Polygamy, Racism and Other Changing Doctrines of Mormonism

Speaker 1    00:00:02    Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Unveiling Mormonism podcast. I’m Brian. That’s Ross over there. Ross. Today we’re gonna talk about polygamy, racism, and other changing doctrines of Mormonism. Now, I know that’s kind of a little bit of a hooky title. Maybe people are even listening this just because of the title, and they think we’re just gonna trash on Mormons, and that really isn’t our heart, right? Our heart isn’t to destroy the LDS church. Our heart is just to unveil Mormonism, just to try to start an honest conversation about it. And any honest conversation about Mormonism is gonna deal with things like pian, racism and some of the other stuff we’re gonna cover. But before we can get into any of that, Ross, what’s the big deal? Who cares? Who cares that as people are gonna hear today, who cares? That Mormonism has changed over the years, over the 150 years of its existence? I mean, cultures change, churches change, people change. Like what’s the big deal?  

Speaker 2    00:00:58    Yeah, it’s, it’s true. You know, and, and actually, you know, as a church, we want to be adaptive to culture and to where people are at and so forth. But, um, with, with Mormonism, the point is, is that they’re claiming to be a restoration of original Christianity. And so if things change over time, it’s like, okay, well, what was the original? Wait, this is a restoration. If this was the restoration in in 1830, then why is it so different in 1845? And why is it so different? Or, you know, in 20, uh, 22 or 23? And so the question, it kind of calls into question some of the claims of Mormonism to be, um, divinely inspired to be a restoration of the truth. Um, you know, and, you know, they claim to have profits who are leading them every single day. Um, you know, and I, they believe in continuing revelation, which means that a prophet today can, can supersede a prophet from the past.  

Speaker 2    00:01:59    When that raises the question of like, well, which prophet was right? Because the LDS people are taught today that when the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done. You know that that’s authoritative. Well, I’m supposed to accept that today, but 50 years from now, they’re gonna look back and say that prophet was mistaken. And so why should I? Why am I supposed to accept that authority today? So it raises questions, the changes in some doctrinal areas. And raise questions then about, I guess, the legitimacy of this whole idea of a restoration, or the whole idea of being led by a prophet.  

Speaker 1    00:02:36    Okay. And so the first change, and again, we’re just gonna cover a few of them today, and then I think we should end Ross by talking about it from a biblical point of view, a Christian point of view. Have there been changes to Christianity? So let’s make sure to cover that so people encourage people to listen all the way to the end. Yeah. Because we should put our own faith through the same test. Totally fair. That we’re putting Mormonism through. Okay. So we’ll get to that. But let’s talk about polygamy. You know, in the last episode, we talked about the sketchy history of Joseph Smith, and we ended on his polygamy. And really the church, the, the Mormon church at the beginning didn’t even admit, I meant to ask you this last time Ross did, did they even admit that Joseph Smith was a polygamist? When did it finally come out where they finally started admitting that he, he himself was a polygamist? We know Brigham Young was, but, but did the church sort of even cover this up for him?  

Speaker 2    00:03:30    Yeah. That, that this really should have talked about this last time, that Yeah. Um, you know, first of all, the Book of Mormon, uh, prohibits polygamy. It says there in Jacob, chapter two, there shall not any man among you have saved be one wife and concubines. He shall have none. So that’s eight. That’s 18. Late 18, 28 or so, um, no polygamy. And then in 1835, the Mormon scriptures that that current edition of the doctrine and covenants included a disclaimer at that time, it was section 1 0 1, uh, says, in so much as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is it liberty to marry again. Now, that was removed from the doctrine covenants in 1876, huh?  

Speaker 2    00:04:24    At the height of the polygamy practices. So, um, Joseph Smith introduced it. We, we talked about last time, about his revelation in 1843, and it was practiced by a few key leaders, but it wasn’t open. It didn’t get out in the open until they, the latter day Saints had moved far out of the, the jurisdiction of America, or they thought they were at the time. And, um, they moved far away into the isolated community of Utah in 1852. Then, uh, polygamy was openly embraced, and it was, um, actually, um, it was taught as a core doctrine of the LDS faith, and it became part of their, their sense of identity. And part of this, like, this is really, really, really important to us as, um, as a people.  

Speaker 1    00:05:11    Okay? So there are three key years, I believe, then that we should consider. So 1831, I think is the first year probably to consider, I believe, isn’t that when Joseph Smith in Kirtland took on Fanny Alger?  

Speaker 2    00:05:26    Yeah. Probably more like 1834 ish.  

Speaker 1    00:05:29    34  

Speaker 2    00:05:29    At 35. Okay.  

Speaker 1    00:05:31    So mid 1830s was one date, and then that was in Kirtland, Ohio. Yep. And then 1843 Yeah. Was in na vu. And that’s where Joseph Smith started to secretly really said that this is officially kind of a thing Now, plural,  

Speaker 2    00:05:50    Marriage became official Yeah. At that. And he might have been doing it before, yeah, 1843, somewhat, but it became the, the claim was staked.  

Speaker 1    00:05:59    And then in, in 1852, I think you said Yeah. Is where now in Utah, Brigham Young, like it’s, we’re all in now on this.  

Speaker 2    00:06:07    They’re, they’re totally public. Uh, off comes the veil, and now it’s something that we embrace and we’re proud of it. And it, I it’s identifying our I who  

Speaker 1    00:06:15    We are. Okay. Now, that’s not the end of the story, but I just, let’s start, let’s start with that. So again, Ross, let’s go back and clarify maybe, I think you know, the answer to this. W how many people knew that Joseph Smith actually had plural wives? And did the, did the, even the church that we know now, today, the LDS church did, when did they start admitting that he was in on this?  

Speaker 2    00:06:38    Yeah, you know, I, I don’t know. Um, I can’t answer that for everybody, but from my own experience growing up, um, latter day Saint in the sixties and seventies, um, we would, across the board, everybody in my circle, everybody that I would’ve known would deny that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. Okay. And we would’ve said, well, those are just lies of the enemies of the church trying to tear down the church. Well, bit by bit, you know, historical evidence was discovered and so forth. And so, you know, in the, in the, in the last 20 years, there’s been, um, works written by LDS church historians who have admitted polygamy and, but they, you know, tried to make sense of it. And, um, and ultimately, um, you know, ultimately it’s, it’s embraced by the, by the church at large that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy because it was a divinely ordained thing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,  

Speaker 1    00:07:36    And again, if you want research this, the, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in I think 2013, came out with something called Gospel Topics. You can find it online if you search gospel topics, lds. That’s how I found it. And they, they actually have four articles on what they call plural marriage. They don’t call polygamy here, they call it Plural Marriage. Uh, the first one is Plural Marriage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That’s an interesting big picture. Yeah. A big picture. The next one is Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nav. We refer to that a lot in our last episode because that’s where they talk about Joseph Smith. And the next one is Plural, plural, marriage and Families in Early Utah. And then the fourth one is the Manifesto, and we’re spoiling it here, the end of Plural Marriage.  

Speaker 1    00:08:20    Marriage. Yeah. So, again, don’t take our word for it. We encourage you to, to read it. And I think what’s interesting is some of my Mormon friends, Ross, have read these, uh, the, the gospel topics, and this was actually the thing that sort of tipped the scale for them when they realized that a right, the church was trying to offer an apologetic, like, Hey, here’s what, here’s, we wanna make sure that you don’t get the spin or the, the misinformation from non-Mormon sources. Right. We wanna make sure you get the right information from us. And I think for in a lot of cases, it kind of backfired. Yeah. Because they finally had to admit some things. Yeah. That, I don’t know how you put a spin on it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It, it’s hard to spin some of this stuff. And we talked about this last, last time about Joseph Smith’s sketchy history with polygamy. And it’s so interesting to know that you grew up with the understanding that he wasn’t a polygamist. But really, Mormons don’t grow up with that now, now they admit it cuz it’s out there, the  

Speaker 2    00:09:16    Secrets out, it’s out there. Yep.  

Speaker 1    00:09:17    Okay. So, so it was, polygamy was changing, like you said, it was even in the early scriptures for the Mormons, it said there’s no, there shouldn’t be polygamy, but soon enough it change. Joseph Smith in 43, 18 43 makes it the official doctrine, but secretly practices it. Yeah. And probably had, I don’t know, 20, 30, 40 wives, we don’t know. Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:09:42    Between 25 and 30 maybe.  

Speaker 1    00:09:45    But then Brigham Young goes all in, once they get to Utah, they can kind of make their own rules up. And now they don’t have to hide it. They  

Speaker 2    00:09:51    Don’t have to hide it anymore. Right. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:09:53    Yeah. So Brigham Young had how many wives?  

Speaker 2    00:09:55    Oh, 50 something. Yeah. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:09:58    Okay. What happened next?  

Speaker 2    00:09:59    Well, um, so Mormons are on their own out in Utah, kind of unmolested by the rest of the society, but over time, so, um, when the Mormons got to Utah, it was, no, it was part of Mexico actually, but a year later, the Mexican war, um, it became part of the United States again. So suddenly they’re under the jurisdiction of the United States, and Utah becomes a territory of, of Amer of the United States of America. Brigham Young is the territorial governor. So, you know, the American, uh, congressman, so forth just kind of had a somewhat hands off. But over time, people st it, it became a political issue. Um, so John c Fremont, the Republican Party in 1856, he ran for president and part of his platform was to eradicate the twin relics of bism slavery and polygamy. Hmm. And so it became a political hot potato over time.  

Speaker 2    00:10:59    And so Congress continually tried to, uh, discourage the practice of polygamy or penalize the LDS church for, for doing it. And over time, they enacted, uh, increasingly strict and prohibitive laws to, um, to disincentivize polygamy. And the, the, at the end of the, really the end came, the beginning of the end, came in 1887 with the Edmunds Tucker Act that made polygamy, polygamy a federal offense. And it, and, and to put teeth in it, they authorized the seizure of church assets. And so a lot of polygamous men were thrown in prison, and others went into hiding or, or left the country for Canada or Mexico to avoid imprisonment. The church, um, could really, because their assets were being seized and frozen, they could no longer function as an institution. And so that led to, um, eight in 1890, you mentioned the manifesto where President Wilford Woodruff announced that the church would no longer sanction plural marriages at that time. And that was widely understood to be, um,  

Speaker 1    00:12:09    President of the Mormon Church, by the way,  

Speaker 2    00:12:11    He was president of the Mormon church. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the US president that was widely understood to be a move that to, um, get the government off their back. But many people feel like that was a wink, wink agreement, that, okay, we’re just gonna, uh, get our assets back and continue to function. But, you know, we all kind of know better. Right. But that became the, it wasn’t a, it wasn’t portrayed as scripture or as necessarily a revelation. Um, but it was became the pr the policy of Mormonism to disavow polygamy.  

Speaker 1    00:12:46    Okay. So at that point in the 1880s, how, how many, how many Mormons in Utah would’ve been practicing polygamy?  

Speaker 2    00:12:53    Yeah. Probably 20 to 30% of families. Now the thing about polygamy is not everybody can practice it, because you don’t have a lot more women than men. So if you have a roughly equal number of, of women to men, you got have a lot of men who are not gonna be able to practice polygamy. So it became the practice of those who were, had more power, more wealth, more authority in the church system and so forth. But, but yeah, a quarter, let’s say roughly a quarter of the families in Utah were polygamous families.  

Speaker 1    00:13:24    Okay. So then some of these marriages after that DEC manifesto, some of these, some people still practiced it.  

Speaker 2    00:13:32    Absolutely.  

Speaker 1    00:13:33    Right? Yeah. And some people even still engaged in not just people who were already married, but they continued to get married, but they couldn’t do it in the  

Speaker 2    00:13:41    Us including the, well they did, they were doing it in the US secretly, but a lot of ’em moved to Mexico or Canada. There’s, there’s large, uh, colonies of Mormonism in those communities. Um, but, but some of them, even leaders of the church, the, the highest level of leaders, the apostles of the church, some of them were still, um, entering into new plural marriages after the manifesto mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it just went underground.  

Speaker 1    00:14:07    Okay. So today, today, when you think about polygamy, when you think about like, uh, sister wives or, you know, some of these shows, and it’s, it’s kind of popular in culture now to kind of gawk at some of these weird families who still engage in this. Those are not officially mainline Mormons. Help us understand that for people who  

Speaker 2    00:14:28    Don’t. Yeah. So let’s follow the, uh, historical thread a little bit more fully. So in, uh, um, the church continued to get pushback about the secret underground practice of polygamy. Um, at one point in, in the early 19 hundreds, um, there was a senate, a senator elected from Utah to the United States Senate, who was a polygamist and, um, called Reed Smoot. And, and he was basically, the Senate held a hearing and refused to seat him because of polygamy it. So the pressure continued to mount. So in 1905, the church, uh, what’s what’s called by some the second manifesto. So 15 years after the Wilford Woodruff Manifesto, the church completely banned polygamy and made it, uh, uh, you know, put teeth in it made a policy. And so now Polygamists, um, in Mormonism, if you’re found to be practicing, you’re ex-communicated from the church now in the, in the 1930s. So you still have people who thought that this was divinely inspired and given to Joseph Smith. It’s, and there it is in the 130 second section of the Doctrine Covenant. It’s still there,  

Speaker 1    00:15:41    Right? Yeah. What happened here, wait a second. This is something we’ve been doing faithfully. You’ve been emphasizing this Brigham Young did this, right? Absolutely. So this, this is what we’re, why we’re talking about it here is why is this changing? I could imagine some of the polygamists in the day were really confused.  

Speaker 2    00:15:57    They were very confused. And, um, and they felt like the mainstream Mormon church had gone apostate, basically. Hmm. That’s, that’s the position of the polygamist groups today. So this what they said, they got together, um, they believed that John Taylor, who was the president of the church right after Brigham Young, when the heat was coming down, starting to come down in the early 1880s on Mormonism, they believed that John Taylor secretly, um, anointed or commissioned, uh, certain, certain individuals to carry on the practice of polygamy. And so they will root their, the polygamist groups today will trace their authority for polygamy back to John Taylor. Mm. Now the mainstream Mormon church says that, no, that never happened, and there’s no written record of it or whatever, as part of the law of the polygamous groups. So these polygamist groups emerged, uh, in the priests, uh, world War II era, and they had to, you know, had to go to places that were remote.  

Speaker 2    00:16:59    So they’re living in, in, uh, Southwestern Canada, or like I said, Mexico, or they’re living in very remote areas and along the border of Utah and Arizona and places like that in order to be outside of the reach of the law. And, um, and what happened over the years is that these different polygamous groups, they’re, they, they continue to split and splinter over authority. Um, some, the next new prophet, somebody else says, well, I know I’m the real prophet. And so there’s a number of polygamous groups today, um, throughout the Intermountain West that are still, that still believe that, you know, if you, they’re, they’re the true followers of Joseph Smith because they’re still living the, the principle as they call it.  

Speaker 1    00:17:43    It’s interesting because in gospel topics, it says in the section on the manifesto, the second manifesto specifically, it says that contrary to direction. Right. So the second manifesto comes out, this is what, 1905, I think you said? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yep. It says they’re the two apostles, John W. Taylor. Yep. And Mathias Cowley continued to perform and encourage mm-hmm. <affirmative> new plural marriages after the second manifesto. So these guys were holdouts. They’re like, wait a second, this isn’t right. Right, right. And it says there that they were eventually dropped from the quorum.  

Speaker 2    00:18:16    Right. And probably excommunicated from  

Speaker 1    00:18:18    The church. Yeah. It says that Taylor was later excommunicated from the church after he insisted on his right to continue to perform plural marriages. And, and a I mean, not to back the wrong horse here <laugh>, but because I, I don’t disagree with the decision, but it’s not faithful to the original Mormonism of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Right. Correct. Which is, which again, to me is interesting because Mormons listening today might just say, but they, they were, they grew up in a Mormonism that didn’t have polygamy. And so here we are a hundred years later from all this stuff, more than a hundred years later. And, and maybe this isn’t a big deal, but for me it would still be a big deal and it would cause me to question, and, and I guess my question for you, Ross, is how does a main, how does a mainline Mormon look at than a fundamentalist? Cuz from my perspective, I would say that a fundamentalist someone in Canada or, or in those small towns practicing polygamy, to me, that looks more like Joseph Smith and Brigham’s young mor young Mormonism. That seems like the authentic Mormonism compared to mainline Mormonism today.  

Speaker 2    00:19:22    In a lot, in a lot of ways. It is. I think what makes it easier for the, uh, mainstream Mormon is to look at the fundamentalists. And because they’ve become culturally weird, you know, they’ve become culturally very, um, different. Mormonism has mainstreamed, right. And you walk, you, you know, you drive down Main Street in Salt Lake City and you see a bunch of really normal people, in fact have become very all American in, in many ways. Whereas the polygamists in their communities, you know, um, when you’re in a, when you’re in Southern Utah and you see somebody, uh, drive up in a van with a bunch of women in the back, and they all jump out and they’re wearing prairie skirts and now their hair mm-hmm. <affirmative> do a certain way, and it, it, it has become the opposite of mainstream. And so I don’t think it, I think mainstream Mormons look at that and say, well, that’s just really weird.  

Speaker 2    00:20:10    Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’re weird, regardless of polygamy or not. Hmm. And then the abuses of the polygamist communities, again, underage brides, um, uh, huge spiritual manipulation. Right. You know, and the, the sort of top down, um, authoritarianism that’s be, that’s very off-putting, but there’s always been a fringe of people on the edge of the main of mainstream Mormonism that are attracted to polygamy because they think there’s something real about it. And so you get, um, Cody Brown and that TV show. Yeah. They’re not the weird, the weird, weird polygamist. Right. I mean, to say they’re not weird is, but they are in some, but they’re not the weird, weird polygamists who are abusive and so forth. There’s an attraction to that lifestyle. Now, here’s the thing that’s really interesting. Two things, I’ll come back to this one later, but polygamy still considered an eternal principle in Mormonism that’s worth talking about.  

Speaker 2    00:21:06    But what’s so interesting today is that in American culture, as marriage practices change, so it’s been a long time since adultery was no longer a crime, but now, um, homosexual marriage is legal and other forms of marriages that were would’ve been seen as aberrations in the past based on a biblical perspective of marriage, or more and more, you know, polyamory and all the rest mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, so really, um, there’s, there’s not a legal standards as much anymore that prevents polygamy. And in fact, they, when they prosecute polygamist, they don’t go after them for marriage practices. They go after them for defrauding the government of welfare and, and, and, and, um, for, you know, um, underage, underage, uh, child abuse basically. Right. And so there’s this sense that Mormonism is facing a dilemma, I think in the future, as marriage as polygamy will no longer be illegal, we’re right on the cusp of that.  

Speaker 2    00:22:08    Right. Right. And, and part of the manifesto was the, or part of the rationale, um, that supported the manifesto that in Mormon’s thinking ever since, ever since 1890, is that, oh, it’s against the law of the land and we’re supposed to be obedient to the law. Well, what happens when polygamy is no longer against the law of the land? Will, will Mormon rank and file, um, be more willing to embrace polygamy? And then will the church still say, well, they’ll say, no, we need a revelation to, to put polygamy back in practice again. Hmm. Which will probably never happen because the LDS church is very, um, very conscious of its public image. Hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:22:47    Yeah. That’s such an interesting, and we’ll, maybe we’ll cover that later. Some, there’s some of the other changing the changing face of Mormonism, and it really does. They’re, because I, from my perspective, because they don’t hold the Bible in high regard, they don’t have a high view of scripture. I I do see that a lot of these values and beliefs really do change, because you can change with the times. Whereas evangelical Christianity stands against things, sometimes stands against the culture and has to stand against the  

Speaker 2    00:23:22    Culture. Right. There’s a standard. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:23:23    Yeah. Okay. So before we move on to the next one, you, you mentioned eternal polygamy. So, so even though plural marriage isn’t condoned anymore in the mainline church, in essence doctrinally, it’s still there and it’s in, it’s there in the form of eternal polygamy. Explain that. Right.  

Speaker 2    00:23:40    So yeah, the, it’s interesting that section 1 32 of the doctrine and covenants, which authorizes plural marriage, is the same chapter of their scripture, that that outlines the whole idea of eternal marriage. So eternal marriage is still important to the Mormon church, but you can’t totally separate it from the idea of plural marriage. And so the idea is that to be exalted, um, in the highest level of the LDS heaven, where you could become deified, that’s another topic in the gospel topics, essays, where you could become deified. That, that, that involves eternal procreation. And part of that is that, um, a, a man who becomes a God can, can still have more than one wife in eternity. In fact, um, you can, you can still in the church today, you can still be eternally sealed or eternally married to more than one woman. In fact, the current president of the LDS church, Russell M. Nelson, is sealed to two women. He, he was sealed to his first wife, she passed away. And then when he married his second wife, it wasn’t just a civil marriage, he was sealed to her in an eternal marriage as well. It didn’t nullify the first one. So he’s guaranteed to have two wives in heaven in the Mormon way of thinking.  

Speaker 1    00:24:56    That’s so interesting. Okay. So that’s polygamy. And again, we’re gonna talk more about polygamy in, in the future on this podcast, but we need to move on to the second, probably lightning rod. And again, it would probably make some Mormon’s twitch a little bit to think about this next one. But let’s talk a little bit about racism in particular. Let’s talk about how Mormons over the years, how they have viewed African Americans. Right. Or really Africans, I guess you could say.  

Speaker 2    00:25:25    Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And well, it’s not just Africans, that’s the main lightning rod, like you said. But there’s also, um, you know, questions about how the Mormons have viewed Native Americans as well. Right. So,  

Speaker 1    00:25:38    Um, and islanders and things like that. Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:25:40    Different, different groups.  

Speaker 1    00:25:41    Um, in fact, you can find a gospel topic on this one as well. We encourage you to check that out. Check. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, check our sources. And, uh, and I think it might cause some, it might unsettle you a little bit to hear this, this part  

Speaker 2    00:25:53    Of the story. Yeah. And Mo you know, not everybody knows. Most Latter Day Saints know, but I’ve met people who didn’t know this because it happened, you know, uh, many years ago. But for most of Mormon history, men of black African descent could not hold the LDS priesthood. Now I say men of black African descent, cuz women have never been able to hold the LDS priesthood of any women, of any race or any ethnic background or whatever. Uh, when I say that, I wanna make sure that our le le listeners understand that the priesthood in Mormonism is the authority to act in God’s name on the earth. And so in, in Mormonism, this priesthood authority is required to administer key ordinances like baptism. You know, if, if I’m a kid, I’m, they baptize their children eight years old, and my dad’s not a priesthood holder. Somebody else has to stand in and do it for in his place. And so, or even give a, a blessing for a sick child that’s, that’s requires the priesthood to do that. So black, um, blacks, black men have not been able to hold the priesthood for most of Mormon history until 1978 when that policy was changed.  

Speaker 1    00:27:00    Hmm. Why 1978?  

Speaker 2    00:27:03    Well, you can look at it one of two ways. Okay. Yeah. Because that’s when God decided to do it.  

Speaker 1    00:27:08    Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:27:09    Or, um, because with the civil rights movement and the changes in American society, coupled with Mormon missionary efforts in around the world, in places where it wasn’t always easy to tell, uh, who had black African descendant who didn’t, Hmm. Um, then pressures, political pressures, and all the rest, um, added up to the time being ripe for the Mormon Church to pivot and adapt, um, to change their, their policy.  

Speaker 1    00:27:41    Ross, what was the theological grounds for this statement? What, what was it about blacks that was such a problem?  

Speaker 2    00:27:53    Yeah. You know, the, the theological ground combined two ideas in the Book of Genesis, it talks about Kane after he kills his brother, Abel is marked with a curse. Now, it doesn’t really describe what that curse is, but, but many, not just Mormons, but, but many people in, in early America and and other places understood that curse of kae to be a black skin. Hmm. And that was a theological justification for slavery and for a lot of other abuses that went way beyond just Mormonism for sure. Hmm. But Mormonism, early Mormonism, the 18 hundreds definitely reflected just the, the broader cultural, you know, uh, realities of race. Um, but that why then, why would a person be born with a black skin? Um, why would they be cursed with the curse of Kane? Well, the other part then of the theological justification has to do with the Mormon idea of preexistence.  

Speaker 2    00:28:52    That we all existed as spirit children of God before we were born on this earth. And so there was, there’s supposedly a big war in heaven. Jesus and Satan made opposing, um, plans and had opposing plan ideas of how to, what to do with humanity. And, and, and so there was this, this battle, this warfare in heaven. I don’t know how that was engaged, you know, the spiritual weapons or whatever. But the Mormon idea that has been taught over the years is that those spirit children of God who were not valiant, who were not courageous, who sat on the fence and didn’t take sides, um, between Jesus and Satan, they were able to come to this earth, but they were their, they were cursed with the curse of cane, the black skin as a consequence of their behavior in the previous life.  

Speaker 1    00:29:46    Hmm.  

Speaker 2    00:29:48    So, you know, that’s how, that’s how, you know, they have, um, rationalized it for so many years.  

Speaker 1    00:29:54    Yeah. And again, if you’re listening to this, I hope you feel how offensive this is. Just like we, we feel that as well. And, and, and just to make sure to comment on that passage from Genesis on Kane, that’s not a biblical conception of that. Yeah. And, uh, and so, so I think we need to certainly stand against it. Now, Ross, when you read the, the gospel topic on this, the title is Race and Priesthood. I wanna read something here and, and, and have your response to this. Cuz again, they’re trying to explain this. I encourage listeners to go read this whole article. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’re trying to explain this away. They’re trying to soften the blow of this cuz they recognize this is not good. Right. This isn’t good for the current church and they need to somehow get, get an apologetic out there so that they’re not losing members over this.  

Speaker 1    00:30:48    But here’s what it says there. It says that in 1852, president Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood. Okay. At the end of that paragraph, they say this, none of these explanations, they, they had spent some time explaining some stuff about all this says, none of these explanations basically, uh, justifications for why Brigham Young would’ve said this in 1852. They say none of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the church. And in another place it says that none of this was doctrinal. This wasn’t doctrine. Is that fair to  

Speaker 2    00:31:28    Say? Yeah. No, I don’t think so at all. Um, I, this is where I’ve take, taken, I, you know, look, I’m glad that they’ve changed their approach. Right.  

Speaker 2    00:31:36    Um, because it was, you know, it was reprehensible really. Um, I’m glad they’ve changed their approach, but, um, they’ve tried to distance themselves from real responsibility for it by claiming it was policy not doctrine. Well, first of all, again, it goes back to what I said at the beginning about Brigham Young was a prophet of God, you know, John Taylor after him, Lorenzo Snow after him, Wilford Woodruff after him. You know, all these, uh, prophets held the same view. Well, okay then are they really inspired by God? Why would, you know, why would this not be doctrine if the prophets of the church who claim to lead the church by Revelation daily, um, you know, are are, are announcing that this is the answer. But more to the point, I think back in, in 1949, the first presidency of the church, which consists of the, the current prophet, I’m not sure who it was, at 1949, he didn’t sign it individually, signed it as a group.  

Speaker 2    00:32:37    But the current prophet and the prophet’s, two counselors are called the first presidency. They’re all deemed to be apostles of the, of the church. Mm-hmm. They issued a statement in 1949, and I’ll read just a part of it. It says, the attitude of the church with reference to the Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy, but of direct commandment from the Lord on which is founded the doctrine of the church from the days of its organization to the effect that Negros may be commemorable the church, but they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. So in that first presidency in 19 40, 89 said, it’s not a policy that it is a doctrine as a commandment of God. And so it’s fine for the church to say, it’s not the doctrine of the church today, but it certainly was considered the doctrine of the church back then. And that raises the same question of what, you know, if you’re restoring original Christianity, what, what was original Christianity? Was it this or was it that? Hmm. Um, and so I think, I think it would be more credible if the LDS church would own the problem is if they said this was doctrine back then, then they have to say our doctrine was wrong. Right. You know, and that, that’s, that puts them in a bind. Right.  

Speaker 1    00:33:57    Okay. So we’ve talked, Ross, we’ve talked a little bit about polygamy. Anything more we need to talk about on racism? Anything else we have to cover?  

Speaker 2    00:34:05    No, there, there’s a lot of other things we could talk about. We come back to, um, I think, you know, this is, might be interested, the other theological aspect of it is in the Book of Mormon, I’ll just touch on this briefly, but in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and the Leites are all descended from Lehigh, the original prophet. They came to the American continent. The Leites chose to reject God and, and, and reject his leadership, the ne fights who were two brothers. And they went separate ways. The ne fights followed God. And in the Book of Mormon portrays the Lamanites then of being cursed with the dark skin. And that’s the Joseph mis explanation of, of the origin of the Native Americans. Hmm. And so, so the Book of Mormon contains this core idea that dark skin is a negative thing. Hmm. If you’re, if you’re bad, if you’re evil, then then dark skin is a curse upon you. So that obviously reflects, uh, for many, many years. Then LDS attitudes toward people with more melanin, you know? Wow. Um, and so that’s part of the underlying core root doctrinally of, of racism in the Mormon church.  

Speaker 1    00:35:17    In fact, speaking of changes in Mormonism, um, even the Book of Mormon has changed quite a bit. And it’s not just grammatical changes. Uh, there was a, there was, if you had an old copy of the Book of Mormon, you would read the phrase white and delight some. Now we, growing up in Utah, we know that phrase, uh, you hear that phrase out here in Utah White and delights em so offensive. But would you find it in today’s book of Mormon? No.  

Speaker 2    00:35:45    They, they’ve, they’ve softened the blow of the, the implication of that. They change it to pure and delights em to take the emphasis somewhat away from the color. But it’s still there. And it’s, the idea is still there in the Book of Mormon, and I grew up, I grew up with the expectation that if the people, um, native Americans, the Leites, quote unquote, if they accept the gospel, the gospel of Mormonism, then they will become white. You know? So rather than saying, oh, their, their skin color is, you know, just as part of who they are, and it’s a gift of God to create this incredible diversity of, of humankind. And there was a sense in which, you know, what they need to do is to become white, become lighter. And that’s a blessing. Hmm. You know, so,  

Speaker 1    00:36:30    Okay. So these first two, and we only have time for one more, but these first two are really sort of cultural changes, right. Polygamy and, and race in the priesthood. But we wanted to make sure to talk about one of the more theological changes, BEC and there, there are several, I think we could have covered blood atonement. You can look maybe, we’ll, in another episode we’ll talk about the Mormon changing view of blood atonement or even Brigham Young’s pet doctrine on Adam and God, maybe we can get into that in a future episode. But what we thought would be interesting is to finish by talking about Mormonism changing doctrine on the Trinity. Yeah. Because if anybody understands Mormonism, we talked about this earlier in our podcast, that Mormons do not believe in the Trinity. And that’s a real sticking point. In fact, that’s what one of the things that they’ll do if they, if you ever have a faithful Mormon debate, you as a Christian, they’re going to pick apart your under. They’re gonna make fun of, I mean, that’s too strong of a word, but they’re gonna, they’re gonna really try to challenge your understanding of the Trinity because Mormons don’t believe in a, the, the, the biblical or the Christian Evangelical Christian doctrine of the Trinity. But, but yet they did, did they Ross at the beginning? Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:37:44    It was at some sense, in some sense it may be not a fully, um, biblical idea of Trinity, but there’s a, the Book of Mormon is full of statements about God that sound Trinitarian at least. Yeah. And so you have, I I’m not gonna read ’em all, um, but in third Nephi 11, he says, you shall baptize, uh, after this manner. He says, for, he says, after this manner, shall you baptize in my name for behold very I saying to you that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one. And I am in the Father, and the Father in me. And the Father and I are one, um, ether Cha, uh, chapter th chapter three, verse 14, behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. So there’s this strange kind of, this, this almost a modal view of, of God. Uh, we, um, the idea that, that there’s some kind of, um, oneness now that, that seems to go beyond the Mormons today talk about God, the Trinity, members of the Trinity being one in purpose, one in spirit. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and, and so forth. But this seems to go beyond that, um, to, to portray something that’s closer to Trinitarianism.  

Speaker 1    00:39:02    Right. And so, again, for a Mormon listening, Ross, what would, how would they, how would they respond? I, I guess how would they read some of this, some of this stuff that definitely sounds Trinitarian. I mean, really some of it is just straight out of the Bible. Yeah. Which I think Joseph Smith did do that quite a bit. Is he please plagiarize the Bible. A  

Speaker 2    00:39:24    Lot of the Bible. Yeah. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:39:25    Yeah. And when you read this, I don’t, you know, for those of you who are not Mormons, just so you know, when we read Second Nephi Ether or Mosiah, this is Mormon scripture, this isn’t Christian scripture. Yeah. Just wanna make sure people understand that. But when you read this Ross that says, I and the father are one, those are words that Jesus said in the gospel in, in scripture. Right. And so my understanding challenged me on this, Ross, my understanding is I’ve read early beliefs of Joseph Smith, is that, that he really did, coming out of kind of more of a Methodist kind of a background, he really did understand the Trinitarian idea of, of God. And he even maybe some of the, some of the accounts of the first vision were more Trinitarian type accounts of the first vision.  

Speaker 2    00:40:12    Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. The, um, yeah, because the whole milieu in American life in the 1820s when in his formative years, um, really was Trinitarian mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and it, you know, there’s always been aberrations in American history, but that would’ve been the common understanding of all the people who were, who were hearing Joseph Smith, who reading the Book of Mormon. It would’ve been his understanding. But it cer certainly morphed pretty rapidly over time, you know, in 1835. So that’s like six or seven years after the Book of Mormon, you know, um, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to the leaders of Mormonism prepared these, what they called the lectures on faith. And it showed that there’s still some movement and there’s still some kind of semi orthodox ideas, but there’s some strange things. Um, they, they thought of the Godhead consisting of two Personages, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit’s like the mind of God. The father’s a spirit, the son is physical, the Holy Spirit’s like the mind. Um, you know, and no, no Mormons today would, would accept or, or understand God that way. But that was part of the Mormon scriptures for many, many years.  

Speaker 1    00:41:28    So, so like you said, you could see it sort of morphing from traditional Christianity into something that fit more with the conception of God that Joseph was, was trying to develop.  

Speaker 2    00:41:41    Really. Yeah. He was developing this whole idea and really from the first vision, um, where these two percentages in physical form appeared to him, that that probably planted the seeds of the eventual, you know, changes that took place. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because it’s, if you have two father and son who are both exalted men and who are physical in their form, that makes the unity of a, of a Trinitarian kind of God, really, really harder to maintain or to accept.  

Speaker 1    00:42:10    Yeah. And if you’re listening and wanna learn more about, about what Mormons believe about God or what Christians believe about God and specifically the Trinity, uh, check out some of our other podcasts on that topic. Or you can find more, we go into depth on this in our c theo series@pursuegod.org slash c Theo. But Ross, I guess all of this just leads us to this. I mean, let’s be fair to this question. Well, hasn’t Christianity changed? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, we, we’ve talked about the changing face of Mormonism in terms of polygamy, in terms of racism in tr in terms of trinity doctrinal stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I guess, I guess a critic could say, well, Christians, Christians have changed too. Christian doctrine has changed, Christian practice has changed. What’s an, what’s a biblical answer? Like, why is this a problem for us when we’re critiquing Mormonism? And why shouldn’t it be a problem? Why shouldn’t we critique our own faith the same way?  

Speaker 2    00:43:14    Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s a very fair question. I would say that Christianity has certainly changed in practices in culture. Um, I would question to what extent Christianity has changed doctrinally mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, because the, the big difference between Mormonism and, and historic biblical Christianity is that Mormonism says God is gonna continue to reveal himself. So there’s almost an expectation of change. And the, and the ultimate authority is whatever God’s prophet says today in, in historic biblical Christianity, the ultimate authority is the Bible. And so that’s, that’s kind of a given. It’s a standard against which every, every human idea has to be tested. Now, certainly there have been different interpretations of the Bible, but it’s one thing to say that we have an interpretation of the Bible versus we have, this is, this is something, this is new revelation cuz we have to test our interpretations against the Bible. Uh, and maybe we’re, maybe we prove to be wrong or right about our interpretation, but it’s still got a standard against which it’s tested. The Bible doesn’t change.  

Speaker 1    00:44:22    Now, I think we should mention this as well, again, for a, for a mor seeking Mormon listening to this, or someone who’s not really read into Christianity in the Christian movement, there are churches, Ross Christian Church called Christian Churches. We would, we would say a lot of these might be mainline Christian churches mm-hmm. <affirmative>, who actually have done what we are saying the Mormon church is doing. Right. And you, they are really shifting away from biblical standards. What scripture says, they’re shifting away from it. Like we’re criticizing the Mormon church. We’ll criticize some of our own people who call themselves Christians. That Russ, we would say, these aren’t really Bible believing Christian churches, are  

Speaker 2    00:45:01    They? Right. No. They, they may have had a bible believing legacy and have been biblically rooted, um, a hundred years ago in denomination or even a particular church. But instead of replacing the Bible’s authority with a new claim of Revelation mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’ve replaced the Bible’s authority with, with human thinking and our own assumptions about what’s right and wrong. Mm-hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:45:26    <affirmative>. And we would just, I, I would just say on this point, again, we just to sh just to be fair, to show that we’re not just picking on Mormons here. I, I would encourage listeners to find a church that has a high view of scripture. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, find a church that believes that God’s word is faithful and is the only, the only, um, guide for us. It’s the ultimate guide for us when it comes to faith and belief that in other words, it’s not gonna shift and change. We’re not gonna try to reinterpret stuff. I would encourage people to find a church, you know, our church, Alpine Church. In fact, if you’re a seeking Mormon in Utah, come find us at Alpine Church. Mm-hmm. Alpine church.org. You can find locations. We have locations throughout Northern Utah. But I encourage you to, to check that out because our, our very first value, we have five core values as a church Ross.  

Speaker 1    00:46:19    And our first value is we look to God in his word in all that we do. Yeah. And that’s a value we pray that the future leaders of alpine retains that, that they say we always wanna look to God in His word and all that we do. And so there are, there are things in our culture that are changing the definition of marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Right. As an example that we, even if our culture says one thing, even if the whole world moves in this other direction, we’re gonna stand true. We’re gonna teach this to our kids because we believe that God’s word is trustworthy and true, and it doesn’t have to change with Right. With culture. Right.  

Speaker 2    00:46:55    And so we’re gonna see the Mormon, the Mormon Church has changed in order to survive, in order to thrive. The Christian Church has instead has a history of being faithful and suffering the consequence of suffering, persecution, and loss. Right. As a result, but unwilling to ch to change on those core essentials. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:47:15    All right. Well, that’s what we have to say about polygamy, racism, and other changing doctrines of the Mormon Church. Again, I encourage you to find all these resources, discussion questions, to talk about this with a friend or a mentor or your family@pursuegot.org slash mormon. And make sure to join us next Tuesday for another topic.