I frequently think of myself as a “seminarian’s daughter.” Growing up as the child of a CES and Church employed father, both the academic training and the religious training my dad received shaped so much of my childhood. My parents frequently told me, with a sense of pride, that one of my first words was “Jerusalem.” My parents’ trip to BYU’s Jerusalem Center is a highlight of their marriage---trinkets from their experience lined the shelves of my childhood homes, photo albums frequently pulled down and their pages turned with a whimsical reminiscing.
I was three when my dad went to the Middle East a second time to study advanced Hebrew, this time, leaving my mom, my sister and I, at home. Emotions were high as we dropped him off at the Portland International airport, my mom attempting to put on a brave face for her two young girls, my dad trying to be empathetic while also failing to mask excitement for his upcoming trip. I clearly remember his leather study bag which fit snugly over his shoulder---BYU would later publish a picture of him next to the Old City’s Western Wall, (in Hebrew, Ha-Kotel Ha-Maʿaravi) which is considered to be the last remaining portion of Jerusalem’s second temple to have survived over the centuries. Sure enough, in the photograph, my dad is wearing his leather over-the shoulder study bag.
When my family moved from Oregon to Utah, our second house allowed for more space for my dad’s beloved books. Custom shelves lined his basement office, becoming a home for his religious volumes and various knick knacks from countries he had visited, representing different faiths and cultures. The books and religious curios didn’t just have place in his office, of course. They were scattered throughout the house and more than once I noticed a somewhat worried look on the face of a first-time visitor who came into our entryway to see ceramic plates painted with Arabic calligraphy---their look would become even more confused when they asked about the plates and were told they were quotes from the Holy Quran. While conservative, my dad found it perfectly acceptable to love and study all the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, and their offshoots). “After all,” he would remind us, “we are all children of the book!”
This idea of “children of the book” is an Islamic idea that demands respect for Christians and Jews, who all claim Abraham as their father. My father’s liberal attitude toward other sacred books outside our Mormon cannon would plant seeds of curiosity and respect for the world’s religions deep inside me that would later germinate into a life’s passion.
Vivid and happy memories of that downstairs office occupy space in my mind---light from the window well would stream in and cast a kind of magical glow over the various books; I would run my fingers along the spines, noticing the different textures and various musty smells of the pages. Old books were attractive to me, so it really isn’t surprising that I eventually settled upon an antique set of the History of the Church volumes (there are eight total). Early on I zeroed in on what were “controversial” topics within our faith---polygamy, race, women and the priesthood, etc. So of course, being the curious-minded girl I was, I of course went straight to the index to find all I could on these various topics. I was 10 or 11 when I really took to reading church history, and while the emotional nature of the complicated aspects of Mormon history wouldn’t hit until years later, I filed away the information into neat little folders in my brain, the content of those books clearly copied into my memory.
This being my childhood, it is no surprise that one of my long-time favorite things to do is to visit temple square, stroll the beautiful grounds, and engage the beautiful, smiling sisters who serve in the Temple Square Mission. Coming from all over the world, they proudly wear their country’s flag next to their nametag, and provide unique insight into what the church is like in their part of the world. When I taught for BYU, I would offer extra credit to my students if they would go down to the square and interview 3 different sets of sisters and write a short paper on their experience conversing with a member from another part of the world. The global church has always been a passion of mine, and encouraging those within my stewardship to learn about the lived-experiences of their brothers and sisters around the world has always been a priority.
Having served a mission myself, and a “site-mission” specifically (I served in the New York Rochester and Church Historic Sites mission), I could relate to the experiences these young women were having and often, I would be reminded of my own experiences that I held so close to my heart.
With that in mind, imagine my dismay when, while serving as the Young Women’s first counselor, we took a combined youth tour to Temple Square, where the issue of polygamy was randomly brought up by one of the young men during the historical tour that a set of sisters were conducting. Commenting on how many people “looked down” on Latter-day Saints for their former practice of polygamy, a beautiful young Filipina sister eagerly responded to his comment, asking, “and do you guys know why the church practiced polygamy for a time?!” she posed with an encouraging smile. My friend, the young women’s president, looked at me in horror, as I gazed back at her with the same expression, dumbfounded. This sweet sister really wasn’t going there, was she?
Yes, yes she was. “The reason the early church practiced polygamy,” she continued, “is because there were more women than men and when the saints came west, the women needed protection and the love and support of a family!” The youth all nodded eagerly, seeming to accept her answer. She then continued, “I’m a convert, so when I heard about polygamy, it was really upsetting to me---but you guys, when you study church history, you don’t have to be afraid! There are answers for these things!”
My mind instantly retreated to my childhood days of hiding in my dad’s library, reading the controversial topics of history out of the History of the Church volumes. These indexed subjects of course led me to other books in our library, and I recall with vivid clarity feeling a strange feeling of fear and discomfort as I read Helen Marr Kimball’s account of her sealing to Joseph Smith when she was 14 years old. In her own words, she states:
“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. But suffice it to say the first impulse was anger, for I thought he had only said it to test my virtue. … My sensibilities were painfully touched. I felt such a sense of personal injury and displeasure for to mention such a thing to me I thought altogether unworthy of my father, and as quick as he spoke, I replied to him, short and emphatically, “No, I wouldn’t!” I had always been taught to believe it a heinous crime, improper and unnatural, and I indignantly resented it. This was the first time that I ever openly manifested anger towards him, but I was somewhat surprised at his countenance, as he seemed rather pleased than otherwise. Then he commenced talking seriously, and reasoned and explained the principle, and why it was again to be established upon the earth, etc., but did not tell me then that anyone had yet practiced it, but left me to reflect upon it for the next twenty-four hours, during which time I was filled with various and conflicting ideas. I was skeptical — his only daughter, and I knew that he would not cast her off, and this was the only convincing proof that I had of its being right. I knew that he loved me too well to teach me anything that was not strictly pure, virtuous and exalting in its tendencies; and no one else could have influenced me at that time or brought me to accept of a doctrine so utterly repugnant and so contrary to all of our former ideas and traditions.”[1]
When I was older, I learned (through more book reading! So very problematic) that before asking for Helen’s hand, Joseph, as a “test,” had in fact asked Heber C. Kimball for the hand of his wife, Vilate, before relating to Heber that it was all a test of valiancy, much to Heber’s dismay and relief. When Joseph eventually asked for Heber’s young daughter’s hand, relief is not what Helen describes her mother feeling at her sealing to Joseph Smith.
“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...; but it was all hidden from me.”[2]
Though difficult at the time, now as a mother of a daughter, reading this weighs heavy on my heart in ways it never did previously. Will the answers I used to give myself to pacify my discomfort on this narrative be worthy of her? Doesn’t she deserve a better response without implications bordering the terrifying? As Richard Rohr argues, a fear-based theology is not a productive theology resulting in transformation.
This story, combined with the difficult wording of Doctrine and Covenants 132 (which seems contradictory to what the Book of Mormon teaches on the subject of plural marriage), created a specific kind of trauma on my young and tender soul that I faithfully “shelved,” accepting that we did not have all the answers to certain questions. As I grew, I continued to read tough narratives of church history which only complicated the touchy subject of polygamy, which was indeed more than polygamy---church history is clear that early Mormon polygamy also involved polyandry, bigamy, and adultery (by definition).[3] My lived experience, having encountered this sensitive material, was the constant voice in the back of my mind asking if I, like Helen Mar, might be asked to do something she found morally repugnant, and if when asked, I would have the faith to accept it or, according to Doctrine and Covenants 132, be “destroyed”? (Discussion on how I now approach these difficult scriptural passages is forthcoming in another essay)
After the distressing ordeal at Temple Square, concerned about the missionaries’ incorrect teaching and understanding of the subject, I contacted the Mission President’s office and requested to speak with them. I was invited into the basement office of the South Visitor’s center where I sat down with the 1st counselor in the mission presidency and explained the situation and what had occurred. Being former CES, he was appreciative of my concern as both an educator and as a young women’s leader, and recognized the need to teach the young sisters correct history and suppress and “white washed” versions that make the topic “easier to stomach.” Before I left, after thanking me for coming in, he responded, “ I have always told folks that the only reason we can give with validity as to why Joseph was commanded to practice polygamy is the reason given in the Book of Mormon---to raise up seed unto the Lord.”
Except---the historical record on LDS polygamy does not match that narrative. In fact, in the case of Joseph’s (potentially) 40 wives, it is unclear (and doubtful) whether he had children by any of them,[4] which begs the question why Joseph would have engaged in the practice at all, and in fact before the revelation on “celestial marriage” was given and the theology around eternal families taught.
As I said before, I have often thought of myself as a “seminarian’s daughter.” The role of a seminary/institute teacher comes with unique occupational hazards that I consider myself a casualty of, both for good and ill. For me, particularly, it was having access to a huge amount of church history that I both read and, as a family, was frequently discussed in our home. In fact, when I finally got around to reading the CES letter, I was surprised that I had grown up familiar with about 90% of the issues raised in its pages. What I had learned to do with that content was what most “faithful” LDS scholars have done---simply admit that there is so much we don’t know, or, give the classic responses to the issues, representative of what I term “creative theological gymnastics,” a method which I will admit I used in the past, but one which, as a disciple and as an academic, no longer work for me.
When we left Temple Square that night with our youth group, the bright, confident and eager eyes of the young Filipina sister stayed in my mind. What would happen to her when she discovered that her “answer” to polygamy was, simply, a fallacy? Would she be able to find a way to rectify the troubling history as she once had? Would she have someone to talk to that would create a safe space for her, refusing to gaslight her as emotions of fear, trauma, and anger as they stirred within her because her sense of morality is now challenged by what Helen Mar initially referred to as “utterly repugnant”?
I still think about this young sister, and wonder where she is, and how she is. For some, the implications of polygamy as practiced by the church are a non-issue, for some, they are a “shelf-it” issue, and for others, it is the issue that cracks their foundation. Having been in the classroom for the past five years with young adults who are reading this history and grappling with it, it is evident to me that the fundamentalist paradigm provided within the traditional narrative of church history (as Bushman points out) has to change.
The bright and inquiring minds of our youth demand authentic and vulnerable dialogue, pushing LDS theology to new limits---indeed, reflective of the process of ongoing revelation. The question is---will we as mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, scholars and educators, continue to teach through a paradigm that reflects dualistic thinking, a paradigm that crumbles upon further examination of both historical and scriptural issues? Or will we embrace a new perspective of scholarly and faithful approach, one that represents what Melissa Inouye[5] refers to as a “yeasty process” of both revelation and progress---rooting our faith in Christ while acknowledging the potential for painful and messy mistakes made by prophetic leadership? Further, we must allow for space that includes painful lived-experiences within the church system that seemingly contradict orthodoxy, and remember that the church is not a person or living entity that needs defending or protection, but rather, it is a living entity only inasmuch as we as members are alive in Christ and using the “church” as a tool to minister to others as Christ would have us do.
[1] Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, “Scenes in Nauvoo,” Woman’s Exponent 11, no. 5 (August 1, 1882): 39. [2] https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_examination/helen-mar-kimball-whitney-1881-autobiography/ [3] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng [4]https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Did_Joseph_Smith_produce_any_children_by_his_plural_wives%3F_The_case_against_children [5] https://mi.byu.edu/book/crossings/