Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Nauvoo Polygamy/Chapter 8

Chapter 7

A FAIR Analysis of: Criticism of Mormonism/Books A work by author: George D. Smith

Page	Claim	Response	Author's sources
452	"Joseph Smith's diaries [are] silent on his courtships and marriages."	The History of the Church was largely based on Joseph's diaries. It is therefore not surprising that Joseph's polygamy is not detailed there, when not detailed in the main primary source.	No source provided.
453	The only mention of a marriage by Joseph is in April 1842; "The History of the Church deleted even that one citation."	A lone citation might make little sense without context. If G. D. Smith can think of no reason to exclude an entry besides malicious intent to deceive, perhaps he can explain his own editing decision when he published the William Clayton diaries. Jim Allen observed that “in his abridgement, however, Smith kept only about one-sixth of the total entry. . . . By including only the somewhat titillating material and leaving out the much more important information about Clayton and what he was doing as a missionary, this ‘abridgement’ does little but distort the day’s activity.”	No source provided.
473	"…the polygamous family associations of Joseph Smith, and now even Brigham Young, are not acknowledged in LDS gatherings…."	There is no evidence provided of this assertion. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, institute manuals, and LDS historians also discuss plural marriage in Joseph and others. Brigham_Young_and_polygamy	No source provided.
513	Munster Anabaptists' practices were "reminiscent of Brigham Young's policies," and "over hundred women were allowed to divorce the men they had been forced to marry."	The historical comparison is inaccurate on virtually every level. Mormon women were never forced to marry (unlike the Munster Anabaptists), and Mormon women always had the right of divorce (though Brigham was much stricter with men about divorce). This is not a parallel, but a contrast.	Williams, Radical Reformation, 3d. ed., 570; no reference for the LDS claims.
532	Hyde…might have been sensitized by Joseph Smith's 1831 suggestion of plural marriage to Native Americans and therefore judged the Cochranites less harshly than otherwise.	What G. D. Smith does not tell us is that Hyde’s attitude to the Cochranites’ free love was wholly negative, as his source for the journal indicates. Wonderful is here not being used in the sense of “excit[ing] . . . admiration” but, rather, “strange; astonishing.” Elsewhere anxious that we not misunderstand Victorian idiom, G. D. Smith here provides the reader no help (pp. 41–42). It is not clear that Hyde would have agreed that his marriage partook of the same “lustful spirit.” [See also p. 327.]	Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 8.
535	Joseph Smith had offered a time frame for Jesus' return, deciding that 'fifty-six years should wind up the scene and the Saviour should come to his people.' He made this assessment in February 1835."	It is not clear why Smith chooses to quote from Walker's diary. The History of the Church recounts: "President Smith then stated that the meeting had been called, because God had commanded it….and it was the will of God that those who went to Zion, with a determination to lay down their lives, if necessary, should be ordained to the ministry, and go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time, or the coming of the Lord, which was nigh—even fifty-six years should wind up the scene." (HC 2:182, 14 Feb 1835.) Smith fails to tell us that 1890 was the year in which Joseph would be eighty-five years old. Joseph was clear elsewhere that he knew by revelation only that Christ would not come before that time, and frankly admitted that he didn't know whether this meant he would come then, or if he (Joseph) would die before that date. Joseph_Smith_prophesied_the_Second_Coming_to_be_in_1890	Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2:522.
535-536	Before 1890 “the number of [polygamy] practitioners had expanded exponentially.” In support of this, we are told that "67 percent in Orderville, Utah" were polygamists.	G. D. Smith leaves unmentioned the study’s observation that Orderville was somewhat unique because “one suspects that membership in Mormondom’s most successful attempt to establish the United Order may have required a commitment to plural matrimony. Unlike the pattern that usually prevailed in Mormon towns, many young men of Orderville entered the celestial order when they first married or soon thereafter.” Nearby Kanab was less successful in its communal economy and had less than half as many polygamists. Furthermore, all of southern Utah was more likely to be polygamist than Utah as a whole, for similar reasons.	Lowell “Ben” Bennion, “The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: ‘Dixie’ Versus Davis Stake,” Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984): 27–42.
541	"The leaders in Salt Lake…failed to comprehend how unsavoury it appeared for a man of high priesthood rank to claim the wife of someone of lower status if a missionary's wife was loaned to someone else during the husband's absence."	G.D. Smith grossly mischaracterizes the doctrine on this point. See Wyatt, Zina and her Men The new wiki article on the 6 Oct 1866 talk by BY.	S. George Ellsworth, ed., The Journals of Addison Pratt (SLC: U of Utah Press, 1990), 515; Smith, Intimate Chronicle, 227n. CHECK THESE!!
541	[continued from above] "Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had set such examples."	See Wyatt, Zina and her men. May need more here.	Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 37-46. Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 34, 442-44. ( Index of claims ) Template:CriticalWOrk:Newel and Avery:Mormon Enigma
546	Communist author Friedrich Engels wrote "that with every great revolutionary movement the question of 'free love' comes into the foreground."	Using the author of the Communist Manifesto may serve to prejudice readers. Latter-day Saints (despite the efforts of their critics like G.D. Smith) never taught or endorsed "free love."	Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 247; citing Engel's manuscript, "The Book of Revelation," (1883, published in 20th century in Moscow).
546	"Tours of [Brigham Young's] Salt Lake City home, the Beehive House, notably omit mention of Young's numerous wives."	This claim is false as of the summer of 2008. A FAIR member went on the tour, and Brigham's many wives and children were mentioned frequently.[1]	No sources given.
547	"Dana Miller of Idaho Falls was told by his church leaders that 'men will have more than one wife in the celestial kingdom. It's doctrinal.'"	Who were Miller's "church leaders"? A bishop? A stake president? An elders' quorum president? High priests' group leader? Did he interpret what he was told correctly? There is, of course, no way to say. Members may believe whatever they wish about such matters. In a work of serious scholarship, however, this tells us little about official LDS doctrine, or even what most members believe. Non-members, however, might well be confused, and G.D. Smith does nothing to lessen the confusion.	Dana Miller, "Celestial Polygamy," May 9, 2008, Public Forum letter to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Endnotes

1. [note]  Gregory L. Smith, personal communication to FAIR, 22 December 2008 (used with permission).