. So just. I think this is the exact Same day on May 17, he resigned as mayor. And there's this letter here where circumstances of personal nature have induced me to. To tender you my resignation of the. Of the office of the mayor. As mayor. And so this is just his letter saying, I'm no longer the mayor. I don't know if we need to go into so much detail.

John Dehlin 1:32:38 But it's kind of like the. I'm stepping down to spend more time with my family. All right, message received. And then, of course, who steps up as mayor?

Julia 1:32:52 Yeah. At a special meeting of the city council held two days later, on May 19, Joseph was elected mayor and Hiram Smith was elected vice mayor. And then one thing I thought was interesting is, so Joseph, he goes up to Ben and he says, he's talking to him, and he says, I asked Bennett if he had an ought against me. Bennett arose and reported that he had no difficulty with the heads of the church and publicly, publicly avowed that anyone advancing the version that Joseph Smith had given him authority to elicit. To elicit intercourse with women was a liar in the face of God. And so he's like, hey, Bennett, do you have any problems with me being the mayor? No, of course I don't. And also just reminding everyone that he did not authorize this spiritual ivory. Any.

John Dehlin 1:33:28 Any reactions to that? You know, that sequence of events? I mean, obviously, the nepotism of Joseph Smith assigning himself as mayor and then Hiram as vice mayor two days later.

Nemo 1:33:42 Had Sidney Rigdon's health recovered by this point, so that John C. Bennett was no longer needed, as.

Julia 1:33:47 That's a good question. I don't.

Mike 1:33:48 I don't know.

Nemo 1:33:49 I have nothing against leaders of the church, but he would be talking about himself there were he still a man. Remember the First Presidency?

John Dehlin 1:33:54 I mean, that's. I don't know the exact timeline, but that's kind of ironic. As we covered in a previous LDS discussions episode, isn't one of the reasons Sidney Rigdon. Sorry, Sidney Rigdon was on the outs is because his daughter Nancy declined Joseph's polygamous advances.

Mike 1:34:11 Yeah, I mean, they. Because they remember. Well, the whole episode was a while ago, but they have like that back and forth where, like, Joseph Smith is having stuff published in the paper on Nancy being a. Basically. And then they kind of come to an agreement. They write that really carefully worded statement again where Sydney Rigden basically says, Joseph did not write the letter, which he didn't, because he had a scribe. And they had all that kind of technicality in there. And then after that, I think they do kind of make amends to a point. I don't know if they truly ever get back to where they were. So I just don't know exactly on the timeline of when all that stuff happened, because I remember there was one article in a newspaper that came out, like, after they had made amends, because they couldn't stop it in time. That went after Nancy Rigden yet again. And so it looks like that was in August, so that. That the fallout for that continues through August between him and Sidney Rigdon.

John Dehlin 1:35:00 Okay. Any other. Any other comments about Joseph Smith becoming mayor? Lou Julia, any thoughts?

Julia 1:35:07 Nah.

John Dehlin 1:35:08 Okay.

Julia 1:35:08 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:35:09 Okay. And John C. Bennett says, I have no difficulty with the heads of the church.

Julia 1:35:16 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:35:18 So he. It's. This must be some sort of like, settlement where it's like, we're going to destroy you if you don't make sure and affirm us we're kicking you out kind of thing.

Julia 1:35:26 Yeah, we're talking about. We'll talk about it later. But John C. Bennett still wants to run for certain offices and he still wants Joseph's support. So I'm sure he wants to have. He wants to leave as nicely as he can without ruffling. Ruffling the least amount of feathers that he can.

John Dehlin 1:35:38 So at this point, he's not totally on the outs, right?

Julia 1:35:40 Yeah, he's not totally. Yeah, not yet.

John Dehlin 1:35:42 Okay.

Nemo 1:35:43 The way staying not completely on the outside is by backing Joseph up and saying he's never talked.

Mike 1:35:47 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:35:48 Right. It's like a deal. You. Joseph's like, all right, all right, John C. Bennett. If you tell everybody I had nothing to do with your behaviors, we have to kick you out. But. But we'll find some way to keep you on the payroll kind of thing.

Mike 1:36:04 Looks like there was that. There was that account with polygamy early on where Joseph Smith tells somebody and I can't remember who it was. Basically, if you get a girl pregnant, will basically kick you out and we'll just bring you back in later. I think it feels like that where it's like, okay, how do we make this go away in the interim? But also, they both realize that they. They can't completely go against each other at that point because they both have a lot to lose.

John Dehlin 1:36:24 Yeah. Yeah. Mutual assured destruction.

Mike 1:36:27 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:36:27 Pretty cool. In the. In the nuclear. Inner ICBM nuclear missile world. All right, let's jump to Joseph Smith as mayor. Oh, we already did that. Right.

Julia 1:36:39 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:36:39 Okay. So then John C. Bennett gets disfellowshipped.

Julia 1:36:42 Okay. So, yeah. On. On May 25, Joseph gave Bennett the disfellowship notice that was dated May 11 and threatened to publish it in the paper. So something's happening here where he's just really upset at Bennett and. And he's. And having this exposed would hurt Bennett in his election. Smith then asked if. But this is from the biographer Andrew Smith. Smith then asked If Bennett was willing to make an oath, Bennett agreed, proceeded into the office and wrote the statement. After Bennett humbled himself and begged to be spared the publication of the disfellowship notice for his mother's sake. The notice was written from the Times and Seasons, so it wasn't. Was withdrawn from the Times and Seasons, so it wasn't published. Interestingly, this is something that I, I don't quite understand what Andrew Smith is saying, but he says, interestingly, this statement in which Bennett supposedly admitted his culpability under oath, was not released, nor was any explanation given for not circulating it. And so later we do see that it is published in the. In the history of the Church. But it sounds like Andrew Smith is saying this wasn't published during the time that it was written.

John Dehlin 1:37:41 Yeah, it's kind of censorship for damage control. They don't want this leaking out. So it's a great early example of the Church, the Mormon Church, hiding problematic events. I mean, we know that today they hide sexual abuse of children and adults all the time. They hide all sorts of, you know, the, the ensign peak, you know, investments and the hundreds of billions of dollars now that the Church has in wealth. The. The hiding of inconvenient truths that they don't want the general membership to know, let alone the general public. Has its roots in Nauvoo and earlier.

Julia 1:38:20 Right, right. I also think he's, again, Joseph's trying to play this game really carefully where he's trying to denounce what Bennett's doing, but then he has 10 or 11 wives that he has to, like I have to say this or publish very carefully so that they still know that I'm doing the right thing and being their polygamous husband. But the Bennett's doing the wrong thing. So I feel like he's, yes, he's trying to school what people know and the bad information, but also he's trying to. I think he's trying to play this really careful game of polygamy.

John Dehlin 1:38:46 Wow, that's crazy. Okay, so Joseph Smith is mayor. We have another slide on that.

Julia 1:38:53 Oh, yeah. So I thought this was also really interesting. So the city council unanimously, unanimously passed a vote of thanks to the ex mayor. So even after all this stuff is happening, they're like, hey, thanks for being the mayor. Resolved by the city council, the city of Nauvoo, that this council tender a vote of thanks to General John C. Bennett for his great zeal in having good and wholesome laws adopted for the government of the city and for the faithful discharge of his duty while mayor of the same. So they're like, I don't know. It's a nice. It was nice.

John Dehlin 1:39:19 But it's also bizarre. Can you imagine, like a First Presidency member leaving a mayor being demoted in scandal? And then the church is saying, you did a great job. Thank you so much for all you did.

Nemo 1:39:33 And what's even more wild, they talk about his good and wholesome laws, but then a year later, they're going to go and undermine those wholesome laws by saying, but Joseph Smith gets to sell alcohol, so.

Julia 1:39:43 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:39:43 And since when was putting up a brothel a wholesome law?

Julia 1:39:46 Seriously?

John Dehlin 1:39:48 That's weird.

Nemo 1:39:50 That is strange.

John Dehlin 1:39:51 Super weird. Okay.

Nemo 1:39:52 Makes me wonder what, like, level of personal influence John C. Bennett had over Joseph Smith. Like, how much their relationship was. You know, the relationship between the two of them.

Mike 1:40:02 Yeah, yeah.

Julia 1:40:03 That's a good question.

John Dehlin 1:40:04 And I don't know if. I mean, just as a teaser, I don't know if the homosexuality stuff that you are going to share with us, I think in next episode, Julia, if that maybe it might be part three.

Julia 1:40:14 It might be part three. But yeah, there's a.

Nemo 1:40:18 Make sure you hit subscribe because you're not going to want to miss that.

John Dehlin 1:40:21 Absolutely.

Julia 1:40:22 There you go.

Mike 1:40:22 You're welcome.

John Dehlin 1:40:23 Okay. Thanks, Nemo. All right, so now we're to his public disfellowship meant.

Julia 1:40:28 Yeah. So despite Bennett's desire not to have the disfellowship notice published, Joseph Smith had it published in July 15th of 1842 in the Times and Seasons. And so this is just the notice. I don't know if we need to read it.

Nemo 1:40:39 I think we should read who it's signed by.

John Dehlin 1:40:42 Mike. Go ahead and read it, Mike.

Mike 1:40:44 The subscribers, members of the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, withdraw the hand of fellowship from General John C. Bennett as a Christian. He having been labored from. With from time to time to persuade him to amend his conduct, apparently to no good effect. Signed by Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith and William Law.

John Dehlin 1:41:02 Interesting.

Julia 1:41:04 Yeah. I just think it's interesting that. Because Joseph was like, okay, if you sign this thing, I won't make this public. And then was it maybe two months later, June, July, that he's like, nope, I'm gonna do this. And he's, yeah, I just. Something changed in Joseph or something changed in the circumstances to make it.

John Dehlin 1:41:17 Do we know? Do we know if John sees. Bennett just was talking too much. Was he misbehaving? You know, I don't know.

Julia 1:41:25 That's a good question. I Don't know specifically.

Mike 1:41:27 Yeah, I was trying. I was just trying to look up some dates, and it looks like everything kind of happens in May and then in August after this. So I don't know what happens in the interim that gets Joseph Smith to basically just pull the trigger on. On trying to basically nuke him.

Julia 1:41:41 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:41:42 Maybe he didn't stop his scandalous behavior.

Julia 1:41:45 Yeah. Or people were believing him or things like that. We. Yeah, we know people left the church over certain issues, like with the. With Nancy Rigden and things like that. They were leaving the church.

John Dehlin 1:41:54 I mean, let's just face it. He could have been a. A polygamy fall guy. Right. He could have been. Oh, Joseph's. Because Joseph was lying about polygamy this whole time. Joseph was hiding it. He was lying about it. I don't even think Emma knew about it.

Nemo 1:42:07 That's why William Law got mad and published the Navu Explosion. He finally found out.

John Dehlin 1:42:12 So, yeah.

Nemo 1:42:13 I wonder whether this was part of keeping William Law sweet. That's why I wanted to point out that he was a signatory. Because if keeping William Law sweet, he's like, yeah, don't worry, William. We'll get rid of him because he's doing this nasty stuff that shouldn't be happening.

John Dehlin 1:42:24 So fall guy. He was a fall guy. Yeah, possibly. I mean, we're speculating, but that's possible.

Julia 1:42:31 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:42:32 All right, so then it looks like he goes on to run for the House of Representatives. Right?

Julia 1:42:37 Well, so, yeah. Andrew Smith theorizes that Bennett perhaps agreed to resign his position amicably and hope that he might avoid a public confrontation with Smith. Bennett was a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives, and he apparently believed that Joseph. Joseph Smith and hire Smith would continue to support his candidacy. Disclosure of the rift with Smith would have promptly doomed any chance for his election. So, yeah, he was wanting to do this, and he wanted to. Like I said, he didn't want to ruffle any feathers because he wanted Joseph's support because he's got all these saints and he's got all this militia and stuff like that, big, big supporter in Joseph, and. And then he loses it with. With Joseph publishing this disfellowship notice.

John Dehlin 1:43:10 So interesting, because when you've got someone who is a potential. Who has the potential to take you down, you want to give them something to make them happy so that they don't just sit around and wallow in their sadness and anger and then spend their time trying to take you down. So the House of Representatives could have been that, except for the next Slide.

Julia 1:43:33 Right. Yeah. Well, yeah. So while the Nava High Council investigated Bennett, he prudently withdrew his name from consideration as a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives. He recommended that Orson Pratt or Sidney Rigdon run, but they refused. Instead of William Smith ran it and was elected. So, yeah, he.

Nemo 1:43:49 Joseph.

Julia 1:43:50 Joseph's brother, William. Yeah. Yeah. William. Yeah. Yeah.

Nemo 1:43:54 Boo. Okay.

John Dehlin 1:43:57 Okay. So no, no Congress for John C. Bennett. He's. He's now. Yeah.

Julia 1:44:04 Yeah. So now he has nothing to lose. Now he's like, I. Joseph, Joseph can't help me at all. He can't help me with this, running for the House of Representatives. So, yeah, so then he threatens to. To write a book, and then the next posse. Joseph. So.

John Dehlin 1:44:16 Which leads to the final straw.

Julia 1:44:19 Yeah. Yes. On June 18th of 1842, Smith spoke out publicly against Bennett. According to Wilford Woodruff's journal, Joseph Smith spoke his mind in great plainness concerning the inquiry and witness iniquity. I think that's probably iniquity and wickedness of General John Cook Bennett and exposed him before the public. One newspaper described that some hard swearing. Some hard swearing passed between those saints during the quarrel and that Bennett threatened to write a book for the purpose of exposing the rest. The rascality of this pretender to the spirit of prophecy. And that was published in the Hawkeye and Iowa Patriot. According to John C. Bennett's biographer, Andrew Smith, John C. Bennett was excommunicated on this day. So he was excommunicated on June 18th of 1842.

John Dehlin 1:45:00 And do we have any idea what. What, you know, what. What he was so mad about, what. What. What the division and the contention was about? Like, I imagine some people loved him. I imagine he had relationships that were significant. And then I imagine that he was angry, feeling like he was the fall guy and eventually punished for behavior. He probably learned from Joseph. I'm speculating, Julia. What's your.

Julia 1:45:25 That's my feel, too, is that he. He, like, Joseph's doing this. Why can't I do this? And then he's getting really frustrated and. And then we'll. We'll get into more of this. Hit the backlash of John Tsubotan in Part two, because he. He does not go quietly into the good night. He is very, very outspoken of his leaving the church, and he doesn't leave it alone.

John Dehlin 1:45:45 So there's more to come.

Nemo 1:45:47 I feel John C. Bennett, like Icarus flew too close to the sun. He got a bit too close to the top of the Mormon power structure. And I think he tried to take one to Main liberty. And Joseph wasn't willing to back him. I mean, exposure of his own behavior.

John Dehlin 1:46:05 I mean, if, if, if he was a scalawag to begin with. And then power corrupts when, when absolute power is given to a scoundrel to begin with, it's probably not going to be a good outcome. Right. Is that fair to say?

Mike 1:46:18 Yeah.

Closing Reflections and Preview of Future Episodes

John Dehlin 1:46:18 Mike, what, what's your summary for today's episode?

Mike 1:46:21 My summary is there's no heroes in this story. I think when you look at both Bennett and, and Joseph Smith, they're doing some really crappy things. And I think that's why at the beginning, I said, like, a lot of times critics would be like, john C. Bennett's this hero that speaks out. It's like, no, he's not a hero. He's a bad guy that was doing bad things and he did speak out. And obviously that's helpful in the sense of getting more information about what Joseph Smith was doing. That doesn't make him a good guy. And I, I think that it just shows too. Like you both, like you've all said, when you get a lot of power and you see someone else getting away with doing these certain things, especially when you talk about people that want to have sex with other women and they see this loophole that Joseph Smith's using and teaching publicly, by the way, when you say no sin of no accuser, and then you do it. But the problem, the mistake John C. Bennett made wasn't having sex with the women. It was that basically it got caught and it got public and Joseph Smith got implicated. And so when you have all those things happen and you're John C. Bennett and you get caught and then you get kicked out for it after you get all of this power. Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna lash back because obviously John C. Bennett's aspirations got nuked by Joseph Smith here. And, you know, it's, it's not to draw this, this comparison, but it feels similar to when the church nuked Tim Ballard a few months ago. The, the church got out in front of Tim Ballard and they dropped the nuclear bomb on him because they wanted to make sure he was toxic to anyone who was a believer in the church because they knew that Tim Ballard could say, I met with these people and blah, blah. It's the same thing. It's just, you know, Joseph Smith is always one step ahead as far as power than these other people, and he's going to stomp on you if he needs to.

John Dehlin 1:47:52 You know, speaking, you know, now that we're we're bringing LDS discussions back for a second season, so to speak. I think one cool LDS discussions episode could be, you know, 10 of the. Maybe we did an episode about this, but like the main people excommunicated from the Mormon Church over time, why they were excommunicated and what we can learn from their excommunication. What was the one that we did?

Nemo 1:48:16 Wants himself in an episode.

John Dehlin 1:48:18 No, what was the one we did?

Mike 1:48:20 I don't know that we did one like that. I mean, we talked about this a bit in the Happiness Letter episode.

John Dehlin 1:48:24 Oh, maybe it was John Larsen. Maybe it's John Larsen. We did an episode. But. But I mean, like, if you just take. It's not like John C. Bennett was the only excommunicated person to then write, you know, a tell all. William Law did that, but for a very different reason. You know, John D. Lee did that, but for a very different reason. So I think it's really interesting to see why people are excommunicated and how they respond to it.

Mike 1:48:51 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:48:53 Oh, go ahead, Julie.

Julia 1:48:54 I was just gonna say a lot of Joseph's. If you look at the, if, you know, we have those pictures now where it's like the prophet and the counselors, there was a lot, a lot of those people were excommunicated or left the church. And so like, that would be really fascinating to look at of why, why they were disaffected from the church.

Mike 1:49:08 Yeah, let's write that.

John Dehlin 1:49:09 Let's keep a running list of LDS discussions episodes because that's a really good one. Like what happened to all the founders of Mormonism and just list 10 and 20 are the most significant founders and what happens to them.

Mike 1:49:20 Yeah, and. And that's what. And that's kind of ties in a little bit to this maybe on a smaller level. But when you look at how all of the, basically the big witnesses were, were kicked out because they started to question what Joseph Smith was doing. And then this is. After Joseph Smith to a certain extent is a little bit unleashed because he's not constrained by those, those initial people, they're gone. And so Joseph Smith now is almost like he's almost doing his own second season and kind of rebooting with John C. Bennett to, to try to take this to the next level. And the problem is if you're going to associate yourself with people who are clearly doing things that, you know, are not right, but you're bringing them in because they get stuff done, it's going to backfire. It always does. That's just how History works when you try to work with people that are a little bit underhanded. And even if you think you can outsmart them, it's still going to blow up in your face.

John Dehlin 1:50:07 You know, it's almost like. It's almost like John C. Bennett was the anti hero who was a scalawag from the start who was brought in by Joseph Smith so that Joseph Smith could have a puppet to wield absolute authority. That went wrong. So Joseph Smith got rid of him. Then he chose a moral man later, William Law, apparently to replace John C. Bennett. William Law becomes Joseph Smith's right hand man. But that didn't turn out so well either because William Law wasn't going to be a puppet. He wasn't going to be okay with polygamy. And in the same way he gets kicked out for, for not doing what Joseph wants and then he ends up writing a tell all. The Nauvoo Expositor is almost like an opposite or an inflection of John C. Bennett. It's almost like William Law was the anti John C. Bennett and John C. Bennett was the anti William Law. That's an interesting. And they kind of, they, they served consecutively. I think that's a really interesting juxtaposition.

Mike 1:51:13 Yeah.

Nemo 1:51:13 And it shows the swing Joseph Smith took in terms of who his allies were.

Mike 1:51:18 Yeah.

Nemo 1:51:19 Support.

Mike 1:51:20 But it felt like no matter what he did. I mean, the problem is, you know, and this is more for another episode, but when you get into this period of Navu, Joseph Smith is doing things that are not good. And so you. William Law is obviously going to play a vital role. And maybe that's an episode we should do as Navu Expositor. I know it's been covered elsewhere, but that would be a fun one to do because that ties into this about how Joseph Smith is going from person to person. But you need someone who is agreeing with you on this, who also won't do what you're doing. It's a really. He's. He's working this tightrope here that's never going to work out. I mean, that's the problem. It's like if you get someone like John C. Bennett who's like, yeah, I'm okay with you sleep with other women, but then he's going to want to do it too. And then you get someone like William Law who's not okay with it and he's not going to be okay with Joseph doing it. That's why when you're doing bad things, you're going to have a hard time keeping Things together. It just doesn't work.

John Dehlin 1:52:07 Well, Julia, you've prepared an amazing first episode. I would love you to just give us your summary of today and then tell us what parts two and three are going to be about and then we'll adjourn until next time.

Julia 1:52:19 Yes, sure. So, yeah. So John C. Bennett was just a very brand new member of the church. Rose to the very top. I, I partly wonder if Joseph always intended to take, to take his place or to have that facade of like I'm holding the strings but, but see, I'm not in charge. It's Bennett and then that. And then Bennett was exposed because of his, his spiritual wifery and things like that. And then, and then he, Joseph replaced him really quickly and then Bennett is not going. He's. He's. One thing that I think is really interesting is. And we're going to cover this in part two. Part two, we're talking about the, the. I think we're talking about the how he's trying to expose Joseph and things like that. And well, I'm impressed by how the church did not end after, after John C. Bennett is saying all these things and going to all these lectures and speaking out very publicly against Joseph. Whereas with, with William Law, I mean, I guess Joseph was martyred. So maybe we don't know for sure. But with William Law that was really. He saw that as more harmful. He seemed more scared of William than Bennett, which I think is really interesting because Joseph was very terrified of Bennett after he left. It's like, I guess I'm, I've been picturing Joseph holding the snake that's very poisonous and as soon as he lets it go, it's going to, I don't know, like you talked about Mike, you mentioned it blowing up in his face. Like John C. Bennett blows up in Joseph's face and Joseph is terrified. And this next, what we're going to cover next is how Joseph and Bennett are responding to each other. So. Yeah. And then his exposing Joseph and so I can't remember which parts are which but I think next time we're talking about, we're talking about abortion and then polygamy and then we'll talk about homosexuality and then, and then what happens with, when Bennett is giving these lectures and telling the world about Joseph.

John Dehlin 1:53:56 So. And for those who are like what abortion and Nauvoo. I mean a lot of people ask if Joseph, Joseph could have been a polygamist because there were no offspring. It's possible that abortion was a factor in that. And we're going to be talking about that.

Nemo 1:54:11 Nemo, I have to always say, whenever that point gets brought up, it just shows he was a bad polygamist because God said polygamy was for raising up righteous seed, and he didn't do that. So he failed to live up to

Mike 1:54:22 DNC132 and pretty much every other rule in DNC132 as well. But that's.

John Dehlin 1:54:28 All right. Well, Mike and Nemo, can we give Julia a round of applause for her. Her joining us today in LDS discussions? Thank you, Julia.

Mike 1:54:36 Yeah, and I'll just say before this episode ends that if you guys want to go on Tick Tock and view her videos, I don't know how many you've posted now, but she's done a ton of videos that really take on a lot of apologetic responses to issues that are really good. And like I said, she doesn't just tell you, she shows you. And I think that's why her work is important, because it's not just her just saying, oh, I believe this, so you should, too. It's like, no, here's why this doesn't add up here. Here are the sources, and what they're telling you is, is inaccurate. So I. I would highly recommend anyone interested follow her and. And watch her videos because she does really good work without being, like I said, obnoxious or trying to turn off people who are trying to figure this out. And I think that's a really great mindset to have with these videos. So. So I really hope that if you haven't, you'll do so, because she has been doing a lot of good work for a long time.

Julia 1:55:26 Thanks, Mike. Thank you.

John Dehlin 1:55:28 Yeah. All right. Thanks, Julia. Thanks. And please subscribe to Nemo the Mormon, the YouTube channel. Help Nemo grow. He's over 20,000 subs now. Please subscribe to Mormon Stories podcast and share this episode wherever you can. Make sure, you know, you can follow us on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, and also there's a playlist on our YouTube channel where you can watch all these in succession. Check out, you know, analyzing Mormonism, of course, on Tick Tock and Instagram, and don't forget to check out the ldsdiscussions.com website that Mike put together where you can read all his essays that are all super useful. And. And don't forget to tune in again for another episode of LDS discussion soon. Yep.

Mike 1:56:12 Thanks, everybody. Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:56:14 All right. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Nemo. We'll see you all again next week. All right, take care. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. And finally, we pay all these people. So if you want to see this series continue, you need to become a supporter if you're not already. So if you're a donor, thank you. Go to mormonstories.org Become a monthly donor if you're not, and your donations will, in part, go to pay for Julia's work and and Mike and Nemo, because we believe in paying people for the talent. So please, become a monthly donor@mormonstories.org be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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