(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best mormonism books

Hello!

Congrats on your journey so far. I am a convert to the church (baptized a little over a year ago) and remember feeling exactly like you did. Being baptized into the church was the biggest (and best) decision of my life, but it was not a decision I wanted to make lightly. I have a few book suggestions and then some semi-unsolicited but hopefully helpful comments.

The God Who Weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens — I read this one while investigating the church, and it really opened my eyes to how truly beautiful Mormon theology is. So many other religions only left more questions for me, and Mormonism was the first thing that clicked. This book brings a lot of those ideas together. Also I am obsessed with Terryl Givens, everything he writes is fantastic, which brings me to...

Wrestling the Angel also by Givens. This is definitely more of a Mormonism 303 lesson as it is quite academic. But Givens does a fantastic job explaining Mormon doctrine within the larger historical landscape of Christianity. The book is organized topically, so you can kind of skip around and read about what interests you.

Some of my favorite talks that have really spoken to me:

His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox

God is the Gardener by Hugh B. Brown

On How We Know by Truman G. Madsen

Some other suggestions:

Not sure where you live, but I highly recommend attending any local Institute classes that might be happening (your missionaries will know of them). It's a once a week class where people get together and discuss the Gospel. For me it was great to discuss things with people other than the missionaries and the member who introduced me to the church.

Don't feel like you have to know everything. This was my biggest stumbling block to deciding to be baptized. I felt like because this was such a huge decision (it was), I had to know absolutely everything I could before agreeing (impossible). One of the things I love most about the Gospel is its promise of never-ending, always increasing knowledge to anyone who will seek it. Baptism is not the destination. It is merely the gate into the kingdom of God, the beginning of a journey that has brought so much endless peace, joy, and love into my life. At a certain point I realized I could never know everything, but I knew enough to know that this path would take me to where I needed to be, that this is a life worth living.

Oooo this is my wheelhouse!

First, I would recommend looking at the Mormon History Association Best Book awards going back to 1966. Quality scholarship, research, and writing are a mainstay with them.

Required reading:

Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John Turner / Brigham Young: American Moses by Leonard Arrington

Considered two of the best books about early Utah and the Brigham Young years. Arrington's book was considered groundbreaking when he wrote it, and Turner's book brings in the valuable perspective of the non-Mormon writing about Young. For many Mormons, Turner's book will be less sympathetic to Young than Arrington's, but Turner also worked closely with the Church Archives (and spoke glowingly about them and that process), so his research had access to some better sources. If you need a primer for Brigham Young, I recommend Arrington's book. For a Brigham Young graduate level course, I recommend Turner.

Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview by Michael Quinn

To understand much of what happened in early Mormonism, you must understand the role that folk magic played in the lives of Americans in the 1800s. Quinn's research at this time was top notch, and he was a quickly rising star among Mormon historians. Considered one of his best works, and foundational to the understanding things like seer stones, divining rods, visions, and everything else that happened in the early church days.

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Greg Prince

Covers late 1940s - 1960s Mormonism, one of the "rising moments" of Mormonism when we went from a Utah-church to a worldwide church. Prince had amazing access to the journals of President McKay's secretary, which led to some candid discussions about things like the publishing of Mormon Doctrine by McConkie, blacks and the priesthood, ecumenical outreach, and politics.

Spencer W. Kimball by Edward Kimball / Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball by Edward Kimball

Ed was Pres. Kimball's son, and the books cover both the apostle years and presidency years of Spencer W. Kimball. If you had to choose one, get Lengthen Your Stride, but make sure it has the CD that comes with the book. This has the unabridged manuscript prior to the Deseret Book edits, which is much more interesting.

By the Hand of Mormon by Terryl Givens (heck...anything by Terryl Givens!)

I'll admit - I'm a Terryl Givens fanboy. By the Hand of Mormon was the one that first got me in to him, mostly because he took the Book of Mormon as a serious work of literature to examine it's merits. It's not as devotional as many traditional LDS books about the Book of Mormon (it was put out by Oxford University Press), but it really gave me a deeper appreciation for the Book of Mormon as contemporary literature. Also check out Viper on the Hearth (Mormons on myth and heresy), People of Paradox (Mormon culture), When Souls had Wings (the pre-existence in Western thought), and so many others.

And just because I'm a big book nerd, here's the list of books that are on my desk right now that I can give you quick reviews if you want:

• Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History by Greg Prince
  
• The Mormon Jesus: A Biography by John Turner
  
• Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, edited by Brooks, Steenblik and Wheelwright
  
• Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness by W. Paul Reeve
  
• Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority and Equal Rights by Martha Sonntag Bradley
  
• A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine & Church History, edited by Laura Harris Hales
  
• Glorious in Persecution: Joseph Smith, American Prophet 1839-1844 by Martha Bradley Evans
  
• The Mormon Church & Blacks: A Documentary History, edited by Harris & Bringhurst
  
• From the Outside Looking In: Essays on Mormon History, Theology and Culture, edited by Neilson & Grow
  
• Out of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945, edited by Mason & Turner
  
• Mormonism & American Politics, edited by Balmer & Riess
  
• Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics by Campbell, Green & Monson
  
• A Book of Mormons: Latter-day Saints on a Modern-Day Zion, edited by Jensen & McKay-Lamb
  
• Revelations in Context: The Stories Behind the Sections of the Doctrine & Covenants by the LDS Church
  
• Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805-1830 by Richard S. Van Wagoner
  
• Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths by Ann Taves (looking at Mormonism, Alcoholics Anonymous and A Course in Miracles)
  
• A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
  
• Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly about Love, Sex, and Marriage edited by Holly Welker

> I contend that pretty much any argument about why suffering is necessary falls apart when you examine the claim against the lack of suffering in heaven,

I disagree. I'm not great at analogies, but if I might make an analogy to chess, and blundering, and losing because of a blunder, each corresponding roughly to life, and sinning, and a particular for of suffering, I think I can address the perfect heaven without suffering argument by asking you to consider the candidates tournament, or any large group of chess grand masters. Zero blunders, and yet still free will, simply because people who blunder either aren't there, or have long since learned to avoid blunders. Yet there is still striving and losing and learning and growth, even among the grand-masters.

I have to confess here that I'm not your typically Christian. I was raised Mormon, but I'm not even your typical Mormon. But in the Mormon view, "perfect" in the Heaven sense doesn't imply an end to growth, quite the opposite. For example, God is perfect, and yet he suffers when he sees his creation (us) sin. There is much to be learned from this, and whole books have been written on it, yet even among Mormons it's not commonly thought about. But at the least, we learn it is not necessary to conclude that there is no suffering in Heaven, and certainly no Mormon seriously thinks we'll be sitting around on clouds strumming harps. There won't be sin, but only because Heaven is only for people who freely choose not to sin (having been sanctified by Jesus, etc., etc., in case the religiously-inclined censure me for leaving out the most important part of the process).

>I actually think that the religious models of the next life largely undercut their justifications for suffering in this life.

I have found this to be true for many Christians who just go with the flow. However, it's not to say that those who have carefully considered the implications of their beliefs haven't found satisfactory explanations. Generally speaking, they abandon the naive or over-simplified views of omnipotence, God, Heaven, and the rest. Many are forced to admit that they don't really know as much about the afterlife as they thought they did. But that really shouldn't be a ding against them. I thought I understood physics in HS, but in college I learned about GR and QM/QED and now I'm perfectly certainly that I don't understand physics, yet I'm even more sure than before that QED is a better description of natural law than Maxwell's equations, for example.

Disclosure: I love to debate, and don't necessarily believe the specific things I'm describing here. I am simply arguing that there is a logically coherent worldview that includes a loving God and the level of suffering we see in the world, as well as a belief in an afterlife that is fair and yet includes free will, for reasonable definitions of loving, fair, free will, etc.

Bear Your Testimony is a Protestant thing, typical evanglical. You don't see it in Anglican or Catholic denominations basically at all, let alone under that name. When somebody is sharing their "testimony" they are sharing "their story", or "their journey", or "how god touched them", but it's never explicitly "my testimony".

The LDS church is the only place I've ever even seen F&T meetings. But it's part of my favorite things about the Church. This outward sharing of faith. Sure, F&T meetings are more "preaching to the chior" and "family story time", but it's usually considered highly inappropriate in today's society to just randomly testify.

The Sacrament for me is...not very different from the Catholic one. I very briefly believed in the real presence, but I feel that same closeness to God when I partake of the Sacrament, so I just assume it's all ordained by Heavenly Father to get us closer to Him, no matter where life takes us. [Reads further] Oh, you mean like...the how. Yeah in the Catholic Church the sacraments are Baptism, Confession, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination to the Priesthood, and Anointing of the Sick. You guys have all of those, and are also all provided by priesthood members, but you guys only call "communion" "The Sacrament". Which is totally valid and fine. I could go either way on that.

Also the saint thing, pretty much exactly spot on. When we are confirmed we usually pick a "patron saint" who will pray for us in time of trouble. I guess Catholics sort of believe that Saints are semi-omnipotent? I'm not sure.

Also if it seems that I'm answering from both sides of the pew, I am. I struggle to decide LDS or Catholic. There are such strong points for both. Currently, I'm looking forward to going to an LDS service this weekend but we'll see. I made a few friends awhile back at my ward and I kind of want to see them again.


A great book if you can find it is called Catholic Roots, Mormon Harvest (Amazon link) and it talks about how the two churches are similar. In my own experience, if we believe Jesus brought in his dispensation, and then the early church fell away, theoretically, the Catholic church is that Church. and everything, EVERYTHING, hinges on the fact of whether or not you believe a) that original church fell away and b) Joseph Smith restored that gospel.

Those are huge philosophical and historical questions that I am dealing with. So for now I sit, ever wavering, between a pew with kneelers and one without. I know I need to pray more, because I know Heavenly Father has that answer. I'm just not sure if I'm fully ready to commit myself to the answer. If it's "catholicism" that means never looking back to Mormonism. If it's Mormonism, then that's never going back to my childhood parish. It's a tricky decision that needs a lot of faith that I don't have yet. I need to ask. And I need to be brave enough to ask.

The Oxford Short Introductions Series has a great volume on Mormonism that covers the faith in a very even-handed and neutral manner. If you're pressed for time, this would probably be the best thing to read. The Dummies and Idiot's Guide are actually not that bad in their presentation of the faith; they're both by what would be termed "liberal Mormons" and do a pretty good job of being realistic in their presentation (though both still being very positive, of course, but they're not conversion texts).

To understand the different faiths in the Latter Day Saint movement you need to understand the history of the faith as so much of the faith claims are rooted in historical events. Books like Rough Stone Rolling and No Man Knows My History give a good overview of Joseph Smith's life. The upcoming Brigham Young biography by John Turner seems like it will also be a good source for information on Young's tenure as president of the Church as it will discuss some of the darker/stranger issues like blood atonement and Adam-God. If you want to go in depth on the history of the Temple ritual, I'd recommend Buerger's The Mysteries of Godliness.

The last information I would give is that most (but not all) books published by Christian publishers should probably be avoided. Nowadays most of them are factual in their content, but their presentation is not meant to provide an understanding of the LDS Church but rather is meant to provide a multiplicity of reasons not to associate with the faith. A few exceptions I'd say are most books by Sandra and Gerald Tanner, and By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus which is an amazing overview of Joseph's "Book of Abraham" and the history and implications of the papyri Smith used in producing it which were rediscovered in 1967 to the subtle consternation of the CHurch ever since.

Yes. The primary source is the Temple Lot Case transcript.

The trial in its entirety is available from the federal government, but it's more than 1750 pages and not available online.

Typically you can find snippets of the statements online from each of them.

Full transcript available for purchase here: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Bates-Noble-Polygamy-Temple/dp/0874809371

"Because of claims by Reorganized Latter-day Saints that Joseph was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Joseph's wives) affirmed repeatedly that Joseph had physical sexual relations with his plural wives-despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American religion which otherwise would have prevented mention of sexual relations in marriage." -- Todd Compton "In Sacred Loneliness"

• 1 Faithful Mormon Melissa Lott (Smith Willes) testified that she had been Joseph's wife "in very deed." (Affidavit of Melissa Willes, 3 Aug. 1893, Temple Lot case, 98, 105; Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 156.)
  
  
• 2 In a court affidavit, faithful Mormon Joseph Noble wrote that Joseph told him he had spent the night with Louisa Beaman. (Temple Lot Case, 427)
  
  
• 3 Emily D. Partridge (Smith Young) said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him. (Temple Lot case (complete transcript), 364, 367, 384; see Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 15.)
  
  
• 4 Joseph Smith's personal secretary records that on May 22nd, 1843, Smith's first wife Emma found Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom at the Smith home. Emma was devastated.
  William Clayton's journal entry for 23 May (see Smith, 105-106)
  
  
• 5 Smith's secretary William Clayton also recorded a visit to young Almera Johnson on May 16, 1843: "Prest. Joseph and I went to B[enjamin] F. Johnsons to sleep." Johnson himself later noted that on this visit Smith stayed with Almera "as man and wife" and "occupied the same room and bed with my sister, that the previous month he had occupied with the daughter of the late Bishop Partridge as his wife." Almera Johnson also confirmed her secret marriage to Joseph Smith: "I lived with the prophet Joseph as his wife and he visited me at the home of my brother Benjamin F." (Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets, 44. See also "The Origin of Plural Marriage, Joseph F. Smith, Jr., Deseret News Press, page 70-71.) Drawn Sword
  
  
• 6 Faithful Mormon and Stake President Angus Cannon told Joseph Smith's son: "Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked [Eliza R. Snow] the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, "I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that."" (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 23, LDS archives.)
  
  
• 8 (Sylvia Sessions would have thought she could have had a daughter by Joseph if they had not had sex) Stake President Angus Cannon also testified: "I will now refer you to one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father [Joseph Smith] has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions . . . She was the grand-daughter of Mother Sessions. That girl, I believe, is living today, in Bountiful, north of this city. I heard prest. Young, a short time before his death, refer to the report . . . The woman is now said to have a family of children, and I think she is still living." (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 25-26, LDS archives.)
  
  
• 9 Faithful Mormon Prescindia D. Huntington, who was Normal Buell's wife and simultaneously a "plural wife" of the Prophet Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her husband Norman "or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliver." And a glance at a photo of Oliver shows a strong resemblance to Emma Smith's boys.
  (Mary Ettie V. Smith, "Fifteen Years Among the Mormons", page 34; also Fawn Brodie "No Man Knows My History" pages 301-302, 437-39)
  
  
• 10 Sarah Ann Whitney
  "... the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty. ... Only be careful to escape observation, as much as possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater friendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I will tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it. ... I close my letter, I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont, dont fail to come to night, I subscribe myself your most obedient, and affectionate, companion, and friend. Joseph Smith."
  -- Joseph Smith Handwritten Letter, http://www.xmission.com/~research/family/strange.htm
  
  
• 11 Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner seems to justify that she might have had a child by Joseph, and states that others of the wives could have had children as well. This is typically assumed to imply sex enough that her descendants have been tested for paternity Drawn Sword
  
  
• 12 Zina Jacobs son Zebulon, was believed to be Joseph's child (debunked via DNA) Drawn Sword
  
  
• 13 Clarissa Reed Hancock's son Mosiah Hancock was believed to be Joseph's child (Debunked by DNA)
  
  
• 14 Presendia Huntington Buell's son was thought to be Joseph's (Oliver) debunked by DNA
  
  
• 15 Fanny Alger. I list this, because it is clear from the records he had sex with her in 1832, but the marriage's first record is by Eliza R. Snow stating the marriage happened in 1836, that's 4 years later, so this might not count as "Sex with his wives" because it was a straight up affair, but there was sex. Drawn Sword
  
  
• 16 Olive Frost's child who died at age 3 thought to be Josephs as well.
  
• 17 Hanna Ells was also cited as Joseph going into her house for sexual relations.
  
• 18 Maria Lawrence
  
  “I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet’s first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls [Emily and Eliza Partridge, Maria and Sarah Lawrence] to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all the word implies.”
  
  --Andrew Jenson, Historical Record 6:230.
  
  
• 19 Sarah Lawrence
  
  "I do know that at his [Joseph Smith’s] Mansion home was living Maria and Sarah Lawrence and one of Cornelius P. Lott’s daughters as his plural wives with the full knowledge of his wife, Emma, of their married relations to him.” -- More Testimony,” Letter dated March 9th, 1904, Deseret Evening News, April 12, 1904.
  
  An interesting side note:
  
  Joseph Smith advised Clayton to "just keep her at home and brook it and if they raise trouble about it and bring you before me I will give you an awful scourging and probably cut you off from the church and then I will baptize you and set you ahead as good as ever."
  
• William Clayton journal, Oct. 19, 1843.
  
  So if you take the most conservative estimate that all the women who thought their sons/daughters could be Joseph's kids but DIDN'T have sex with him, you get 9 instances. If you include them all you get 19 (corrected).
  
  The 13 number is, I believe, a way of reconciling the most obviously true, with the few that are unsure to get a number that the apologists agree with. Also it's stated in Todd Compton's book, published by permission of the church, "In Sacred Loneliness".
  
  The list of the official "13" is given on this website. http://www.josephsmithspolygamy.com/JSPSexuality/MASTERJSPSexuality.html

There's not a single, reputable polygamist scholar (faithful or not) that believes Joseph did not have sex with at least one of his wives. The primary source we have are the affidavits files in the Temple Lot case.
The trial in its entirety is available from the federal government, but it's more than 1750 pages and not available online.
Typically you can find snippets of the statements online from each of them.
Full transcript available for purchase here: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Bates-Noble-Polygamy-Temple/dp/0874809371
"Because of claims by Reorganized Latter-day Saints that Joseph was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Joseph's wives) affirmed repeatedly that Joseph had physical sexual relations with his plural wives-despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American religion which otherwise would have prevented mention of sexual relations in marriage." -- Todd Compton "In Sacred Loneliness"

1 Faithful Mormon Melissa Lott (Smith Willes) testified that she had been Joseph's wife "in very deed." (Affidavit of Melissa Willes, 3 Aug. 1893, Temple Lot case, 98, 105; Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 156.)

2 In a court affidavit, faithful Mormon Joseph Noble wrote that Joseph told him he had spent the night with Louisa Beaman. (Temple Lot Case, 427)

3 Emily D. Partridge (Smith Young) said she "roomed" with Joseph the night following her marriage to him and said that she had "carnal intercourse" with him. (Temple Lot case (complete transcript), 364, 367, 384; see Foster, Religion and Sexuality, 15.)

4 Joseph Smith's personal secretary records that on May 22nd, 1843, Smith's first wife Emma found Joseph and Eliza Partridge secluded in an upstairs bedroom at the Smith home. Emma was devastated. William Clayton's journal entry for 23 May (see Smith, 105-106)

5 Smith's secretary William Clayton also recorded a visit to young Almera Johnson on May 16, 1843: "Prest. Joseph and I went to B[enjamin] F. Johnsons to sleep." Johnson himself later noted that on this visit Smith stayed with Almera "as man and wife" and "occupied the same room and bed with my sister, that the previous month he had occupied with the daughter of the late Bishop Partridge as his wife." Almera Johnson also confirmed her secret marriage to Joseph Smith: "I lived with the prophet Joseph as his wife and he visited me at the home of my brother Benjamin F." (Zimmerman, I Knew the Prophets, 44. See also "The Origin of Plural Marriage, Joseph F. Smith, Jr., Deseret News Press, page 70-71.) Drawn Sword

6 Faithful Mormon and Stake President Angus Cannon told Joseph Smith's son: "Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked [Eliza R. Snow] the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, "I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that."" (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 23, LDS archives.)

8 (Sylvia Sessions would have thought she could have had a daughter by Joseph if they had not had sex) Stake President Angus Cannon also testified: "I will now refer you to one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father [Joseph Smith] has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions . . . She was the grand-daughter of Mother Sessions. That girl, I believe, is living today, in Bountiful, north of this city. I heard prest. Young, a short time before his death, refer to the report . . . The woman is now said to have a family of children, and I think she is still living." (Stake President Angus M. Cannon, statement of interview with Joseph III, 25-26, LDS archives.)

9 Faithful Mormon Prescindia D. Huntington, who was Normal Buell's wife and simultaneously a "plural wife" of the Prophet Joseph Smith, said that she did not know whether her husband Norman "or the Prophet was the father of her son, Oliver." And a glance at a photo of Oliver shows a strong resemblance to Emma Smith's boys. (Mary Ettie V. Smith, "Fifteen Years Among the Mormons", page 34; also Fawn Brodie "No Man Knows My History" pages 301-302, 437-39)

10 Sarah Ann Whitney "... the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe, but when she is not here, there is the most perfect safty. ... Only be careful to escape observation, as much as possible, I know it is a heroick undertakeing; but so much the greater friendship, and the more Joy, when I see you I will tell you all my plans, I cannot write them on paper, burn this letter as soon as you read it; keep all locked up in your breasts, my life depends upon it. ... I close my letter, I think Emma wont come tonight if she dont, dont fail to come to night, I subscribe myself your most obedient, and affectionate, companion, and friend. Joseph Smith." -- Joseph Smith Handwritten Letter, http://www.xmission.com/~research/family/strange.htm

11 Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner seems to justify that she might have had a child by Joseph, and states that others of the wives could have had children as well. This is typically assumed to imply sex enough that her descendants have been tested for paternity Drawn Sword

12 Zina Jacobs son Zebulon, was believed to be Joseph's child (debunked via DNA) Drawn Sword

13 Clarissa Reed Hancock's son Mosiah Hancock was believed to be Joseph's child (Debunked by DNA)

14 Presendia Huntington Buell's son was thought to be Joseph's (Oliver) debunked by DNA

15 Fanny Alger. I list this, because it is clear from the records he had sex with her in 1832, but the marriage's first record is by Eliza R. Snow stating the marriage happened in 1836, that's 4 years later, so this might not count as "Sex with his wives" because it was a straight up affair, but there was sex. Drawn Sword

16 Olive Frost's child who died at age 3 thought to be Josephs as well.

17 Hanna Ells was also cited as Joseph going into her house for sexual relations.

18 Maria Lawrence
“I am also able to testify that Emma Smith, the Prophet’s first wife, gave her consent to the marriage of at least four other girls [Emily and Eliza Partridge, Maria and Sarah Lawrence] to her husband, and that she was well aware that he associated with them as wives within the meaning of all the word implies.”
--Andrew Jenson, Historical Record 6:230.

19 Sarah Lawrence
"I do know that at his [Joseph Smith’s] Mansion home was living Maria and Sarah Lawrence and one of Cornelius P. Lott’s daughters as his plural wives with the full knowledge of his wife, Emma, of their married relations to him.” -- More Testimony,” Letter dated March 9th, 1904, Deseret Evening News, April 12, 1904.

You're allowed to want basically the same things the church wanted for you. You don't need Mormonism to fall in love with a great guy who's lifestyle and goals align with your own. It sounds like you may be very naturally religiously inclined and that's okay. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to believe in God in the traditional sense to have the same connection and focus on understanding God. Mormons do not have a monopoly on spirituality.

In some ways Mormons lead ascetic lives that aren't terribly dissimilar from monks or nuns. They abstain from much of the world's pleasures and concerns. They spend a great deal of time in religious worship and thought. They primarily socialize with each other. They live in a monastery of the mind, rather than a physical one. Unfortunately it's not a very good monastery, but guess what? Now you have choices.

I would recommend looking up Karen Armstrong and reading the Spiral Staircase. Armstrong was on her way to becoming a nun. Near the end of her Noviship she began to doubt, but her passion for knowledge of religion and God never left and she has spent her life studying it. You will probably be able to relate to her anguish and feeling of loss of the life she so deeply wanted to live. If you like it, read A History of God. Remarkably, Instead of remaining angry, though you certainly feel it, especially near the beginning, her intense passion for religious knowledge kept her intensely fascinated.

If you want to keep a connection to your pioneer ancestors you have to go beyond the CES letter. It's invaluable, but it's not designed or meant to take you beyond the point of disbelief. Instead or in addition to, read the works of believers who have studied the early church and it's people in great depth with both curiosity and compassion, rather than anger and nihilism. You don't have to believe what your ancestors believed to stay connected to them. Knowing Mormonism isn't true isn't the same as intimately knowing the truth of it's people and the time and place they inhabited. Put yourself in the mind of a historian who loves what and who they study and wants to get to know them, even in their flaws, beyond the faith promoting anecdotes shared at family reunions.

Start with Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, which is sourced from the RLDS archives and In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton, who is still a member.

edited to add: It would likely be too much for your family to handle now, but at some point you might look up the Unitarian church or the Quakers (underground railroad anyone). If you miss a religious community you can find one much more focused on actually doing good; not just self justifying busywork.

edited edited to add: Mormon Enigma and Sacred Loneliness should be okay to read in front of your mom so you also don't have to feel like you're sneaking around. Replace the fear with curiosity. It will be okay.

There's evidence even Mother Teresa seriously doubted the existence of God. It didn't stop her.

The CES letter is really a copy/paste job. Look, I've attended the Fair Conference in Provo. This is actually kind of my "hobby". There isn't much original content in that "letter", and the topics have been discussed ad-nausea, with reasonable answers. I don't take him seriously because he does leave out facts that would counter his claims. Several times. This includes archaeological evidence that he says doesn't exist, but I have a book that has photographs of these objects.

In fact he ignores pretty much all the things Joseph got astonishingly right: The Egyptian Language and the Book of Mormon, Chiasmus, Colophones, Hebraisms and the 1500 + and growing list of Uto-Aztecan/Semitic language cognates, and the temple and Naghamaddi/Early Christian Library.

Do I have every answer to every question posed in the CES letter? No, but I don't think that I have to. The list of anachronisms in the Book of Mormon has gotten steadily smaller and smaller over the decades. Time destroys some evidence, so the list will probably never disappear, but that's ok.

I've researched many of the claims of the CES letter prior to its release. With my own money I've purchased the books containing the primary documents. I'm still a member in good standing.

So you challenged me, now I'll challenge you. Please explain this. Read 1 Nephi 1:1.

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

This is a Colophon, used by ancient scribes to give a mini autobiography before their writings. Now you should know from your elementary school Egyptian word for "good" or "beautiful is "nfr", and was pronounced "Nay-fee". Clearly all 1820 frontier schools included in their curriculum Ancient Egyptian, and how to begin your history. Also, make sure to make a pun with your name. "I, Nephi" "goodly (nfr) parents" "goodness (nfr) and the mysteries of God". One in a million coincidence? Well, maybe if we exclude the other examples of Jacob, or Enos.

So, since I read your book, please read those links. Also, never put in quotes text because you are merely putting words into other people's mouths. When I bare my testimony, I always refer to Christ. Always. In fact I only mention Joseph Smith in reference to Christ, as something like "I believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith." Don't put up straw men, it weakens your other statements.

This is a book that might help you understand the faith differences: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599552574/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

We have no way of telling what this man is thinking. It is common for Mormons to seek to marry other mormons, and ones that practice the faith in similar ways. (We pretty much grow up thinking that everyone practices our faith the same way we have grown up doing so, and as we get older we learn that other just as faithful as we sometimes do things differently than we do and that is all right.)

It may be that the reason he is dating outside his faith is that he doesn't want someone who wants him to honor LDS standards. It may be because you were simply unresistable to him, despite his longtime desire to marry within the Mormon faith. It might be because he's already dated every mormon girl and doesn't want to move or wait to widen the pool of prospective partners. It might be because he wants to have sex before he gets married and that isn't going to happen if his partner isn't LDS (of course we know that you don't have to be LDS in order to choose celibacy before marriage, and even those who have chosen it don't always maintain it: I'm just articulating a possible thing he might be thinking). He might be dating you precisely because you aren't marriage material and he isn't ready to marry.

At the point that you are needing to decide whether to continue dating him, just ask him why he is dating outside his own faith. Ask him what he believes and how he wants to live his life. Ask him how you would be doing a life with you not sharing the same faith. That's the only way (maybe after several conversations, this is hard stuff and people aren't always able to be honest even when they really know themselves) you will know what is going on.

Yes you can go to church with him. Be sure to ask him to attend church with you at the same pace he wants you to go with him, if your faith is important to you.

Bipolar individual here, who had a psychosis. Also a medical student.

Robert Anderson wrote a book that explores your theories called Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: A Psychobiography. I think it would be well worth your time.

My assessment's disclaimer: The brain is ridiculously complex. We are only very recently beginning to develop adequate tools to analyze it properly to link particular biochemical processes/pathways with mood disorders/psychiatric disorders/personality disorders. Personality disorders/mood disorders all exist on a spectrum, it's not a binary issue. And diagnostic terms/labels are actually more descriptors, ex. "that looks from here to be blue mixed with green, caused by what appear pine trees; but we'll have to get a closer look." vs. other diseases "2+2=4" as is the case with many infections, for example. It is sadly/frustratingly still a very empirical discipline, though we're about to enter an era of transformation in our understanding of the brain. Very exciting.

My assessment: Smith was a narcissist with bipolar disorder. One trait of narcissism is the idea that you are the center of the world and if people don't assimilate into it in some form you burn bridges (SS quote of having to pick sides after baptism and then you'll fight the church if you ever leave comes to mind.) He would vacillate from thinking things like "I'm made to swim in deep water/No man knows my history" to "I'm the American Mohammad" (paraphrasing)... mania and depression. Toward the end of his life I believe he was in a manic episode with delusions of grandeur that caught up with him when he began to think he could get away with overthrowing the US government at some point and marry any wife he chose.

The question you raise though -- was he delusional -- I think is definitely up in the air, but in my estimation it probably wasn't the case. I think he was very creative (a trait that correlates with bipolar manic/hypomanic episodes) and charismatic (a trait that correlates well with narcissism). Many people believe that Walt Disney had bipolar disorder, for example, and I think some of his stories and storytelling innovations are much more creative than Smith's. ;)

Again, I can't stress enough just how much psychiatry is a discipline of description where disorders exist on a spectrum vs. something more concrete. Bipolar can slide into schizoaffective disorder, which has tendencies of schizophrenia mixed w/depression and occasionally mania, depression can exist in varying degrees and varying durations for varying reasons, but in many cases there are similar neurotransmitters involved etc. Many of these disorders people are finding have similar biochemistry mechanisms involved, and treatments classified for one disorder are very effective in others, ex. anti-seizure meds are found to be very effective in treating bipolar disorder in many cases. Labels tend to be more suggestions or the initial purpose for which the drug was designed, not an exhaustive list of what the drug can be used for.

_____

A side note: you may ask how I ever became a medical student. I had great medical care to arrest my psychosis within days of its onset and have had great medical care since. I hope to erase the stigma of mood disorders and get more awareness out there that it is an illness that is becoming less and less debilitating. With modern medicine though, not priesthood blessings.

Edit: if Smith had bipolar as I estimate he might have, it would be a very mild form. Delusions of grandeur and using moments of "no man knows my history" can be manipulation tactics. At any rate, I only say bipolar because of the degree to which his delusions at the end of his life became, but they could definitely be solely attributed to his narcissism as well.

From an amazon TBM review

"Planted" is a great book addressed to LDS members struggling with questions and doubts, and to those called to minister to them. (I'm in the latter category.) In this secular age, it couldn't have come at a better time. Someone needed to write something like this, and it's good that Patrick Mason did. He is an excellent prose stylist who has a gift for metaphor and analogy to make key points. I especially loved his analogy of history as a construction zone.

Mason establishes convincingly that prophets are human and fallible, but more importantly that this is to be expected. Canonized scripture teaches as much. So a church culture that covers up mistakes or that puts human volunteer leaders on a pedestal will only lead to disappointment when those with impressions of infallibility discover surprises from history. So how should one respond to a doctrinal or historical surprise?

This is not a book that addresses all the greatest doctrinal or historical controversies point-by-point. It doesn't refute the irrefutable or sweep anything under the rug. Rather, Mason offers some ways of thinking and an approach, or strategy, for those with important questions or doubts to cope with them, to seek answers, and especially to hold on to the great good that Mormon life offers--a practical Christian life--without feeling compelled to abandon the whole thing. There is too much that's good, too much that's true, too much that's fulfilling, and there isn't really a better alternative. Of all the ways of life one can choose, even other good ones, no other one gets you more closely in emulation of Christ.

https://www.amazon.com/Planted-Belief-Belonging-Age-Doubt/dp/1629721816

The full list of 2015 Brodie Award recipients can be found here.

A small selection of a few of my personal favorites among last year's winners:


Best New Blog 2015: Zelph on the Shelf

Best New Podcast 2015: Naked Mormonism Podcast

Best Discussion Forum 2015: r/exmormon

Best Humor Blog/Site/Channel/Podcast 2015: Brother Jake

Best LDS-Interest Interview-and-discussion Podcast 2015: Mormon Stories Podcast

Best LDS Church Watch/Analysis Blog/Site/Channel/Podcast 2015: Thoughts on Things and Stuff

Best Scripture Study Blog/Site/Channel/Podcast 2015: My Book of Mormon Podcast

Best LDS-Interest Book (Fiction) 2015: Their Works Shall Be in the Dark, by Alex Hansen

Best LDS-Interest Comic or Image 2015: Brutally Honest Mormon Coloring Pages, by Gileriodekel

Best Mormon-Themed Meme 2015: Nephi, Mormon and Moroni discuss the seer stone on Facebook and they’re not happy, by xoanan

Funniest Humor Piece 2015: Infants on Thrones song series: Disney Songs for Alienated Mormon Kids and Church House Rock: Polly Polly Gamy

Best Parody 2015: Updated Primary Songs for Children of Gay Parents, by the Debrief Society Podcast

Best Post Title 2015: If You’re a Pharisee and You Know it Wash Your Hands, by Tanner Gilliland

Best Original Research Regarding Mormonism 2015: Joseph Smith Disorderly Disgrace, by Naked Mormonism Podcast

Best Mormon Scoop or Leak 2105: Handbook policy leak, by FearlessFixxer

Best Personal Recording 2015: An audio recording of the Boise Rescue Mission, by cagelessbird

Best Church Watch 2015: New Church Essay is Lies, by Kate Kelly

Best Response to Apologetics 2015: Now We’re Blaming the Victims? by Natasha Helfer Parker

Best History Piece 2015: How the Book of Mormon Translation Story Changed over Time, by Christopher Smith

Most Insightful Commentary on the CoJCoL-dS 2015: Any Opposed, Please Sit Down and Shut Up, by Alan Rock Waterman

Best Mormonism-and-Orientation Piece 2015: Michael Ferguson, Seth Anderson/ Fighting Gay Conversion Therapy, by Mormon Stories

Best Mormonism-and-Race Discussion 2015: Lowry Letters: The Follow-up Discussion, by Infants on Thrones

Best Mormonism-and-Gender Discussion 2015: What Mormon Women Get, by Thinker of Thoughts and Jamie Hanis Handy

Best Exit Story 2015: Leaving the Church: A Compilation of the Evidence Against the LDS Church, by Eric Nelson

Best Faith Journey Piece 2015: Why I Love the LDS Church Enough to Both Criticize It AND Step Away From It, by Clean Cut

Best Advice 2015: 10 DOs and DON’Ts For Thanksgiving With Your Mormon Family, by Zina Jacobs-Smith-Young

Most Poignant Personal Story 2015: 234 LDS Mass Resignation Interviews, by Sage Turk

Best (ex)Mormon Parenting Piece 2015: Dad’s Primal Scream’s series on his kids and the policy

Best Real-Life Act or Activism 2015: Chubs Gato offering free resignation services

Most fantastic r/exmormon AMA 2015: church employee Daniel Miller

Best Poem 2015: Dear Dad, by Alice_McCann


Your nomination(s) will help to acknowledge and immortalize the efforts of the year's most important, funniest, moving, underrated exmo voices (including your own).

> In my understanding polygamy is not officially gone from church doctrine, but rather just not currently practiced. Reading OD1 seems to confirm this as in no place does it strictly repeal it. Is this true? Will polygamy be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom and would it be practiced again should the laws of marriage in the United States change to permit it?

Yes, it is still doctrinal and does still shape sealing policies. I've been taught that it would be practiced again in the future and that it is practiced in the CK. I don't, however, believe that.

> I've heard rumors and read accounts of prominent Mormon leaders (Joseph Smith & Brigham Young in particular) marrying women who already had husbands that were still living. Is this true? What is the reasoning behind this?

Yes, it's true. I don't know the reason. It's one of the most troubling aspects of the historical practice of polygamy.

> In the afterlife, can someone marry my wife? (We are sealed in the temple)

Who really knows what exactly will happen in the afterlife?

> Brigham Young had children with multiple (like... 15ish?) wives? Why were these children not permitted to have a father they didn't share with so many others? Did Utah Territory have a significantly larger female population than male?

Brigham had children with 16 of his 55 wives. In a lot of cases, I don't really see a significant difference between growing up with Brigham Young or Heber C Kimball as your father and growing up without a father—especially when those fathers spent so much time off on missions. Utah didn't have significantly more females than males. The census actually indicates that there were more men than women. AFAIK, it was only a small number of men that were able to get a large number of wives. Elder Widstoe talks about it in his book "Evidences and Reconciliations", and concludes that they practiced polygamy not because there were surplus women but because they believed that God commanded it.

> D&C 132:62-64. Do we still believe that? Why is that still in the scripture, it seems very... ... not what I learn in Sunday School. Man owning women, man sleeping with many women - women being denied the same, if the original wife disagrees God will "destroy" her... this is a bit concerning, please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.

No, I think that you do understand these verses. I don't know whether or not "we" (the Church) believe them, but I don't accept them. They're in the canon, but any lesson that includes section 132 is usually selective about how it covers it and mostly just covers the blessings of eternal (one man and one woman) marriage.

Polygamy is difficult to understand and easy to judge. There was some good that came out of it (including me), but a lot of it was also done poorly.

If you really want to learn more about polygamy, I would recommend reading history books.

Here are some good ones you could look into:

• Mormon Polygamy
  
• Mormon Enigma
  
• In Sacred Loneliness
  
• Rough Stone Rolling
  
• Joseph Smith's Polygamy
  
  I would also recommend reading what Parley P Pratt wrote about polygamy in his autobiography, as well as this essay that the church recently put out.

One shelf breaking fact is how the Church has actively hid the truth about our history. This gives a history of how the Church told the story of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Juanita's Brook's book came out in 1950, yet it wasn't until 2007 that the Church was honest about it, despite Pres. Hinckley's 1999 appeal to "let the book of the past be closed."

If it took them this long to be honest about something as severe as the MMM, how can we trust them to be honest about other issues, today?

How We Recount the Mountain Meadows Massacre – Pt 2

If the syllabus grows sower, I recommend anything Patrick Mason has done, his [book] (https://www.amazon.com/Planted-Belief-Belonging-Age-Doubt/dp/1629721816), his talk at FAIR, or the blog he does with Dehlin. It is the single best resource from "official" sources I've seen to help TBM's have meaningful relationships with those who leave/are on the edge.

How about Joseph Smith's sex with Fanny Alger? Here's a BYU source for you, about as Mormon-friendly as it gets. What /u/Humanplus was referring to was the Temple Lot case as for the affidavits. The full document is found here for purchase. LDS historian's note about polygamy and sex seen on his website. Here's a book by another LDS historian, Todd Compton on the topic.

FAIR has justified the sex as being reasonable because it was marriage, even in the case of fourteen year old Helen Mar Kimball. I personally fail to be able to see how a fourteen year old girl, who was by her own words was certain that her parents could not lead her wrong (indication that she was still a child without independent ability to see that her parents were not perfect) was competent to agree to the marriage on that basis. Having her family's salvation put upon her is not a system of marital consent, she was coerced.

Joseph Smith would react poorly when he was rejected resorting to character assassination and slander, the author of the prior piece was LDS until his death in 2010. The evidence indicates that this reaction came into play when he ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, which was written by his recently disaffected second counselor in the First Presidency, William Law. William Law's wife, Jane was proposed to by Joseph Smith and she rejected him. The Nauvoo Expositor contained no lies, regardless of what it taught even to children on the topic. Read the Nauvoo Expositor yourself, it is not lying about Joseph Smith's polygamy (or about the second anointing by Austin Cowles).

I'm going to be frank, I expect you to rationalize it away as somehow reasonable that they were having sex, particularly if you feel like you have a strong "testimony." This is called cognitive dissonance. It's really hard to face the idea that the church might not be as forthright, honest and moral as you've likely been led to believe since childhood, so most believers try their best to act as though the problem isn't really a problem. This issue isn't relegated to Mormonism, it's present in virtually every religion. I don't envy anyone that has to face such information. I really don't, it's not fun to have your worldview chipped at, but you have to decide if the historical truth is what you care about, or the comfort of belief which may be a foundation of sand and you may not know this unless you look at the foundation.

I have worked hard to try to find the truth, and I have tried to be very careful about my sources, I get historical information from neutral or LDS direct sources wherever possible through BYU sites and Joseph Smith Papers. There are some Christian sects which take things out of context to try to elicit reactions, which is certainly "anti-Mormon" but I think that they're rarer than you might think. The church history is quite sordid, convoluted and messy as seen from their own sources.

You might consider me "anti-Mormon" merely for speaking out against the religion of my upbringing. I believe that I am instead a generally honest person that can't rationalize away the literal hundreds of problems away and I stand to warn people that the church is not what it leads people to believe. I think you deserve the truth, so I share what I've found and leave it to you to decide what to do with it. I can't make you want to find out more about the history and science to assure that you are not being misled, but I can share some of my findings hopefully in order to make you consider that the topic is more complex than what is presented in church.

Thanks for mentioning us pre-internet pioneers of exmo-ness.

I left in late 1995. Made the mistake of reading Richard S. Van Wagoner's "Mormon Polygamy: A History"

I felt so guilty for reading that book. But, I just couldn't put it down. It was the first time I felt like someone was giving me a real picture of Joseph Smith the man, not the myth. Decided I needed to balance out what I was getting in Van Wagoner's book with something more "church approved." Went to Deseret Book. Asked the girl working if they had anything on polygamy. She said she thought they had one book- they did. It was the book I was already reading.

That was the moment I took the red pill. There was no turning back and the floodgates were opened. I then read:

• No Man Knows My History
  
• Quest For The Gold Plates
  
• By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus
  
• Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
  
• Secret Ceremonies
  
• Where Does It Say That?
  
  And then I started checking out copies of Sunstone and Dialogue.
  
  I started checking out some of the articles at Utah Lighthouse Ministries and made one trip to their book store, but I was already becoming an atheist and I didn't really like how they weren't just trying to debunk Mormonism but also trying to sell born again xianity.
  
  By November of 1996 I was already attending a Unitarian Universalist congregation and also pretty much an athiest at that point.
  
  When stuff like MormonThink came along, I was already pretty much post-Mormon. And, when I discovered r/exmormon, I was suddenly surprised at how much I liked watching what was happening here.
  
  I'm always surprised at the announcements people make about being done with this place. But, then I found it when I was already over all the emotional rage at having been deceived. I think I just like watching the train wreck at this point. People's posts here really give me the sense that Mormonism is imploding at a rate faster than this stodgy institution is prepared to deal with- makes me happy.

> Alright then, I'll make the same suggestion to you that I made to another user; read Nicholas L. Syrett's study, "American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States." Syrett is a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies and this particular work makes it quite clear that child marriage was an accepted practice that wasn't challenged until the mid-late 18th 19th century. In fact, the biggest outcry wasn't until 1894, when Cassius Marcellus Clay married a 15 year old girl at the ripe old age of 84, I believe. This marriage made national news.

The historian says with zero citations and zero evidence for his claim. This after having just caught lying about the laws of 19th century Nauvoo claiming that "english common law of marriage at 10 years old when effect" when in fact laws prohibited minors below the age of 17 marrying at all without parental consent.

All while you ignored citation after citation and argument after argument that you just whole heartedly failed to address.

You claim that child marriages were not seen as immoral or controversial until suddenly out of the blue and for no reason at all in 1894 one man decided to marry a 15 year old and everyone decided to get upset about it. Doesn't the fact that in 1894 a big famous controvrersial case about marrying underage girls provide evidence for the fact that well before that point it was controversial? It's like saying that because in 2017 people became outraged at Kevin Spacey assaulting underage boys it wasn't controversial until 2017. And that is what i'm talking about when I talk about mental gymanstics.

>Also, if you're going to quote Helen Marr Kimball, at least provide the sentence immediately before the quote. " I remember how I felt, but which would be a difficult matter to describe--the various thoughts, fears and temptations that flashed through my mind when the principle was first introduced to me by my father [Heber C. Kimball], who one morning in the summer of 1843, without any preliminaries, asked me if I would believe him if he told me that it was right for married men to take other wives, can be better imagined than told." And then your quote begins immediately. After that she writes about how her father taught her about plural marriage and why it was being established. Absolutely no mention of child marriage. Nice try, though.

Nice try? That's all you have to say when the founder of your religion was forcing 14 year old girls into practices they called "heinous crimes" "improper" and "unnatural". Are you listening to yourself? You're excusing the supposed prophet of the almighty God who had access to such eternal wisdom as "tea is bad for you" and "don't drink coffee" but was simply following the culture of his day in having sex with 14 year old girls. Do you think that having sex with 14 year olds is right or wrong? If you think it's wrong then why even if it was culturally acceptable at the time would excuse a supposed prophet of God doing it? Maybe for the same reason that he was moot on the cultural practice of slavery? Which God didn't bother to imform anyone was a disgusting and immoral practice?

As for your claims let's take a look at the Nauvoo City Council ordinance of 1842 which states:

>“All male persons over the age of seventeen years, and females over the age of fourteen years, may contract and be joined in marriage, provided, in all cases where either party is a minor, the consent of parents or guardians be first had.” Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy

What's mind boggling is that a professed objective historian could claim that there were no laws about marriage age's up until the early 1900's and miss that there were laws in Nauvoo itself at the time Joseph Smith was having sex with 14 year old girls in the 1840's. If that doesn't completly discredit your crediblity I don't know what does.

In additon we have here clearly stating that 14 year old girls could not marry without permission from their parents. If it's true as you say that marrying a 14 year old was seen as completly normal and unnoteworthy why then would he need the permission of the girls parents?

Even Brian Hales. A Mormon scholar admits that these marriages were at least "eybrow raising".

>Matrimonies for females who were fourteen years of age were eyebrow-raising but not scandalous in the 1840s.

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/audio/sealings-to-young-brides/

Further revealing your "objectivity" "bias" and "well researched" historical claims.

And finally as long as we're quoting Helen Marr Kimball let's see what she said about her mothers concerns about her marrying Joseph Smith at such a young age.

>‘If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.[‘] This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward. None but God & his angels could see my mother’s bleeding heart-when Joseph asked her if she was willing...She had witnessed the sufferings of others, who were older & who better understood the step they were taking, & to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path, in her mind she saw the misery which was as sure to come...

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X


What's clear here is your "objectivity" and desire for "historical accuracy" are disineguous misdirections from your clear bias and willingness to mislead others with false at worst and poorly researched at best information. When "by their fruits you will know them" is somehow not applied when the fruits of what you want to believe are bad. So if we're "not getting anywhere" it's because of your refusal to engage in open and honest discussio and instead attempt to mislead, misdirect and engage in all around disingeuous behavior and then refuse to acknowledge any of it on his way out. What's clear is that you're as brainwashed as Joseph Smiths' victims and just as willing to do whatever it takes to excuse his behavior to continue to justify your beliefs.

>That was my only or primary point with that example: that the rule, "he who asserts must prove" is only a very general rule of thumb, and that we are allowed to make presumptions as long as we have some independent grounds for those. If I've established that much - and you seem to have acceded on that - then that point is made. That only leaves one other question.

I've never pretended the claim about Joseph having sex with HMK was anything other than a presumption, or that you weren't allowed to make such a presumption. But even if you consider it a justified or logical presumption, it's still a presumption, and to present it as anything other than that is disingenuous. That's the only thing I've ever raised a question about; the surety with which people present their opinion on the subject.

If people simply said "we presume Joseph had sex with HMK", that would be great. But that's still far different than saying "Joseph had sex with HKM".

I don't mean to be condescending, but it really seems like you haven't done your homework on polygamy. At the very least, if you haven't read "In Sacred Loneliness" and "The Persistence of Polygamy", I highly recommend taking the time to do so, especially if you're going to be making claims based on historical context and what should be considered "unusual" or not for Joseph Smith's polygamy. If you don't have time for "In Sacred Loneliness", the Compton's article here is a decent summary:

A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of Joseph Smith's Thirty-three Plural Wives

But if we both agree that the actual evidence is ambiguous, and that claiming Joseph had sex with HMK is a presumption and inference, that's all I've ever been saying, so we don't need to belabor a point we agree on.

I read this book which was written by a Mormon who's also a gay activist. It's very, very good. I encourage you to read it. I had a friend who was LDS and when he admitted his homosexuality (and had never, ever indulged in it) to his bishop who he was very close to, he was told, "I'll draw up the excommunication papers." He was devastated and told me this book gave him incredible comfort and insight.

Good luck, Mormon friend!

Rough Stone Rolling is good but soft-pedals some things.

Some of the stuff from the church historian's press looks worthwhile: https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/publications?lang=eng

Greg Kofford Books has an extensive history line. I've enjoyed what I've read and found it to be well done. https://gregkofford.com/

Natural Born Seer is good, more of a critical lens on Joseph Smith's early years, really intriguing.

Joseph's Temples regarding the Freemasonry connection.

People highly recommend D. Michael Quinn.

Leonard Arrington's stuff is supposed to be classic, Great Basin Kingdom.

David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory Prince.

Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Bushman. Part of a series by Oxford University Press that tries to concisely summarize a variety of complex topics.

For something more in depth, but hitting all the bases you described quite well, I highly recommend the The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism. Seriously if you read that, you will come away with a very in depth understating of Mormon history, theology, culture, practice, and experience. But it is very long.

Oxford has also published a great book on the development of LDS theology called Wrestling the Angel.

Matthew Bowman's The Mormon People is also very good and has been used as a textbook in university religious studies introduction to Mormonism courses.

• King Benjamin's Speech (661 pgs): great connections to ancient Israelite festivals. And great speech. now free online
  
• Mormon's Codex (826 pgs): Sorenson's magnum opus. Very methodical. Doesn't stretch his sources.
  
• The Book of Mormon text reformatted according to parallelistic patterns: the patterns add light to the text in significant ways. I think Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon is the "next edition".

A quick google search brought up the Wikipedia page which cites this book. That may be a good place to start.

So let's look at the stuff he writes about Alma. He brings up Chiasmus, which has been thoroughly debunked as being evidence for anything, (a quick google search can bring up sources for this, but such articles have been posted to /r/exmormon several times). All he seems to be saying is that Alma 41 and 36 are examples of this.

Joseph was trying to emulate the King James bible, which is full of (much better) examples of this type of writing. Also, the fact that a few verses were mentioned rather than entire books as we see in the bible makes this a tick against the BoM, not in favor.

What's more, consider that the BoM claims to be a translation. What difference could Chiasmus possibly make to help or hurt their claim? Minor writing details like that could easily have been added or removed by the interpreter. And one need only look at Jacod 7 to see that the BoM couldn't have been a word for word translation.

Wordprint analysis suggests that Sidney Rigdon and possibly Oliver Cowdery wrote some of the BoM, which I think is plausible. Note that this study was far more recent and thorough than the earlier one done by FAIR which claimed to show no connection, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that it is beyond doubt. However, it does appear that there were at least two authors since there seems to be two voices in the text, and they switch back and forth at erratic times; suggesting that these were two authors collaborating rather than the historical characters the text claims. Alma switches several times in just the first few chapters, which I pointed out in my analysis where I saw it happen. It also switches from first to third person and back at around the same places, where most of the beginning up to the hot potato chapters are in the first person.

From the article:

> These are spectacular instances in ancient writing.

As someone who finds ancient text fascinating, no they're not. In fact I'd say there's a certain feel that ancient translated text seems to have, and that just isn't there for these. Read the Bible, Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, Koran, Hadith or even the Iliad for genuine examples. Especially when read back to back it makes the BoM look even more flimsy. And it's not just the word choice either, none of those texts were in English originally so you're reading translations; it really boils down to what an ancient religious culture would find worthy of writing down. They tend to have laws, arbitrary rules, practices and rituals, and often pepper it with genealogy of their kings. What we find in the BoM is tedious naming of every river, rock and sage brush but no mention of the women's names (except two), no understanding of the cultures that actually existed such as ancient Hebrew and even some hilarious misunderstandings which lead to comedic effect. (writing the scripture in an Egyptian language would have been seen as heresy in their culture at the time for just one example)

Thanks for the ping /u/vh65!

Hello /u/mckennahyoung! I'm Gileriodekel. I help run /r/LDSINC, which is the subreddit dedicated to the church's financial information. I run it with /u/hiking1950 (who honestly does more than I do now-a-days).

Another good resource would be /u/Mithryn's blog post "Structure of the Corporation of The President / Bishopric (Actual LDS “Church”)". He lists all the businesses that the church owns. /u/Mithryn himself is also a fantastic resource.

In regards to the mall, I made this spreadsheet. It is a year-by-year comparison of the church's humanitarian aid to the mall they built. I searched through thousands of archived documents to find all official financial information and humanitarian aid factsheets, most of which the church has tried to throw down "the memory hole".

 

Anyway, if you have ANY questions, please message me or /u/hiking1950 directly. We love talking and researching this kinda stuff. I actually used to help run /r/exmotalks (which is more-or-less dead), and I'd even help you write your paper if you'd like.

&nsbp;

EDIT: I forgot to mention, professional Mormon historian and former BYU history professor D. Michael Quinn is releasing a book called "The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power". The release date has been pushed back more than a couple times, but if it releases in time it will be an invaluable resource.

I answer timidly both because I am a TBM and because I don't know anything about the psychology involved, but I'd say the idea that a Mormon would think "well if JS is wrong that's on him, not me" is pretty far fetched to me. We are each encouraged to gain, through personal revelation, a testimony that (among other things) JS was a prophet. We are encouraged to take personal responsibility for our own beliefs and actions.

.

All that said, the LDS church is definitely authoritarian on belief.

.

Regarding Mount Meadows, look up the history before assuming it was a result of people acting in response to Church authority. I'd recommend this book, by a non-LDS author.

I'm not well equipped to provide many accessible sources on this, But the church's history in Utah is rife with blackmail and using prostitution etc.... as a means to this end. Smith seems to have done it, As did Young and his predecessors.

Right now I can only offer one credible online source as well as a few books, I've never really kept sources on this issue. EmmaHS, curious_mormon, AnotherClosetAtheist or Mythryn are typically better at providing sources, I'm just a local idiot. You can try bothering them to get something more useful, Mythryn keeps some information on his website, but it's not easy to search.

Here is a link to a Report by C. S. Varian, who was Assistant US Attorney in Utah territory during the 1880

The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, has information that falls into this area. It's also a very good book for looking at the reality of the LDS leadership and their skeleton filled closets.

Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847-1918 by Jeffrey D. Nichols is another useful read.

That's the best I can do right now, I can't locate better/more available sources. But the Mods/power users I named above have also done posts and stuff about it in the past.

Though you didn't ask for this, if you want a brief account of Mormonism I would suggest Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Bushman. The book is very good, and though there are many good books to suggest, if you didn't have a lot of time to read a ton of stuff I would read this.

And of course, I would encourage you to read the Book of Mormon as well. Where to start? To be honest from the beginning. The book is largely a chronological story and so I would start on page one.

According to D. Michael Quinn in his book, Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power, he estimates that that church members payed $33 billion (with a "B") in tithing donations in 2010.

I did some back of the envelope math a few weeks ago, based on estimated activity rates in the United States, family size, and median income, and came up with just over $3 billion in tithing donations. If the United States is home to 41% of the global Mormon population, and if D. Michael Quinn is right in his guess, then I seriously underestimated my assumptions at about $7 billion in donations.

What's interesting though, is that the church is more wealthy as a corporation than a religion. They have investments in agriculture, real estate, properties, farming, stocks, and much more. Some estimate that the church is worth more than $100 billion, and if so, tithing is making up anywhere from 20-35% of its total revenue.

But the church is bleeding members, and to lose 1/3 of your income would be a serious financial setback for the church. With that in mind, it perfectly clear why the church leadership is spending so much time focusing on "stay in the boat", and other related topics.

But I prophesy that in 100 years, the "Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" won't be a religion any longer, at least not as we know it, but instead will be a literal non-profit, tax exempt, run of the mill charity. It'll be more akin to the Salvation Army than Protestantism.

It depends on which brand of Mormon belief you are dealing with. The FairMormon crowd believes in the Mesoamerican model of the Book of Mormon. Books like "Mormon's Codex" by John L. Sorenson would find these Mayan ruins encouraging.

But there are plenty of people that believe the "Heartland" model and they will smugly think that this Mayan discovery is irrelevant at best. The Book of Mormon took place in 'Murica because it's the Promised Land.

Officially, the LDS church does not proclaim where the Book of Mormon took place. Despite their claims of being prophets, seers, and revelators, they make very few material claims about their premier book of scripture.

This is all great advice. I'll add another couple books that have helped me: The Crucible of Doubt and The God Who Weeps, both of which are written by Terryl and Fiona Givens. Both of them helped me develop a healthy perspective on faith, doubts, and the nature of God (including his relationships with us, his children).

The site has a long list of references. http://www.wivesofjosephsmith.org/References.html

It may look like a blog but it seems to be sourced well. Seems like the story I linked was drawn from this book. If you are really interested, you should see if your library has a copy

That's good to hear. Looks like there are some cheap hardcopies (definitely cheaper than when I bought my copy!) This is a book I'd recommend picking up if you have the means and interest.

I found out 3 years ago that my mom was a narcissist. I started reading all the self-help books about narcissism. Then one day, I re-heard about how Joseph Smith had run for President and crowned himself King of Nauvoo. My heart sunk as the good ol HG whispered "Joseph was a narcissist." A Google search produced tons of results, including this book, which I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Joseph-Smith-Psychobiography/dp/1560851252 Anderson diagnoses Smith as a narcissist and sociopath.

If you enjoyed Fawn Brodie's book, I highly recommend the recent Brigham Young biography, Pioneer Prophet, by John Turner.

Brigham Young is incredibly fascinating in his own right, albeit for very different reasons from Joseph Smith.

Several of the detailed accounts were published in a book called "Peculiar People" a number of years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Peculiar-People-Mormons-Same-Sex-Orientation/dp/1560850469/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1331677654&sr=8-5

I am happy to inquire if the victims themselves are willing to make themselves available to you if you are doing some particular documentation work. Good chance they would agree. Let me know.

Yes, I actually just recently came across this because it's always been a question of mine how they determined who sat where in the temple. I noticed that it's not a left/right thing, and I never could figure it out. Then I read that Brigham Young instituted the policy of separating the genders in sacrament meeting where the women sat on the NORTH side of the chapel. I thought back to it, and for the few temples I can place a compass direction on, the women in the temple sit on the north.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else can confirm the north/south orientation in the temple they're familiar with.

But yes, Brigham Young did it because....well... Brigham Young.

Edited to add source:
2 Jan, 1859 - Brigham Young begins custom of having all Mormon congregations sit with women on north side of center aisle, men on south side, and children on front benches. This seating arrangement lasts for decades, remains in temples to this day.

I've not read it myself, but I hear that Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John G. Turner gives an honest assessment of the man without attempting to either slander him or sugarcoat his story. Have heard good things about the book from both Mormons and non-Mormons.

All three of your professors points are rubbish. If language had evolved as much as he it said it did then Egyptologists wouldn't be able to interpret the countless artifacts from the same period. Is he really saying that the BOA is the only artifact that is different than all the others? Look up the Book of Abraham on Mormon Think. But for an excellent book, and one that answers each of your professors assertions then this one is in my opinion one of the best. Even though it is from the 90's it still holds up today.

https://www.amazon.com/His-Own-Hand-Upon-Papyrus/dp/0962096326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539867049&sr=8-1&keywords=By+His+Own+Hand+Upon+Papyrus

There are many books like this that aren't even fiction. Most notably the one I've linked to below.

I am part of a whole group of people who are living what eddie is experiencing with his family.There's a subreddit for people like us. It's called r/exmormon.

The mormons are more normal in some ways and more strange in others when you compare them to meyerists. But watching this show and how eddie's departure has impacted the family dynamics is absolutely chilling with how similar it is.

When eddie asked "you don't really believe that" and sarah said "you don't even know me" or something I had such a physical reaction. because I know someone whose ex-wife said the exact same thing to him when he decided he was leaving the mormon church.


https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Carolyn-Jessop/dp/0767927575/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491416889&sr=1-1&keywords=escape

Edited to Add: one of the best books I've ever read on the FLDS cult.

https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Wives-Hidden-Mormon-Polygamy/dp/1593764081/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491417309&sr=1-1&keywords=Secrets+and+Wives

No, I know that, I mean didn't most of the FLDS crew move to the YFZ ranch in Eldorado...

But I was thinking specifically of the Jessops. Looked it up because I was curious. And the raid was in 2008.

Edit: That Krakauer book is really good... heart breaking at parts. Escape by Carolyn Jessop is also really really good.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Joseph-Smith-Psychobiography/dp/1560851252

Check out this book. The author is Robert D. Anderson, M.D., (a nevermo) is a semi-retired psychiatrist in private practice whose studies at the Psychoanalytic Institute stimulated his interest in applied psychoanalysis. This is a great book.

Yes, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John Turner.

Edit: Turner is a non-mormon. He likes mormons and Mormonism so he's able to write a non-hagiographic biography and doesn't need to apologize or justify every questionable act BY did into a faithful paradigm. It's s well written professional biography on an important figure in settling the American West.

Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674416856/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_fr6iDbCXS91S1

The best answer to this question is here: https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Making-Prophet-Biography/dp/1560851791

Dan Vogel nails it. In a nutshell, Smith came from a divided religious household. They never had much money. He originally cooked up the Book of Mormon as a way to a) unite his family religiously and b) make some money to live comfortably. His intentions became more grand as time went on obviously.

As a pious fraud, he knew he was making it up, but he sincerely believed he was leading people to Christ and doing good. His heart was right, even if his stories weren't.

Soon he was trying to solve his financial issues with the law of consecration, law of tithing, anti-bank of Kirtland, etc. Then his legal issues were going to be remedied by his Council of 50, becoming mayor, running for President, etc. And his desire for women was satisfied all the while with (secret) plural marriage. Things turned out all right for him on a lot of fronts.

So why not deny it after being threatened, tarred and feathered, etc.? Because why would you? You lose your whole family, all your friends, your reputation, your livelihood, everything. You lose everything. To admit to the fraud would have been infinitely more devastating than anything his enemies could do.

By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri by Charles M. Larson

Quick read, great full color foldout photos of the papyri (best available anywhere, I believe).

No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie

https://www.amazon.com/His-Own-Hand-Upon-Papyrus/dp/0962096326

https://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540

For number 5:

As another Catholic who's been investigating the LDS faith on and off, I found this book to be really enlightening.

https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-roots-Mormon-Harvest-Shuster/dp/1599552574/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485848520&sr=8-2&keywords=eric+shuster

It's by another Catholic convert and he breaks down the similarities and differences between Catholicism and the LDS faith.  I became much less skeptical of Joseph Smith after reading this book, as I can't believe that a simple man from a farming family in upstate New York could have possessed the knowledge to write the Book of Mormon and have it be so scripturally inline with thousands of years of Christian tradition. 

If you're looking for a one-volume general history, I'd recommend either Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012), or Richard Bushman, Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008).

You might find the Encyclopedia of Mormonism useful to look up unfamiliar concepts. Being published in the 90s, it's admittedly somewhat out of date (they need to publish a second, revised edition), but the whole thing is online, so it's a massive resource that's easy to access.

I really enjoyed this one about the book of Abraham: By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri https://www.amazon.com/dp/0962096326/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_Fb.MwbRT8GJNH

I've been really into books about personal experiences lately!

Book contests are my favorite! :)

We believe that when the original twelve apostles (and those selected to replace them when they died) were killed, the authority to act for God (priesthood) was removed from the earth. As people lived without authority, their understanding of God's will got intermingled with worldly ideas. Finally the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in completeness through Joseph Smith.

But that doesn't mean that everything Catholic (or any other faith) is wrong. It means that the whole correct teachings with the proper authority are not in the Catholic church, but lots of well meaning and trying to live His gospel people and efforts remain within all faiths. If you are Catholic and want to compare see similarity and differences consider http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-roots-Mormon-Harvest-Shuster/dp/1599552574/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1458952015&sr=8-3&keywords=catholic+and+mormon or http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Mormon-Conversation-Stephen-Webb/dp/0190265922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458952015&sr=8-1&keywords=catholic+and+mormon

The brethren used to publicly disagree about things. Now they disagree in a closed room. Because members are not privy to these disagreements, they assume:

1. that the brethren are completely united
   
2. that anything from church headquarters = the literal voice of God
   
   I’d love to see more of this healthy public debate among church leaders. The gospel of “having all the answers” is falling short for people in my generation. We ask deep, challenging questions. The exploration of deeper questions is far more fulfilling to me than having rote answers. I wish church leaders were engaging in this discussion rather than implying that they have all the answers and to just “get in line”.
   
   >> “You must work through the Spirit. If that leads you into conflict with the program of the Church, you follow the voice of the Spirit.” (Elder S. Dilworth Young, First Council of the Seventy, 1945; quoted here, p. 17)
   
   >> “We have hitherto acted too much as machines, as to following the Spirit. I will confess to my own shame that I have acted contrary to my own judgment many times. I mean hereafter not to demean myself, to not run contrary to my own judgment. …When President Young says that the Spirit of the Lord says thus and so, I don’t consider that all we should do is to say let it be so.” (Elder Orson Pratt, 1847, quoted here, cover jacket)

It seriously is. It's unique in a way that no other denomination is like, and is such a distinct historical occurrence in that the circumstances which surrounded it created a completely distinct culture in the matter of only decades.

Edit: For anyone interested in a good historical book on the early LDS movement that I've been reading (a secular outlook that gives both the main LDS narrative and secular criticism/realism): Pioneer Prophet by John G Turner

PS - Look for this book to be released very soon:

https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Hierarchy-Wealth-Corporate-Power/dp/1560852356

I highly recommend Quinn's work. Fascinating, documented, and studious reading.

Sources for some of this (disclaimer: some of this research is my own, but I believe it to be sound):

1. D&C and the reduced usage between about 1900 and 1950: See the third chart in this post. Usage drops by about 2/3.
   
2. Stopping the formal education of seminary teachers: See Lynn Packer video.
   
3. Regarding renaming of temple marriage, see this analysis
   
4. Regarding the other bits, probably your best source is Michael Quinn, Extensions of Power.
   
5. Regarding the use of science, logic, etc., in the 1930s in general conference, I have done some word analysis on this topic. Look at the 1930s-1940s and how they compare with other ears in the charts in this post.

It's on the book "by his own hand upon papyrus"

It's the first chapter. It mentions that people were starting to doubt Joseph Smith so they had to do something to revive the faith. When the mummy salesman came to town it was just what they needed: Show that Joseph could translate ancient documents.

> George Q. Cannon reflected standard thinking when he cheered in the Deseret News about how fundamentally Anglo-Saxon the Utah Territory was.

Have you read W. Paul Reeve's Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness? "Reeve instead looks at how Protestants racialized Mormons, using physical differences in order to define Mormons as non-White to help justify their expulsion from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He analyzes and contextualizes the rhetoric on Mormons as a race with period discussions of the Native American, African American, Oriental, Turk/Islam, and European immigrant races. He also examines how Mormon male, female, and child bodies were characterized in these racialized debates. For instance, while Mormons argued that polygamy was ordained by God, and so created angelic, celestial, and elevated offspring, their opponents suggested that the children were degenerate and deformed."

I was recently reading the Reynolds decision and one of the things that fascinated me was how the majority opinion said, "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people." As I read that, base doff the context of the history in the book mentioned above, the point of it linking the practice of polygamy with "non-white" cultures was to say that Mormons were, themselves "non-white," something that was a serious problem in a white supremacist society like 19th century America. So I was wondering, if you had come across anything that might suggest part of the motivation for embracing the ban was to "prove" that they were "white" by excluding those of African heritage?

Their Works Shall Be in the Dark

Personally, when I come across something with only two reviews or so, I read the reviews themselves instead of looking at the average score. If something has a hundred reviews, I'm more likely to rely on the star rating. I guess I hope there are a lot of people like that.

http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Different-Color-Struggle-Whiteness/dp/0199754071

Great book, extensive bibliography.

Can you afford to purchase the kindle version of this book? Joseph's Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism...$15.99 USD on Amazon. I own a physical copy of this book and it was very informative.

Escape by a woman who escaped polygamy. It resonated a little too much for comfort.

Escape https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767927575/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_hVn4Bb2JDAR22

I recently read a book called Planted that goes into some of these questions of faith and really enjoyed it. It doesn't go mich into specific issues or events in church history, but rather focuses on faithful ways to examine difficult topics that can be applied to many things. https://www.amazon.com/Planted-Belief-Belonging-Age-Doubt/dp/1629721816/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542467828&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=planted+book

Not a direct answer to your question, but a helpful resource for you may be Peculiar People: Mormons and Same-Sex Orientation by Ron Schow.

It's loaded with stories about people coming out, how their families responded, and how they dealt with the fallout.

I haven't read it, but this might be helpful. It just came out 3 weeks ago.
https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Hierarchy-Wealth-Corporate-Power/dp/1560852356

You might be interested in Michael W. Homer's "Joseph's Temples" https://www.amazon.com/Joseph%C2%92s-Temples-Relationship-Freemasonry-Mormonism/dp/1607813440

It's an interesting story & dynamic. Being in Utah I know a lot of LDS folks (and a few LDS/former LDS Brothers) but have never encountered such a frank discussion as in that text.

Coincidentally, my exmo novel, Their Works Shall Be in the Dark happens to be free all weekend. Good timing, there, OP!

But lest I am accused of shameless self-promotion, I'd also like to recommend A Danger to God Himself, which is by an ex-Christian but gives the struggle with belief in Mormonism surprisingly poignant treatment.

The Third Book of Nephi. It has the thematic climax of the book where Jesus Christ appears to people on the American continent and establishes his church there.

I usually recommend Oxford's "A Very Short Introduction" series to people who want to learn more about Mormonism or The Book of Mormon, but who are not necessarily interested in conversion. They're short, like 100 pages, and scholarly though written by believers.

Joseph’s Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism http://www.amazon.com/dp/1607813440/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

I haven't read this yet. I plan on buying it and reading it soon.

If you're looking for something more scholarly, the book Joseph's Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism might be good. I haven't read it yet, but it has been on my list for a while. There's an in-depth review of the book here.

I'm almost always juggling reading material. At the moment I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Just finished reading Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John G Turner, which I highly recommend.

Yes. Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674416856/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jCAWzbVJEYN53

> Being in Utah, this is a topic that's often alluded to but not often discussed from the Masonic perspective.

Firstly, There's not much to discuss. For generations, we discriminated against Saints, sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes aggressively. In 1984, this came to an end. No matter what lies we tell ourselves to justify this, the truth remains a) we did it and b) there is never justification for discrimination or lies. Those are the facts. We were wrong. Period. End of discussion. To delve into it beyond owning our guilt to is to delve into speculation and rationalization and fall into attempts to obviate our wrong-doing.

Secondly, within the community of mainstream American Masonry, it is generally frowned upon for Masons or Masonry to comment upon any religion.

Thirdly, I don't think anyone here can truly appreciate what it was to be LDS or non-LDS in a small outpost city, well beyond the safety of the border of the US, in a desert, next to undrinkable water, in the mid-late 19th century. So, even if Masons or Masonry could realistically and justifiably comment on the LDS faith, we can never really understand what it was to scratch out a life in those days.


Now, from the other perspective, I think there may be something to be explored. The current go to resource is Homer's Joseph's Temples. It isn't perfect, but within the discussion of faith, nothing ever is.

DISCLAIMER - Not LDS despite having spent large portions of my life near Batavia, and in Missouri and SLC, UT.

Natural Born Seer by Richard Van Wagoner.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1560852631/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_7wW7CbQZV1BVE

D. Michael Quinn addressed the scope of the finances (holding companies, property, etc.) in his book but I don't think he came up with a specific value. However, his goal was more to address the integration of church leadership in these external finances than to quantify them.

Edit: And I agree with you, it's really frustrating.

Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet. Written by a non-Mormon scholar. Well done.

Amazon gives the date of February 15, 2017. https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Hierarchy-Wealth-Corporate-Power/dp/1560852356/

I'm not sure how reliable that is

D Michael Quinn is set to release a book on finance in November.

https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Hierarchy-Wealth-Corporate-Power/dp/1560852356/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468545789&sr=8-1&keywords=quinn+d+michael+books

https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Hierarchy-Wealth-Corporate-Power/dp/1560852356

Take a look at this book: https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Joseph-Smith-Psychobiography/dp/1560851252/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=joseph+smith+psychology&qid=1567980764&s=gateway&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Brigham-Young-John-G-Turner/dp/0674049675

Alao Emma Smith: Mormon Enigma.

I think this is a good primer.

https://www.amazon.com/Mormonism-Introduction-Richard-Lyman-Bushman/dp/0195310306/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536140911&sr=1-2

This one is legit.

http://www.amazon.com/Brigham-Young-John-G-Turner/dp/0674049675

https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Joseph-Smith-Psychobiography/dp/1560851252

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X

I find that many of his motivations can be explained by a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder as discussed in http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Joseph-Smith-Psychobiography/dp/1560851252.

A very in-depth and fully documented look at the early church can be found in D. Micheal Quinn's Origins and Extensions of Power books.

$35.43 when you preorder on Amazon

Book

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6

Book 7

Book 8

Book 9

Comes to about $91.

I read the following book and found it to be incredibly detailed in addressing the topic:
Joseph’s Temples: The Dynamic Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism


TLDR (if you don't want to read ~500 pages...) Masonry has no real connection to antiquity, just myths based on references to biblical persons/events. Joseph stole all the core ideas from the masons, and they were not at all happy about it.

You must be new here. There's no need for people critical of polygamy to exaggerate how shady it was. The truth, as told even by LDS scholars, it quite damning. If you read enough of it, you may leave the church or you may stay, but I guarantee your current view of your religion will not remain intact.

http://josephsmithspolygamy.org/

https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475096207&sr=1-1&keywords=in+sacred+loneliness

I also have it linked in the text portion of the Wives of Joseph Smith Infographic

References:
Marriage Details are from wivesofjosephsmith.org
Which has compiled genealogical research from the following sources:

[A] familysearch.org (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City)

[B] Mormon Polygamy: A History, (Van Wagoner, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 1989)

[C] Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, (Newell & Avery, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1994)

[D] In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, (Compton, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, 1997)

[E] Doctrine and Covenants, (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City)

Additional Panel References:

[1] "Utah Struggles With a Revival of Polygamy", NY Times, 8/23/1998, James Brooke

[2] Polyandry definition at wikipedia.

[3] Henry Jacobs' mission call; "Zina and Her Men", FAIR LDS Conference, 2006

[4] David Sessions mission call, wivesofjosephsmith.org, Patty Bartlett Sessions Biography

[5] Desdemona Fullmer quote, wivesofjosephsmith.org, D. Fuller Biography

*The cameo silhouettes were created by mormoninfographics for presentation purposes.

Other Resources
Black and White version of this chart for printouts, download here.
Full Rez image from above here.

Joseph Smith married 11 women who were already married to another man at the time. You can read about them here. Those aren't estranged husbands either. In some cases Joseph Smith sent the husband on a mission and then took his wife while he was gone. These women, of course, kept living with their first husbands, although in the case of Zina Jacobs she was transferred to Brigham Young after Joseph's death, and Brigham then strong-armed her first husband out of the relationship.


I recommend this book for more information.

In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith https://www.amazon.com/dp/156085085X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_8C5LybY8TYZ4Q

The author was LDS when he wrote it.

In Sacred Loneliness: the plural wives of Joseph Smith

Relevant to the latest essay.

She may not know about Joseph Smith's polygamy/polyandry. You might try reading this book, In Sacred Loneliness, by Todd Compton, a believing Mormon. It talks about how Joseph Smith coerced young girls (14 year olds, dude) and already-married women into marrying him. Then, discuss.

Women don't like this one bit.

Yes. I notice you have no refutation for the point on the Temple Lot either.

Brian Hales is "unrespected" just as anyone who doesn't conclude JS is horrible is "unrespected." Next you'll say Bushman isn't respected either. But he is, including outside the LDS world. Hales only isn't respected because he is a physician instead of a professional historian. An amateur can still make a quality argument.

What I really wish we had was a book on JS like Rough Stone Rolling that wasn't written by a Mormon so we could finally have an "objective" book (about impossible anyway). RSR is lovely but not good enough for anyone else. If we had one by a non-Mormon we could use that. Alas. I guess we should only listen to people who aren't Mormon to tell us about Mormons, right?

Curiously, there is one of those for Brigham Young though ( http://www.amazon.com/Brigham-Young-John-G-Turner/dp/0674049675 ). Shame it's not more often part of the discussion, wish more Mormons and exMormons read it.

Alas, I believe it has been pushed back to August. :(

A thorough description of Josephs lies and deceit surrounding polygamy. ISL

https://www.amazon.com/Brigham-Young-John-G-Turner/dp/0674049675

I think this bio is equivalent to RSR. However, you can still kinda like JS after reading RSR, no such luck with BY.

Edit: Review from Bushman: "The story Turner tells in this elegantly written biography will startle and shock many readers. He reveals a Brigham Young more violent and coarse than the man Mormons have known. While lauding his achievements as pioneer, politician, and church leader, the book will require a reassessment of Brigham Young the man."

> No, they don’t know about them.

But they do. But they find a way to explain it all away as the work of the devil (but yet thanks to him they have the truth from the Garden of Eden and they can "fall upwards"!!! )

>they are worse than true believing Mormons.

And is there such a thing as a true believing Mormon?? After all, besides the "burning in the bosom" what exactly can a Mormon defend without committing some "intellectual suicide?"

Mormons that develop the discouraged "gospel hobbies" are the ones that eventually find the path out of the church.

And the ones that stay many are unbelievers who sit in the pews - as described in this book, whether anyone thinks they are bad or not.

At this point the evidence is more than clear. It's like arguing for a flat earth when many know otherwise.

Wait until you get a load of the TBM hate mail for Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet:

>Turner,

> I just finished reading your book on the Prophet Brigham Young. I have decided that you must be the same person who prosecuted the duke lacrosse team or wrote the story for rolling stone on the university of Virginia rape case. For as much time you spent researching the life of Brother Brigham, you must have spent twice as much time figuring out how you would exclude the vast majority of information and meaning of the life of that man so you could paint politically motivated tainted lies with your propagandist brush. Did it ever cross your mind that if Brigham Young was such a hated tyrant, even by his own people as you claim, a miserable failure at politics, leadership, religion making and virtually every idea that came to his mind, that he perhaps wouldn't be at the roots of the greatest American religious and colonization movement in history? He lead and help create a movement of people that today boasts in the millions of the most productive, civil and prominent citizens in the world. We are the leading demographic social statistic in every possible positive category in the country. Thank God for the principles that man gave us, I.E. Polygamy, consecration, gathering, Adam God and blood atonement, lest we might be mixed with the rest of you miserable, egalitarian trash. More so thank God for those principles for what they will give us in the next life. I look forward to that time when all those souls whose sincerity and virtue were tarnished because of your selfish lies and hatred against the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his anointed, ask for an accounting of your actions and the price of your soul for the costs of their own. Perhaps the Prophet Brigham Young will be handed your soul to judge and if that is the case you better hope that the man chooses not to act upon you with the pugnacious, murderous, tyrannical characteristics you have portrayed him with. For if he judges you as you have judged him, fire and brimstone lack the authenticity of where your fate lies.

So maybe a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, then . . .

Only you will know the best approach. The church has tons of weak spots. It's just that people place value on different things.

To discredit the Book of Mormon itself as a historical document, start with a couple of simple websites. I really find the Wikipedia page on BOM anachronisms to be a great starting point. It's an avalanche of evidence in short form. If this is her "one thing" have her go down the list and discuss each item on the page. How does she explain the elephants? The metal currency? The animals that shouldn't be there and the animals that should have been in a book set in the ancient US? If the Book of Mormon can be shown to be a work of fiction, the rest unravels.

To discredit Joseph Smith as a person who produced divine scripture, read By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus. It's not too long, and because we actually have the original text used to produce the Book of Abraham, it's very easy to prove that what Smith produced was a bunch of made up bullshit.

To draw attention to the fact that Joseph Smith was a serial rapist who abused his spiritual authority to have sex with women who trusted him, all the while going behind his wife's back, send her to Wives of Joseph Smith. In Sacred Loneliness is excellent and extremely thorough, but the book is also the size of a cinder block and can be off-putting to someone only willing to read one thing.

To point out historical spin on polygamy, you could discuss the following:

• Remember that awesome story about how Smith ordered Heber C. Kimball to give his wife Vilate over to him as a plural wife, and Kimball handed her over like chattel? The church teaches this as some kind of great show of faith, completely glossing over the fact that Vilate was not property to be given away and that just a few months later Smith was fucking their 14 year old daughter instead.
  
• Remember that tragic story of martyrdom where Joseph Smith was dragged out of his house to be tarred, feathered, and nearly castrated, and then one of his adopted twins died? Gee, why would they want to castrate him? Could it be because he was having sex with women he wasn't married to, putting them at risk for rejection by society? One of the mob members that night was a brother of a girl Smith had recently propositioned, so his actions were what caused the death of the baby. Chew on that for a while.
  
• Remember why Joseph Smith was in jail for that last time? Yes, it was for violating the First Amendment. He ordered the destruction of a printing press because it created the papers that revealed all of the fucking around he had been doing. The publisher of that paper was William Law, his counselor in the presidency, who had spent years defending Smith against charges of polygamy and only learned the truth when his own wife was propositioned. William Law was doing nothing but telling the truth about Smith's behavior, and Smith's own lawless actions in trying to cover up polygamy are what brought him to his death.
  
  The polygamy issue is a rabbit hole of ugliness that nobody can unsee. It's possible your wife is genuinely unbothered by it and wouldn't care how many women and girls Smith raped, but I want to believe if she has any conscience at all that her stomach will turn once she sees what is behind the curtain.

This is duplicitous and unabashedly so. You make it seem like your post-modern, intellectualist approach to Mormonism is ubiquitous in the rank and file membership, which is blatantly dishonest. Quit your lying for the lord and tell the straight story.

You say:
>"I was taught about the Nauvoo Expositor, also he had a gun and fired it down the hallway"

Having been born in the church and been very active until about age 24, I've only ever met ONE member of the LDS church who knew about Joseph having carried a gun in Carthage and have NEVER heard it discussed in any church setting.

If you knew about it, then you're the exception and you know it. Most LDS faithful don't have any idea of any of the context surrounding Smith's incarceration and most are under the impression that it was entirely due to bigoted "anti mormon persecution".

>"Also, calling the Nauvoo Expositor a "newspaper" is insulting to newspapers. It was very poorly written, had no sources, and was just one large slander piece to Joseph Smith and the LDS church.

You don't get a pass to burn down a printing press because it's a crappy paper. Sorry. ([Mormon Think: Nauvoo Expositor]
(http://www.mormonthink.com/glossary/nauvoo-expositor.htm))

>"To this day there is no strong evidence that Joseph Smith Jr did or did not have more than one wife.

What the hell are you talking about? You're either LYING or are underinformed:

-Todd Compton's In Sacred Lonliness discusses in depth each of the wives of JS.

-Wikipedia: List of Joseph Smith's wives

-Mormon Think: Joseph Smith Polygamy

This isn't a controversial issue any longer. Even the LDS apologists have admitted such:
>"Joseph Smith was eternally married to what currently are argued to be between eight and eleven already married women. If we consider only those eight marriages that can be adequately documented, we find that six of the marriages occurred within an eight-month period between late October 1841 and June 1842. Two more marriages occurred early in 1843. The women ranged in age from 20 to 47, with an average age of 29. Of those eight marriages, five were to women who had Mormon husbands and three were to women married to disaffected members or non-Mormons. Three of the women's first marriages to Mormon husbands and two of the marriages to non-Mormons lasted until death. The other three remaining marriages ended later in life after Joseph's death in 1844. In all cases the women continued to live with their first husbands. Technically, a woman with more than one husband is defined as being involved in a polyandrous relationship, or practicing polyandry." (Samuel Katich, A Tale of two Marriage Systems, 2003)

He ordered the destruction of a private printing press that was exposing the fact that he was using his religious influence to coerce women into secretly marrying him and then denying it publicly. Did he deserve to be assassinated? No. Was he completely innocent (a lamb to the slaughter)? Absolutely not. The point of all this is that you will never hear anything about the Nauvoo expositor or Joseph's secret polyandry or anything leading up to his "martyrdom" in Mormon Sunday school, except that he was killed by "an angry mob".