A Washington Post/ABC News poll of April 2012 showed that women preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. Romney by 19 percentage points. In my last blog I showed how this gender gap is result of latent suspicion of Mormon polygamy/patriarchy. Women were religiously coerced into "giving" a pro forma consent. Women had to pretend to like polygamy as religious penance, duty. Like European kings enjoyed the divine right of kings, Mormon males enjoyed the priestly divine right of polygamy. Vestiges of this mentality are still deeply "imbedded" in Mormon patriarchs such as Mitt Romney. It is as inconceivable to the indoctrinated male Mormon that he must predominate as priest as it would be inconceivable to the Pope to have Catholic priestesses.
Today the LDS church admits that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. In fact, they suggest that he only did so because God commanded him to do it, and he did so with a measure of reticence—somewhat like Abraham reluctantly being willing to kill his son, Isaac. (They imply that although both murder and polygamy seemed contrary to God’s express will, both Abraham and Joseph Smith obeyed in faith because of God’s direct, personal revelation to them). But if Mormons practiced polygamy because God commanded it as an “everlasting covenant” that was essential to salvation, why do only a minority of Mormons champion polygamy today? Because, as I will detail later, God commanded the opposite via the prophetic successor to Joseph Smith—supposedly. God commanded polygamy in a 1842 revelation via prophet Smith; God commanded the opposite in 1890 via prophet Woodruff.
But there is evidence demonstrating that Smith was secretly practicing polygamy well before his 1842 revelation while publically denying practicing it. It was not until 1852 that the LDS Church publicly admitted to the practice of plural marriage. This was 8 years after Joseph Smith was murdered. This is why many LDS are surprised to learn that Joseph Smith was ever a participant in plural marriage.
"The same God that has thus far dictated me and directed me and strengthened me in this work, gave me this revelation and commandment on celestial and plural marriage, and the same God commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accepted it, and introduced it, and practiced it, I, together with my people would be damned and cut off from this time henceforth. We have got to observe it. It is an eternal principle and was given by way of commandment and not by way of instruction." - Prophet Joseph Smith, Contributor, Vol. 5, p. 259
How does a eternal principle only last from 1842 to 1890? Actually, when one reads the 1890 revelation, one realizes that it is sufficiently ambiguous to allow multiple interpretations. The historical context proves that the intent was to temporarily put polygamy underground. The prophets, apostles, and quorum leaders had two goals: 1) To get back property that the U.S. government had confiscated in an attempt to force Mormons to abandon polygamy; 2) To obtain statehood and then to employ states’ rights and state sovereignty power to be able to continue to practice polygamy without the interference of the national government.
Below is a direct, extensive quote from the Mormon Scriptures of the 1890 Manifesto from the official Mormon website. It is given so that readers can absorb the flavor of the actual text for themselves.
“Official Declaration—1
To Whom It May Concern:
Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy—
I, therefore, as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.
One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.
Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.
There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.
Wilford Woodruff
President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
There are two striking observations that stand out from this text. First, the salutation, “to whom it may concern,” sounds more like an impersonal press release. Second, the first three paragraphs are merely a denial of various polygamy charges. (And these denials have all been demonstrated to be falsehoods, an oddity to be included in divine revelations). Third, Prophet Woodruff merely announces his reluctant intention to submit to anti-polygamy laws (whereas there is later documentation that the Prophet and many of his Apostles did their best to evade); there is no revelatory announcement that polygamy was immoral or that the previous revelations stating that polygamy was a divine command and essential for priests’ salvation and godly ascension were erroneous. In sum, prophet Woodruff had previously stated that “the doctrine of plural marriage has come to stay for all time,” and his 1890 Manifesto was manifestly interpreted, within and without the Mormon Church, to be “a little bit of harmless dodging to deceive the people of the East [federal authorities].” Or as Apostle mariner W. Merrill said in his diary: “I do not believe the Manifesto was a revelation from God but was formulated by Prest. Woodruff and endorsed by His counselors and the Twelve Apostles for expediency.”[i] The fact that the prophets and apostles of the church sanctified hundreds of celestial marriages after 1890 and another 1904 revelatory Manifesto was needed to discourage continued practice of polygamy amply demonstrate that the 1890 Manifesto could not annul an “eternal and unchangeable law.” Thus, polygamy is a dormant eternal principle which could be reactivated at any moment by the current Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Mormon Church getting a divine revelation to that effect.
In the larger context of this entire blog, this series on Mormon claims is simply one illustration of the question of how does one methodically evaluate the evidence for a Truth claim. Why would one believe that Joseph Smith, Jr. got a revelation in 1842 that his wife, Emma Smith, and all Mormon women should concur to their husbands taking multiple sexual partners? Why should one believe that Prophet Brigham Young got confirmatory revelations? Namely: “"The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.” Why would one believe that Woodruff got a revelation to the opposite effect?
The authoritative Mormon answer is simply that if you exercise sufficient faith, simply reading Joseph Smith’s, Brigham Young’s and President Woodruff’s with faith will make their divine authenticity self-evident because they are inherently revelatory of their divine origin.
The official Mormon websites teach that Joseph Smith’s pronouncements on polygamy are the word of God even if the Bible as translated and understood for hundreds of years supported monogamy. Because anything in the Bible that contradicts Mormon teaching was simply mistranslated. And even if not, since any of the Mormon prophets from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson, “God’s chosen prophet today,” can divinely reverse, re-translate, or re-interpret any Christian doctrine. Because, proclaims an official Mormon website: God “continues to send living prophets. Joseph Smith (1805–44) was the first prophet of our time. Thomas S. Monson is God’s chosen prophet today.” Their 8th article of fundamental belief is: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”
Thus, today’s Mormon “maleotheocracy” with its full complement of testosterone are very literally and practically the voice of God to their people. Their Fifth Male Prophet/President Lorenzo Snow divinely announced: “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” But actually, they don’t have to wait to become as God is. When they speak, it’s God speaking—Here and Now!
[i] For the quotes found in the previous blog and today’s blog see Richard S. Van Wagoner, (son of polygamous ancestors), Mormon Polygamy A History, Second Edition (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989) and Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling’s Mormon America (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
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