What lies did the Nauvoo Expositor print?

[_why me]

I believe that Smith was engaging in adultery and created the revelations to justify it. Boom. No need to suppose Smith was in some sort of a no-win situation and that God himself placed him there.

Of course, this is where the disagreement rests: in motivation. For LDS members Joseph Smith was not commiting adultery but for critics he was.

But when we look at the situation we see that Joseph Smith did not engage in plural marriage for quite some years after he was sealed to fanny. Why? I would assume that he was holding off on the whole principle and only in the early 1840's did he see a reason to restart the practice. Why? Either he got a touch of horny toadism or he felt pressured to begin the practice again. He married most of the women during the years 1841 to 1843. That is basically a two year period. Why was he marrying so many during a short time frame? Sex? I doubt it. He could have gotten some two counties over in a place called Miss Kitty's. No need to risk his fraud on sex.

Also, as Nevo pointed out, not one of these woman saw her relations with Joseph as one of lust. And none to my mind spoke a negative word about their experience with him. Now it would be great to have written testimoy from these women stating that Joseph Smith was a lusful old fart who would moan like a bull but...we have no such testimony.

[_Kishkumen]

When I said they gave their full consent, I meant their unforced consent.

Well, Nevo, I think it is interesting that you imagine relenting after being told that "the gate will be closed forever against you" is the same thing as never having heard it. It seems that you are comforted by the timely interventions of the Holy Spirit. I would have to say that, while I am glad that she felt the grace of a great deal of comfort preceding her marriage to Joseph Smith, as wife #X (does it really matter after so many?), I don't think that really lifts the blame off of the shoulders of the man who would imagine that this is the way of extracting "full, informed consent." Maybe by that you mean it was Joseph's divine duty to let her know the full, awful consequences of not becoming his umpteenth bride, so that in your mind he would have been a monster if he had not mentioned it.

You should spend more time studying Wayne Bent. He sent delightful little missives to his followers that mentioned nothing explicit about teenage girls presenting themselves to him naked, and yet somehow God instilled that suggestion in their hearts, and they willingly went to their mortal messiah to have sex with him. Now, society calls Wayne Bent a monster, and certainly what he did was both illegal and immoral (depending on your standard of morality, I suppose; certainly it meets my definition), but somehow it seems to be no worse than Joseph Smith's behavior, and possibly better. Well, I don't know all the nitty gritty details, so I can't say, but I have heard no worse about Wayne anyway.

Here's the thing for me, Nevo. I don't want to live in a society where people in places of power feel divinely sanctioned or even enjoined to march into my home and demand to marry my wife or daughter on threat of damnation. Sure, I know the LDS Church doesn't do it these days, so we would be silly to tremble in our boots at the prospect of President Monson being carted to our houses to pick up our ladies, but I actually think it quite frightening that you guys would even condone such a thing. In my mind, what you theologically allow and defend represents one boundary of what you find acceptable in your society, and makes me wonder about all of the lesser transgressions and social oddities that would be allowable under a Mormon regime.

Certainly we know that Joseph Smith's example has arguably instilled a culture in which intrusion into the most intimate details of members lives is considered completely fine and to be expected. So, I should not be at all put out if a 55 year old bishop or stake president should ask my 12 year old daughter whether she masturbates in the cozy privacy of his office, or ask me and my spouse if we engage in oral sex (why, we should be thankful for God's watchful care, right?). Why? Because the leader has every right to do so! God has told him, even though He unfortunately left it out of the scriptures, that one should not masturbate or engage in oral sex. It is up to the leaders, however, to define words like immoral and impure in the ways that suit them and their apparent need to control the most private aspects of the lives of their members.

I am sure, however, that this is all innocent and aboveboard. God would find my daughter unacceptable before Him, if she should masturbate. Maybe she wouldn't get to be wife number 34,657 of Joseph Smith in the hereafter. And what a tragedy that would be!

What I am getting at here, in case you are wondering, is that your justifications say something about Mormonism today, even if Joseph is not currently running around and coercing teenage girls to marry him "with full, informed consent." They also help us understand some of the discomfort and icky feelings we may have endured along our journey as members of the LDS Church. So, I have to thank you for enlightening me on the reasons why you find all of this acceptable and understandable. Unfortunately, I am not persuaded that they are, any more than I am persuaded that God told the girls in the Wayne Bent group to present themselves in the nude to their beloved messiah and copulate in an orgy of divine ecstasy with him (they all attested to how wonderful it was!).

But I guess you are right that Joseph Smith is different based on the number of followers he has today. After all, no belief system that has so many members could possibly be wrong. You know, like the cult of Chairman Mao. I hear he loved deflowering virgins too.

[Guest]

When I said they gave their full consent, I meant their unforced consent.

The women who left accounts of Joseph's "threats" were not, in fact, persuaded by them. Lucy Walker, for example, flatly refused the Prophet's proposal when he told her "if you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you." She only relented after receiving her own spiritual confirmation. She later wrote: "President Joseph Smith taught me the principle of plural marriage which after much serious thought and prayer for many months I became convinced that the principle was revealed from heaven and on the first day of May 1843 I consented to become the Prophet's wife." Her experience was typical.

Let's take a closer look at Joseph and Lucy's relationship. First, it should be noted that Lucy's mother had died and Joseph sent her father on a two year mission to the east. Joseph offered to house Lucy and her brother (but not the younger siblings) while her father was gone.

Okay, so Lucy is living in Joseph's house without her parents around and is solely dependent on him and his good graces for a place to live. By now, this story should take on a familiar ring to it since Joseph had developed a real propensity for this kind of thing (Lawrence sisters, Partridge sisters, etc.).

But I digress. Joseph informs Lucy that God commanded him to take her as his wife. Lucy was shocked at first and didn't answer. Joseph then gave her an ultimatum. Decide by tomorrow and "if you reject this message the gate will be forever closed against you."

So Lucy now knows that if she rejects Joseph's overtures, she will be disobeying God and "the gate will be closed forever." What gate? The opportunity to marry Joseph or the opportunity to be exalted in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom? I think the former is unlikely since she states outright that she really didn't have any feelings for Joseph. The latter, however, perfectly explains her reactions and the struggle she had.

Before the deadline, she received a testimony and agreed to marry Joseph.

She never flatly refused Joseph's proposal. She took it very seriously and provided the correct answer before the deadline (good thing she did or we would now know her as Lucy Walker, the whore from her mother's breast!). Joseph framed it as though she had to do it or the gate (to exaltation) would be closed forever. Gee, no pressure there.

But lest you say that this was an isolated incident, lets look at Zina Huntington. Zina Huntington rebuffed Joseph repeatedly, even going so far as to marry someone else (Henry Jacobs), only to be told that God would kill Joseph if she refused to marry him. Joseph basically told her that his very life and the fate of the Church and gospel rested in her hands with this one decision. No pressure there either, right?

Let's look at another example. In this situation, Joseph didn't threaten that God would kill him. Instead, he promised this girl everything. He told Helen Mar Kimball stated that if she agreed to marry Joseph it would guarantee the exaltation of her entire family! No pressure there either, right?

Nevo, the threats and promises were absolutely how Joseph got these women to marry him. Having a mystical spiritual experience does nothing to make this okay (Wayne Bent's sixteen year old female followers also had a mystical confirming experience, but that does nothing to make it right).

These women were not little children or feeble-minded. We should not disregard or downplay their agency in the matter.[/quote]

[_Kishkumen]

So Lucy now knows that if she rejects Joseph's overtures, she will be disobeying God and "the gate will be closed forever." What gate? The opportunity to marry Joseph or the opportunity to be exalted in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom? I think the former is unlikely since she states outright that she really didn't have any feelings for Joseph. The latter, however, perfectly explains her reactions and the struggle she had.

Fantastic post, FC. It is interesting how, in his quest to help us "understand" Joseph Smith's coercion of teenage waifs, Nevo managed to leave out so many helpful details. I have always believed that more information will help us understand better, but Boyd K. Packer was probably correct in ominously intoning the truism that not all truth is useful. Well, knowing Nevo as I do, I doubt he was thinking of Elder Packer's somewhat frightful dictum when he crafted that post. I know he was pressed for time.

You know, your post raises in my mind a question regarding the meaning of the word "gate" in this circumstance. It is odd that Joseph was so ambiguous, making it necessary for you and I to speculate that he must have meant the gate to the highest degree of glory or some such. I wonder, though, whether it is possible that he was also alluding to entrance to his home. That would certainly have interesting implications in considering the question of Lucy's "full, informed consent," wouldn't it? Might she have taken the hint that she could find herself tossed out on the street?

What are your thoughts?

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

Nevo: You stated that any sex Joseph Smith had would not have been adulterous because Joseph Smith had secured marriages and consent for all parties involved. But that's not true, is it? Poor Emma did not approve of them, nor did she consent when it mattered. If a man who is already married marries another woman in secret, he is cheating. If Emma had agreed from the beginning, then it would not have been adulterous. How do you justify that?

[_Fifth Columnist]

I think Koresh and Bent were both sincere, which is a problem for me since they all seem so similar. How can I say that Joseph was actually inspired by God and the others weren't?

How can you say that Jesus was actually inspired by God and not Judas the Galilean or Theudas or Simon bar Kokhba or any of the other messianic claimants of his era? What about Honi the Circle-Drawer or Apollonius of Tyana? One has to pick and choose.

I'll be honest, I can't differentiate between them. I used to think the Holy Ghost allowed me to do that until I realized the followers of Bent and Koresh also had Holy Ghost like experiences that confirmed their deviant practices. One of the teenagers who agreed to get naked with Bent still believes strongly in his role as the Messiah, even after Bent was jailed. Her Holy Ghost experience was that powerful.

Okay, but I'm curious to know what you would have done differently. If you were Joseph Smith in 1841 in Nauvoo, and you believed that God wanted you to inaugurate this new marriage system (and you believed that you would be destroyed if you didn't) and you knew that Emma (and probably many of your closest associates) would have none of it, how would you have gone about it?

Could you have done without secrecy and deception and still kept the Church together? Kept your family together? (By the way, do people imagine that Emma would have been better off if Joseph had practiced polygamy openly, in full public view? I think not.)

Could you have persuaded people to embrace something that was so revolting to their feelings without applying any pressure at all?

Perhaps you could have. Perhaps.

The God I was taught about would have told me to "do what is right, let the consequence follow." Joseph should have presented the revelation to the Church in the manner outlined in the D&C and then proceeded to practice polygamy. If his wife or other members left him, then that was their problem. This might be a set back, but if it was God's work, then nothing could stop it.

I have more respect for Koresh and Bent than Joseph. They at least announced the revelation to their followers without all the subterfuge and threats.

It is unfathomable to me that you can not only excuse Joseph's behavior, but think it was actually condoned by God. If God really did approve of Joseph lying to his wife, having sex with numerous other women behind her back, lying to the Church, smearing the reputations of the those that rejected his proposals, promising eternal life to an entire family if a 14 year old girl would accept his proposal, threatening his own death if a girl refused his proposal, housing and marrying every single female aged 14 or above that stayed in his home for longer than a week, then he is a sick bastard and I want nothing to do with him. God is no longer an exalted, celestial being. He is a common thug who uses disgusting tactics to bring about his purposes. I'd rather rot in hell with all the other apostates, then live with that dirty bastard (i.e., God) for eternity.

[_Kishkumen]

Nevo: You stated that any sex Joseph Smith had would not have been adulterous because Joseph Smith had secured marriages and consent for all parties involved. But that's not true, is it? Poor Emma did not approve of them, nor did she consent when it mattered. If a man who is already married marries another woman in secret, he is cheating. If Emma had agreed from the beginning, then it would not have been adulterous. How do you justify that?

Didn't the God of Heaven retroactively give Joseph a free pass and threaten Emma with damnation if she didn't go along? I think you would have to agree that this makes Joseph's cheating on her by secretly sleeping with teenage girls most definitely not adultery. I am sure Joseph was relieved when God revealed that threat to Emma through him and fortunate further that the Spirit confirmed it so that he was not forced by the Hand of the Almighty to toss her out into the street.

Now that would have been inconvenient!

[_Spurven Ten Sing]

Nevo: You stated that any sex Joseph Smith had would not have been adulterous because Joseph Smith had secured marriages and consent for all parties involved. But that's not true, is it? Poor Emma did not approve of them, nor did she consent when it mattered. If a man who is already married marries another woman in secret, he is cheating. If Emma had agreed from the beginning, then it would not have been adulterous. How do you justify that?

Didn't the God of Heaven retroactively give Joseph a free pass and threaten Emma with damnation if she didn't go along? I think you would have to agree that this makes Joseph's cheating on her by secretly sleeping with teenage girls most definitely not adultery. I am sure Joseph was relieved when God revealed that threat to Emma through him and fortunate further that the Spirit confirmed it so that he was not forced by the Hand of the Almighty to toss her out into the street.

Now that would have been inconvenient!

Nope, sorry. That's not the tack he seems to be taking. He is pushing consent, as though consent of the extra wives is what mattered. There was one person's consent he needed for this not to be adultery, and he did not get it. THAT is cheating by any definition. Are we to believe that GOD has no problem betraying his little handmaiden here?

[_harmony]

? Might she have taken the hint that she could find herself tossed out on the street?

What are your thoughts?

And her brother. Let us not forget her brother would have been tossed out too.

[_Kishkumen]

Nope, sorry. That's not the tack he seems to be taking. He is pushing consent, as though consent of the extra wives is what mattered. There was one person's consent he needed for this not to be adultery, and he did not get it. THAT is cheating by any definition. Are we to believe that GOD has no problem betraying his little handmaiden here?

Well, I can't speak for Nevo, but I would think that God's ex post facto threat to Emma is as good as her consent up front, wouldn't you think? I bet Joseph was relieved to have God back him up like this after he weenied out and failed to get Emma's consent up front. In other words, God's potential anger nullifies the necessity of the "full, informed consent" of Emma. This means that, as long as God went along with it after the fact, consent was never really necessary at all, and Joseph was always justified in what he was doing, so long as at some point along the way he felt as though God told him to do something. Or am I missing something?