The Irrational World of Brian Hales' Polygamy (I & II & III)

[_grindael]

Ok, my friends, if you haven't read this, you really don't want to miss out on all the good information you will learn... here is just 1 (ONE) footnote, and there are dozens of these... (sorry, no pictures or links here)

In the Epistle above, Joseph Smith specifically tells the Relief Society that they are to shun anyone who teaches anything “contrary to the old established morals & virtues & scriptural laws, regulating the habits, customs & conduct of society.” Notice he also says that we do not want anyone believing anything as coming from us is contrary to the old esablished morals, etc. This would include polygamy, which was not the scriptural law, (the law was Doctrine and Covenants Section 101), and it expressly forbid polygamy:

Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.[133]

[133] Doctrine and Covenants, 1835 edition, Section 101; 1844 edition Section 109. FAIRMORMON writes:

In fact, the statement remained in the D&C until the 1876 edition, even though plural marriage had been taught to specific individuals since at least 1831, practiced in secret since 1836, and practiced openly since 1852. The matter of not removing it in 1852 was simply due to the fact that a new edition of the D&C was not published until 1876. (1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy—D&C 101 (original), online here, Accessed December 31, 2014).

They also claim that Smith supported its inclusion in the Doctrine and Covenants:

While some have suggested that the article was published against Joseph’s wishes or without his knowledge, the available evidence suggests that he supported its publication. It was likely included to counter the perception that the Mormon’s practice of communal property (the “law of consecration”) included a community of wives. (ibid.)

“Community of Wives” was simply wife swapping, which would be adultery (or polygamy as some called it) and fornication if either party was not married to the other. The Mormons did not practice formal polygamy in the 1830’s though there was a “revelation” from Smith that they could marry Lamanites, (Native Americans) but that would involve leaving the current wife (if married) and would still be adultery. (See Ezra Booth, Letters 8 & 9, or Note #30. The purported “revelation” can be found online here, Accessed November 26, 2016).

As Richard S. Van Wagoner writes:

An additional reason the 1835 marriage statement gets little notice despite its status as the present law of the Church is that Joseph Smith was not present during the 17 August general assembly which voted on the measure. Years later, the rumor circulated that Oliver Cowdery had authored the marriage statement against the Prophet’s wishes. If Cowdery, as an Assistant President of the Church, did write the statement, most likely it was to protect the Prophet from the rumors that were spreading against him. For whatever reason, Smith planned a brief missionary venture to Michigan to coincide with the 17 August meeting. Statements he and other Church leaders later made, however, as well as the fact that he performed marriages using the ceremony canonized in that 1835 declaration, argue that he approved of the marriage declaration. Furthermore, Smith could have made changes prior to the 1835 printing. A “Notes to the Reader” addendum, page xxv in the 1835 edition, details a change in the article of marriage after it had been canonized.

The 1835 marriage statement was important in several respects. Not only did it deny the practice of Church-sanctioned polygamy, but it also outlined a marriage ceremony which ended by pronouncing the couple “‘husband and wife’ in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him [the person performing the ceremony]: ‘may God add his blessings and keep you to fulfill your covenants from henceforth and forever!'”

This statement, the first referring to eternal marriage, together with the Prophet’s two 1831 revelatory statements, suggests that Church leaders no longer viewed marriage as a strictly civil contract. But the Church did not officially accept responsibility for solemnizing the marriages of its members until after the 1835 “rules for marriage” had been canonized.

Civil authorities in Ohio did not recognize the license of Church leaders. Sidney Rigdon was arrested in 1835 for marrying a couple, then released when he produced his Campbellite license. This refusal to recognize Mormon priesthood authority was a source of irritation to Joseph Smith; and in a bold display of civil disobedience on 24 November 1835, he performed his first marriage. It was initially intended that Seymour Brunson, who held a valid minister’s license, would marry Newel Knight and Lydia Goldthwait Bailey. But as Hyrum Smith began the introductory comments, Joseph stepped forth and declared his intent to officiate. The bride, later noting that “the prevailing law of Ohio did not recognize the Mormon Elders as ministers,” added that Smith said at the time of the wedding:

Our elders have been wronged and prosecuted for marrying without a license. The Lord God of Israel has given me authority to unite the people in the holy bonds of matrimony. And from this time forth I shall use that privilege and marry whomsoever I see fit. And the enemies of the Church shall never have power to use the law against me.

Another interesting aspect of the 1835 marriage statement was a clause which held that “all legal contracts of marriage made before a person is baptized into this church, should be held sacred and fulfilled.” Despite that explicit directive, Lydia Goldthwait Bailey, though abandoned by her legal husband, was not divorced when the Prophet married her to Newel Knight, a fact well known to all involved.

The polyandrous Knight marriage was one of Joseph Smith’s earliest efforts to apply heavenly guidelines on earth despite legal technicalities. Emphasizing the sacramental nature of marriage, he commented at the conclusion of the Knight ceremony “that marriage was an institution of heaven, instituted in the garden; that it was necessary it should be solemnized by the authority of the everlasting Priesthood” (HC 2:320). Viewing temporal and spiritual standards as inextricably intertwined, Joseph Smith began in the fall of 1835 to teach the eternal marriage alluded to in the canonized marriage statement. W. W. Phelps, Smith’s scribe in Kirtland, has provided a commentary on the Prophet’s marriage teachings of that period. Writing to his wife in Missouri 9 September 1835, Phelps explained: “I have it in my heart to give you a little instruction, so that you may know your place, and stand in it, believed, admired, and rewarded, in time and in eternity.” Two weeks later he again wrote:

Br. Joseph has preached some of the greatest sermons on the duty of wives to their husbands and the role of all Women, I ever heard. I would not have you ignorant, Sally, of the mystery of Men and Women, but I cannot write all you must wait till you see me. This much, however, I will say, that you closed your 4th letter to me in a singular manner: really it was done after the manner of the Gentiles: says Sally “I remain yours till death.” But since you have seen my blessing I think you will conclude, “if your life and years are as precious in the sight of God as Mine,” thus you will be mine, in this world and in the world to come; And so long as you can “remain on earth as you desire.” I think you may as well use the word “forever,” as “till death“…. This is the reason why I have called you at the commencement of this letter, My Only One, because I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial Kingdom. (italics in original, our bold).


Louisa Beaman, circa 1845

Phelps’s understanding of eternal marriage in the “celestial Kingdom’ obviously came from Smith, who preached numerous sermons on marriage during the fall of 1835 while Phelps was living in his home and working with him daily. Despite the implication of eternal marriage in both the 1835 canonized ceremony and Phelps’s statements, the first Mormon eternal marriage did not take place until 6 April 1841, when Smith was sealed to plural wife Louisa Beaman by Joseph B. Noble. The Prophet had apparently come to view all marriages prior to this time, including his own to Emma Hale, as valid for “time” only. As late as 1840 he was occasionally signing his letters to Emma with the benediction “your husband till death” (Jessee 1984, 454). It was not until a 28 May 1843 meeting of the Endowment Council in Nauvoo that Joseph and Emma were sealed for time and eternity through the “new and everlasting covenant of marriage” (Ehat 1982, 2). (Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polyandry in Nauvoo, Dialogue, Vol. 18, No. 3, 70-73, Online here, Accessed December 1, 2014).

We believe that Beaman was sealed to Smith in 1842, not 1841. (More on this at a future time). W. W. Phelps was also instructed by Joseph to teach doctrine and publish it in the Church Newspapers he edited. On January 11, 1833 Smith wrote to Phelps and encouraged him to,

…render the [Evening and Morning] Star as interesting as possable by setting forth the rise progress and faith of the church, as well as the doctrine for if you do not render it more interesting than at present it will fall, and the church suffer a great Loss thereby——(Joseph Smith, Letter to W. W. Phelps, January 11, 1833, Online here, Accessed December 31, 2014, added emphasis).

By this we know that Smith had confidence that Phelps understood and could set forth the doctrines of the Church. But Phelps writes nothing about the concept of “Eternal Marriage” in any of the publications he edited. Some claim that this passage written by W. W. Phelps to his wife speaks of eternal marriage, but it is ambiguous and could be describing something else:

A new idea, sally, If you and I continue faithful to the end, we are certain of being one in the Lord throughout eternity. This is one of the most glorious consolations we can have in the flesh. (W. W. Phelps to Sally Phelps, May 26, 1835)

But take this comment from Phelps written six months earlier and it becomes clear what he meant:

Beloved, there was a time so perfect, and the union so pure, that the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy! and we do beseech you, to purify yourselves that your names may be written in heaven, for the company of angels to look upon, that they may come down and teach us to purify ourselves for the presence of Jesus, that he may dwell with us, while his glory covers the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise, that we may be one with all the redeemed of the Lamb, and them that are changed in the twinkling of an eye as the heaven and the earth are made now, that the tabernacle of God may be with men, and he with them, that we may hear the sons of Zion from all the creations he hath made, shouting glory and power and honor, to God and the Lamb throughout eternity. (The Evening and the Morning Star, Vol.1, No.2, November, 1834, p.25)

A month later, in June, 1835 Phelps wrote:

I am truly glad you have mentioned Michael, the prince, who, I understand, is our great father Adam. New light is occasionally bursting in to our minds, of the sacred scriptures, for which I am truly thankful. We shall by and bye learn that we were with God in another world, before the foundation of the world, and had our agency: that we came into this world and have our agency, in order that we may prepare ourselves for a kingdom of glory; become archangels, even the sons of God where the man is neither without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord: A consummation of glory, and happiness, and perfection so greatly to be wished, that I would not miss of it for the fame of ten worlds….I greatly rejoice at the light of the last days, and sincerely wish all men were fit and willing to receive it, that the glorious day might roll on when we might not only find sacred records by the ministering of angels, but might have the presence of Jesus again on earth; & be living witnesses of that day, when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the water covers the sea; when all shall know him, from the least even to the greatest; and all the redeemed multitude speak a pure language, according to the promise. Such a glorious prospect of holiness is worth living for, or worth dying for, and I beseech the saints to strive to continue to walk in the way and obtain their crown. (ibid, Vol. 1, No. 9, pg. 130, 131)

The question is, what did Phelps mean by becoming “archangels” and that “the man is neither without the woman…in the Lord”? Phelps reveals what he means in subsequent letters:

I expect an endowment, I labor to forgive and be forgiven. I have said so in my letters to you and I think you have forgotten to mention it in your letters. If you and I tarry together on earth, and to go the Lord together, we “must be one.” (W.W.Phelps to Sally Phelps, September 11, 1835)

There is no mention of “sealing” here. A week later, Phelps clarified what he meant by them being “one” in the world to come:


William Wines Phelps

But I must resume this subject left in my last letter. In that I spoke of men: Now I must hint of women: For the man is not without the woman neither is the woman without the man in the Lord. I wish you to read the seventh of 1st Corinthians and learn for yourself: In Ephesians and Colossians it says—”Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.” That is keep your husband’s commands in all things as you do the Lord’s. Your husband is your head, and the Lord is his head. Br. Joseph has preached some of his greatest sermons on the duty of wives to their husbands and the rule of all women I ever heard. I would not have you ignorant, Sally, of the mystery of Men and Women, but I can not write all. You must wait till you see me. This much, however, I will say, that you closed your 4th letter to me in a singular manner; really it was done after the manner of the Gentiles: Says Sally “I remain yours till death.” But since you have seen my blessing I think you will conclude “if your life and years are as precious in the sight of God as mine,” thus you will be mine in this world and in the world to come; and so long as you can remain on earth as you desire, I think you may as well use the word “forever,” as “till death.” In this world we have to labor, we have to marry; we have to raise up seed; honor God, &c, but in the world to come, we praise God and the Lamb forever, and ever, and we neither marry, nor are given in marriage—do you now begin to understand: This— is the reason why I have called you at the commencement of this letter, my only one, because I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come, according to the law of the celestial kingdom. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; And what shall I say of him or her who lives till the Lord comes, and is caught up into the cloud to meet him? O Sally, Sally, be wise I beseech you, for you know not how great things must come to pass after much tribulation! I hope and pray that you give heed to what I write, and I wish you would let me know that you do and mean to: Now what I say unto you, I say unto all: women, or wives must obey their husbands in all things and then they are clear; the husband is responsible, and he being the head, as Christ is the head of the church, must do as much for his wife as Christ did for the church; lay down his life for her, if necessary. This will show that he loves her. If you read the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians, you may find some good instruction: In old times honest women veiled their faces in public; especially as is mentioned in the 10th verse of this chapter “because of the angels” they probably formed veils then of their hair. I think when I return that my women will generally vail their faces in public and give no one a chance to gaze upon what is not his. This modest way will not lead to temptation, and may be one means of promoting virtue. (W.W.Phelps to Sally Phelps, September 16, 1835, online here, accessed June 21, 2019).

Phelps is claiming that all of the things like marriage and raising up seed, etc. must be done on earth and that even though husbands and wives will be together forever in the Lord, they won’t be doing any of those things but simply singing the praises of “God and the Lamb”. He also clarifies that heaven would only have monogamous relationships. What Phelps is describing here, is nothing like what Smith taught in Nauvoo, for he claims that marriage in heaven is only monogamous couples being “one” in the Lord together.

One thing to note here, Phelps talks of “veiled” women, and so did John C. Bennett. Are we to then assume that Phelps meant it in the same way that Bennett did in Nauvoo? Brian Hales writes, that Bennett spoke of three “orders” of polygamous wives with participants wearing different colored veils (white, green and black)…” So are we to connect what Phelps wrote about veils with what Bennett wrote later in Nauvoo? I’m sure apologist Hales would never do such a thing. Then why connect what Phelps says about being with his wife throughout eternity with Joseph’s Nauvoo doctrines; especially when we see that the context is about being together to praise Jesus throughout eternity. This double standard is employed by many Mormon historians to their detriment.

FAIRMORMON agrees with Van Wagoner that Joseph knew about and did not oppose the inclusion of the Article on Marriage in the 1935 Doctrine and Covenants:

This statement was not a revelation given to Joseph Smith—it was written by Oliver Cowdery and introduced to a conference of the priesthood at Kirtland on 17 August 1835. Cowdery also wrote a statement of belief on government that has been retained in our current edition of the D&C as section 134. Both were sustained at the conference and included in the 1835 D&C, which was already at the press and ready to be published. Joseph Smith was preaching in Michigan at the time Oliver and W.W. Phelps introduced these two articles to the conference; it is not known if he approved of their addition to the D&C at the time, although he did retain them in the 1844 Nauvoo edition, which argues that he was not opposed to them. (Phelps read the article on marriage, while Cowdery read the one on government.)

Some have suggested that the manner in which the conference was called suggests that Joseph was not the instigator of it, since it seems to have been done quite quickly, with relatively few high church leaders in attendance:

The General Assembly, which may have been announced on only twenty-four hours’ notice, was held Monday, August 17[, 1835]. Its spur-of-the-moment nature is demonstrated by observing that a puzzling majority of Church leaders were absent. Missing from the meeting were all of the Twelve Apostles, eight of the twelve Kirtland High Council members nine of the twelve Missouri High Council members, three of the seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy, Presiding Bishop Partridge, and…two of the three members of the First Presidency.

However, there is also some evidence that an article on marriage was already anticipated, and cited four times in the new D&C’s index, which was prepared under Joseph’s direction and probably available prior to his departure. Thus, “if a disagreement existed, it was resolved before the Prophet left for Pontiac. (FAIRMORMON, op. cited.)

It is obvious that Smith did approve the Marriage Article, though FAIRMORMON won’t come right out and admit it. This throws serious doubt on the apologist argument that Fanny Alger was one of Smith’s spiritual wives or that he was teaching anything like it in 1835 or earlier. If Smith did marry Alger, it was done by breaking the laws of the land and would have been considered bigamy. But there is no contemporary evidence for any kind of marriage between Smith and Alger; but there is evidence that it was an adulterous affair. (See Note #36 Part 2)

One thing you might notice, dear reader, is that Phelps, who later (1861) gave us the text of the 1831 “revelation” on taking additional (Native American) wives, is that Phelps seems to know nothing about it in his letters to Sally. He emphatically states that he would “have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come, according to the law of the celestial kingdom.” He means that only monogamy was practiced in the Celestial Kingdom, and on earth.

What we provide is the complete picture and allow the reader to evaluate it; while those like Hales and other apologists only provide selective pieces of evidence (often doctored) and irrational conclusions.

[_grindael]

BUMP...

Folks, a lot of the stuff in the polygamy thread IS IN THIS SERIES! If you want more of what I've been posting... READ THE SERIES! You won't regret it.... And Part IV is coming and its Joseph Smith vs. William Law & it's got way more great stuff than the epic thread in the hall of fame.