Some Thoughts on Difficult LDS History

I toured the Brigham Young Farm House at This Is The Place Heritage Park in SLC, UT last week with a close friend.  My youngest sister had her wedding and reception at the venue.  While cleaning up, I intentionly showed Brigham Young's home to my friend.  She was understandably horrified viewing several nice family portraits of Brigham Young surrounded by numerous wives and daughters. Thankfully, this friend and I are amazingly still talking and she is still investigating the Church.

God revealed polygamy to JS. JS didn't want to do it. JS had the idea to be spiritually sealed without actually being married or consummating a legal marriage. Emma is initially supportive. Fanny Alger shows up pregnant. Accusations fly. Emma no longer supportive. Friends close to JS jealously pressure him to accept their daughters in spiritual sealing (Victorian age thinking) to form familial connections with JS and NOT the other way around. JS is martyred.

Brigham Young and Church feel responsible to care for JS's sealed women. LDS men refuse to marry women already eternally promised to JS. BY, married and provided for these women already sealed to JS. BY was cleaning up for situation unintentially created by JS.

The ideal purpose of polygamy is to use institution of marriage and family to care for the fatherless and widow. In most cases and ideally, a husband and wife are voluntarily called to receive a woman as a second wife and build her her own home and give her children who would ultimately care for their mother in her later years. This is how LDS polygamy was typically and ideally practiced.

JS, BY, Heber C Kimball nor Warren Jeffs do not accurately reflect how LDS polygamy was practiced or meant to be practiced.

Just as Moses struck the rock twice and was not permitted to enter the Promised Land, I think the posterity of JS was not permitted to remain in the LDS Church.

JS may have sometimes had difficulty following a commandment because he understandably worried how the world would view it. This led JS to use the seer stone in a hat instead of using a bagerskin bag over the head with the Urim and Thummin. (Lapham), JS worried how other would view it, but the face in hat likely turned out worse.

Similarly, JS worried how he would be viewed for practicing polygamy and just marrying Fanny Alger outright and stopping there instead of the complicated spiritual sealing business which caused much more problems.

Joseph Smith is God's prophet and the prophet of this dispensation. Was JS perfect? No. Did JS make a few mistakes? Maybe. Was JS chastised and punished from time to time? Likely. Is JS fallen? Absolutely NOT. And I'd be careful to question JS's standing because that as each one of us might just find ourselves looking JS eye to eye on judgement day. I know I could never cast a stone.

Again, a review of what happened:

1. One man married to one woman is ideal but polygamy is practiced in both the OT and NT.

2. Sexual sin is about breaking trust, responsibility and relations outside of commitment.  

3. The family is the institution pure religion uses to care for the fathless and the widow via marriage and adoption.  

4. Restoration of all things.

5. Angel with flaming sword commands JS to practice polygamy.

6. JS and Emma decide to enter into spiritual sealings which were never consumated. Sealing is destinct from marriage.

7. Emma was initially supportive.

8. Close friends desire to seal daughters to JS (Victorian Age thinking).  Everyone was wanting to be sealed to JS at the time including Jane Manning James who was sealed as a daughter

9. Fanny Alger turns up pregnant.

10. Accusations and gossip spread.

11. Emma no longer supportive of spiritual sealings.

12. Family of Fanny Alger knew the situation and remained faithful.

13. JS Assassinated 

14. LDS Men would not marry women sealed to JS.

15. Brigham Young married women sealed to JS in a form of Levirite marriage to raise up righteous seed unto a brother. 

16. Emma Smith denied that JS practiced polygamy

16. Modern genetic studies confirm that JS had no offspring by sealed women. 

17. Polygamy served a necessary and beneficial welfare role in frontier Utah until it was repealed.

God seems to place a barrier to faith in every generation.  Adam fell.  Noah had a crazy idea about a flood. Abraham almost sacrificed his own son. Moses killed the Egyptian. Jesus was viewed as illegitimate. And the Joseph Smith sealings are seen as him acting as a self-interested opportunist. 

Bicentennial Proclaimation

President Russell M. Nelson presented a proclamation in honor of the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s First Vision. Titled “The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Bicentennial Proclamation to the World,” this document outlines core Latter-day Saint beliefs. These include the supremacy of Jesus Christ in salvation, the divinity of Joseph Smith’s revelations and the Book of Mormon, the unique mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the ongoing nature of the Restoration that began with Joseph Smith’s First Vision of Deity in 1820. 

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/restoration-proclamation

Celestial Alignment

A few years ago a barber, striking up conversation, asked me my astrological sign. I told her I was a cancer but if you take into account the presession of the equinox, I am really a Gemini. But I told her I didn't really believe in that sort of thing. She asked me if I didn't think it interesting how the planets were aligned on the day of my birth? I told her I felt it was much more important how I was aligned right now than how the planets were aligned 40 years ago. For me, it's much more important that I'm Christ-centered: standing in the right places, associating with the right people, and doing the right things.

Prophet calls for World-wide Fast for COVID-19.

President Russell M. Nelson calls for a world-wide fast this Sunday to inopportune God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ for physical and spiritual healing from the COVID-19 pandemic.  I pray thay God might make bare His holy arm in the eyes of all nations in miraculously rebuking this plague through our faith. 

Participating in this fast ideally would involve beginning with a prayer, then abstaining from food and drink for a 24-hour period or 2 meals.  Proper fasting also involves making a generous monetary donation to the relief efforts.  Following dinner at 5 pm Saturday night, you would not eat or drink again until 5 pm Sunday evening. The fasting period should also be concluded by a prayer of thanksgiving. Individual adaptation according to circumstance and health considerations is advised. 

https://youtu.be/btwh40huKIo

Jesse Knight

I was watching a video about the history of Eureka, UT. whete they mentioned influential early miners like Jesse Knight. That got me reading more about this early Latter-day Saint. 

https://youtu.be/AAJnZj0Jbcc

"As a struggling farmer near Payson, Utah, he was one day watching his animals on a hill side when he heard a voice say, "This country is here for the Mormons." He always remembered the voice and interpreted it to mean that the wealth of the land was meant to assist the Latter-day Saints."

Pres. Heber J Grant asked $5000 to bail out a local bank.  Jesse Knight didn't wish to contribute, but told Pres. Grant he'd pray on it.  Jesse Knight ended up donating $10,000.  When Brother Grant saw Jesse a few days later, he said, 'What happened?  I didn't ask you for $10,000.  I only asked for $5,000.'  Brother Knight said, 'I'll tell you this, Brother Grant.  When you come to me again with a mission from the President of the Church to raise funds, I'm going to pay without any question.'  He said, 'You're much more liberal than the Lord is.  

Jesse Knight funded the founding of Brigham Young University. 

Jesse Knight is quoted as having said, "The earth is the Lord's bank, and no man has a right to take money out of that bank and use it extravagantly upon himself."