It is an amazing time to be a Mormon.  It is also a challenging time.

Why is it challenging? Because we are going through a period of inoculation. The Church sees that the Internet is full of information, both true and false, accurate and inaccurate, biased and non-biased. In the last decade, it has brought forth lots of information officially and unofficially, through the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and providing materials for books on Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Recently, they have published official papers online about the First Vision, Temple clothing, Polygamy, etc.  Many have probably seen the furor over Joseph’s 40 wives that the media has recently jumped on worldwide, as if it were previously a secret! Continue reading →

When I was alerted to the fact that there were new and cool articles at lds.org about polygamy, I was sad that there wasn’t a list so one could easily find out when neat new content had been added.

As a result of the media furor over the supposedly shocking Church admission that Joseph married many women, the Church published a response to provide context. This includes a list of the scholarly articles, along with the dates they were published (making my heart happy).

A complete list of the in-depth essays is listed below:

Are Mormons Christian? November 20, 2013
First Vision Accounts November 20, 2013
Race and the Priesthood December 6, 2013
Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah December 16, 2013
Book of Mormon Translation December 30, 2013
Book of Mormon and DNA Studies January 31, 2014
Becoming Like God February 24, 2014
Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints May 13, 2014
Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham July 8, 2014
Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo October 22, 2014
The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage October 22, 2014

If you’ve got some free moments, I highly recommend reading through these.

Read the whole article here.

In the wake of media attention regarding the Church essays on polygamy, one of the refrains you will hear from some members of the Church is, “why didn’t the Church teach me this stuff?”

I do not want to diminish the emotional toll that further disclosures on polygamy may be having on some members, but I would like to posit that if you are claiming you never were taught about polygamy you are a bit naïve. For several reasons.

The first is that the Church clearly has taught about polygamy in many formats: in Sunday School, in seminary, in official Church histories. In fact, if you go to lds.org and do a search for the word “polygamy” you will get literally hundreds of hits, including links to Church manuals that discuss the issue.

The Church has repeatedly encouraged you to read the scriptures (I know, I know, if you want to keep something secret, put it in the scriptures because nobody ever reads them). You may have noticed that there is a rather long section of the Doctrine & Covenants, D&C 132. That section includes this provocative excerpt:

61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62 And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

So, if you have read the scriptures and were even a little bit curious, this particular section may have jumped out at you. Yes, the Church taught you things.

Continue reading →

I recall blogging about the new articles on lds.org regarding plural marriage nearly a month ago (Mormon Polygamy, the Short Version). CNN (Daniel Burke) has finally twigged to these updates.

Of course, CNN uses a pithy title that lacks all nuance but is sure to catch the attention of random readers, Church: Mormon founder Joseph Smith wed 40 wives. Interestingly enough, the factual content of the lds.org articles does deflate the sensationalism one might have expected from an article with such a title. Continue reading →