Although this was primarily written for a persuasive/informative essay for my English class, I thought I would post it on here. Please feel free to tell me what you think.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been established since the 1830s and has a unique church history. Today many people consider the Latter-day Saint church, also known as simply the LDS church, to be paired with and similar to other known Christian denominations, due to its title. LDS members also consider themselves to be labeled as “Christian”, yet with a twist in their belief that involves several other books other than the Bible, and stating that they are the only true church on earth. With such an unyielding statement, a curious observer would wonder what would cause the church to add more gospels and make this church different. When studying the LDS church through an unbiased manner, historically the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be seen as false because much stress has been put on previous doctrines and theological ideas, yet later, and most recently, those doctrines have been refuted by the church itself. Two major issues have been polygamy and the admittance of people with dark-skin becoming involved in the church priesthood. When viewing these two a comparison must be made between what was stated by previous leaders and prophets to current leaders and prophets, why such a change was made, and finally, the result would be a contrast between the topics that shows the church’s historical deception.
Polygamy is not a new method of lifestyle historically, and it specifically came into Later-day Saint history in the 1840s, with which the Latter-day Saints provide us with much evidence of them allowing and believing it, as much as they would like to deny. The church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., can be viewed as one of the first in the church to practice it personally, simply because he was the church’s leader and received a revelation from God insisting that he follow through with such actions. This revelation, “according to several contemporary accounts”, told that Smith was visited by “an angel [who] declared to him that he must do so or risk having his call from God given to another” (Bachman 74-75). This call for Smith was to lift up the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which was supposed to be the true church of God, different from the corrupt churches around Smith at that time. Many rumors, even now, have been told about the many wives that Smith had and it can remain to be a controversial subject. But there is much evidence and a logical path if one wishes to follow Smith in his polygamous actions: “He began cautiously by taking only three plural wives in 1841: Louisa Beaman (26-years-old), Zina Diantha Huntington (20-years-old), and Presendia Lathrop Huntington (31-years-old)” (Abanes 192, italics emphasized).
As time went on, and as Smith realized that he could make polygamy seem right in the eyes of the Lord, he acquired more and more wives. Richard Abanes states that “These thirty-three marriages are so well-documented that they are beyond legitimate dispute” and that “Other historians—e.g., Fawn Brodie, D. Michael Quinn, and George D. Smith—have identified even more women who were probably married to Joseph” (Abanes 193). Soon Joseph was able to get other men within the church to obtain multiple wives. Ebenezer Robinson was one example, and he “recalled that the doctrine of multiple wives was talked about privately in Nauvoo as early as 1841, and that he was invited to join the select participants in 1843.” This was the start of Smith including only the elect within the community to participate in polygamy, formulating his own “club”. This is seen when “Robinson recounted how Smith’s brother initiated him into the elite group: ‘[Hyrum] instructed me in Nov or Dec 1843 to make a selection of some young woman and he would seal [marry] her to me’” (Abanes 282). Again, this can be seen when one looks at Joseph Smith living in Nauvoo, Illinois and how he “did authorize a few select leaders to begin enjoying the practice after personally teaching them its glorious principles” (Abanes 195). Indeed, it became known to LDS members that polygamy was a gift from God and was not just an optional lifestyle to follow. One of the early church prophets after Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, stated “in reference to more temporal drawbacks of monogamy” that it was the ‘source of prostitution and whoredom’ through-out all Christendom” (Abanes 301-302). William Clayton, “who served as Joseph’s secretary and official ‘Clerk of the Kingdom’”, was one LDS man who began to understand this as he was told that “the doctrine of plural and celestial marriage is the most holy and important doctrine ever revealed to man on the earth’” (Abanes, 195). Later Brigham Young stated in 1855 that “[I]f any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned” (Young 266). Sometimes Smith would threaten members of the church with polygamy to see if they were truly faithful: In 1842 Smith asked one man, Heber C. Kimball, to “surrender his wife, his beloved Vilate, and give her to Joseph in marriage!” Kimball thought about the decision “until finally he was asked to choose between Mormonism and his wife. He choose Mormonism” (Abanes 194). Yet it is interesting how Smith made polygamy more of an earthly choice to man, giving man more control of the situation and obviously hindering the female’s support. This can be seen when looking at another account from William Clayton, as he mentions that Smith said “it is your privilege to have all the wives you want”, thereby giving the impression that if a man lusted over a woman, any woman, it was God’s will for them to be together (Clayton). But perhaps it was not entirely on the decision of lust. Apparently there was an “age-reversing cure” within the practice of polygamy. The same Heber Kimball later “promised that polygamy would ensure longevity and youthfulness for men… [A] man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and sprightly” (Kimball 22). As can be seen from the points made above, polygamy had its positive aspects in the eyes of its beholders. But these points would later fade away.
As the years went by in LDS history, the members became more prone to choosing polygamy, seeing that it was important at all costs if they were to live the true life for God. Unfortunately, neighbors nearby started to notice the different lifestyle, which caused some members of the LDS church to maintain polygamy as a secret and the “church leaders actually designated a place in Iowa (about a dozen miles or so from Nauvoo), where impregnated plural wives were sent to be shielded from inquisitive Gentiles [non-LDS members]” (Abanes 282). It can then be understood that “non-Mormons passing through Utah (e.g., California miners, military personnel, emigrants) could not help but notice the peculiar living arrangements of numerous Saints.” Abanes writes of how later on a “U.S. Army officer John Gunnison, for instance, observed that many Mormons had ‘a large number of wives’ and that polygamy was ‘perfectly manifest to anyone residing long among them.’ Such rumors, along with newspaper reports about life in Utah, eventually mandated that the Latter-day Saints cease denying their polygamy” (Abanes 284). Naturally, denial was part of the process and Smith did deny his polygamous actions on several occasions, sometimes denouncing “boldly…all reports” and calling his accusers “shameless liars” and “fools” for saying that he is “a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives”, and instead claiming that he was “as innocent as … [he] was fourteen years ago” (History of the Church 410-411).
It can be noted that a dispute between followers of the LDS church and those withstanding was growing. As years passed, specifically to 1890, the time had already come for most of the courts in Utah to be developed and twisted under LDS rule so that the church would receive little threat by the law surrounding them. So when the time arose for when the LDS members in Utah to be represented as a state, they accommodated much disapproval. Abanes states that even previously “a storm of controversy swept through Illinois when word about Smith’s secret teachings on wife-sharing, plural wives, and marriage to teenaged girls leaked out to non-Mormons in the Hancock County area” (Abanes 196). In 1856 Congress decided to “ignore the Mormon bid for statehood” and “additionally, the Republican platform of 1856 actually called for a prohibition in U.S. territories of ‘those twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and slavery’ (Abanes 231). And “the government had tried for years to destroy polygamy by various statutes” and bills. “Although none…passed both the House and Senate to become law, they showed that the tide of opposition against polygamy was not receding” (Abanes 311). But “finally, in 1874, a new anti-polygamy measure—the Poland Bill—made it beyond the political wrangling that had defeated every other measure. …It was only the first of main steps the government began to abolish the nation’s last ‘relic’ of barbarism” (Abanes 312). And this is what slowly undermined the finalization of the desolation of polygamy in the LDS church. Now, with the government breathing on the back of the LDS church, it was time for the church leaders to make some official changes.
At the time Wilford Woodruff was prophet and, in reference to government ruling, declared that he would “submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise”, and he furthermore clearly stated that his “advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land” (Doctrine and Covenants). A statement such as this would seem inevitably apparent that polygamy should cease. But not every Latter-day Saint understood the meaning of Woodruff’s statement: “Several prominent apostles, in fact, expressed only minor agitation over the Manifesto…Joseph F. Smith, for instance, told his plural wife Sarah that she should not be troubled. ‘[Y]ou and the rest of us are all right,’ Smith wrote to her in a letter, adding that only ‘those who could and would not, and now can’t ’enter polygamy would be affected by the policy change” (Abanes 324). With this example shown, and the fact that polygamy was so prominently important of some of the LDS doctrines, several reasons can be made of why LDS members did not stop living polygamous lives after the declared Manifesto. One reason would be because the letter was written “To whom it may concern,” showing little power and specialization to who would read, thus lessening the LDS attention and authorization. Secondly, “it was publicly issued as a press release from Washington” by a Utah delegate and not to the “congregation by church authorities at a church conference”. Another would be because “it was not signed by the First presidency, but only by Wilford Woodruff”, further denying the declaration of power because of the hierarchy within the church. And finally, and unfortunately, the letter also read from Woodruff, “my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain” from polygamy. This meant to other LDS members that “the entire declaration was Woodruff’s personal advice, rather than a command from God” and a level of disobedience was implied (Abanes 324).
To this day members of the Latter-day Saint Church deny that any of their spiritual ancestors had anything to do with polygamy. In fact, in the current Doctrine and Covenants this statement, made by Woodruff, can be found: “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…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” (Doctrine and Covenants, Declaration 1). Although this was stated more than one hundred years ago, it remains to be true to LDS doctrine. Therefore it is seen that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come from damning those who do not follow the life with polygamy to declaring the charges of having a polygamous history false; the LDS church is not consistent in this historical characteristic.
Racism has been a huge controversy for many years in the United States, and it is not new within Latter-day Saint history. Prior to 1978 there is no argument against the fact that racism was present, once looking at what Joseph Smith said: “Had I anything to do with the negro, I would confine them by strict law to their own species…” (History of the Church 217-218). Unfortunately, as the religion was growing, it became tied with spirituality and obtaining salvation. It was told that dark-skinned people, or blacks to be specific in American LDS history, became cursed in the pre-mortal world before coming to earth. Those who had presentable behavior then would be blessed later: “More righteous spirits are born with more advantages. Less commendable spirits, however, are born with fewer advantages, into lives of greater or lesser quality depending on how poorly they performed in the pre-earth world.” (Abanes 357). Some can see this as only spiritual—and some other religions have similar theological beliefs, but a racists view is added when those who have a “lesser quality” here on earth are black: “A person’s skin color…was most commonly linked to one’s actions during a great ’rebellion’” in heaven. “This celestial conflict” was a “war between Lucifer and Christ” and it “affected everyone in a very permanent way. Those who bravely fought on Christ’s side were born as privileged Mormon whites, while those who were indecisive and/or less valiant in the celestial struggle were born black” (Abanes 358). Not only were black people cursed for their previous actions unbeknownst to them, they could not obtain priesthood within the LDS church. They could not receive “priesthood blessings, which meant that until such time as the policy changed…no Black could partake of those temple rites necessary to receive ‘all the blessings’ of the Celestial Kingdom’” (Abanes 359). An LDS member, George F. Richards, reinstituted this idea in a Conference Report in April of 1939 when he stated that “the Negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is nothing as compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances for the temple, necessary to…enjoy a fullness of glory in the celestial kingdom”(Richards 58). And of course marriage was out of the question. Latter-day Saints viewed marriage as eternal, and to marry a dark-skinned person would tarnish one’s opportunity to get into the Celestial level of heaven. Apostle Peterson stated, “We must not intermarry with the Negro. Why? If I were to marry a Negro woman and have children by her, my children would all be cursed as to the priesthood…” Such marriage “the Lord has forbidden” (Abanes 363).
Alas, there came a time when the church started to draw scorn and resentment from American society—more pressure to change their doctrines to acquire not only acceptance, but more members. Ironically, LDS author John Lund had “emphasized: ‘Social pressure and even government sanctions cannot be expected to bring forth a new revelation.’” (Abanes 371). A huge factor that “dramatically increased” the situation was “when Kimball announced plans in 1974 to build a new temple in Brazil; a temple that could only be entered by priesthood holders” (Abanes 369). Since those with dark-skinned were denied from priesthood, many wondered who would help lead in the new temple. Consequently, debates within the church leadership swiftly followed. Additionally, “Gentile” groups started to protest against the LDS church: “The NAACP asked all Third World countries to deny visas to Mormon missionaries and representatives until their anti-Black doctrine was repealed.” There were several instances of “riots and protests” affiliated with BYU athletics, one time at “a BYU basketball game” and another time at “the University of Wyoming”. Interestingly, Stanford University and the University of Washington decided to cancel “all sporting events with BYU”. And a more momentous example would be when “discrimination charges were brought against the LDS church for refusing to allow a Black Boy Scout to be a patrol leader, a position reserved for white LDS youths in church-sponsored troops” (Abanes 368-369).
Conclusively the church started to change the crude, racial wording within their sayings and verged towards more universal and anti-discriminatory statements. And “in 1954 McKay went so far as to tell LDS philosopher Sterling M. McMurrin that the racial ban on the priesthood was not a doctrine of the church, but rather, only a practice of the church; one that would someday be removed” (Abanes 364-365). Again, McKay stated, “I know of no scriptural basis for denying the Priesthood to Negroes other than one verse in the Book of Abraham (1:26) … Sometime in God’s eternal plan, the Negro will be given the right to hold the Priesthood” (Abanes 365). Soon a new revelation from God was made, and Spencer Kimball, the prophet of the time, made the declaration: “Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood.” He continued on to say that the church has “pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren…” and that God has finally “heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may received the holy priesthood…including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color” (Doctrine and Covenants, Declaration 2).
Henceforth changes within the church’s organization started to follow. “By the mid 1970’s, the Mormon church…allowed a few Blacks to join the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Black Boy Scouts were allowed to be patrol leaders in LDS-sponsored troops, and a few Blacks were admitted to Brigham Young University” (Abanes 369). And this was okay to most LDS members because “the words of a living prophet …always supercede the teachings of a dead prophet” (Abanes 371). Regrettably, due to the information provided, the LDS church has again been exposed of its lies and deceit and should therefore not be trusted.
Upon analyzing its history, one main aspect that caused the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to change their doctrine concerning both polygamy and allowing dark-skinned men to become involved in the priesthood was persecution. It was persecution that initiated the downfall of the church in regards to these changes, and unfortunately, persecution towards specific beliefs—a religious group such as the LDS church—is being constantly weaved throughout the society of the world. So, when the LDS church is hit with major persecution, what does it do? The church changes. Words, texts, doctrines; rules—any and all could change if need be. A person would start to become confused and fall away spiritually because of the difference between what was said to be absolute at one point, and then hear an opposition stated from the same assembly of people at another point. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not true due to the many changes in doctrines such as the ones stated above and furthermore its misconceptions need to be brought to light to the members of the church.
Work Cited
Abanes, Richard. One Nation under Gods: a History of the Mormon Church. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002. Print
Bachman, Danel W. A Study of the Mormon Practice of Plural Marriage before the Death of Joseph Smith. [Lafayette, Ind.]: Purdue University, 1975. 74-75. Print.
Clayton, William. The Book of Abraham Project. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/clayton-diaries>.
History of the Church. Vol. 5. Vol. 6. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976/1980. 217-218. Print.
Richards, George F. Conference Report, April 1939, 58.
The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ; The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; The Pearl of Great Price. Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981. Print.
Young, Brigham and Heber C. Kimball. Journal of Discourses. Vol. 3. Vol. 5. Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University, 1956. Print.
