John Bytheway:               00:00:00             Let’s talk about polygamy with Brittany Chapman Nash Doctrine and Covenants section 132.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:00:07             So before we jump into section 132, the revelation on eternal and plural marriage. I want everyone to understand that we do not need to leave this section feeling that we must have a testimony of plural marriage, that it’s a requirement to believe in it in order to be a faithful member of the church. That is not the case. It is no longer practiced by Latter-day Saints. We admire the faith of those who practiced plural marriage as it was commanded in their time. We engage in this section coming to understand eternal marriage as a concept, coming to understand why plural marriage was asked of early Latter-day Saints, why Joseph Smith felt it needed to be restored. So we gain all of those things through Section 132. It’s very problematic in many ways. I think if we look at it without being dismissive, in some ways it is a historical text and includes things we no longer need to live. That can affect the way that we read the text. It may not be as simple as discarding at all as, oh, that doesn’t apply to me, but we can read it to understand the past and how it affected church members in the 19th century, how it affected the choices they made. We can also look to it in its promised blessings for those who make the eternal marriage covenant and what it can mean for those both monogamous and polygamous unions.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:38             That’s really helpful. I do something similar in an Old Testament class. We look at some of the commandments given to Joshua and Saul and think, I don’t like that at all. Go to that city and destroy it. That’s not to you. You’re not commanded to live that. So we glean what we can and we are grateful that it’s not us.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:02:01             We do get some of the most beautiful and inspiring stories of faith through people who chose to live polygamously. And it’s such a rich history to build on. I’m just so grateful for those early saints who loved the Lord, who loved latter-day prophets, and with faith stepped into very difficult circumstances because they believed it was a commandment of God. Doctrine and Covenants 132 is in a class of its own for a variety of reasons. One is that we have a lot of information about its context. Why was it written? Because like you asked, what’s the purpose of D&C 129? How did that come about? We don’t know because we don’t have the backstory of it, at least that I’m aware of. For D&C 132, we have the backstory. I would love to share that with listeners so that they can approach it knowing how it came about and why we have a revelation written for one person.

                                           00:03:04             That person is Emma Smith. The historical context of the revelation is written down by William Clayton, who was one of Joseph Smith’s scribes and historians, but there are others that can corroborate with the account of how he recorded it. I’ll just read straight from his account where he had written down several of Joseph Smith’s revelations. They were in the red brick store. They were talking about plural marriage, and it was weighing on Joseph. He did not have Emma’s support to practice the principle. He didn’t know how to handle it. He was with his brother Hyrum and William Clayton. Hyrum said, just write a revelation and the principle’s so plain I’ll take the revelation over to her once it’s complete and I’ll read it to her and she’ll believe because the doctrine’s so plain. This is from William Clayton’s later reminiscences of that day. He says that Hyrum said to Joseph, if you will write the revelation on celestial marriage, I will take it and read it to Emma and I believe I can convince her of its truth and you will hereafter have peace.

                                           00:04:20             Joseph smiled and remarked, you do not know Emma as well as I do. Hyrum repeated his opinion and further remarked the doctrine is so plain I can convince any reasonable man or woman of its truth, purity, and heavenly origin or words to their effect. Joseph then said, well, I will write the revelation and we will see. We learned from this paragraph that this revelation came about to help appease Emma Smith’s concerns about plural marriage. It’s being dictated with Emma in mind and we see through the revelation that there are specific references to Joseph, specific references to Emma, which further conveys the domestic relationship in this revelation. Maybe he had other people besides Emma in mind for this revelation, but Emma was its primary audience. Hyrum presented the revelation to Emma. It did not go well.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:20             Okay.

John Bytheway:               00:05:20             Surprise, surprise.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:05:21             Yeah. Emma rejected the revelation and according to existing records, she ended up burning it. She did not believe it. She resisted it entirely. We won’t follow that storyline with Emma and Joseph solely. We will more discuss what’s inside this revelation and what happened because of this revelation. Joseph Smith and Emma were sealed together on May 28th, 1843. This revelation came July 12th, 1843, so just a few months after they had been sealed. We can learn that Emma was already familiar with the concept of eternal marriage. She and Joseph had already been sealed. Joseph Smith had been teaching the concept of eternal marriage for a number of years. By this time plural marriage was an appendage of that larger concept of eternal marriage. This revelation includes information about eternal marriage, but in my mind, this is a plural marriage document. It’s not intended to teach us solely about eternal marriage. This is not all there is to know about marriage. It’s intended to explain plural marriage to Emma. In the meantime, we get insight into what eternal marriage is.

Hank Smith:                      00:06:43             Brittany, I really like that. I teach scripture classes at BYU and reading things in context is a very important skill. Who is the author? Who is the audience? What did the author intend? What did the audience receive? This likely wasn’t written to you with you in mind as the audience.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:07:05             Exactly. And was it intended to go out as an instruction to the entire church? I think we can argue no that it was not. Joseph Smith had started teaching about plural marriage definitely by 1841, likely earlier, but by 1841, Joseph Smith and others were engaging in plural marriages. Why wasn’t anything written down before then? It was a practice they wanted to keep tightly controlled. There was something significant. A change happened when something was written down. Once Joseph Smith moves to having a written revelation, there is a difference in how people receive that. So there was a lot of excitement when people heard that Joseph had written a revelation about plural marriage because there was power in starting out with a thus saith the Lord kind of rhetoric. Something that people could go back and see and read, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps that’s why Hyrum felt it was important to have something written rather than something that she’s just been taught because certainly many of these principles she had been taught before, she had gone back and forth in her support of polygamy, sometimes allowing it other times not because it was troubling for her, deeply troubling for her as others at the time.

                                           00:08:44             I don’t think it was easy for anyone when it was practiced in reality. Kind of how I want to frame this section going forward is in this quotation by Joseph F. Smith. He’s the son of Hyrum Smith, later becomes President of the Church. He has what I think is a good way to look at this revelation as a whole. He says, when the revelation was written in 1843, it was for a special purpose by the request of the patriarch Hyrum Smith and was not then designed to go forth to the church or to the world. It is most probable that had it then been written with a view to its going out as a doctrine of the church it would have been presented in a somewhat different form. There are personalities contained in a part of it which are not relevant to the principle itself, but rather to the circumstances which necessitated it’s being written.

                                           00:09:45             At that time, Joseph Smith on the day it was written, expressly declared that there was a great deal more connected with the doctrine, which would be revealed in due time, but this was sufficient for the occasion and was made to suffice for the time being end quote. That really rings true to me in how we should approach this section. It was a revelation made by the request of Hyrum Smith to read to Emma who had preexisting knowledge of eternal marriage and plural marriage. Sometimes as I’ve read the section, I felt like I’ve kind of dropped into a topic mid conversation or things are alluded to and you think, oh, you know I, what happened here? What’s this? It could feel a little disjointed while reading that is because we are somewhat being dropped into a mid-conversation record. There’s that as well to be mindful of as we go through and take a look at this.

                                           00:10:48             Just to reinforce this great observation that Joseph F. Smith made. If it were written with a view of its going out as a doctrine of the church, it would’ve been presented in a somewhat different form. There’s a great case to make because that’s a precedent. This was included in the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. It wasn’t publicly presented to the church until 1852. Once the Saints were in the Salt Lake Valley, they had lived here for several years. They had kept the practice of plural marriage quiet, as quiet as they could for that long. They weren’t preaching openly about it from the pulpit. If you were to live in a Latter-day Saint community, it would be obvious some people were practicing it. But if you are not in a Latter-day Saint community, if you lived in Europe, it would not have been something that was taught to you as a doctrine of the church.

                                           00:11:44             But finally in 1852, they decided they would start preaching publicly about it Orson Pratt who we’ve heard about several times already, who put together this edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was the one who first talked about plural marriage in front of a large audience in Salt Lake City. After that, the revelation was published, distributed in newspaper form and in some other formats over the years, and then finally came out canonized in 1876. Joseph Smith did not touch the revelation for it to be published. That was done completely without his say in the matter He had long been dead after that. In earlier versions of the Doctrine and Covenants, when they were prepared for publication during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, he would make revisions to the revelations before they were printed so that they would be adapted for a broader readership. If we look through the revelations, they’re written for people.

                                           00:12:51             This is the same with them in mind as the revelations are being prepared for publication. It still includes the names of the people and the surrounding circumstances in the publications, but he does adapt them so that a broader audience can read them and understand them. Revelation is not necessarily a one and done event. It’s ongoing, so I don’t think it’s problematic to be revising revelations for publication ’cause you’re speaking to a different audience and we have an open canon. Revelation can be received in the preparing of publication. All of that is to say that there’s a precedent for Joseph Smith having changed revelations in preparation for them going to a broader audience than he originally intended for that revelation. That likely would’ve been the case for D&C 132.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:46             He didn’t live to do that.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:13:48             Yeah, but he didn’t live to do that. For our purposes if we read it with the understanding that it was for an audience of one primarily for an audience of one, that can help us in our reading. Also acknowledging that this is a historical document as well.

Hank Smith:                      00:14:09             Brittany, I wanna make sure I understand. I don’t wanna be saved in ignorance. Well, I can’t be saved in ignorance. You’re saying that quite a few sections of the Doctrine & Covenants were for an individual person and before they were published, Joseph would look at them and make changes based on, well, this was for the individual. This is gonna be better read by a broad audience and he has every right to do that. Revelation is a continuous thing. Section 132 did not go through that process because it’s written and then Joseph doesn’t revise it in any way for a general audience. So you’re saying had Joseph been alive, this would likely be very different knowing it’s gonna be read by everyone when it was really, it’s kinda like me sending an email to John and it gets sent out to the world and I’m, oh, I wouldn’t have said it that way had I known.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:15:07             Or portions you would have maybe removed. Like in the section we find it’s evident only Emma and Joseph Smith would’ve known what was being discussed that are still in there. So you know, things would’ve been removed and reflected more of just the doctrine.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:25             That feels very important what you’ve just taught us. I get the feeling of, oh, I wonder what these other sections looked like before.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:15:35             I know, I think you can go see some of them on Joseph Smith Papers. I’m sure there’s material there that you could access on that website.

Hank Smith:                      00:15:43             And Brittany, walk me through just if you wouldn’t mind how a historian says this is a document written by Joseph Smith, like I might read it and go, no, no, no, he didn’t write this. You’re telling me well, it does look different, but not because it wasn’t written by Joseph Smith, but because it wasn’t revised for publication.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:16:04             Yes, and it was written at a certain moment of time under certain pressures and circumstances. When you’re looking at a document, particularly something as important as what you’re going to declare as scripture, you want to make sure you know its provenance. Where did it come from? Who had it, whose possession was it in and for what period of time? That day, the revelation was copied by Joseph Kingsbury word for word. It was read back and verified as being the same document transcribed by William Clayton. Hyrum brought his William Clayton version of the revelation and Emma burned that revelation, but a copy was in the hands of Joseph Kingsbury. That copy was actually read in a very tight circle. It was read to the council of the 50 and a few other people had it in their possession for a short time. It did get small circulation during Joseph Smith’s lifetime and of course plural marriage was continued to be taught during and after Joseph Smith’s death by that corpus of people who had the revelation.

                                           00:17:26             It was not read publicly though until 1852. In that time period it had been in the possession of Newell K. Whitney and then was given to Brigham Young. We have record of the hands that it went between. Provenance is really important for establishing whether or not a record can be trusted as being what it says it is and having a line that you can trace of people. There wasn’t just a gap of 30 years and then this document shows up out of nowhere. And then what’s being said around the document, you like to be able to triangulate your sources. How many sources? Bad, good, it doesn’t matter if they’re friendly sources or unfriendly sources. What mentions this, the more sources you can get that at least make reference or illusion to something existing, the better. It’s quite clear that this document is what it says it is, that it was indeed dictated by Joseph Smith and kept in possession of church leaders until it was announced at the pulpit in 1852.

Hank Smith:                      00:18:39             That’s important, Brittany. It’s important because if I don’t like something I might decide it’s not what it is. I’m gonna throw it out.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:18:47             And there are things in here that are certainly troubling that many people, 19th century Saints included, would love to think didn’t exist and throw out. There is harsh language used in this section that doesn’t seem to coincide with other sections. So it has a different tone than other sections do. What can we attribute that to? Is it because it was directed just to Emma? Is it because it did not go through a revision process? We don’t know what all of those parts may play in what we have now.

Hank Smith:                      00:19:24             Okay. I really appreciate this discussion. It’s a little intricate, but I think all of us need a little mini history degree to say, okay, how do you do this? Because history is not easy. It’s not a hobby that you can just pick up any more than being a dentist. Yeah, I watched a couple YouTube videos, therefore I’m a historian. It’s nice to have someone who said no, there’s rules, there’s evidence.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:19:51             People are always just trying to do their best. You’re always looking for more information to help strengthen your position. You were always in the midst of pointing to what makes the most sense based on evidence.

Hank Smith:                      00:20:03             I can definitely feel the tension. There’s not very many sections of Doctrine & Covenants that we would say that’s gotta go. So there’s a tension over this one.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:20:14             Yeah, for sure.

Hank Smith:                      00:20:15             You’re helping us lay out the truth based on the evidence.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:20:19             Yeah. As far as I understand it, and by no means claim perfection or perfect knowledge, just sharing the understanding I’ve come to, so as we dive into the section itself, it again, like many of the other sections in the Doctrine and Covenants comes as a answer to a question or questions that Joseph Smith has had in trying to understand the Old Testament patriarchs. He sees his role to restore all things for this new dispensation of times that he sees himself as being a part of this opening. All things in past dispensations should be renewed in this new dispensation and looking back at the Old Testament for patterns and what’s been done in other dispensations, polygamy is something that he observes and he’s questioning is that something that needs to be restored?

John Bytheway:               00:21:14             Is this one of those I wish I would never have asked.

Hank Smith:                      00:21:20             Well, you’re right Brittany. He is searching the Old Testaments where we get Zion, right? Melchizedek Priesthood, Aaronic Priesthood, temples.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:21:27             The early Saints very much identify with the Old Testament Saints like they refer to themselves as you know Israel. He was pondering about these Old Testament patriarchs and then also pondering what does marriage look like? What’s the eternal nature of marriage and what is it like in heaven? We see echoes of that question throughout this section trying to see into the next life. I would say the primary purpose of this section is to explain the practice of plural marriage, like we’re dropped into a conversation like we discussed earlier, and the concept of eternal marriage, which Joseph Smith had been teaching since the mid 1830s is in this section to give plural marriage context. I wish we had a separate revelation about eternal marriage on its own. I think we would benefit a lot from that additional knowledge. We’re just seeing it in part here in this section. So we see eternal marriage in the context of plural marriage and I hope that is not too confusing.

Hank Smith:                      00:22:30             That makes sense. So we’re not getting a revelation on what God thinks about marriage. Right? Like we’re getting a piece of what he thinks about marriage, the plural marriage part.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:22:43             Yeah, so it’s like, you know that eternal marriage that we were talking about, this is how plural marriage fits into eternal marriage.

Hank Smith:                      00:22:49             We’re missing what could be the rest of the conversation.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:22:52             Right. In the beginning, the revelation opens up in verse one with verily thus saith the Lord and acknowledges the questions Joseph Smith had about the Old Testament practice of polygamy. It addresses the ancient roots of polygamy that modern polygamy can be seen of as an extension of the ancient practice.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:16             It’s interesting that he says in verse three, prepare your heart to receive and obey.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:23:22             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:23:23             In other words, brace for impact.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:27             Wait, what?

John Bytheway:               00:23:28             Here it comes.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:23:30             You’re not going to like this. He goes on after that very wary introduction there to explain what is eternal marriage. That’s a concept that most people love to learn about and have no problem with. You know, we love the thought of being able to be with our loved ones as we’ve talked about so much today. We love that eternal sealing, eternal marriage exists so we can be united with our loved ones forever. In verse six it talks about, and as pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fullness of my glory and he that receiveth a fullness thereof must and shall abide the law here pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant. I think we can think of that as eternal marriage as opposed to a new and everlasting covenant referred to in verse four. As we enter this section, we’re kind of interweaving eternal marriage and plural marriage and when it’s being referred to verse three, prepare yourself, prepare thy heart for I will reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant that we can think of as being polygamy. Verse six, the new and everlasting covenant is eternal marriage. We can see how polygamy may be an element or a part of the bigger concept of eternal marriage.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:59             Okay. That’s very helpful, Brittany. I really appreciate that distinction between verse four and verse six, a new and everlasting covenant, the new and everlasting covenant. I remember four years ago, John, when Dr. Holbrook was here, we’ll put a link in our show notes and on YouTube for that episode as well. So then Brittany and Kate can be mission companions on this.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:25:23              Yes.

Hank Smith:                      00:25:23             We can have our listeners listen to both. John, do you remember she said, can we agree that God uses monogamous marriages to bring about his purposes, which is of course, yes, and she said, can we also agree that not all monogamous marriages look the way God wants them to look? Yes. Right, yes. That then she bridged that to can we agree that sometimes God uses polygamous marriages to bring about his purposes and here we’ve got Brittany pointing out Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and we said, yes, John, if you remember she said yes and she said, and then can we agree that not all polygamous marriages look the way God wants them to look? There’s some clarity in that statement. God is commenting Brittany on both in this section.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:26:13             Yeah, in this we see that, and I adore that statement not only because it’s from Kate who I adore and admire, but because it rings true in many different ways because oftentimes it’s easy to think of polygamy as being something so different from monogamy, but in reality the same thing is happening like in Latter-day Saints theology, like the same ordinance is occurring. Just how that is manifest is different, but the covenants and blessings are the same. How we choose to live them is our opportunity.

Hank Smith:                      00:26:53             Brittany, I really appreciate how gentle you’re being with us because when you’re talking marriage, you’re talking about the most intimate relationship of someone’s life. I’ve noticed in other sections of the Doctrine & Covenants when things happen or now there’s scriptures where things happen that we don’t like and we don’t get as emotional about this section 132 and plural marriage. It brings out just a lot of emotion. I think that’s important to acknowledge. That’s okay.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:27:25             Absolutely. I mean we feel very protective of people. Some tension comes when there’s question about the abuse of authority. Is Joseph Smith abusing the trust that people have placed in him as a prophet and asking something contrary to God’s will? That was a very real thought, then at that time period, and now it’s still a question. When we ask that question, we can look at the people who were heeding the council to marry polygamously. What was their rationale? Why did they choose to do it and what were the fruits of plural marriage in their lives? For some plural marriage was a negative and horrible experience. For others, it was beautiful and a wonderful choice that they made for their lives. By and large, people were motivated to marry plurarly because they believed it was a commandment of God. Most had a holy motivation. I would say, you know, it was a decision based out of religious conviction.

                                           00:28:32             We have such an emotional reaction to it because it involves those very tender relationships that we hold most dear, and marriage in itself is a huge step in trust. When you’re trusting someone else to walk with you through life. For Latter-day Saints to walk with you through eternity, you would never want that trust to be tossed away or treated as unimportant. This is where we must look back and rely on the stories of those 19th century Saints who received this revelation during the time that polygamy was being asked to being lived. How did they hear this revelation? How did they see it being acted out? In verse seven, the revelation begins talking about the sealing power. There’s a phrase that says, I have appointed unto my servant Joseph to hold this power in the last days and there is never but one on earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred.

                                           00:29:35             So there’s one person who holds the keys and we suggest that even today one President of the Church who holds the keys, but even in Joseph Smith’s day, he passed those keys to others and allowed them the sealing power as well. So Joseph Smith never sealed his own unions. He wasn’t going around marrying himself to other people. He gave the keys to other men who would then seal him to his spouses. That’s something that’s always been part of the Latter-day Saint practice of marriage, including plural marriage is the sharing of those priesthood keys to seal. In saying that he did tightly regulate the practice in giving permission for those who could seal who had the sealing power, so not everybody did.

Hank Smith:                      00:30:29             It was invitation, it was calling, it was I am trusting you.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:30:34             Right, and it was not something flippantly done. There are really fascinating stories over and over. You see similar patterns of women during this novel period asked to practice and it’s a similar pattern of being like absolutely horrified that such a practice would exist and then a period of intense prayer seeking. Then if it’s asked of them submitting or accepting the practice, some chose not to practice it personally, but had a testimony of the principle and others rejected the principle, and I’m probably getting too ahead of myself there. We’re in verse seven, there’s one portion that says that marriages should be entered into and sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise and my dear friend Jonathan Stapley has written a book that’s published by Oxford University Press, it’s called Holiness to the Lord. In there he explores what exactly this Holy Spirit of promise is and how it was understood at that time.

                                           00:31:38             I’m just gonna read straight from his book. He says, the Holy Spirit of promise is a New Testament term referring to the Holy Ghost and Joseph Smith understood it to mean the power and authority to solemnize relationships that endure for eternity. Smith taught that through this power, the human family could be sealed together in a durable network. Being sealed together meant creating heaven or as participants called it the Priesthood. The Holy Spirit of promise was seen as the power and authority to solemnize relationships that endure for eternity. So the sealing power is essential for an eternal relationship and is part of that vision there that we see in verse seven. If we turn to verse 18, it says, and again verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is not by me or by my word, which is my law and is not sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, so like what we just learned about the sealing power through him whom I have anointed and appointed unto this power, then it is not valid neither of force when they are out of the world because they are not joined by me saith the Lord.

                                           00:32:54             He’s reiterating here the importance of receiving a temple marriage that’s sealed by the sealing power. One thing I think is really amazing about our faith is that while emphasizing the importance of receiving the sealing ordinance on earth, there’s also a way provided to allow people who are not Latter-day Saints who lived long before the Restoration to be sealed as well through proxy work in the temples. I really love that in conjunction with all of these declarations that it must occur in this life, there’s also always this redemptive option in proxy work in the temple that it’s never too late for a person to not partake in these blessings because of the work we have in the temples. This is not an exclusive club of people who have chosen to marry in the temple during this life. It’s for all people, all places, all times.

                                           00:33:57             What are those blessings for being sealed in the temple? We read in verse 20, this amazing, amazing promise then shall they be gods because they have no end. Therefore, shall they be from everlasting to everlasting because they continue. Then shall they be above all because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods because they have all power and the angels are subject unto them. My husband brought to my attention while reading this verse, the word they all throughout it then shall they be gods because they have no end. Therefore, shall they be everlasting to everlasting because they continue. This is a journey with two people. It’s not just the man having no end. It’s not just the woman. It’s a partnership that’s required to achieve this glorified state in the next life of being able to create. That is what it means to be a god, a lowercase god. You have the blessing to continue to create and progress. That is a gift.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:08             That you can continue when the Lord says, I think in this section he says it a few times, ye shall be damned. I don’t think he’s saying I’m going to punish you. I think he’s saying the opposite of what you just said. You don’t continue.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:35:23             Yeah. I was curious how did they use the word damned scripturally and did they refer to what the word meant with regard to this section, in the early days, people who were actually taught by Joseph Smith, did they say anything about this? There wasn’t a ton, but what I did find seemed to confirm your reading, Hank of it, discussing a period of not being able to progress because of decisions made or not made.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:52             We read a tone there in our 2025 vernacular of ye shall be damned. It’s this horrific, like, the tone seems so harsh. That’s not, right is that what you’re saying? It’s not that.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:36:07             That’s my understanding.

Hank Smith:                      00:36:09             Brittany, I do want to hear from the people themselves, and I know you’ve brought some of that. We can’t hit every verse. Are there any particular verses you’d like to highlight?

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:36:21             I think it’s important to highlight what people saw as the blessings for entering into plural marriage. What was the motivation that they looked forward to receiving by making that decision? We see in verses 19 and 20 things like inheriting thrones, principalities, rise in the first resurrection, exaltation, continuation of seed, meaning continuing to be able to have children. These are all blessings of the marriage covenant, not just plural marriage, but the eternal marriage covenant. Then we also look to this section because it contains doctrinal reasons for why people were motivated to practice plural marriage in verses 36, 50, 51. We see a theme here of Abrahamic sacrifice. This is an interesting insight as we look to Latter-day Saints in the past, people in the 19th century are reading this for direction about the choices they should make with their lives looking to this for why God is asking them to practice plural marriage.

                                           00:37:33             We know the story from the Old Testament where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his precious son. People look at this like, and Abraham was blessed for having been willing to make that sacrifice, so they thought, okay, well, let me place my all on the altar. My most precious relationship with my spouse. Let me offer that to God and this is an Abrahamic sacrifice so he will see how faithful I’m willing to be. A lot of people looked at plural marriage as being sort of this test as the Lord was making his people the Israelites, modern Zion. Because the Saints saw themselves, they related a lot to Israel and they recognized God would have a tried people, were being purified through this practice. Those were reasons that they felt polygamy was being asked of them to perform because God was creating a people through trial and struggle.

Hank Smith:                      00:38:35             Brittany, what you just said reminds me of a thought. I actually shared this four years ago. This is a incredibly bright individual. She said, when I first began my journey studying polygamy, I was angry by what I saw as an injustice that God required such a difficult principle to be lived by these faithful tried people, but as I studied the personal writings and stories, accepting them on their own terms, I found peace. The practice could have never been sustained for a half century by compulsion, manipulation, or simple sexual desire. Those who set the foundation of the Latter-day Saint faith were not two dimensional superheroes as they’re sometimes portrayed. They were complex, strong, intelligent, full-bodied kingdom builders who were willing to leave loved ones, wealth, comfort, and native countries for what they believed to be true. This same willingness drove them to accept polygamy, a practice they accepted as a commandment of God instituted in their time for His unique purposes. I have since come to view plural marriage as part of the Latter-day Saint history to unapologetically own and to hold as one of the most valuable testaments of faith in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brittany Chapman Nash wrote that.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:40:01             Yeah, that’s a hundred percent how I feel and how I feel we should look at polygamy and how we can view the topic as a whole. I mean, I wish I could just say that and be all done.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:14             But it was an Abrahamic sacrifice, which should be honored.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:40:20             Yeah. They really were offering their all on the altar, whatever that was required of them. As I researched people’s stories, I became reassured that most marriages were entered in with consent, with good faith, with all the mature understanding made in good faith intentionally done because people believed in the promises outlined in Doctrine and Covenants 132, wanting to give those blessings to their descendants. They were worthy impulses. There are so many good sources out there that can help people process the theological nitty gritty of D&C 132. A couple of things I would like to address is what were people’s reactions to the plural marriage revelation? We start getting into the Utah period at the time because the Saints are in Utah. By the time it’s read publicly, how did people receive this commandment and how did people apply it to their own lives? Because as we read scripture today, we see ourselves in the revelation to Oliver Cowdery where the Lord says, you should have done more than just ask me.

                                           00:42:26             We see ourselves in all of these different revelations and try to apply them to us. In the 19th century, Saints were no different. The women saw themselves as Emma. The men saw themselves as Joseph, so how did their readings of these scriptures affect them? The doctrine is hard and unpopular now, just as it was then. People had all different kinds of reactions to it from the moment it was articulated and read for the first time to Emma, she burned the revelation. It’s been received with tension ever since. There is forceful language used in Doctrine & Covenants 132 for Emma to accept plural marriage. That made me wonder, well, with such harsh language, how were women who were asked to be married in Nauvoo respond? Did all of them feel pressure to accept Joseph Smith’s or others marriage proposals and if they didn’t accept, how did it go for them?

                                           00:43:25             Were they damned like the scriptures say? What did it look like on the ground in actual practice, not just in the word of the scriptures? I was interested to find that there were women who rejected Joseph Smith’s marriage proposals. There were no negative social repercussions to them. They weren’t slandered in society or suffered anything negative. From what I can tell, Sarah Kimball is one of those women who’s a very prominent woman. She helped found the Relief Society. In her 1883 autobiography she records this following instance. She says, early in the year, 1842, Joseph Smith taught me the principle of marriage for eternity and the doctrine of plural marriage. He said that in teaching this, he realized that he jeopardized his life, but God had revealed it to him many years before as a privilege with blessing. Now, God had revealed it again and instructed him to teach it with commandment as the church could travel or progress no further without the introduction of this principle.

                                           00:44:26             I asked him to teach it to someone else. He looked at me reprovingly and said, will you tell me who to teach it to? God requires me to teach it to you and leave you with the responsibility of believing or disbelieving. She chose not to marry him, but you know there was no negative repercussion. They still enjoyed a friendship. She accomplished great good and was very much an essential part of the community and continue to be a believer in Joseph Smith even after rejecting a plural marriage proposal. There’s another story about a young woman named Cordelia Morley Cox. Joseph Smith would often go through people’s trusted friends or family members to approach plural marriage proposals. He wouldn’t always go himself and make the proposal like he did in this case with Sarah Kimball. In Cordelia’s case, she learned about the principle through her parents. She rejected it outright.

                                           00:45:27             In her words, she said, she refused, stating, I knew nothing of such religion and could not accept it neither did I. There were no negative social repercussions for her or her family. Interestingly, in her case, later on after Joseph Smith’s death, she chose to marry polygamously. She was eventually converted to the principle of plural marriage. We see that in practice. Nothing harsh happened to people who did not choose to practice polygamy, and we see that in Nauvoo and we also see that in Utah where there were always a minority of people practicing polygamy. They were still considered faithful, valuable, worthy Latter-day Saints.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:12             I’m sure there’s exception. I’m sure we could search and find somebody who says they were rejected by their family. You’re saying the vast experience of people was they didn’t want to do it, and they were…

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:46:25             Exactly. Every story is different. It’s hard to make generalizations.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:30             There wasn’t a standard church practice of reject this and we march you out of Salt Lake and…

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:46:36             Absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. These two scenarios I shared deal specifically with Joseph Smith and how he understood there was no ill feeling when he was rejected in his marriage proposals.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:51             This is so difficult Brittany. You’re walking us through this in such a tender way and I really appreciate it. Let me throw something out at you both, in 1 Nephi chapter three and four we get to a very difficult story, and I don’t know if I saw it as difficult until I presented the Book of Mormon to someone who’d never read it. They tell me, I don’t wanna read this. Your prophet is decapitating someone. I thought, oh, I guess that’s true. I never thought of it that way. As I’ve thought about that, I thought, okay, well that’s a very natural response. Thou shalt not kill, Nephi kill, and I’ve thought, well, I trust Nephi. Everything else in Nephi’s record tells me I can trust him. It’s none of my business really. It’s between him and the Lord. I can’t see myself inserting myself.

                                           00:47:45             I need an explanation for this. I’m sure the Lord would say, what do you have to do with any of it? and I’m okay waiting to hear it from Nephi. If there is gonna be a good explanation, it’s gonna come from him or the Lord. I feel that same way about plural marriage, that here’s this commandment, here’s this opposite instruction. This is between them and the Lord. Everything else in their lives tell me they can all be, these are all very trusted, faithful individuals. I don’t know about both of you. I bet you’d say the same thing. I’m okay waiting, if there is an explanation to hear it from them. I can stay active in the church, love my church, love my testimony, and say, yeah, one day I bet we’ll hear it from them.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:48:33             Right. Also to recognize, no matter how a person feels on this principle, they’re likely not alone in their reaction or emotion to things. It was likely experienced by the Saints then and now. No one should feel ashamed about how they may read or feel about D&C 132 or the topic of polygamy.

Hank Smith:                      00:48:56             I wanna be careful here. I find it heartbreaking that many of our friends would throw out their entire faith over this, and it’s not that they’re bad people. I just find that heartbreaking. In your mind, that doesn’t have to happen. If I don’t feel good about this, do I have to throw everything out that Joseph Smith ever said or did?

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:49:18             That’s a really hard issue because for some people it calls into question Joseph Smith’s character, and because we base so much on his testimony, I mean his, is he telling the truth about his story? That when you feel like, oh, maybe there’s an unrighteous exercise of power so I can understand where someone is coming from. Certainly. At the same time, I would take the qualm up with the people who actually had to practice and what they had to say about it and their experiences. How did they defend themselves in their practice? And there’s no shortage of writing from Latter-day Saints in the 19th century defending themselves saying, this is why I’m choosing to practice. This is how I’m manifesting my faith. I think if a person reads them and their words, the anger and offense we may feel on their behalf, like I once certainly felt, it just kind of goes away because you realize they were making a choice and they understood the choice that they were making and why they were doing it. For me, I came to a point where I could just trust them, trust in what they were saying, that it was true.

Hank Smith:                      00:50:39             Brittany, one of the many positive reviews of your book, Let’s Talk About Polygamy, this one was written by a woman named Erin. She said, back in 2006, I had a major faith crisis centered around the position of women in my religion, past and present. I particularly was grappling with the polygamy in our history. As I was wrestling with this, I had a life altering flash of revelation for all my angst about it. I had never once in my life read what one of these women had to say about her experiences or her life. In fact, if you asked me to even come up with the names of five of them, I couldn’t do it. I realized that if I was going to experience angst, I should really have a better understanding of what I had angst about and who I was feeling it on behalf of. She goes through and tells about reading your book.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:51:36             That’s key is to understand who these people are and why they chose to practice it, and in the end, you’ll have nothing but admiration because we are human. There are people who did not practice polygamy well, just as there are people who did not, do not practice monogamy well, but it can be an exceptionally faith promoting topic to learn about.

John Bytheway:               00:51:58             I keep remembering what MacLane Heward taught us rather than being offended for them, then let’s be inspired by them. In a similar way instead of thinking about what people think of Joseph Smith today who’ve never met him, why don’t we talk about people who actually knew him? What did they have to say about him that interacted with him? We can meet him later and ask him stuff if we need to, but right now I’ve gotta learn to be nice to my neighbors and my cat, and I’ve gotta learn, you know, I’ve got my own things I gotta worry about. Yeah. I love Section 101. In that day when the Lord shall come, He shall reveal all things, things which have passed, hidden things which no man knew, and I just think we don’t have all the facts right now. I think it’s part of the test. Will I go forward with faith when I don’t know the reasons for everything? It’s part of of our test.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:02             Yeah. I’ve learned in the temple to wait for further light and knowledge and I know not save the Lord commanded me, right?

John Bytheway:               00:53:11             Good old Father Adam. That is one of the best stories. If we can take that instead of, okay, heavenly Father, I’m willing to do everything, but I need to know exactly why I’m doing everything and you better explain it really well, or I’m not doing it.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:53:27             If we loop back to 1852, how did the Saints receive it? It was totally diverse. There is a missionary named Fanny Stenhouse serving with her husband Thomas in Switzerland, and so she received a publication of the revelation while they were there and she said, before I had got through one half, I threw it aside feeling altogether rebellious against God and began to feel perfectly reckless and even willing to throw aside my religion and take my chance of salvation rather than submit to polygamy for I felt that the new doctrine was a degradation to womankind. So she really struggled with those feelings. She later allowed her husband to marry plurally, so there was some kind of reconciliation, but eventually both she and her husband left the church partially over this principle. But for others, the revelation inspired their joining the church. A woman named Emily B. Spencer, she said that when she was 18, she read the revelation on plural marriage. She said, my mind being already prepared, I readily believed it. I clearly saw that if I did not join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I could not be united with my husband through eternity as I had fondly hoped. I believed then, as I know now, that this revelation on celestial marriage was from the Lord, and I have been blessed in believing it.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:53             I have never heard of someone joining the church.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:54:58             Isn’t that interesting?

John Bytheway:               00:54:58             That’s a new one.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:54:59             Yeah. I think she had been reading the Old Testament in her reference to her mind being prepared. She had been thinking and pondering on that. A woman named Sarah C. Jensen, she joined the church in Denmark in 1850, was asked to translate the revelation from German into Danish when it had come to Europe. Later, she recalled being asked to do this and said, this was the first I had ever heard or seen of this doctrine of polygamy. I must say that I was thunderstruck. It was so contrary to my feeling and tradition that I stopped. Some doubts came to me and after a severe struggle with weeping and praying, I saw some light and the Lord speak peace to my soul, and I had a testimony of the divinity of this great revelation, and by the help of God, I felt willing to make this great sacrifice and in due time to obey this command.

                                           00:55:51             I lived in this order for 33 years until my husband’s death. I translated the revelation, which was the first printed in the Danish language. This wrestle and reconciliation was a frequent pattern that you see, so this pattern continued through the second generation, and once people came to Utah, polygamy became part of the fabric of society. Children were born into polygamous families, had polygamous relatives. It was normal in their community. That doesn’t mean that it was necessarily embraced fully or practiced universally. There was always a minority of people who chose to live that way. There’s a woman named Martha Craig Cox. I just love her autobiography. She was married in 1869 through reading what became section 132. By reading that revelation, she became converted to the principle of polygamy. She became converted to the principle of plural marriage and wanted to marry that way, and her family was very upset and I’ll read you their reaction and then her subsequent reaction to that.

                                           00:57:00             She writes in her autobiography, my decision to marry into a plural family tried my family, all of them, and in giving them trial, I was sorely tried. I had studied out the matter. I knew the principle of plural marriage to be correct, to be the highest holiest order of marriage. I knew too that I might fail to live the holy life required and lose the blessings offered if I had not learned before to go to the Lord with my burden. I surely learned to go to him now having decided to enter this order, it seemed I had passed the Rubicon. I could not go back, though I feign would’ve done so rather than incur the hatred of my family. If the Lord would’ve manifested an answer to my sleepless nights of prayer that the principle of plural marriage was wrong and it was not the will of heaven that I should enter it, I felt I should be happy, but it only made me miserable beyond endurance.

                                           00:57:47             When I tried to recede from the decision I had made to enter it, my only relief was in prayer, and prayer only strengthened my resolve to the decision I had made to enter it. She said, when the final decision was made known to my family that I could not recede from my purpose, the storm broke upon my head. It was not a marriage of love they claimed, and in saying so they struck me a blow for I could not say that I had really loved the man as lover’s love, though I loved his wives and the spirit of their home, I could not assure my family that my marriage was gotten up solely on the foundation of love for a man. The fact was I had asked the Lord to lead me in the right way for my best good and the way to fit me for a place in his kingdom.

                                           00:58:29             He had told me how to go and I must follow in the paths he dictated, and that was all there was to it. Women came to their own decisions about what to do to direct their life path just as we do now. Personal revelation was a key element for these marriages, as was agency. Each person has had their individual journey of what made them eventually accept the principle. Some lived their entire lives of believing Latter-day Saints and never accepted the principle of polygamy. I feel kind of heretical saying this, but they weren’t considered unfaithful by not practicing polygamy. It was a choice that people made.

John Bytheway:               00:59:11             So Brittany, you would say that consent was always part of it as it was taught.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           00:59:17             As it was taught for sure. Thanks to Orson Pratt he wrote out the entire plural marriage sealing ceremony in the periodical. The Seer. It’s available online, written in 1853. And agency is actually a crucial part of the sealing ceremony. The expectation of consent is built into plural marriage in the ritual itself and in the way it is meant to be practiced. Of course, there were times where coercion occurred unfortunately, or social pressure. Those things did happen and that was wrong. That was not the intention of the practice. It was meant to be engaged in through free will.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:03             I like how you’ve taken us through some of these stories. You’ve done exactly what you want our listeners to do, which is let’s hear from

John Bytheway:               01:00:11             from the people who actually know.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:00:14             Yeah. Who wrestled with the feelings just like we do, but for them with the reality that it was a way to live. They would choose to live.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:23             Yeah. What was that like, Brittany reading all those?

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:00:27             It was really inspiring. Some things made me upset and those feelings of righteous indignation came, surfaced. You know, you just need to go back and just like Martha Craig Cox, it was a decision she made and her family was upset, but she was committed and determined that for her this was the path she wanted to take. It was faith in God and what she felt he wanted for her life that made her make that decision, and this is one of my all time favorite polygamy quotes, but this is what Martha.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:07             We’ve rarely heard that. Just, yeah,

John Bytheway:               01:01:09             I don’t think anybody else has a list of those.

Hank Smith:                      01:01:11             Has ever said.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:01:12             I have a long list of great quotes or I should say of stirring faith promoting quotes from these polygamists. Martha reflecting back on her lifetime with her two sister wives. She says, to me, it is a joy to know that we laid the foundation of a life to come while we lived in that plural marriage that we three who loved each other more than sisters, children of one mother love, will go hand in hand together down through all eternity. That knowledge is worth more to me than gold and more than compensates for all the sorrow I have ever known. You just get the sense of like the depth of relationship that these plural families allowed women to have as well. I mean, along with its difficulties, it came with unique blessings too. For Martha it was these intensely rich and loving relationships with her sister wives and their children.

                                           01:02:07             How she says here, their children of one mother love, they all shared each other’s children, so that was really lovely. It wasn’t just women who wrote about polygamy. There’s a bunch of men as well, but one of my favorite quotes from a man, his name is Andrew J. Hansen. He had three wives. He wrote his autobiography after the 1890 manifesto, the beginning of the end of polygamy. He’s reflecting back on his life as a husband to multiple wives, the faith that drove him and his wives to marry. So after telling those stories, he says, to future generations who will have been brought up under monogamy conditions. The foregoing will no doubt seem absurd, but I make no apologies. I owe none. Celestial and plural marriage is a law of heaven, and at that time enforced among God’s people on earth, sanctioned and approved by him, and I knew it.

                                           01:03:05             Sorry, that quote makes me teary. It stirs emotion in me because I see the faith in their, you know, the fearlessness and the determination to obey God in a difficult commandment, recognizing that at that time it was enforced. He’s saying this after the manifesto, after polygamy is no longer being practiced, he saw it was a period of time that God commanded the practice of polygamy, and he knew it because it was within his stewardship at that time to act upon that commandment. So he was given the testimony to act upon it. We don’t have that same stewardship, that same need to have a testimony of polygamy because it’s not in our stewardship to practice that now. We leave the testimonies with those who practiced it. Polygamy is not something we should feel ashamed of or feel sheepish about or apologetic. It’s history. It’s our history, and it gave the Latter-day Saints a great legacy of faith to build on. The polygamists in our Latter-day Saint past would be happy to have offered that legacy of faith to us.

Hank Smith:                      01:04:21             Brittany, I’ve found that not only am I inspired by the people you’ve been telling us about, but I’m inspired by you. There’s a sense of spiritual depth to someone who’s gone through the process of reading and writing and grappling, and then they come and talk to you and you can feel it.

John Bytheway:               01:04:42             There are probably very few people who have done what you have done, Brittany, and gone through those actual stories. We may never do that, but I can look at the outcome of what you have come to know. Yeah, and it gives me a measure of peace to know.

                                           01:04:58             She’s looked at hundreds of these stories and I can go and look at her. She’s okay. Testimony intact. And I can go. Okay.

Hank Smith:                      01:05:10             I’m sure you’ll say no, no, but you know, we talked in the beginning about visiting angels, how you can know if they’re full of light. I think John, would you, I would describe Brittany that way we can clearly discern.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:05:22             Mm wow.

Hank Smith:                      01:05:23             Yeah. We can clearly discern. For a lot of our listeners, Brittany, you’re gonna be that angel of light in maybe a dark place that they’re in when it comes to this topic.

John Bytheway:               01:05:34             And maybe they can say, you know, I still don’t have a testimony of this. She told me I didn’t have to have one, but I can put this on the doesn’t fit yet pile and I can move forward with all of the things that I know that do fit. I’m gonna move forward with those.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:05:51             Yeah. That’s the hardest piece. It’s okay to not expect it to ever fit. It may not ever fit, and that that’s okay with polygamy.

John Bytheway:               01:06:00             And you don’t have to have a testimony of it right now.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:06:03             You do not. You do not need to. And there’s nothing wrong with you if you feel negatively about it, people have wrestled with it, have lived it, and we can leave it with them. We can leave it with the 19th century Saints.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:17             If you wanna get a message to Brittany, come on to YouTube and leave a comment there, or come to our website and we’ll make sure she gets all of those. Brittany, I think there’s going to be many, many, many people who we love ’cause they’re part of our family. Right, John?

John Bytheway:               01:06:32             Right.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:33             You know, listeners will say, thank you so much for what you do, and I say, no, thank you for listening. We are a partnership here and I think you’ve blessed many, many of them. We’ll refer to you Brittany, as our angel of light here.

Sis. Brittany Nash:           01:06:49             Thank you.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:51             With that, we want to thank Sister Brittany Chapman Nash for joining us today and giving up her time and expertise. We wanna thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder. John, when Steve and I talked about starting this, he said, we need to get these faithful, brilliant scholars to Latter-day Saints. It’s exactly what we did today.

John Bytheway:               01:07:19             That’s what we get to do. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:20             We remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We only have a few more episodes on the Doctrine & Covenants coming up on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. FollowHIM.co. That’s followHIM.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith and Annabelle Sorensen.