Mormon Heretic

I wanted to get this post up sooner, but I’ve been really busy correcting final exams.  I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there.  Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words.  I remember he gave a funny line to the effect of “By all accounts, she was hot!”  Anyway, Bradley tried to pin down when the “affair” happened.  Apparently, Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny late at night in the barn.  According to Bradley, Alger appeared pregnant.  Emma threw a fit, and threw Alger out of the house.  (Apparently Alger had been working as a sort of nanny.)

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As I mentioned previously, I really enjoyed the Strangite session of the Mormon History Association meetings a few weeks ago.  Vickie Speek, John Hamer, and Mike Karpowicz gave some fascinating presentations on this little known group.  Following the session, they answered additional questions, and I thought it would be interesting to provide a transcript of the Q&A session.  But before I get into the transcript, I should tell you a brief history of the Strangite Church.

James Strang, prophet of the Strangite Church

James Strang was baptized into the church just a few months before Joseph Smith was killed in 1844.  He said he had a letter from Joseph proclaiming that Strang was to lead the church.  The letter is currently owned by Yale University; in the past few decades, they have declared Joseph Smith’s signature on the letter a forgery.

Evidently Strang was a dynamic leader.   Read more…

I just finished the book by Sarah Baringer Gordon,  The Mormon Question.  It was a very different book from the previous book I read, More Wives than One, by Kathryn Daynes.  Gordon has degrees in both Law and Religion.  She looked at Constitutional theory and the arguments before the Supreme Court and Congress as the government made many attempts to shut down polygamy.

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The book for my book club is by Sarah Baringer Gordon,  The Mormon Question.  It’s bee n a really hard book to find at the library (nearly impossible), so I got a late start on it.   It takes a very different approach to the polygamy question.  Ms Gordon has a law degree, and so she talks about the legal arguments concerning the separation of church and state.  I’ve learned a lot about the evolution of legal thought and the Constitution.  There hasn’t been a strict separation, especially during the 1800’s.  The Mormons helped define that line.

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Ok, I’ve talked about this book quite a bit–I’ll probably take a break for a while after this post.  (If you’re tired of the topic, perhaps you’d like to see what I wrote over at Mormon Matters: Utah Happiest State in Nation.)

One of the stereotypes of polygamy has been that Mormon men were just horndogs and married women for sex.  Another stereotype has been that women joined into polygamy under duress–that it was preached for their salvation.  While this is partially true, it leaves out significant parts of the story.  Surprisingly, Utah had THE most liberal divorce laws in the nation during the Brigham Young era.  In fact, “gentiles” seeking divorce utilized Utah’s liberal divorce laws, forcing the Utah legislature to close a loophole allowing non-residents to obtain divorce in Utah.

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Kathryn Daynes tells a really interesting story about an infertile couple in her book More Wives than One.  The Church Handbook of Instruction was leaked onto the internet a few years ago, and the church sued to stop it’s publication.  The only reference I could find indicates that the Church strongly discourages members from participating in surrogate motherhood.  I know someone who was considering becoming a surrogate mother prior to her marriage.  While part of me respects such a decision, I always thought that participating in surrogate parenting was a strange idea.  I remember a NJ woman refused to give up the baby she had carried for another couple about 10-20 years ago, so there can be some real challenges for people who choose to participate in parenting via this route.  You hear about weird mixups like this one, and you understand the church’s decision on why it is a bad idea.    As I read the following story, it seems Brigham Young probably didn’t have a problem with surrogate parenting.

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I have really been enjoying the book More Wives than One by Kathryn Daynes, an associate professor of history at BYU.   In my previous post on the book, I mentioned that marriage wasn’t as regulated as it is today.  There were no marriage licenses, blood tests, or even ceremonies required.  If a couple said they were married, then courts ruled that they were.  That was all that was needed.  It seems that many of the marriage regulations we are familiar with today were influenced by the federal government’s efforts to stamp out Mormon polygamy.  Daynes gives a history of marriage starting on page 58.

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My book club is reading More Wives than One, by Kathryn Daynes.  I am loving this book!

You may remember my earlier post outlining my perspective on Polygamy, as well as Bushman’s perspective.  I must say that I was very uncomfortable with many of these aspects (and I still am.)  Daynes outlines the much more public practice of polygamy from the Utah period.  Since the Mormons practiced it more openly, perhaps that is the reason for less discomfort while reading this book.  Some of these stories still leave me shaking my head in amazement.

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If one searches around the bloggernacle, you’ll find a snarky comment about how the church traded polygamy for statehood, or that the church just wimped-out on polygamy.  Such comments don’t seem to take into account how much pressure the US government was putting on the church–it was literally trying to snuff it out if the church didn’t back down from polygamy.  I’d like to get into some of these details leading up to the Manifesto.  I talked about the Manifesto previously in the context of whether the prophet would ever lead the church astray.  It should be noted that the church had been fighting anti-polygamy legislation for nearly 30 years, so I think it should be noted that the Manifesto banning polygamy in 1890 was not a spur-of-the-moment quick capitulation.  UPDATE:  I just finished Forgotten Kingdom, and I want to add some additional information.  I’ve highlighted this in purple below.

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I’ve learned a lot about consecration in the last few books.  While most of us know that tithing was instituted as a “lower law” because the early saints weren’t capable of the “higher law” of consecration, I have still learned some interesting things about both tithing and fast offerings.  For example, Fast Offerings were instituted due to the grasshopper attacks in 1855.  Those of us who live in Utah are all familiar with the famous seagull invasion where the seagulls saved the crops of the saints in 1848.  However in 1855 and 1856, the grasshopper attacks were much worse, and the seagulls were overwhelmed.

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I have some good news, and some bad news.  First the good news–I got a new job!  Now the bad news–my new job will interfere with my frequent blogging, so there will definitely be a decrease in activity.

My book club has been reading a book called Establishing Zion by Eugene Campbell.  I couldn’t find it in the library, but Signature Books has posted the entire book online and you can read it right here!   Briefly, Campbell is a former history professor from BYU.  I learned tons from it, though I did find the first 5 chapters a little slow.  However, chapters 6-7 were very interesting, and I want to talk about them.

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Thanks to Tara, my recent post announcing my perspective on polygamy has received a recent boost of activity (and is my most commented post ever on this blog, currently with 97 comments.)  We had been discussing some of the more controversial aspects of polygamy:  (1) Was Joseph’s polygamy revelation really a disguise for his real motive as a womanizer (libertine)? (2) What is the true nature of the Fanny Alger relationship?  (3) Was Eliza Snow pushed down the stairs by Emma?  Let’s look at how does Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling sees these issues.

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Over the last year, I have come across a few bloggers who are members of the Community of Christ (formerly known as RLDS).  I have always been curious about the Community of Christ, and have often wondered the differences in worship between their services, and LDS services.  I wanted to share some of the stuff I’ve learned.

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