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Sunday, July 8th, 2018 on the BYU channel some of our scholars were discussing Joseph Smith and polygamy. They acknowledged that there were lots of questions on that topic, but they spoke with certainty saying that Joseph was a polygamist. I don’t recall whether or not I saw the whole program, but I heard no hint that they might report Joseph’s denials. Page 411 of volume six of the Joseph Smith History of the Church is full of his objections to charges that he had more than one wife.

My favorite reads “What a thing for a man to be accused of having seven wives when I can only find one.” On page 441 of that same volume has Joseph saying “They make it a criminality for a man to have a wife on earth while he has one in heaven...” In the sixteenth volume of the Journal of Discourses Brigham Young gives an account of sealing his own sister to Joseph. Read near the end of page 166 and a little ways into page 167 and you will see that she wanted to be a ministering angel in heaven. She did not want anything to do with a husband, sounds like a confirmed spinster to me. Joseph told her that she did not know what she would want then said “seal her to me.” Does that sound like an earthly marriage that was about to be consummated?

The scholars claimed that Joseph Smith’s interest in polygamy, according to several of his friends, was forced upon him by an angel with drawn sword who threatened him. Now we are supposed to believe that it was alright for Joseph to go against common concepts of human decency, the laws of the land, church covenants, and his public denials because an angel threatened him. Pardon me, but I am not ready to toss out Joseph’s denials  in a vain attempt to make me feel better about the fact that our Mormon predecessors went against the Book of Mormon teachings that polygamy is an abomination and a whoredom.

The Latter-Day Saints had failed to peaceably establish themselves in the center place and turn it into the Zion of God where they could live the Celestial Law. They were to be scourged from city to city [until they were driven to the Rocky Mountains]. They were told that there remained a scourge and a judgment against them for their failures. Joseph was a prophet, seer, and a revelator and are we supposed to believe that he didn’t know that by his Nauvoo Legion, his destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, and his interest in polygamy he was creating an environment of distrust and fear among the non Mormon population which could only result in their being forced once more to leave their homes. I choose to believe that he knowingly created the circumstances which would lead to the expulsion of the saints to the West. We can take comfort from the fact that he had time to pass on the keys to the Latter-Day vicarious work for the dead.  

Read in the 26th chapter of Third Nephi and chapter four in the Book of Ether and you will see that the greater things were to be withheld from us until we demonstrated our belief in the Book of Mormon as we have it now. The rest of the gold plates were not translated because of our failure to believe the message in the Book of Mormon. Joseph ordained a black man, but he would not force the Saints to give up their racism. In accordance with Jacob 4:14 he gave them the Pearl of Great Price which their racist minds could only understand in a way which justified their racism because they looked beyond the mark, despised the words of plainness and sought for things they could not understand.