[Mr. Wiggin]

Kalola wrote:

For some reason it matters because I just cannot seem to shake the feeling that I just do not fit in with active members, inactive members or former members because I was not born into the Church. How can I overcome this feeling of not belonging?

By not judging any situation other than what is here and now in your life as ‘wrong’. If you were talking with a group of Jews or Muslims or Catholics or New Agers or Episcopalians and you mentioned that you were once a convert to Mormonism but now you’re an ex-member, would they really care about that aspect of your past? No. They’d probably just accept you – to one degree or another – just as you are, but in some corner of their mind, there would be a thought (maybe) that you’re not one of them.

You’re a part of humanity. You belong to humanity and humanity belongs to you. You’re not better or worse than anyone else for any reason. If you feel that you don’t fit in with “active members, inactive members or former members”, why not try, say, humanists (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanists” class=”bbcode_url”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanists).

Is there a hobby that you particulary enjoy? Why not find a local group that does what you like to do, and if there isn’t one, start one and put up a notice online on Craigslist or something online message board. Connect with people who are passionate about what you’re passionate about!

Best wishes!

[Mr. Wiggin]

…from church websites like FamilySearch.org. It is there that people can view a list of plural wives that includes four of the 11 married women whom JS made his plural wives, violating “the principles and doctrines” (see the section summary for D&C 132) of the revelation on polygamy. The word of the Lord (see D&C 132:61) that JS claimed came to him regarding polygamy included the following (emphasis is mine):

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

Eleven married women (that we know of) were vowed to another man; they each belonged “unto” their husband. The Lord could not have been more clear to JS: Stay away from females who do not fit the requirements of this commandment.

For generations, members who have committed adultery have been subjected to the severest form of church discipline: excommunication. Why did JS get off scott-free? Where was the divine revelation to Brigham Young and other Apostles that the president of the church had repeatedly committed adultery and had to be removed from his office and excommunicated? Why did the Lord tolerate JS’ blatant disobedience time and again? Had Jesus not commanded that members of his church were to be perfect even as his Father? Yes, he had. He told JS in several revelations (that became part of the Book of Commandments and later the D&C) how importance obedience was, including the following:

“Who am I that made man, saith the Lord, that will hold him guiltless that obeys not my commandments?” (D&C 58:30)

“And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments.” (D&C 59:21)

So where was God’s wrath in relation to church president and adulterer Joseph Smith?

Not only did JS pursue women who were already vowed to their husband in violation of the Lord’s commandment, he repeatedly disobeyed the requirement that “the first [wife] give her consent.” How do we know this to be true?

In the spring of 1841, the Walker family, church members, arrived in Nauvoo. In January 1842, Lydia Walker, the mother, died of malaria, leaving her husband with nine children to care for. In 1843, JS sent widower John Walker away to the eastern States on a two-year mission. He placed most of the Walker children in the homes of church members while John was away, with a notable exception: 16-year-old Lucy Walker was to live in his house. Shortly after John’s departure, daughter Lydia also died (of brain fever). One can only imagine how much the grieving children, having lost their mother and sister, needed their remaining family members to be together. But the will of God (in this case, but not in the case of staying away from married women), according to JS, was more important.

Keeping in mind the historical fact that Mormon polygamy began after teenager Fanny Alger became a servant girl in the Smith home in the early 1830s and she “was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet” (reference provided in my last post), guess what happened after young Lucy Walker moved into the house where JS lived?

“While living in the Smith home, Lucy remembers: “In the year 1842 President Joseph Smith sought an interview with me, and said, ‘I have a message for you, I have been commanded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman.’ My astonishment knew no bounds. This announcement was indeed a thunderbolt to me…He asked me if I believed him to be a Prophet of God. ‘Most assuredly I do I replied.’…He fully Explained to me the principle of plural or celestial marriage. Said this principle was again to be restored for the benefit of the human family. That it would prove an everlasting blessing to my father’s house.”

“What do you have to Say?” Joseph asked. “Nothing” Lucy replied, “How could I speak, or what would I say?” Joseph encouraged her to pray: “tempted and tortured beyond endureance until life was not desirable. Oh that the grave would kindly receive me that I might find rest on the bosom of my dear mother…Why – Why Should I be chosen from among thy daughters, Father I am only a child in years and experience. No mother to council; no father near to tell me what to do, in this trying hour. Oh let this bitter cup pass. And thus I prayed in the agony of my soul.”

Joseph told Lucy that the marriage would have to be secret, but that he would acknowledge her as his wife, “beyond the Rocky Mountains”. He then gave Lucy an ultimatum, “It is a command of God to you. I will give you untill to-morrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you.”

“Lucy remembers, “Emma Smith was not present and she did not consent to the marriage; she did not know anything about it at all.” Of the relationship, Lucy said, “It was not a love matter, so to speak, in our affairs, -at least on my part it was not, but simply the giving up of myself as a sacrifice to establish that grand and glorious principle that God had revealed to the world.”’

(ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/23-LucyWalker.htm” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/23-LucyWalker.htm)

What other evidence is there that JS disobeyed the Lord’s revealed commandment that “the first give her consent”? The ‘divine’ death threat directed at Emma that he wrote on July 12, 1843, just two months after he made 14-year-old Helen Kimball his youngest-yet plural wife (and had sex with the girl, as the mournful poetry she wrote in her diary entries after she married him indicated).

In May and June alone of 1843, JS married young Helen (she too was ‘sold’ on the idea of polygamy via a promise that her marriage to JS – in name only, she was told – would secure eternal salvation for her family, and like Lucy Walker, Helen was given mere hours to make the profoundly life-altering decision), two 17-year-olds, a 19-year-old, two 29-year-olds, and a 58-year-old.

It’s not hard to imagine that long-suffering Emma, church Relief Society president, finally reached her breaking point relative to her husband’s ‘liaisons’ with women and girls. It’s also not hard to imagine that she gave JS an ultimatum: “Get rid of your practice of polygamy or I’m leaving you!” What married woman wouldn’t?

And JS’ response? He wrote down the following on July 12, 1843:

“And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph…And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed.” (D&C 132:52 and 54)

What kind of a ‘Prophet’, having committed adultery at least a dozen times, as the historical evidence and LDS scripture prove, and having probably been confronted by his first wife after repeatedly acting on his “desire to espouse…virgins” (see D&C 132:61) as well as non-virgins/women vowed to their husband, communicates a death threat to the woman he fell in love with years before when he was a young man claiming to have been chosen by God to carry out the most important spiritual work since Jesus Christ eighteen centuries earlier?

The spiritual authority claimed by the Mormon Church and its senior patriarchal leadership for the past 179 years requires Joseph Smith to have demonstrably been “a man of God” who obeyed the word of the Lord. Yet the historical evidence, including data and text on church websites, shows that JS repeatedly disobeyed, and in the most grevious way next to murdering people, according to LDS doctrine and generations of Mormon prophets. What they taught was “true”, right?

What does LDS scripture say about the eternal fate of individuals who deceive and commit adultery?

“And the glory of the telestial is one, even as the glory of the stars is one; for as one star differs from another star in glory, even so differs one from another in glory in the telestial world;”

“These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.” (D&C 76:98 and 103)

Perhaps it takes a special kind of ‘Stage 4’ mind to believe that JS was a ‘true prophet of God’. What much evidence does one have to turn a blind eye to in order to acquire such a mindset?

[Mr. Wiggin]

I did the Temple Square tour in late 2007. I wanted to see what the latest version of ‘truth’ the church was disseminating to members and more significantly, potential converts. Right off the bat, I noticed that there was no mention of JS being overpowered by a darkness that nearly destroyed him after starting to pray in the woods near the Smith farm in Palmyra, NY (not part of JS’ versions of his FV experience prior to 1838), which was part of the official First Vision story that I taught to people as a missionary in the mid-1980s and was taught to me as a child and teenager in the 1970s and early ’80s.

There was also no mention of JS using a stone that he believed had a supernatural power and his hat to ‘translate’ the BoM (no gold plate in the hat, either, so why were they needed?). I came across that aspect of church history by accident a few years ago. It’s in Elder Nelson’s article, “A Treasured Testament”, in the July 1993 Ensign (archived online at http://www.lds.org). For those not familiar with it, the quote from the article is:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.”

During all my years in the church, I never – not once – heard an LDS teacher, instructor, quorum leader, bishopric or stake presidency member, regional rep., 70, apostle, or president inform me (and other members) of the truth about how JS ‘translated’ the BoM, the keystone of Mormonism, as per the info. that Elder Nelson included in his article more than 16 years ago. Why not? It’s not ‘faith-promoting’ and it doesn’t jive with what JS wrote about Mormonism’s history in his 1842 letter to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat (ref. http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c26876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=c26876e6ffe0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD)

Of course, the historical reality that JS married other men’s wives isn’t mentioned during the TS tour, either (a partial list of the women is on the church’s genealogy website at http://www.familysearch.org). Nor is the fact that part of the ‘revelation’ about polygamy, the principles and doctrines of which JS knew as early as 1831, according to the church’s section summary for D&C 132, included the commandment from the Lord that Mormon men stay away from non-virgins/restrict themselves to virgins “vowed to no other man” (see D&C 132:61).

According to the polygamy revelation, any Mormon priesthood holder who violated the revealed commandment – and didn’t first obtain “the consent of the first” [wife]) – was guilty of adultery. Generations of church leaders have made it clear that adultery is a sin second to murder, yet the historical record and LDS scripture prove that JS committed adultery at least 11 times (12, if we include his ‘session’ in the barn with Fanny Alger that Emma encountered).

More info. for members who know only official church history about JS (these facts certainly aren’t mentioned on the TS tour or in church manuals!):

In January 1844, Sylvia Sessions Lyon, one of the married women that JS made his plural wives, was eight months pregnant with her fourth child, Josephine Rosetta Lyon. Josephine later wrote, “Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith”. (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/08-SylviaSessionsLyon.htm” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/08-SylviaSessionsLyon.htm)

Joseph kept his marriage to Fanny [Alger] out of the view of the public, and his wife Emma. Chauncey Webb recounts Emma’s later discovery of the relationship: “Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house”. Ann Eliza again recalls: “…it was felt that [Emma] certainly must have had some very good reason for her action. By degrees it became whispered about that Joseph’s love for his adopted daughter was by no means a paternal affection, and his wife, discovering the fact, at once took measures to place the girl beyond his reach…Since Emma refused decidedly to allow her to remain in her house…my mother offered to take her until she could be sent to her relatives…” (ref. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/02-FannyAlger.htm” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/02-FannyAlger.htm)

What consequence “of her celestial relation with the prophet” was teenager/servant-girl-in-the-Smith-home Fanny Alger “unable to conceal”? An expanding womb seems reasonable.

Yet another thing not mentioned on the TS tour or in church manuals, lessons, Gen. Conf. talks, etc. is that just two months after JS, at age 37, made 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball his 25th plural wife (they were married in May 1843 according to the marriage data on the church’s FamilySearch.org site), he wrote down the following – part of the polygamy ‘revelation’, according to the church (see D&C 132:52 and 54) – that was directed at the church’s Relief Society president (emphasis in bold is mine):

“And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those [plural wives] that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.”

“And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law [polygamy].”

I imagine that at least some of you are already aware of these ‘faith-disrupting’ facts.

How extraordinarily convenient for JS that just two months after he married the young Helen Kimball – without Emma’s consent, by no stretch of the imagination – the Lord, who had turned a blind eye to JS’ repeated disobedience of the virgins/”vowed-to-no-other-man”-only commandment mentioned above, was willing to destroy Emma if she didn’t accept JS’ plural wives, remain with him (had she found out about her husband’s marriage to Helen in May and threatened to leave?) and “cleave unto” him!

For decades, I was taught by the church, its leaders, teachers, instructors, and other Mormons that obedience to church teachings and God’s commandments was supremely important. The quality of my mortal existence and of infinitely greater importance, my eternal salvation, depended on it (so I was led to believe)! There are many scriptures in the BoM and D&C, for example, that state this church doctrine.

Like millions of Latter-day Saints, I was told that only through strict obedience to the commandments of God and the word of the Lord would I be judged as worthy of Exaltation – and anything other ‘fate’ after death was Eternal Damnation. As a young man I was repeatedly taught that dwelling on thoughts about sex – no physical sexual act, mind you, just entertaining sexual thoughts – would make me “spiritually filthy” and “unworthy.”

And then as a middle-aged man, I learned that the ‘Prophet of the Restoration’, Joseph Smith, repeatedly disobeyed the Lord and committed adultery – surely breaking Emma’s heart each time she found out after the fact and humiliating her as he pursued female members, married and single – yet he remained church president, and according to LDS scripture, has been exalted.

So what’s the point of obedience/compliance to God’s commandments, as per Mormonism, if, according to historical evidence and LDS scripture about JS, it doesn’t matter after death?

Why shouldn’t I have sex with women I desire (the word appears in D&C 132 in relation to virgins)?

Why shouldn’t I smoke cigars, as did JS?

Why shouldn’t I ‘follow the Brethren’ and drink booze (JS did the night before he was killed)?

Crucially, why be a member of and support, financially and in other ways, a religious organization that would not – and does not to this day – tell the truth?

Finally, at the end of the Temple Square tour I asked the young sister missionary if I could see the ‘peep’ stone that JS had used to ‘translate’ the BoM, the one that supernaturally emitted “something resembling parchment”, and his hat that reportedly played a crucial role in the BoM ‘translation’. She looked at me like I was nuts.

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