The Mormon Church’s odd explanation for Joseph Smith’s polygamy

Last week, the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints announced that its founder, Joseph Smith, had as many as 40 wives.

The news itself isn’t that surprising, and subsequent assertions in the media that this was the first time the LDS Church had admitted to their founder’s plural marriages are a bit of an exaggeration.

After all, the Church had said many times before that not only did Smith practice polygamy, he received a revelation commanding him to do so in the early 1840s.

And, of course, Mormon President Wilford Woodruff received a similar revelation commanding the faith to cease practicing polygamy in 1890 — not too long after the practice was outlawed in the United States.

So the question one has to ask in light of the recent announcement shouldn’t be whether the Church has already acknowledged its history with respect to plural marriage. Instead, we should be asking what’s up with these new “revelations.”

Last week’s announcement includes the word “revelation” thirteen times, the first of which comes in the second paragraph:

After receiving a revelation commanding him to practice plural marriage, Joseph Smith married multiple wives and introduced the practice to close associates. This principle was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration — for Joseph personally and for other Church members…Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.

Furthermore, Heaven apparently insisted rather strongly. As the announcement continues:

Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.

In order to understand the above passages, one has to understand that young religions that plan on being successful almost always adopt principles — invariably based on some sort of divine instruction — that are designed to rapidly grow the size of the flock. Mormonism is just the most recent example of a rapidly-expanding religion adopting an evolutionarily-advantageous growth strategy.

And the strategy is working, as Mormonism is one of the fastest-growing religions in America. While the faith no longer practices polygamy, Mormons do still marry early and procreate often. Plus, every member of the religion spends two years spreading the faith through missionary work. If the religion is organized around one guiding principle, that principle is clearly this: Make more Mormons, by any means necessary.

But to say that the Latter-Day Saints considered marriage a divine contract between one man and many women, because it gave them a Darwinian advantage over other religions, would be giving Joseph Smith far more credit than he deserves.

After all, the foundation of Mormonism is the story of a con.

Joseph Smith — himself a previously-convicted fraud — concocted an obviously-false, largely plagiarized storythat comprised various elements of spirituality drawn from the “Burned-Over District” of upstate New York that Smith grew up in. In “translating” the Book of Mormon into English, he used “seer stones” that were the centerpiece of the money-digging scheme he had previously been convicted of. And when the the first 116 pages of the translation were lost, the version Smith reproduced was different from the original. A fact that struck many as odd; if the words were in fact dictated by God, they should have been indentical.

Given how ridiculous the story is, it’s a wonder that the religion has seen so much success. But if members of the faith are able to square the first and most absurd circle that is the story of how the religion was founded, rationalizing polygamy as being divinely inspired isn’t all that difficult. As their statement continues:

Although the Lord commanded the adoption — and later the cessation — of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment. Significant social and cultural changes often include misunderstandings and difficulties… Through it all, Church leaders and members sought to follow God’s will.

One can’t help but be reminded of the “revelation” the Mormon faith had that black people were equal to whites —in 1978. (And it’s a revelation they’re still apparently perfecting.)

So we are left with three possible explanations for why Joseph Smith established polygamy as a principle of the Mormon faith. The one being offered to us by the Church (an angel made him do it). The one suggested by the repetition of history (young religions — including Judaism and Islam — often adopt polygamy as part of the larger goal: sustainability and growth). And the one suggested by the biography of the religion’s founder (Joseph Smith was a horny con man).

I’ll leave it to you to decide which is most likely.