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Heber13 wrote:
I don’t think it is necessarily a “sin”. And that changes it somewhat to me.
I agree that we can’t say whether or not it was a sin. If God truly did command Joseph Smith to practice polygamy, then what he did wouldn’t have been a sin. Just ‘icky,’ like you said. But, if polygamy was Joseph’s way of ‘getting around,’ increasing his authority over people, or anything else, and it wasn’t a command from God, then I do believe he was sinning. However, for me, whether Joseph was sinning or not is not even the issue to me. If he was truly commanded to practice polygamy, why did it have to be so secretive? And why didn’t he practice it the way it was explained to me as a kid: marrying poor widows and women who couldn’t find husbands. That would have fulfilled the commandment, and probably wouldn’t have bothered Emma as much if he was getting sealed to these women and making sure their financial and temporal needs were being met. But to start marrying other women’s husbands and young girls who could easily have found other husbands? That just seems to me like Joseph finding an outlet for his carnal desires, and a way to exercise this authority over people. But, like others have mentioned, there’s no way for us to know for sure without having been there. This is just my perspective. I tend to have a more skeptical view of things until I can find something more compelling to bring me to the other side.
I still wonder why God would command it, or if God did. Heber13 wrote:I still wonder why God would command it, or if God did.
Yeah, I lean toward the belief that polygamy came straight from the mind of Joseph. He was big on restoring Old Testament practices, and this was just one of them that he had fun experimenting with.
Heber13 wrote:I understand it is clear cut to you. I can’t say you’re wrong. It is just not the only way to view the facts as we have them, or to view Joseph and what he was trying to do. But I get it…there are different ways to view it. Your view is valid. Just not the only view.
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The fact that people see the same situation differently is a foregone conclusion for me. At my age, I understand that the world doesn’t see things the way I do all the time, or that my opinions themselves are “gospel”. In fact, I change them regularly as new evidence comes my way. As a creative, it is part of my character.
My question is — what is their view then? How do they rationalize or otherwise prevent this apparent behavior from Joseph Smith from challenging the foundations of our religion?
Holy Cow wrote:I think a more fitting example would be, what if it was discovered that Pres. Monson had married multiple women in a Middle Eastern country (where it would be legal to do so), and he said that he had received revelation to bring back polygamy, but only where it is legal and culturally accepted.
Heber13 wrote:]That might be a better example, I agree. So in that example, is it a “sin” that requires discipline, or is it just an icky thing we don’t like, maybe can’t accept and follow? Because that is more to the point…I feel like SD is saying people accept Joseph’s sins and transgressions (if I heard him right), whereas at the time, Joseph thought he found a loophole and it wasn’t sin, but it was marriage of a higher law. There is a difference. Now…the icky part…ya…that part I can’t get over and don’t like it. But neither did Oliver Cowdery, the Laws, and many others.
But was it legal back in Joseph Smith’s time to have many wives? Was it an accepted practice during the time? If not, I think your situation above is more than generous to Joseph Smith, to the point of throwing out even-handedness…
SilentDawning wrote:My question is — what is their view then? How do they rationalize or otherwise prevent this apparent behavior from Joseph Smith from challenging the foundations of our religion?
For one…they start with trying to be precise, instead of starting with a negative assumption of him, like Joseph was a sex-crazed power-hungry leader.As an example:
Ray wrote:Just for precision:
There were 4 young teenagers. There also were 4 women in their 50s, if my memory is correct. The average age was around 28-32, which actually is significantly higher than the average for that time.
That doesn’t prove a thing about motivation or revelation or anything else – but it does refute the idea that he was a pedophile out to have sex with as many young girls as possible.
Then there is also the faith element which makes it complicated, such as:
Quote:By revelation, the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to institute the practice of plural marriage among Church members in the early 1840s.
Quote:Church members came to see themselves as a “peculiar people,” covenant-bound to carry out the commands of God despite outside opposition.
So, you may call it “rationalization”, but to others they aren’t being ignorant, or too dumb to think for themselves, they just see it differently from a faithful perspective, which is a foregone conclusion for you that we see things differently (does your foregone conclusion allow others’ view to be just as valid as yours?). So it becomes a confusing and perplexing part of history, but when put in perspective of all the wonderful things Joseph revealed which legitimize him as a prophet, polygamy does not overshadow his ability to lay the foundation of the religion to some people. Right? Does that make sense, or is that just wrong for anyone to see it that way?
I don’t know if that answers your question. I personally can accept Joseph being completely wrong, but not see it as illegal and not see it as sex-crazed and not see it as sin, but see it as him trying to do what prophets of the Old Testament did, and believing God told him to do it, and as a church we don’t know what to do with that paradox. But I can accept paradox, and kind of do what Ray says and shelve it to believe we’ll make sense of it in the next life, and in the mean time, enjoy the wonderful things the church does that JS layed the foundation for, and cling to the goodness found. That is why I like RSR, it shows it all. And I see a complex character in Joseph. I don’t just see polygamy invalidating everything, especially when I see what he was doing and what his motives could have been.
It’s not rationalization if you are not starting with the premise he is “guilty”. There are different judgments made on people who make mistakes, vs people who intentionally commit crimes. Everyone is accountable, but people judge others differently based on intent. And I ABHOR polygamy.
SilentDawning wrote:But was it legal back in Joseph Smith’s time to have many wives? Was it an accepted practice during the time? If not, I think your situation above is more than generous to Joseph Smith, to the point of throwing out even-handedness…
My understanding was that monogamous marriage was the only legal form of marriage at Joseph’s time according to the government. There were some various groups that practiced some versions of communal relationships in Joseph’s day, but they were small and remote groups (RSR makes a reference of this other group). But polygamy was not really accepted in the Western then either, but it would have been being practiced in places in the world that Joseph probably didn’t know about.
It wasn’t until later…like, maybe 1860s or so that the US government passed laws against the practice of plural marriage. So it wasn’t illegal in Joseph’s day, but society saw it as immoral because it wasn’t a legal marriage. I think the loophole was that Joseph thought it was a heavenly or spiritual marriage. So if you believe in the eternal marriage, it isn’t really a sin. If you don’t believe in the spiritual mumbo jumbo, then you think he was wrong to do it. Remember, the mobs didn’t drag him from his home and tar and feather him just because they were bored or were “filled with the devil”. They were trying to send him a message about protecting their daughters and women. But they didn’t go through the court system against Joseph. Courts got involved later against the church when there were laws on the books.
So…I would think the comparison stands to TSM doing it in a country where it wasn’t illegal, and we would all think it is immoral from our cultural standpoint, and not everyone would give TSM a pass for it. The structure of the church now would handle it WAY differently.
Yes, it was legal in Joseph’s time to have more than one wife. It was repulsive to most people in the United States, but it wasn’t explicitly illegal. The practice of the LDS Church in the territory of Utah caused such a stir that laws were passed to make it illegal – and retroactively illegal, to boot. (That is the worst part of the laws, imo – that it punished people for what had not been illegal previously.) The ironic part of the whole thing, from a legal standpoint, was that none of the marriages were sanctioned by the government except the first one – and yet adultery was not prosecuted, in general, throughout the United States. I don’t like polygamy, but I am just as bothered by the way it was targeted against one group while others doing essentially the exact same thing (according to the law) secretly and/or without the official responsibility of caring for all sexual partners were not prosecuted in any way.
That is one aspect of polygamy that I actually “defend”. At least with polygamy in its theoretically pure form, the situation includes a real aspect of responsibility – while men and women who simply have sex with multiple partners are not prosecuted for it, unless there is an exchange of money explicitly for the sexual activities themselves. In other words, someone can have sex with lots of other people, promise them all kinds of things, never provide any of what is promised, leave them emotionally broken, etc. – taking whatever the other people will give – and not face charges of any kind. Conversely, theoretically. someone could marry more than one person, with the knowledge and consent of each spouse, provide for each equally, and be prosecuted for it – or not marry any of them, pay them for their sexual activity, and be prosecuted for it.
I’m not saying anything about how I view each scenario overall. I’m just pointing out that when it comes to sex in this country, we are really screwed up in a lot of ways. Polygamy was and is bad, overall, imo – but it now is no longer illegal largely because we are moving toward an acceptance of sexual relationships between and among all consenting adults. It’s now other things (like coercion, statutory rape, etc.) that can be prosecuted – not polygamy itself. Gay marriage was the catalyst for that change – which makes this whole discussion arrive right where it started.
There is some irony in those who support gay marriage but condemn polygamy – at least, in cases where the people are consenting adults. Coercion of any kind complicates things – and one’s view of eternal reward complicates things even further. Add ambiguity about motivation . . .
That softens the blow a bit Ray. The fact that it was in fact legal to have more than one wife. One could continue to argue, however, that Fanny Alger’s marriage to Joseph was not a legal marriage — it was a religious one, and therefore, was still not really a husband-wife relationship. Where I’m at now — pretty much convinced that Joseph made a lustful mistake with Fanny. That plural marriage may have been an outgrowth of that mistake.
The challenge now is this — is that behavior reconcileable with the office of a prophet?
According to the Bible, SD, absolutely. That is the supreme irony, perhaps. It’s easier to accept prophets the further removed in time we are from them – even if it means excusing things that we would condemn in our current leaders. We really don’t identify, personally, with them – and it’s easier to think people closer to us in time lived in the same general world with the same general views we have. Life is messy, and it’s easier to excuse the messiness when it’s far enough away historically that we don’t feel a personal impact. We can remove their actual humanity without feeling like we are castrating or neutralizing them in any way.
If I am going to accept JS as a prophet, it’s going to have to be on the premise that he did philander quite a bit, but somehow stayed in the “zone of acceptable prophetship” anyway. Not that his extramarital relationships were somehow “OK” because they were “legal” (and they weren’t), but that he made a huge mistake . I can accept mistakes within a certain range from high ranking church officers, but sexual ones, they bother me. This is one that I’m going to have to think more about. When I think of the hefty pressure put on me personally to remain chaste throughout my life, and the sacrifices I’ve had to make to obey that law, I find it hard to accept that the founding prophet of our religion was able to bend the rules without impunity like he did. It is a tough one to swallow and that I won’t get over quickly. I would like to, but it really does bother me — quite a bit.
SilentDawning wrote:If I am going to accept JS as a prophet, it’s going to have to be on the premise that he did philander quite a bit, but somehow stayed in the “zone of acceptable prophetship” anyway. Not that his extramarital relationships were somehow “OK” because they were “legal” (and they weren’t), but that he made a huge mistake . I can accept mistakes within a certain range from high ranking church officers, but sexual ones, they bother me. This is one that I’m going to have to think more about.
When I think of the hefty pressure put on me personally to remain chaste throughout my life, and the sacrifices I’ve had to make to obey that law, I find it hard to accept that the founding prophet of our religion was able to bend the rules without impunity like he did. It is a tough one to swallow and that I won’t get over quickly. I would like to, but it really does bother me — quite a bit.
I think the issue of “the level that I was taught to uphold is dramatically different than the bar that JS and others seemed to be held to” is a pill that is hard to swallow and when you add in the effort and sacrifice (always seeming not to be enough) into the mix, it is also a pill that tastes really bad.I am trying to swallow that pill, but have not yet be able to fully.
I agree completely, LookingHard that the actions themselves are difficult enough to accept but that the disconnect between those actions and our expectations and assumptions (based on what has been taught) is even more difficult. That gets to the entire way we collectively and individually define “prophet” – and the most fundamental things often are the most difficult to examine and change. SD…I hear ya…man. And to add another layer of complexity….we teach in our church that King David lost his exaltation because he lusted after a wife, plotted to send the husband away on the front lines deliberately to have him killed and slept with the woman. He didnt have god tell him to do it, so that changed the whole picture. It’s just not an easy thing for us to accept when sex is involved.
But to me, based on RSR and other sources, it is more complicated than just Joseph with a libido. It’s just a hard topic, but I still say he was a prophet, and far from perfect.
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It always comes back to this — I hate it — but it does. About praying and getting some kind of personal conviction about it. Yes, spiritual feelings are unreliable, but commitment and belief comes from many sources, and I still consider this one them. Who knows if I will do it. I still have to “marvel” at the organization he set up — RSR indicates it was very similar to the organization of today — and it lasted. A long time. The Book of Mormon was also a big achievement in my view. True or not, there’s a ton of pithy stuff in it that you don’t get in the Bible. Do I sound on the fence? Yep. I’m still reading RSR, and it may provide more enlightenment. One thing I really like about it is that Bushman often steps back from the facts of history and describes JS’s doctrine in the context of the time. For example, it was very revealing, and praiseworthy that JS managed to meld universalism with the black and white version of heaven and hell.
Also, Bushman’s description of how the priesthood as both a sacral and administration function gave the members a stake in the church was also very enlightening. For all his bad decisions, JS also made a number of very smart ones for creating an organization that marches toward a goal with consistency. I wonder if he was a genius in certain respects. He seems to have had unusual talent in building organizations based on autonomy of revelation, and self-governance, something I admire. His doctrine was also an interesting blend of some of the best principles of his day…
We tend to use the word “visionary” to mean seeing things associated with or instigated by the divine. I tend to think of it in terms of seeing things that other people can’t see – with and/or without any ties to the divine.
I think Joseph Smith was visionary in both meanings of the term: seeing “divine” things and other things that might not have been divine.
I think he might not have been able to distinguish between the two in many cases.
I also think, as I’ve said in another thread (or two or forty-five), he might be diagnosed and medicated now – for something, since we just don’t accept and value visionary people in all their messy complexity. It’s taken us a long time simply to accept autistic people, for example, as not screwed up and in need of heavy medication but merely as seeing the world in ways that are unique and best served by early, intensive intervention that allows them to be themselves but learn to cope in a world that they would not create on their own – and we still aren’t there fully yet.
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