Nauvoo Polygamy: "... but we called it celestial marriage" | 
 enlarge | Author: George D. Smith
Publisher: Signature Books
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 74158
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 705
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 1560852011
Dewey Decimal Number: 896
EAN: 9781560852018
ASIN: 1560852011
Publication Date: December 5, 2008
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Product Description
When Joseph and Emma Smith arrived in Ohio in 1831, several families offered them lodging, as did the Whitneys, whose five year-old daughter, Sarah Ann, and her eleven-year-old neighbor, Mary Elizabeth Rollins, would later play a role in Mormon polygamy. The Smiths soon moved in with the Johnsons, where Joseph met fifteen-year-old Marinda Nancy. In 1836, seven-year-old Helen Mar Kimball attended school near the Smith home. Each of these girls, whom Joseph met during the 1830s, would later marry him in the 1840s gathering place of Nauvoo, Illinois, on the east bank of the Mississippi River. In this thoroughly researched and documented work, the author shows how the prophet introduced single and married women to this new form of "celestial marrige"?a granted to the elect men of Nauvoo. Through their journals, letters, and affidavits, the participants tell their stories in intimate detail?before polygamy was forcibly abandoned and nearly forgotten.
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 Mormon Evasiveness & Should We Rely on Mormons For Info On Mormonism? December 27, 2008
1 out of 11 found this review helpful
Peter's review showed Mormon bias and no substance. It is purely HIS opinion with no evidence the author is wrong on anything. Mormon dodging issues. He says if you want to know what Mormons believe, ask one. Actually, Signature Books is an independent, non-conservative Mormon publisher. They are just Mormons who don't fall in lockstep with the standard, whitewashed, sanitized Mormonism that the LDS/Mormon Church leaders want to present. What Peter asserts is common with Mormons who fall in with the sanitized version, and advocated by the Mormon Church. It sounds nice on the surface, until one sees how Mormons very commonly do not answer questions about their most distinctive doctrines, etc, but evade questions about doctrines and practices that the Mormon Church wants to skip, gloss over, or not be upfront or honest about. Mormons are usually not open about more controversial doctrines and practices. This is especially true in what they don't volunteer without being asked. Some do not know, but far too many times, it is Mormon public relations at work from those who know, but conceal. The membership does these things sincerely thinking that's the right thing because it is what they are taught, etc., but that still doesn't justify it.
The Mormon Church officially teaches, in their scriptures, and official literature:
1) That the Mormon God the Father was once a mortal man on another earth, and BECAME one of many 'true Gods' and is married to 'our Mother in Heaven'/'Heavenly Mother', a goddess wife. Together, they have also been called "our heavenly parents".
This is all in official Mormon/LDS Church materials like:
- Mrs Dean M. Austin, "Comment: 'Missions and Life'", Ensign, July 1973
- Eldred G. Smith, "Opposition in Order to Strengthen Us", Ensign Jan 1974
- "A Sure Trumpet Sound: Quotations from President Lee", Ensign, Feb 1974
- Neal A. Maxwell, "The Women of God", Ensign, May 1978
- Elder/missionary John Kevin Young, "Feedback: 'Example examples'", New Era, March 1979
- Ida Smith, "The Lord as a Role Model for Men and Women", Ensign Aug 1980
- Ardeth G. Kapp, "A Time For Hope", Ensign, Nov 1986
- Theodore M. Burton, "A Marriage to Last through Eternity", Ensign June 1987
- Vaughn J. Featherstone, "A Champion of Youth", Ensign, Nov 1987
- A. LaVar Thornock, "In Your Time Of Crisis", Ensign Feb 1988
- "The Latter-day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, Part A", "Lesson 9: Chastity and Modesty"
- "Gospel Principles", pp. 9, 14, 18, 19, 23, and chapter 47 (1997/present edition)
- "Primary 2: Choose the Right A", Lesson 3: "I AM A Child of God". Manual for a childrens class (it's like Sunday School)
Christians would object to these doctrines as serious error concerning an essential doctrine of Christianity by quoting Psalm 90:2: "FROM *everlasting* to everlasting, you ARE GOD." This would mean that Yahweh (Commonly misrendered as Jehovah, but Yahweh is closer to this Hebrew name for God) always existed as God, from eternity past to eternity in the future. Always was, and always will be, God.
2) That the Mormon Father, Son, and Holy Ghost "are three distinct personages, and THREE *GODS*." (Joseph Smith, quoted in Ensign, March 2008, p. 68). Christians would say that contradicts Isaiah 43-47, Deut. 6:4, and James 2:19, which teach that Yahweh is the only true God, none before or after, and Yahweh himself says "Is there A GOD besides ME? Yea, I do NOT know ANY." James says "You believe in ONE God? You do WELL." This also means no one can become a literal, true God (See #3 below), since there's only one, who is not married to a goddess wife.
3) The Mormon Church also teaches that through Mormonism only, humanity can attain the station of literal, actual Godhood as Gods and goddesses, as other Gods and goddesses have done, including the Mormon God the Father and his wife, and become married Gods & goddesses begetting spirit offspring to populate earths, or have "continuation of the *seeds* forever" as in D&C 132 (See the references in #2, and Doctrine and Covenants 76, 132, LDS Book of Abraham 4-5, etc). They can become Gods and goddesses eventually IF they have faith and "after ALL [they] can do" (Book of Mormon: 2 Nephi 25:23), not before. Evangelical Christianity would be extremely concerned with this idea concerning being saved "after ALL [the works] we can do", since Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches individual salvation is "by grace through faith; it is the gift of God, NOT of works, so that no one can boast", which agrees with John 1:12; 3:16-36, Romans 4-5:1; 11:6, 1 John 5:13. Romans 11:6 says that grace and works CANNOT mix, or one destroys the other.
Godhood is the reason they have temples and temple marriages. They say they affirm marriage, and families can be forever, but in Mormonism, families are ONLY forever if the members are temple married, and attain Godhood. This is in official literature, like their scriptures on Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) 132, Gospel Principles, chapter 45-47, etc.
To the public they show the nice temples, and the bare idea of 'eternal families', but they conceal what goes on in the temples, and the doctrines underpinning the *ultimate goal* of Mormon temples (which are not the same as their local chapels), which is mandatory Godhood in order to have eternal families (If the husband or wife doesn't make it, the *entire* family ends up without salvation as an eternal family unit. The offspring can marry and receive Godhood, but he or she won't be connected as a family to their parents).
Anyway, I could go on. THIS is what they RARELY tell you, even if you ask. My questions, and even clear quotes have been ignored, dodged, evaded, softened to something more palatable to the public, but only a few times was it admitted upfront, or at all.
***Then again, Boyd K. Packer, now the President of the Mormon 12 Apostles, gave a speech to Mormon mission presidents that even if a Mormon does not 'have a testimony' that Mormonism is true, 'bear your testimony' anyways, since the gaining of a testimony is in the bearing of one. That is false on at least two counts- 1) It emotionally conditions the person, and they self manipulate themselves (Mormon testimonies are emotional, as in D&C 9 & Moroni 10 in their scriptures and many official and unofficial Mormon references in the Ensign, etc.), and 2) It is LYING to the other person, or people. If you say you believe something when you don't, you are LYING, and deceiving those persons, as well.
(Boyd K. Packer, "The Candle of the Lord", in the official Ensign magazine of the Mormon Church, January 1983)
I heard a cassette tape of this speech before it was in the Ensign and thought it was 'unofficial', so I my then-Mormon faith wasn't shaken (though I did disagree, and was bothered by his teaching here), but after I left the Mormon Church, I saw it in the Ensign. I also have found a more recent official Ensign reference from another Mormon leader that affirms this as well.
*** Mormon apologist (defender), author, and a professor at Mormon Church Owned-BYU, Robert Millet told a BYU class of Mormons preparing to be misisonaries that they aren't obligated to answer others' questions if they deem them unworthy of answering. They can answer the other person with what they think the non-Mormon should have asked, etc. This can be seen and heard on YouTube under "Lying for the Lord" posted by 'jhuston7' found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMJvqBq_Qa8
The entire speech by Millet is here:
http://newsnet.byu.edu/video/18773/video.asx
There's much more to what he says, but I'll keep it brief since I give a link.
*** Apostle BK Packer also stated at a Mormon "Church Educational System Religious Educators' Symposium":
"You seminary teachers and some of you institute and BYU men will be teaching the history of the Church this school year. This is an unparalleled opportunity in the lives of your students to increase their faith and testimony of the divinity of this work. Your objective should be that they will see the hand of the Lord in every hour and every moment of the Church from its beginning till now. ...
"Church history can be so interesting and so inspiring as to be a very powerful tool indeed for building faith. If not properly written or properly taught, it may be a faith destroyer. ...
"There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. ...
"Some things that are true are not very useful. ...
"That historian or scholar who delights in pointing out the weaknesses and frailties of present or past leaders destroys faith. A destroyer of faith -- particularly one within the Church, and more particularly one who is employed specifically to build faith -- places himself in great spiritual jeopardy. He is serving the wrong master, and unless he repents, he will not be among the faithful in the eternities. ...
In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on and we are engaged in it."
(From "The Mantle Is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect", a lecture by Boyd K. Packer, delivered at the Fifth Annual Church Educational System Religious Educators' Symposium, August 22, 1981, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Official transcript: Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1981. Online PDF format here: http://byustudies.byu.edu/Products/MoreInfoPage/MoreInfo.aspx?Type=7&ProdID=1145)
This shows he wants Mormons to not only self condition & self manipulate themselves, and lie, but also distort true history by self-censoring their work, so that's another way the Mormon Church leadership gives a slanted, "one-sided" picture that you cannot trust for a full picture.
The Mormon Church wants its members and those members who write about the Mormon Church to give a sugar-coated version of Mormonism. How can anyone justifiably trust such an organization? In reality, no one can justifiably do so.
*** ALL the sources I referenced are official, and I got almost all of them off of their own main church website. Living apostle Russell M. Ballard wrote me in 1999 and said, after details and quotes from Mormon scriptures, the D&C, that ALL Mormon/LDS Church materials, like manuals, etc., "are OFFICIAL and REPRESENT the Church." Therefore, when any church literature, whether the Ensign, Gospel Principles, whatever, speaks doctrinally or otherwise, it "represents" the "official' position of the Mormon Church (The only possible limited exception is that the official Mormon Church source specifically states something isn't necessarily the official position. Even then, it would not be expected that any of that would contradict official positions of the LDS Church). I went through several issues in "search" on their official church website (the main church site), and can document the above doctrinal positions of the Mormon Church, and much more, even further.
Please, do not think by asking Mormons, you will get the full story at all.
Please beware of the public relations picture of the Mormon Church. It will conceal and evade (with only rare exceptions). Good websites concerning Mormonism (not perfect, but very good), are: www.MRM.org, www.UTLM.org, www.LHVM.org.
It is not what the Mormon Church and its members say, but what they leave out, that will really reveal to you what they actually teach and practice. Watch for definitions, as well. They can say many things, but the meanings are VASTLY different. What they could say and would on the surface, agree with a conservative Baptist Sunday school or sermon, would not be acceptable if the words they say are defined plainly and the real differences taught openly.
I encourage you to check the book out for yourselves, and go beyond the carefully crafted rosy image.
The full truth of Mormonism will not be possible with controlled disinformation and concealment.
 One person's view of history December 18, 2008
6 out of 15 found this review helpful
Always remember that there are 2 sides to any story. While there is no doubt that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and many others had multiple wives, there is a difference of opinion as to their motives.
Perhaps before examining the seeming contradictions in modern Polygamy we should take a look at the great men such as Abraham in the bible who also had many wives. If we believe Abraham to be a prophet inspired of God, then we must too believe that God allowed Abraham to have many wives. Abraham would not have been a prophet if he was going so clearly against Gods will.
If you want to find out what a Mormon really believes, try asking one.
 Marry Early and Often December 18, 2008
6 out of 17 found this review helpful
When the marrying was all done, Brigham Young had 55 wives and Joseph Smith had a mere 37. Of course, Young had a lot more time in which to woo the ladies, since he outlived Smith by several decades and had the whole Utah Territory in which to operate. Smith, on the other hand, married in haste prior to his murder (with no time, apparently, to repent at leisure). When one wasn't enough, he would marry sisters on the same day.
The Mormon Church today wants nothing to do with its polygamous past. The thing which made Mormonism both unique and roundly hated in the 19th Century has long been stashed in a closet somewhere in Salt Lake City. A recent LDS publication on Young mentions only one wife, thus jilting more than four dozen others. Today the Church champions "traditional marriage" - one man, one woman-and excommunicates any bigamous soul that comes within its sights.
An odd result, since Smith, Young, John Taylor and other Church prophets were unequivocal in stating that the only way to get to the "highest degree of glory" was to live "the principle." Apparently God had an abrupt change of heart in 1892 when, in order to get in line for statehood, the Church said that old men could no longer add to their celestial bank account by marrying young girls.
The author, George D. Smith, is the founder and publisher of Signature Books which produced this outstanding book. Recognizing that polygamy, especially its origins in the Church and its practice in Nauvoo prior to the Mormon exodus to Utah, has been a neglected part of LDS history, Smith has put together an extraordinary account of "celestial marriage" as practiced in Illinois.
Rumors of Joseph Smith's interest in polygamy date to 1831. Also, a debate continues as to whether Fanny Alger, with whom Smith had, as Oliver Cowdrey put it, a "dirty, nasty, filthy affair" in 1832, should be considered one of Smith's wives. The author doesn't include Alger, instead concentrating on Smith's matrimonial exploits starting with Louisa Beaman in April 1841, over two years before Smith actually wrote down the "revelation" Smith received commanding he take additional wives.
Smith (the author) details how Joseph talked women into marrying him, how he allowed others to marry multiple wives as a reward for loyalty, how the practice mushroomed in Nauvoo, and how Smith lied about having multiple wives at the same time he was marrying them. The efforts to keep the practice subrosa failed when other high ranking Church officials blew the whistle. The Nauvoo Expositor published its one and only edition notifying the world what many in Nauvoo already knew - Smith was a polygamist. Smith promptly had the paper's press destroyed, which lead to his arrest and, ultimately, to his lynching in the Carthage jail.
The research done for this book is staggering. The author has mined every available source to come up with a definitive list of the 192 men who practiced "spiritual wifery" in Nauvoo, and the names of the hundreds of women whom they married. Additionally, he recounts how Joseph F. Smith, a future LDS President, obtained affidavits from many of the polygamous wives of Joseph in order to prove to Joseph Smith III that his father had, in fact, had numerous wives, something that Emma Smith, Joseph's "legal" wife and Joseph III's mother, categorically denied up to her death, despite evidence that she was aware of at least some of the multiple marriages.
This is not history that the Mormon Church will embrace, or, likely, even acknowledge. Missionaries won't be distributing this book along with a free copy of The Book of Mormon. The fact that Joseph's wives included 13 women with then existing, living husbands, can't go over well with the faithful who have been schooled in the requirement of monogamous marriage. Obviously, it is not something likely to endear Joseph Smith and the LDS Church to outsiders.
This book is not light reading for the casual aficionado of Mormon history. But for those who like to plumb the depths of this truly amazing religion it will prove invaluable.
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