by Mike Parker

(Mike Parker is a long-time FAIR member who has graciously allowed us to use materials he originally prepared for the Hurricane Utah Adult Religion Class. The scripture passages covered in his lessons don’t conform exactly to the Come, Follow Me reading schedule, so they will be shared here where they fit best.)

Class Notes

Additional Reading

Digital photographs of Emma Smith’s 1835 hymnbook, available online at the Joseph Smith Papers website.

In early 1879, Emma was interviewed by her son, Joseph Smith III, who asked her questions about the Prophet Joseph, the translation of the Book of Mormon, and other events in the restoration of the gospel. Her responses were published as “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” The Saints’ Herald 26, no. 19 (1 October 1879): 289–90. Although Emma denied that the Prophet Joseph ever practiced plural marriage (which he, in fact, did), her eyewitness testimony is otherwise invaluable and inspiring.

Background on Emma’s second husband, Lewis Bidamon, may be found in Valeen Tippetts Avery and Linda King Newell, “Lewis C. Bidamon, Stepchild of Mormondom,” BYU Studies 19, no. 3 (Spring 1979): 375–88.

Mike Parker is a business and marketing analyst with over twenty years’ experience in the financial services and cellular telephone industries. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management Information Systems from Dixie State University (now Utah Tech University) of St George, Utah. He also has eight years’ experience in corporate training and currently teaches an adult religion class in southern Utah. Mike and his wife, Denise, have three children.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR – Doctrine and Covenants 25, 27–28 – Mike Parker appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about the interdependence of women and men. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand.

In a past episode, we talked about the role of women in both groups -there are some similarities and some significant differences. So I don’t want to rehash that part. But what I want to talk about has more to do with the way both groups see the interdependence of men and women. We’ll use 1 Cor 11:11 as our jumping-off point:

Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

I’ll start by saying neither group denies this verse. You’d be very hard-pressed to find an Evangelical who is going to write off any of Paul’s words and Latter-day Saints certainly embrace this idea as well. The difference is in how each group plays this out. And really, the short summary of that, is that Latter-day Saints generally think in a more communal mind-set than Evangelicals do. Let me give you an easy example.

I like to listen to audiobooks while I’m doing things around the house and lately I’ve been kind of obsessed with books on the history of the Western states, especially as it comes to water issues. So I’ve been listening to a classic in that genre called, “Cadelic Desert.” The early part of this book is about the history of the irrigation system in the West and the author is explaining the challenges and extraordinary effort required to bring water to the right places. The thing that caught my attention is that as he goes through this though is that he says, in many different ways, the “Mormons” figured out irrigation systems early on because they were a tight-knit society where the communal good could be more easily be put ahead of the individual good. Now, that doesn’t always work out, and certainly worked out easier in the 1910’s and 1920’s that this author was referring to.

So today what I want to talk about is some of the factors that cause Evangelicals to think about the individual and the community slightly differently than Latter-day Saints do. And then we’ll apply those thoughts to the concept of how gender roles play out differently for each.

We’ll start with some history. The Evangelicals are really influenced here by their desire to react against the Methodists. When the Evangelical movement begins – think early Billy Grayham, 1960’s – the largest player in the Protestant world in the United States are the Methodists. Today you can find Methodist churches all across the spectrum from very conservative to extremely liberal. But back then, Methodism mostly meant, “Your grandmother’s church.” There’s a lot of cultural upheaval at this time, rules in society are changing, and the early Evangelicals want to attend churches that feel like they’re keeping up with the times. In some ways, the early Evangelicals are in “reactionary identity” – meaning that they’re doing what teenagers sometimes do: first decide what they don’t want to be, and usually it’s, “I don’t want to be like my parents.” In their early days, Evangelicals were in this reactionary-identity mode of, “I don’t know what I am yet, but I’m not a fuddy-duddy grandma church.” So their initial starting place is: We want to be opposite of what is currently happening.

And really, they start with the most basic question: How does one enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ? For a very long time, the answer is: Well, not the way my parents did it. And how their parents did it, in the Methodist churches of that time, was infant baptism. Now, Methodists don’t conceptualize infant baptism the same as Catholics do, and I don’t want to get into the weeds of what that’s all about, but suffice it to say that the early Evangelicals were very clear on not wanting anything that seemed too old-fashioned, so they reject the Methodist practice. But every movement, especially a brand new one, needs allies and mentors, and the early Evangelicals found that support in the Southern Baptists. Why are they called “Baptists”? Because they believe in credobaptism, which basically means the individual person should be old enough to make a decision about baptism on their own. The opposite of that is pedobaptism, which is the fancy word for “infant baptism.” So it’s not even that the early Evangelicals were theologically set on credobaptism, they just knew they didn’t want pedobaptism. But that move sets them into an alliance with the Baptist churches – which are nothing if not independent. If you’ve been a Latter-day Saint your entire life this might take a moment to wrap your mind around, but Baptists are technically not considered a denomination. A denomination has some kind of central authority, the member-churches must follow certain rules and policies, as well as receive direction and over-sight from the central authority. Baptists conceptualize themselves as a “convention,” that is a group of like-minded churches that want to associate with each other – but who operate entirely independently and have very little responsibility to their headquarters. And if they want out, they can easily leave. Historically they disagree with each other on just about everything and for the most part that is not a problem. Though you might have heard in the news this year, one of the largest churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, Saddleback Church in Southern California, left the Convention over disagreements about the role of women.

But when the early relationship with the Baptists only gets them so far. By the time the late 1960’s come around the Evangelicals are trying to reach the hippie flower children and want to even further distance themselves from the “grandma church” culture (as they saw it – grandmas hold the churches of the world together, truth be told) so they start to remove the concept of baptism at all. It takes decades for this move to fully take effect, but today baptism has been sidelined in many Evangelical churches. It’s seen as an optional thing you might do if you feel led to do so, but it’s not necessary for salvation by any means.

This creates a problem for them though – if you’re not going to teach people to, as the New Testament says, “believe and be baptized” then how are people to identify themselves as believers? They invent something that today is called, “the sinner’s prayer” where they ask Jesus to be their “personal Lord and Savior.” Do you catch that word, “personal” – we’re talking today about individualism and community, how that has developed, and what it means for women and men. That phrase, “personal savior” comes to symbolize their entire stance toward their faith – it is a relationship that is entirely between you and God and no one else really gets a say in it. So from very early on in their history, Evangelicals are shaped by this idea that their faith is theirs alone, no one else can do it for them. And to this day that is a strong value for them. In 2020 a book came out called, “Jesus and John Wayner,” which is a critique of the Evangelical impulse toward rugged individualism.

Latter-day Saints on the other hand have spent most of the last 200 years being in a different situation. Because of the situation the early Latter-day Saints found themselves in, they didn’t have the luxury of straying too far away from the main group – they needed each other in order to survive. So from the very outset, Latter-day Saints are being formed as a people who rely on each other, sometimes for very basic survival. And though this is not as true as it used to be, you still see it play out in television and movies. A few weeks back at the FAIR conference Derek Westra gave a talk about this and how Latter-day Saints are portrayed in the media. Derek works for the church in the communications department and his job is to keep tabs on how our church is portrayed in the media. He showed example after example of recent shows and movies that portray Latter-day Saints as insular, afraid of outsiders, and as “not allowed” to reach books that are not printed by the church. The kind of communalism that I’m talking about is probably lower now than it has been in 200 years, but it’s still significant enough that outsiders see it and exaggerate it for entertainment.

Let me give you one more example of how Latter-day Saints have been shaped by a communal mindset. In contrast to, “you must ask Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior,” Latter-day Saints have been formed by these words, “How are they to become saviors on Mount Zion? By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfills the mission of Elijah.” We are formed not by a reactionary identity but by trying to link the entire human family together. It’s the opposite of Western Individualism or John Wayne Christianity. This is kind of a dumb analogy, but Evangelicalism is like team gymnastics. You’ve seen the Olympics, each team is made up of a certain number of athletes, and each athlete contributes their individual score to a group total. No gymnast can do anything to help the others. She is responsible entirely for her own performance which is then added to the group total. But no one helps her. Contrast that with baseball (or softball, or kick ball) if the bases are loaded and you’re up, you know what your job is – get your friends home. They can’t progress without your effort.

And that brings up to the interdependence of men and women. One of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked by friends outside of our church is something like: Has it been hard for you to “lower your status” as a woman? Or, “What does it feel like to now be in a church where women have no voice?” And sometimes I don’t even know how to answer that question because the context is so entirely different. Before I was baptized into our church, it’s true, I had some opportunities that I don’t have now. I was ordained, for example. That is not open to me now. I’m 100% fine with that, and let me explain why. If I were a gymnast and I were told, “You’re not allowed to do any of the coolest tricks,” I’d be upset for myself and for my team, “If I can’t do the coolest tricks, how will I ever contribute a high score to our team’s total?” It would be insulting because I know I can do more and I’m being artificially held back. But when you’re playing a team sport like baseball the whole thing is set up so that certain people are in certain positions for reasons. The pitcher isn’t placed there because he’s bad at catching, he’s placed there because he can pitch. The outfielder isn’t there because he’s bad at being a catcher – he’s there to play his role for reasons and without him the game would be lost. So, if I have a choice – and I do – between being just an individual and trying to get the highest score I can all on my own, and being part of a team where we’re meant to help each other get home, I know which one I choose.

Okay, that’s all the time we have for this week. Next week we’re talking about prophecy and how all of that works for both groups. I will see you then.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – 1 Corinthians 8–13 appeared first on FAIR.

by Jennifer Roach, MDiv, LMHC

Welcome back to Come Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions. My name is Jennifer Roach and today we’re going to talk about Women and their role in the church. As you know we’re going through the Come Follow Me readings and addressing common questions that Evangelicals ask about our faith as we go along. Our purpose here is not to fuel debate but to help you understand where your Evangelical friends and family are coming from so that you can have better conversations with them, and perhaps even be able to offer them a bit of our faith in a way they can understand.

Today’s verse comes from Luke 8:1-3:

Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.

So here we have Jesus and his disciples going around doing what they do – and we also have a group of women who are supporting them financially, and though the text doesn’t say it they were probably offering lots of other practical means of support as well. And so the question presents itself about the role of women in various churches. This is not an easy question answer on a number of fronts, but one of the most complicating factors is that “Evangelical Churches” are not 1 single entity.  “Evangelical” is not a denomination or formal group. Evangelicals are a subset of Protestants whose tradition and way of thinking developed about 75 years ago – around the time when the Billy Graham crusades began. But they can be of any denomination – like Baptists or Methodists – or they can be of no denomination at all. So when we say, “What is the Evangelical stance on women?” there is no one single answer to that.  There are some general trends and I’ll talk about those, but there are also lots of exceptions. Explaining our LDS understanding is complicated for other reasons. Unlike Evangelicals who have a decentralized structure, we have a very centralized structure so the official list of what women can and can’t do isn’t hard to identify – the difficult thing for us is that there are a lot of feelings around this. And I’ll talk about that a little today too.

The Evangelical View on Women

First, let’s gain some understanding on how Evangelicals view women and why they see it like they do. And the first thing I’ll say is that I’m not talking about the characteristics of Evangelical women. The reality is that they’re not all that much different than Latter-day Saint women in many ways. They love Jesus, they serve their families and community tirelessly, and they want good things for their children. But I’m going to talk about how they’re viewed in their churches, what they’re allowed to do, and why. 

I want so badly to be able to explain this to you in a simple way by saying, “there are two groups, and here is what they think,” but the on-the-ground reality is very different than that. I’m going to tell you how I understand it, even though it’s a bit messier.  And I know that even though this series is aimed at Latter-day Saints that we have some Evangelical friends who are listening along and I’d love to hear your experience on this issue in the comments – there really is a wide variety of how this plays out here. 

So, according to the Pew Research Center roughly 10% of American churches (in all their varieties) will ordain women and allow them to take the top leadership position in a church. And about half of those are Evangelical churches. So a pretty small minority of churches will say that women can be the lead pastor in a congregation. Of the largest 100 Churches in America – churches that have between 10,000 and 40,000 members (a few outliers have up to 100,000 members) 3 have a woman in the senior role, and 4 others have had one in the past, but not now. So the number of churches that have women in top leadership positions is very small, and we’re going to set that group aside for moment.  The only reason I really point them out is that sometimes I think Latter-day Saint women look at other churches with a sort of misunderstanding that they all have women who are allowed to do as much as they want, and that’s just not true. 

Public Role of Women

Of all the remaining churches, which is the vast majority, there are limits on what women are allowed to do, but those limits vary from church to church. Latter-day Saint women might find it amusing to hear that is that many, many of those churches women are not allowed to speak (meaning teaching or preaching) in a public service. I say that’s amusing because we let 12 year-old-girls teach us on Sunday morning on a regular basis. So sometimes when I hear Latter-day Saint friends complain about women not having enough of a role I just chuckle to myself because right out of the gate girls and women in our church already have a greater role than in many places. Churches that have this practice – women not being allowed to teach a mixed group in public – are doing so because they are trying to obey their understanding of Paul in the New Testament when he says, “a woman should remain silent in the church.” They take that very literally – this doesn’t mean that all of them like it, but they get respect for trying to take scripture seriously. 

In other churches women are allowed to speak or teach, but they are restricted from doing other things like bless and serve communion, or perhaps are restricted from being on a governing board or something similar. And here is where women in our church have a lot in common with Evangelical women as girls and women in our church do not do these things either. And it is probably fair to say that Evangelical women have mixed feelings about this just as Latter-day Saint women do. And they manage those feelings much like women in our church do. 

In terms of public worship outside of speaking/teaching Evangelical and Latter-day Saint women are pretty similar. In both traditions women are frequently found leading worship – for us that looks like a song leader helping the congregation with hymns, and for them it might look like a praise-band on a stage.  In both traditions women are often found doing things like teaching Sunday School, leading youth, planning events, coordinating various service efforts, and more. We sometimes joke that our church would not run without the Relief Society, well their churches wouldn’t run without the women who do the equivalent work. 

Ordination

When it comes to ordination it’s an interesting view. Many Evangelical churches don’t even practice ordination, so it’s not an easy comparison to make. Of those who do, they think about it differently. Ordination is usually not about being able to lead priesthood ordinances. There are a few minor exceptions to this and those have to do with who is authorized to do something like perform a wedding. But for the most part ordination is a process through which the community recognizes that a certain person has a call to some kind of ministry and they become ordained as a way for the congregation to say that they will sustain this person in their call. In function this is what we do too. I know that there are women – some whom I like and respect a lot – that would feel really frustrated with that explanation because they feel using the word “ordained” is important. And I sympathize with that pain. But in function, the callings that women experience in our churches work the same way that ordination works in most other churches. It’s recognition that someone is going to be filling a role and the community pledges their support. 

Interestingly enough, Evangelical women do not usually receive this formal kind of calling and declaration of support or sustaining. If the 3rd grade class needs a Sunday School teacher, a woman might volunteer, get a bit of training and some materials to use, and that is that. There is no calling and setting apart, no sustaining. While we don’t use “ordination” language for women in our church, the apples-to-apples comparison puts us in a situation that is often better than is recognized.

Heavenly Mother

Another difference to point out is that only the most liberal of Evangelical or Protestant churches would talk about having a Heavenly Mother. And to be fair, it’s not like we know a lot about how to do with her or even have a very developed theology around her – but we do have the concept of her. The only comparison that comes close for Evangelical women is that they can sometimes talk about God having feminine qualities – maybe a reference to the verse about Jesus being like a “mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings.” But it stops there.  Before I joined our church I did not know that Latter-day Saints had a belief in a Heavenly Mother. The way I found out went like this…I wasn’t even studying with the missionaries yet, but I wanted to visit a LDS service and just see what it was like.  It happened to be Father’s Day. We sang the hymn “Oh my Father,” and I was shocked to see the line about, “I have a Mother there.”  But I think I told myself that it was only a song and didn’t think too much about it. But one of the speakers that day was a middle aged man whose children were teenagers. He talked about the work of being a father with all its rewards and challenges, and admitted that he could not have begun that journey in any way without his wife. And then he said something like: It’s just like our Heavenly Father…a Mother is required for someone to become a Father and aren’t we grateful to have a Heavenly Mother.”  To say that I was shocked was an understatement. Only the most liberal of liberal churches would talk about God in that way. I was very confused.  Later I messaged a friend to ask about it – the only sense I could make of it was that this idea must have belonged to that individual man and he was saying something provocative but it was based in his own belief and logic – it couldn’t possibly be a teaching of the Church. 

The Two Trees

Before we are done here I want to make one recommendation. I know this is a tough topic for some women in our church. If nothing else I hope this comparison has helped you see that when you compare like-to-like, we actually have quite a bit to be very pleased with. And still, I think any of us can struggle from time to time. And I have a thought for something that might help. 

On the FAIR website (and YouTube channel) there is a talk called The Two Trees by Dr. Valerie Hudson. Dr. Hudson is a member of our church and also a professor at Texas A&M in the Department of International Affairs, previously she taught at BYU. Her list of impressive credentials is longer than my arm. I say all of that to say that this woman is no dummy. She is incredibly impressive. And she gave a talk called The Two Trees that addresses this topic so well. It’s a long and dense talk. I won’t do justice to it with this summary but her main point is that both men and women are required in this work. Without a woman (Eve) the whole human project would have never got off the ground. And without another woman (Mary), Jesus Christ could not have come to save us. But men have their role too. Without the man Jesus Christ we would be stuck in our sin forever. And without a priesthood bearing man we have no ability to accomplish ordinances. It took women to usher us into this world, and it takes men to usher us into the next. If this is at all interesting to you please go listen to Sister Hudson’s talk. It was the single most helpful thing for me to get all of this settled in my head. 

So there you have it.  There are many similarities – and some important differences between Latter-day Saint women and Evangelical women. I hope this conversation encouraged your faith and sparks something in you to learn more. 

Join us next week and we’ll tackle another topic from the New Testament.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Jennifer Roach earned a Master of Divinity from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and a Master of Counseling from Argosy University. Before her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she was an ordained minister in the Anglican church. Her own experience of sexual abuse from a pastor during her teen years led her to care deeply about issues of abuse in faith communities.

The post Come, Follow Me with FAIR: Faithful Answers to New Testament Questions – Matthew 13; Luke 8; 13 appeared first on FAIR.

Scriptural Mormonism Podcast Episode 14, cross-posted with permission.

Robert Boylan interviews Brian Hales and Craig Foster about Mormon Fundamentalism and the Netflix show “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey,” and specifically comparing FLDS to LDS, and Warren Jeffs to Joseph Smith.

Also join us at the 2022 FAIR Conference where Craig Foster will speak on “Under the Banner of Heaven,” and Brian Hales will participate in a lunch-time panel (for in-person attendees only) on common criticisms from Reddit. More information at https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2022-fair-conference

The post Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey – Mormon Fundamentalism with Brian Hales and Craig Foster appeared first on FAIR.

by Matt Crawford

The widow of Zarephath is one of my favorite stories from the Old Testament. Perhaps the greatest reason that this story resonates with me is because the widow is an outsider. She is not a member of the house of Israel—a fact the Savior confirms (see Luke 4:24–30)—and she meets Elijah at the gate of the city. That is, she is physically on the outskirts of this village where she lives. At least symbolically, the location of the widow’s initial contact with Elijah infers that she is marginalized. Yet her belonging came as she did one thing: she obeyed a prophet.

As Elijah, himself hungry and thirsty, traveled a great distance to meet this widow, I wonder what the prophet thought when he was told that a widow woman would care for his needs. Was he reticent about asking her when he saw her hunting for sticks? Wasn’t she already suffering enough? Would the added stress simply make her life worse? Or did he anticipate the miracle that would occur before he met her and found excitement in talking to her? Whatever the case, he invites her to act, and she responds.

Elijah “said, Fetch me, I pray thee a little water in a vessel, that I may drink…. Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand” (1 Kings 17:10–11).

The widow responds, “I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die” (1 Kings 17:12).

When Elijah assures her of sufficient oil and meal until the famine is over, “she went and did according to the saying of Elijah” (1 Kings 17:15).

The response of this widow is intriguing. It seems to me that she says, in essence, “What do I have to lose? Obeying this man will not make my life more difficult.” She already recognized that she and her boy would die and by doing what this stranger asked her to do she would not be any worse off. That said, she may have wondered why this man would even ask her to do anything. What did he know of her circumstances? How could he possibly help her?

For all the possible questions that she may have had, she did that which was counterintuitive. She chose to do that which was unexpected. Someone preparing to eat a last meal would hardly be asked to feed another first. “According to the world’s standards, following the prophet may be unpopular, politically incorrect, or socially unacceptable. But following the prophet is always right” (Sister Carol F. McConkie, “Live According to the Words of the Prophet,” October 2014 general conference).

Consider the offering of the Filipino widow of Tondo told by one of the children, Len B. Novilla.

There are six girls and a boy in our family—a mix that does not bode well in a society where women are not regarded as men’s equals. I am the fifth child in that brood of seven. I was six when my father[, Tondo,] died of cancer. Our eldest had just turned 18, and the youngest was two years old….

Without a stable breadwinner and with seven children left to a mother without a job or a college degree, our finances were tenuous. We grew up in poverty—not just income poverty but also a scarcity of opportunities. We were too poor to get an education, but my mother persisted in her dream to have each of her children complete a college degree. She believed in the power of education to enlighten and transform lives, to equalize social standing, and to be the vehicle out of our dismal circumstances. She borrowed money even at high interest rates to keep us in school….

Four years after my father died, two young American men knocked on our door looking for my mother. They introduced themselves as missionaries. Behind them was a throng of Filipino children fighting for their attention and calling out, “Hi, Joe.” Under the sweltering Philippine heat, these young men stood out in their white shirts, ties, and black briefcases; to us they looked like a toss-up between James Bond and CIA agents. I was about to say to them that my mother had told me to tell them that she was not home when my mother’s friends and their children, who came with the missionaries, showed up. My mom overheard and motioned to me to let them in. I quietly asked myself, “What are we getting ourselves into?” Inviting these Americans in was social suicide, as my mom was known in our community for her staunch devotion to the dominant faith.

…The year after my father died, martial law was declared in the Philippines. On top of that there was a national shortage of rice—the country’s staple food. To stave off the shortage, rice was combined with corn and rationed to five kilos per family. Food and jobs were scarce. For us to survive, my mom marshaled every inch of strength she had. She talked a friend into allowing her to be paid a meager sum for helping to deliver rice. She would leave at 4:30 in the morning and would come home at 11:00 at night. At the end of the day she would pick up grain after grain of rice and corn that had spilled on the floor of the delivery truck. She would not stop until she had several handfuls for tomorrow’s meals. Our life was already at its worst. How could listening to these Americans help? What could these missionaries offer that would make our life better?

To our surprise, our mother listened to the missionaries….It must have exacted much willpower from my mother to stop drinking coffee and to stop smoking—just because two foreigners barely in their twenties said so—at a time when nicotine patches were unheard of. It must have taken real faith to part with a widow’s mite for tithing.

…My mother, my younger sister Ruth, and myself were the first to be baptized. My older sisters followed months later. My brother was baptized when he turned eight. It took years and a temple in the Philippines for our father to be baptized by proxy and for us to be finally sealed as a family.

What did the missionaries offer? They offered us the opportunity of knowing that families can be together even beyond death—something my father had always hoped we could be. The missionaries taught us that we have a Heavenly Father who knows each of us by name and who loves us dearly—a concept so foreign to us, for the God that we knew lashed out with punishments and heard only memorized prayers….

The fruit of the gospel is remarkably sweet, and we paid a high price for it. Following our baptism, relatives and friends distanced themselves from us. They charged my mother with blasphemy and insanity. Some refused to extend any help despite our needs. The loss of that social safety net was economic suicide for a family already living on the edge of poverty. Even as young children we were not spared from many trials, and we had to grow far beyond our years. When I was attending a private school of another religious faith, a nun confronted me in front of my sixth-grade class for choosing to be baptized as a Latter-day Saint. I came home that day in tears. My sister and I were eventually disqualified from receiving the highest academic honors. We were denied the very measure of success that we had worked hard for. This was not the end. Many more challenges came.

How did we keep the faith? …[I]t was never because we were smarter or stronger, nor were our lives easier. With the help of the Holy Ghost, a conversion rooted within our hearts drove the change. What helped us was that we stayed on course. We did not give up at the very first sign of adversity. We kept going even when the tempests in our lives were raging. We kept paying tithing even when the choices came down to not having enough to eat. We kept coming to Church with the thought that if we continued to do so, eventually principles that were once unclear would make much more sense. We kept going with the understanding that people around us were not perfect but were putting forth the effort to be better….

Has the Lord been mindful of our sacrifices? Yes! He is continually involved in our lives. There was no way that a mother widowed at age 41, without a job and a college degree, could have possibly raised seven children from two to 18 years of age without divine help. Heaven must have heard her many pleadings and interceded in so many ways that it amazes us even to this very day. Through the Lord’s design and blessings, each of us was able to complete our studies: two doctors, a nurse, a lawyer, an accountant, a hotel and restaurant manager, and an IT support specialist. Thus was the promise of Elijah also fulfilled to the widow of Tondo:

“And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah” [1 Kings 17:15–16] (Len B. Novilla, “Journey of the Soul, Anchors of the Heart,” BYU Devotional, February 1, 2011).

Preservation, strength, and ability to keep going come as we obey the words of prophets.

I personally observed this reality several years ago. Through the example of an extremely old brother, I am reminded to obey the prophet’s invitation to serve in the Church.

I visited a sacrament meeting and watched a hunched old man, an usher, ever so slowly shut one set of side doors to the chapel in preparation for the blessing and passing of the sacrament. As I observed his movements, I wondered if I was watching slow motion footage on television I wondered if he was going to be able to get the doors shut before the prayers began. With the sound of the closing click, the prayers started. He had done it. Following the completion of the sacrament, as if in slow motion replay in reverse, he opened the doors and set the doorstops.

After the meeting I inquired about this man. I found out that he was officially called and set apart as an usher and faithfully fulfilled his calling every week.

Following the prophet and doing what he asks is simply not easy all the time. It generally is not convenient. And it definitely takes faith in things we cannot see. Yet a poor, hungry widow, as well as many others, continue to show me how to trust prophetic words.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Matt Crawford is a husband, father, teacher, and writer. He resides with his family in Layton, Utah.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 27 – 1 Kings 17–19 appeared first on FAIR.

(From a presentation originally titled “A Reconciliation of Polygamy,” given at the 2011 FAIR Conference; edited here for clarity and length)

Today we are going to talk about polygamy but probably in a different way than you have heard about it before. That is, we are going to talk about the doctrinal ins-and-outs of it rather than historical practices.

During the period of time when the restored Church was commanded by the Lord to practice polygamy, some practiced it without any discernible hardship and still others with great pain. Contemporary Church members may look back upon that period with acceptance, or indifference, or discomfort, and I would like to say at the outset that I don’t see that diversity of feelings is harmful that people differ in their reactions to polygamy I don’t think is the issue. Rather, since the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is at the heart of the work of eternal life and godhood; confusion about the nature and form of lawful marriage ordained by God is harmful.

Women and men may think that gender equality is compromised by the doctrine of polygamy. We need to know more, in other words. The overarching question we pose, therefore, is whether God has revealed his mind about these matters, and we believe that he has, specifically in Jacob 2 and in Doctrine & Covenants 132.

Why should we rely on these particular scriptures in order to tease out Mormon doctrine about polygamy? Well, I would like to make reference to an extraordinary statement that the Church issued on the 4th of May 2007. The statement is actually rather long, but here is an excerpt from it. “Not every statement made by a church leader – past or present – necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal though well-considered opinion but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publication.

This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith.

So I think if we want to address polygamy as a doctrine of the Church we must sort out what is Church doctrine, what we can enter in to the dialogue about polygamy and what we really can’t invite in as part of the dialogue about polygamy. So what is Church doctrine? It is what is currently taught; it is what is consistently taught; and it is to be found in a official church publication, specifically as we have just seen: the scriptures, the declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith.

Now I point this out because what I have found is that among our faith community there are still a number of teachings that some subscribe to and believe are Mormon doctrine that in fact are not. Let me give you just three examples: the teaching of blood atonement for murder (the Church has come out with an official statement that this is not a doctrine of the LDS church; the teaching that Christ was married (the Church says we don’t know if Christ was married –we are not saying he is not, but we are not saying he was — that is not a doctrine of the Church; and third, the teaching that Heavenly Father had sexual relations with Mary (again, the Church has announced that this is not Church doctrine. What is binding upon the Church membership is Church doctrine. Various church teachings the Church does not accept as being Church doctrine.

Let’s get back to the question in hand. Many, including, reportedly Emma Smith, have had difficulty reconciling Jacob 2 and D&C 132. In fact, I just saw in the Provo Daily Herald yesterday, a letter to the editor in which it was raised, “Aren’t these two scriptures in contradiction?” which I thought was interesting.

We choose to operate from a different assumption. These scriptures, found in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, come to us without taint of mistranslation or interpretation over millennia, in contrast to the Bible. Therefore, we do not believe that Jacob 2 and D&C 132 could have been mistranslated. In that case, we must either conclude that God revealed something to Jacob contradictory to that which he revealed to Joseph Smith, or we must assume that these two scriptures do not contradict one another. I am going to assume the latter. I am going to assume that these two scriptures are not only not in contradiction but in fact reinforce, affirm, and parallel one another.

To see how this is so, let us first ask about the principle and purpose of marriage in God’s work.

We know quite a bit about marriages as an eternal principle. God commands his children to marry (D&C 49). God married our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden before the Fall (Moses 3). Scripture asserts that persons must be married to inherit the fullness of the Father in the celestial kingdom and that those who are not worthy of the celestial kingdom live as unmarried persons (D&C 132).

Furthermore, not only are persons to be married, but they are to be married in the New and Everlasting Covenant. The Lord states that this type of marriage is “by my word, which is my law.” In LDS culture we colloquially refer to marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant as “temple marriage.” From all of this we understand that marriage in the New and Everlasting Covenant, or temple marriage, is an eternal principle of the highest importance, and this is so because of the purpose of such marriage.

The purpose of marriage in mortality and the purpose of marriage in the hereafter is to further the work of divine love. This work has a two-fold nature. The purpose of marriage in mortality is to raise up righteous seed to God, which accomplishment merits for the marriage partners a right to the “continuation of the seeds forever and ever.” This spiritual rationale which underpins the eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant is God’s overarching work of love for his children to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.

Given this eternal principle of marriage in the new and everlasting covenant, what is the law, the general rule or unrestricted form of marriage? Is there a lawful exception? What is the nature and status of that lawful exception?

Let us first turn to Jacob’s sermon on this topic.

What is the form of Jacob’s discussion of marriage? First, Jacob notes a social problem of great severity at his time. The men at his time are taking many wives and concubines and “seek to excuse themselves in committing these whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon, his son” (Jacob 2). The situation is that these great men of the scripture were doing one thing, but God is now saying that those who follow David and Solomon’s example are committing “iniquity.” How are we to understand this apparent contradiction? This is the question that prompts Jacob’s short but profound sermon on the law of marriage.

In answer to that question, the Lord notes that these men “understand not the scriptures” and err when they “seek to excuse themselves” in emulating David and Solomon. The Lord continues, “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me.” Immediately following this frank judgment, the Lord states, “Wherefore I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem,” — notice the term “wherefore,” meaning ‘because of this’ — “I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem by the power of mine arm that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord will not suffer that this people should do like unto them of old.”The use of the word “wherefore” in these two scriptures reveals that part of the purpose in separating the Nephites from the civilization of their origin and bringing them across the ocean to the Promised Land was to “raise up a righteous” people who would not succumb to the errors of David and Solomon.

How would the children of Lehi act if this purpose had been fulfilled? In the very next verse we are given the answer to that question. In verse 27, Jacob expounds the law of marriage — the rule or unrestricted form of marriage, if you will: “Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none”.

The general law or rule or unrestricted form of the eternal principle of marriage is monogamy. That monogamy is the law or rule of the principle of marriage is found several places throughout the scriptures. Here’s an example, Doctrine and Covenants 49 “Wherefore, it is lawful that he [man] should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation.”

In the beginning, when the earth was empty and sorely needed replenishing, God gave Adam but one wife, Eve, that the pattern of his law of marriage might be set from the dawn of time in the very first human marriage on earth. Joseph Smith said, “I have constantly said no man shall have but one wife at a time, unless the Lord directs otherwise.” Bruce R. McConkie concurs: “According to the Lord’s law of marriage, it is lawful that a man have only one wife at a time, unless by revelation the Lord commands plurality of wives in the New and everlasting covenant.” Of course, taking a plurality of wives outside of the New and everlasting covenant, outside of being commanded to do so by the Lord, is always a grievous sin.

Jacob teaches us that monogamy is the general law of marriage and polygamy is an exception to the general law, which exception must be commanded by the Lord before it can be practiced. Furthermore, Jacob reveals the reason the Lord will command the exception: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people to practice polygamy; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.” –that is to take but one wife and have no concubines.

With this understanding of the purpose of marriage and the law and the lawful exception of marriage in mind, Jacob’s sermon is profound, despite its brevity. Rooted in divine love for his children, God commands men and women to marry. In general, he commands them to marry monogamously. Sometimes, he will command them to marry polygamously. Both the giving of the general law and the commandment to depart from the general law are motivated by God’s love for us. But one thing is also clear from Jacob’s sermon: God is not indifferent concerning how his children marry. He actively and severely restricts the practice of polygamy, while leaving monogamy unrestricted.

One can be “destroyed” for practicing polygamy without God’s sanction, becoming “angels to the devil” and “bringing your children unto destruction, and their sins heaped upon your head at the last day,” but no such punishment attends the practice of monogamy.

Our next question for whose answer we must turn to D&C 132 is simple. Why is God not indifferent concerning the practices of monogamy and polygamy, severely restricting as he does the second while leaving the first virtually unrestricted?

For that we must turn to D&C 132. D&C 132, I think, is one of the deepest and most thought-provoking scriptures in our canon. And it is also one I think that many LDS wrestle with. So let’s wrestle with it. Shall we? D&C 132 concerns the New and everlasting covenant of marriage and its place at the heart of the plan of salvation and exaltation. Without its restoration, the fullness of eternal life would be unobtainable. Thankfully, as noted in D&C 132:40, the Lord gave Joseph Smith an “appointment” to “restore all things,” and therefore Joseph Smith restored the New and everlasting covenant of marriage. This much is indisputable. What is often in dispute in our culture is what exactly that means.

Given the over 150 years that have passed since the receipt of the revelation known as D&C 132, we are in a better position to settle that dispute. Joseph Smith restored marriage for “time and all eternity,” which we now colloquially call “temple marriage.” In restoring the principle of temple marriage, Joseph Smith restored both the general law of marriage and the lawful exception as elucidated by Jacob centuries before. Put more precisely, Joseph Smith restored the general law of monogamous temple marriage and he restored the lawful exception of polygamous temple marriage.

At the time of the revelation most scholars say prior to the date given for D&C 132, God commanded Joseph Smith to command the Church membership to practice polygamy. By so doing, God activated the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Thus, polygamous marriages entered into in the temple after that commandment was given by the Lord were “without condemnation on earth and in heaven.” Putting Jacob’s teachings together with Joseph’s teachings, the commandment to practice polygamy was given by God at that time for the purpose of “raising up seed unto me God”.

However, in 1890 God rescinded the commandment sanctioning the lawful exception to the general law of marriage. Polygamous marriages would no longer be recognized by the Lord and indeed would be grounds for excommunication from the Church. This rescinding did not unrestore the New and everlasting covenant of marriage, or temple marriage. Temple marriage is a mainstay of our religion and will never cease to be our ideal. The New and everlasting covenant of marriage is still among us, but the commandment to live the lawful exception to the general law of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant is no longer among us.

Thus the restoration of all things does not demand that polygamy be actively practiced among the Saints; it merely demands that the possibility of God commanding polygamy, which possibility demands the restoration of temple marriage and sealing keys exists, and so it does to this day. As long as there are temples and sealing keys among our people, God can, whenever he chooses to do so, command his people to practice polygamy. But the presence of temples and sealing keys does not conversely demand or necessitate that God actually issue the command to practice polygamy. Our contemporary situation is perfectly described in this manner and explains how Bruce R. McConkie could conclude that polygamy cannot be a requirement for exaltation and why the Church does not preach that it is.

So we conclude that in restoring all things, Joseph Smith restored temple marriage, complete with its general law, monogamous temple marriage and the possibility of God-commanded lawful exception, polygamous temple marriage. Thus we see that God’s lack of indifference concerning the manner of marriage among his children which we noted in Jacob 2 persists in D&C 132. Even with the restoration of temple marriage, God is still not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy.

If he were indifferent, his words to us might be, “As long as you marry in the temple, I am indifferent as to whether you marry monogamously or polygamously.” But such a conclusion cannot be reached, for he persists in actively and severely restricting polygamy despite the presence of temples in our midst. Absent a commandment from the Lord to practice polygamy given through his mouthpiece the prophet, a member of the Church would be excommunicated for attempting to practice it.

Now some have suggested that it’s simply the illegality of polygamy in the U.S. that is the issue. Well, that actually is not the issue. I think you already know that. Such an excommunication would take place even if the Church member were living in a land where polygamy was legal. Even if polygamy were to be legalized in the United States itself, the Church would still excommunicate members in the U.S. who attempted to practice it, unless the Lord issued the required commandment through the prophet to practice it.

Our missionaries are not allowed to baptize polygamists, even if they live in countries where polygamy is completely legal. There is no greater spiritual punishment the Church can mete out against an offender than excommunication. God persists in making a strong discrimination between monogamy and polygamy, even in the context of the restoration of all things.

We now turn once again, I think to the crux of the matter. Why is God not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy? When we believe that in Doctrine and Covenants we will find the light that we need. We go so far as to say that in this scripture the Lord freely reveals his mind to his children concerning the reasons for his lack of indifference.

I think one of the most one of the marvelous elements of the Lord’s discourse in Doctrine and Covenants 132 and in the Doctrine and Covenants more broadly, is the insight it gives us into how the Lord reasons. The argument the Lord puts forward is meant to be understood by his people. I must tell you as a convert to the Church and as a member of the Roman Catholic Church growing up, I will never forget in catechism school when something that didn’t quite add up would be raised by the nuns, I would raise my hand and I would say, “Sr. McElroy, I don’t understand.” and she would say to me, “That’s the beauty of it! That’s the mystery of the divinity of God!” and I would be like… And so I must admit being a rather concrete type of person it was such a relief, such a wonder, to hear by reading Doctrine and Covenants that God actually wants us to understand why he is thinking about things the way he is thinking about them. Now whether we mere mortals can fully understand is another question, but the desire on his part that we understand I think is really unique in the LDS Church.

Alright, so back to this. Let’s make the reasonable assumption that God means what he says, and God wants us to understand what he means. So in Doctrine and Covenants 132, the Lord attempts to reason with Joseph Smith in order to help him understand the principles involved in marriage. In Doctrine and Covenants Section 50 we see here, “And now come…by the Spirit, unto the elders of [my] church, and let us reason together, that you may understand; Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face. Now, when a man reasoneth he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you that you may understand. Wherefore, I the Lord, will ask you this question…”

So in D&C 132, we can assume the Lord will reason with us and present arguments that we may understand on the issue of polygamy, and the Lord will begin his chain of reasoning as he mentioned in D&C 50 with a question, which he will then proceed to answer. So the Lord states at the beginning of the revelation:

“You [Joseph Smith] have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David, and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines — Behold and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.”

What is the form of the argument concerning the law of marriage in this scripture? The form is virtually identical to Jacob 2, which demonstrates the consistency and unchanging nature of the Lord’s reasoning on this matter. D&C 132 parallels Jacob 2 and serves as a more detailed exposition and affirmation of Jacob 2.

Let us see how this is so. The same historical question serves as the catalyst for [Section] 132 as it did for Jacob 2. What are we to make of the practice of David, Solomon, and other great patriarchs of old having many wives and concubines? This time the inquirer is Joseph Smith — he who had previously translated the Book of Mormon, including Jacob 2.

This inquiry is again met by a setting forth of the general principles of marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, then followed by a more specific explanation of the lawful exception of polygamy. Hyrum M. Smith’s early commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants states, “The Revelation is divided into two parts. The first part, comprising verses 3 to 33, deals mainly with the principle of celestial marriage, or marriage for time and all eternity, and the second, comprising the remaining verses, deals with plural marriage.”

Now, as to the first part of D&C 132, verses 3 to 33, we have a reiteration that you must marry, and you must marry in the temple in order for your marriage to be effective in the hereafter and in order for you to be exalted,.

And we learned that those who reject temple marriage  cannot have eternal increase; they cannot be gods but are appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants. Now in the setting fourth in 3 to 33 of the general principle of eternal marriage, temple marriage, marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, there is no mention of polygamy; indeed, the whole issue of David and Solomon is not raised once in the verses where the Lord discusses in general what eternal marriage is, why he commands it, and why those who reject it are condemned. Additionally, this marriage covenant is described in terms that do not necessarily imply polygamy at all. I mean, it’s not there in verses 3 to 33.

It is not until the second half of the revelation, starting with verse 34 forward, that polygamy is addressed. Before the Lord begins his discussion of polygamy, he introduces the case of Abraham. The Lord begins by explaining that because of Abraham’s righteousness in receiving “all things” by “revelation and commandment,” Abraham “hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne. As a result, Abraham’s seed will ‘continue’ and will be “as innumerable as the stars”.

A key element of Abraham’s righteousness was to enter into the law, which provides for “the continuation of the works of my Father, wherein he glorifieth himself”. The law referred to here is the law, or general principle, that the Lord has been expounding up to that point: marriage in the New and everlasting covenant, Abraham accepted marriage in the New and everlasting covenant. Again the Lord warns, as he does in verses 3, etcetera “[Except ye enter] into my law and be saved, ye cannot receive the promise of my Father…”

Finally, starting with verse 34, the Lord turns to the topic of polygamy. He begins the discussion with a statement of fact: “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife.” In the verses that follow, the Lord will answer the question he then poses: “And why did she do it?”

The Lord has apparently chosen to explain his reasoning and reveal his mind on polygamy in terms of a specific analogy between two situations that occurred to one man, Abraham. The Lord’s subsequent explanation of polygamy centers around an analogy the Lord himself posits between his commandment to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and his commandment to Abraham to marry Hagar polygamously. In verse 36 the Lord explains: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness”.

Now, given the importance of his children having a correct understanding of their Father’s mind on this topic, we cannot believe that this analogy was chosen capriciously. This is not an arbitrary analogy being made,. and since it is the only analogy being made, we must pay attention to it and try to understand why that analogy was chosen.

God wants us to see how and why he views those two situations as analogous: sacrifice Isaac; take Hagar to wife. By choosing the story of Isaac to be the analog of the story of polygamy the Lord reveals his mind to us and constrains forever and irrevocably any discussion we, his children, might choose to have on the subject of polygamy.

We must understand correctly why the Lord elects to use this particular analogy, or we are likely to seriously err in our understanding of the role and place of polygamy in God’s plan for his children.

The first and most telling point to note about the analogy is that the story of Isaac is a story of sacrifice. The Lord is telling us that the term “Abrahamic sacrifice” refers not only to the story of Isaac but applies to the story of Hagar as well.

Before the Lord even delves into the analogy, his very positing of an analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation is revealing. Of all the possible analogies of sacrifice that God has commanded in the history of the world (sacrifice of animals under the Mosaic law; sacrifice of possessions under the law of consecration; sacrifice of home and country as the early saints did in crossing the plains; sacrifice of your own life as Joseph Smith and others have done), God chooses the most wrenching sacrifice he has ever commanded to serve as the analogy wherewith to instruct us concerning polygamy — the sacrifice of one’s own innocent child by one’s own hand. This choice of analogy by the Lord is meant to reveal to us that in the Lord’s eyes the Hagar situation is no light matter or run-of-the-mill sacrifice but rather is like unto the heaviest and most heart-wrenching of all sacrifices God has ever required of man.

In positing this analogy then we get a parallel, and that parallel is being commanded to kill your innocent son is analogist to being commanded to marry polygamously. Why, because murder is as grievous as sin as adultery and vice versa.

Now, what is an Abrahamic Sacrifice? Let’s make sure that we understand that. Sacrifice is one of the first principles of a gospel — we know that, and we know that there are various forms of sacrifice. For example, we might say that we are sacrificing to send a child on a mission. That sacrifice is by our own choice, and we know that the goal is one that we desire.

Another type of sacrifice might be to accept the consequences of doing the right thing. We might be ostracized or oppressed because our belief and behavior by those who believe otherwise towards us is unpleasant. I think we saw this in the Proposition 8 campaign, didn’t we? However, it’s our choice and we are very much desirous of that goal.

A third type of sacrifice appears from our mortal perspective maybe not to involve agency, though I believe some agency was involved. These are sacrifices of adversity, for example, where an innocent child is born with an imperfect body, or accidents or illness take the health or life of persons. We don’t think of those as conscious mortal choices, but some of us believe that they were pre-mortal conscious choices about some of these things.

But the heaviest sacrifice a person can ever be called upon to make — the Abrahamic sacrifice is slightly different from these other three. In the Abrahamic sacrifice, we are asked by God to make a conscious choice in a situation where what he requires of us cannot be regarded as a desired goal from all that we know about God’s laws.

We can all understand how obedience to God’s laws, for example to the Ten Commandments, brings a happier, richer, and more peaceful life. But what if God were to command us to break the Ten Commandments? Reason alone would tell us we would lose the happiness and peace that would come from obedience to the law. But the test of the Abrahamic sacrifice is not a test of reason. It is a test of faith. It is the ultimate test of faith.

Remember for a moment what an Abrahamic sacrifice represents. An Abrahamic sacrifice involves at least three elements that are to be found in the story of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac: 1. God makes plain to Abraham a law, “thou shalt not kill;” 2. God then requires Abraham, an innocent and righteous man, to depart from that law, sacrifice Isaac, an innocent child, and the choice to depart therefrom would seem to erase any joy in Abraham’s life, because the true happiness is to be found under the law — don’t kill Isaac; and 3. God provides a means of escape from the departure from the law — an angel is sent to stay the hand of Abraham, and the ram in the thicket is provided by the Lord, which allows renewed joy from being able to live under the law — don’t kill Isaac — once more.

Let’s go ahead and talk about The Abrahamic Sacrifice Concerning Hagar. With that understanding in mind, let’s go back to D&C 132. Remember in verse 34 we finally begin a discussion of polygamy; we discover that God commanded Abraham to have children, in this case, one child, Ishmael, with Hagar, who was not his wife at the time of the commandment and who was handmaiden to his wife, Sarah. Abraham took Hagar to wife, thus entering into a God-commanded polygamous union.

Fortunately, rather than just leaving us with this fact, the Lord helps us to greater understanding through his discussion of “Why?”, because this was the law, and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore was fulfilling, among other things, the promises. Does this mean that, in God’s eyes polygamy is the general law and that he is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy after all? We will see this isn’t what the Lord is saying, because the Lord’s exposition does not end with verse 34.

To make sense of verse 34 we must look at it in conjunction with the rest of the verses that then follow. Immediately after verse 34 the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?” If we accept the position that the Lord is indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, this question is a non sequitur, it makes no sense. The very question itself would not be understandable. How can someone practicing a form of marriage about which the Lord is indifferent be perceived to be “under condemnation?”

God cannot be referring to some type of cultural condemnation by Abraham’s peers. We are not talking about Joseph Smith’s time, when polygamy was culturally unacceptable; we are discussing Abraham, in whose culture polygamy was commonplace and accepted. No one in Abraham’s cultural setting would be condemning him for practicing polygamy, so why does the Lord ask about this?

The Lord’s question raises a puzzle for us, and to understand it we must look to the scriptures that immediately follow. Verse 36 is the great key to this puzzle.

In this verse, as noted, the Lord posits the direct analogy between his commandment to sacrifice Isaac and the commandment to marry Hagar. In that verse, the Lord said: “Abraham was commanded to offer his son Isaac; nevertheless, it was written: Thou shalt not kill. Abraham, however, did not refuse, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.”

Let us be clear on what is happening here. The general law that God commands all to obey is “Thou shalt not kill.” Then, to one innocent and righteous man at one time, he gives a commandment to kill his own son — not a stranger, not a criminal, not an enemy soldier. There is no justification possible for killing one’s innocent young son. In fact, we know that God destroyed those at Jerusalem for the child sacrifices that they were making there.

God has commanded something exceptional of this man — something that goes against all he knows of God’s law and for which he can find no possible justification. God is asking Abraham to depart from the law he himself gave Abraham. He requires of Abraham a sacrifice not demanded by justice and the law. In this sense, God asks Abraham to perform a Christ-like sacrifice in similitude of the sacrifice of God and his own perfectly innocent son in the atonement.

Because Christ was perfectly innocent the law could not demand that he suffer and die for others. But Christ chose to suffer and die to fulfil the demands of justice and mercy for others. Abraham and Christ, both consciously chose to sacrifice the happiness that they were due under the law to bring about a greater good for others.

We know from the account in Genesis that Abraham’s choice was felt by him as a sacrifice of happiness; Abraham was not happy to hear the commandment to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, we believe he felt great sorrow, maybe even some confusion, but Abraham was determined to obey God, even if great sorrow and grief befell him as a result.

Because Abraham obeyed an exceptional commandment of God and departed from the law, it was counted unto him for righteousness. But his obedience did not turn the departure from the law into the law. God has never since commanded any person to sacrifice their child.

In fact, God provided Abraham an escape from killing his son, despite the original exceptional commandment to kill Isaac that God himself gave. In returning to the law “thou shalt not kill” after having to depart from it “sacrifice Isaac,” Abraham felt renewed joy and relief in regaining Isaac. Though he undoubtedly felt some paradoxical joy in submitting to God’s will in all things, Abraham’s joy was not full until the test was over and the escape made.

So why is the Lord making the sacrifice of Isaac a direct analogy to his commanding Abraham to take Hagar to wife? We conclude in this situation, as in the situation concerning Isaac, God is commanding a departure from the law — something that is, as a general rule, a thing to be condemned by God. That is why the Lord asks, “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation?”

According to the general law, or rule, of monogamous marriage in the New and everlasting covenant of marriage set forth by God himself and given that God is not indifferent between the two forms of marriage, Abraham is under condemnation — otherwise, the Lord’s question makes no sense.

But the Lord answers his own question: “Nay, he was not under condemnation for I, the Lord, commanded it” verse 35, thus creating the supercessionary but still exceptional “law” of verse 34. There would be no puzzle and nothing to ask or answer if God was indifferent between monogamy and polygamy.

But if God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then a puzzle does arise — a puzzle that is answered by the Lord with reference to an obvious case of a commandment by God to depart from the general law and follow a lawful exception.

This to me is the strongest possible scriptural evidence that D&C 132 is in complete harmony with Jacob 2, and that, therefore, the general law or rule of marriage is monogamy and the lawful exception is polygamy and God maintains as strong a discrimination between the two forms of marriage in this dispensation as he did in Jacob’s time.

We can now say why it is that God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy. In the Lord’s eyes, monogamy is not a sacrifice, it’s a blessing, but polygamy is a sacrifice and not just any sacrifice. The Lord tells us it is an Abrahamic sacrifice.

No matter what our human inventory of emotions toward polygamy — joy, sorrow, or some combination of the two — the most mature, the most knowledgeable perspective is that of the Lord, who is stating his mind that he views it as an Abrahamic sacrifice.

The Lord himself reveals his mind on the matter through his analogy between Isaac and Hagar. All other things being equal, God is not indifferent towards the type of sacrifice Abraham was required to make, because it involves Christ-like suffering.

However, as with Abraham’s sacrifice, which points to the sacrifice of the innocent son of God in the atonement, sometimes Christ-like suffering is the greater good and the most loving course of action. Thus, in a sense, despite the suffering involved in a Christ-like sacrifice or Abrahamic sacrifice there is a joy which comes from knowing that sacrifice is, in God’s eyes, the right and loving thing to do.

There is a joy which comes from suffering in God’s cause, it deepens our hope and trust and faith in his goodness, but notice my dear, brothers and sisters, that the presence of joy in a sacrificial act does not remove that act from the category of “sacrifice” and put it in a new  category called “non-sacrifice”. We will explore this in just a moment.

The Abrahamic sacrifice would mean very little to us if we did not discriminate between our desire for the happiness that God’s law gives us and our antipathy towards abandoning that happiness even if God commands it. If Abraham were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, God’s commandment to sacrifice Isaac couldn’t have been a test of Abraham’s faith.

Likewise, if God were indifferent as to whether Isaac lived or died, there would have been no angel and no ram in the thicket. But an Abrahamic sacrifice is no cold and passionless event; quite the contrary, it is the greatest passion that the human heart can feel.

This is an innocent person consciously choosing to release what he knows to be true happiness under God’s loving laws, because he loves God more dearly than he loved his own true happiness. This is a sacrifice not justified under the law of God. Abraham and Isaac were innocent, and the joy is not complete until the escape is made.

Once his test was passed, Abraham’s reward, among other things, was to not have to sacrifice Isaac. Indeed, in a sense Abraham’s reward for offering to sacrifice Isaac was to regain him forever. Though the test was given to Abraham because he was so righteous, his reward for passing the test could not have been perpetuation of the sacrifice.

I am sorry to belabor this point, but I think it’s something that we get muddied when we think about polygamy. Abraham did not then have to wake up every morning and go to Mount Moriah. Passing the test meant that the sacrifice was not perpetuated. There was an escape.

This combination of suffering and joy applies equally well to the Hagar situation. We know that Abraham was not happy at the prospect of killing Isaac, but he obeyed, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Since the Lord tells us the Hagar situation is analogous, none of the parties — Abraham, Hagar or Sarah or for that matter, Ishmael or Isaac — should have been exempt from suffering in this situation, even though they would have felt that paradoxical joy that comes from sacrificing to do the Lord’s will. Why? Because in the Lord’s eyes, all five persons were sacrificing. And what were they sacrificing? The natural joy that comes from the law of marriage — monogamy in the New and everlasting covenant.

Genesis makes plain that that was in fact the case: no one was happy, and Hagar and Ishmael were forced to leave. In fact, God sanctioned their dismissal from the camp, miraculously saving Hagar in the desert. God didn’t seem to expect or require that they all be happy — he only expected that they trust and obey him. Furthermore, since Abraham offering to sacrifice Isaac was counted unto him for righteousness, the sacrifice of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar to depart from the law of marriage was also counted unto them for righteousness.

Being happy about the commandment to practice an Abrahamic sacrifice does not seem to factor into the counting of one’s obedience as righteousness. After all, a sacrifice remains a sacrifice despite the paradoxical joy experienced. We know this principle from many situations. “Murmuring” against the law is not acceptable, but crying out to the Lord in innocent anguish — anguish felt as a result of obeying God’s commands — is not condemned.

We know this because Christ himself cried out in pain and anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he cried out in pain and anguish on the cross at Calvary. He initially felt to shrink from drinking the bitter cup. He even asked Heavenly Father why he had forsaken him.

Christ was making a sacrifice not justified under the law. His death was a departure from the divine law. If Christ himself was not thought less of by God for expressing suffering caused by a departure from divine law, why would God require mere mortals to be stoic when suffering pain caused by righteous obedience to a commandment to depart from the law? The answer is that he does not.

When Abraham was asked to make a sacrifice not justified under the law, his heart mourned and we do not think less of him for it. We know God loved Abraham with great intensity. In truth, if God wept with Christ in Gethsemane in Calvary, if he wept with Abraham on the road to Mount Moriah, did he not also weep when Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and other righteous polygamous wives and husbands wept? The Lord’s own analogy leads us to believe that he did. Christ, Abraham, and many righteous polygamous wives and husbands felt both suffering and paradoxical joy in their chosen sacrifices.

I think it’s important to remember here that Sarah and Hagar were not changed into some sort of new being when God issued the exceptional commandment to depart from the law. They were normal women with normal passion and felt the loss of departing from the law of marriage.

Likewise, the women of the early Church were not changed when God commanded polygamy to be practiced. Because they were not changed they made a righteous and exceptional sacrifice. Those who claim women will be changed in the hereafter to accept polygamy seem not to see the significance of this. The natural joy that would be brought by adherence to the law of God is lost even when it is God commanding the departure from the law.

The final aspect of the Lord’s analogy between the Isaac situation and the Hagar situation must not be overlooked. Since, in a sense, the Lord is inviting us to reason about two Abrahamic sacrifices, we cannot fail to recognize the theme of eventual relief that pervades both. Remember that when Abraham raises his hand to slay his son Isaac, the Lord sends an angel to stop him and provides a ram in the thicket.

The first Abrahamic sacrifice is brought to an end by the Lord, who relieves Abraham from the exceptional commandment which has caused him suffering. The paradoxical joy of submission to God in departing from the law is replaced by the fuller natural joy that comes from living under God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.”

By offering to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham regains Isaac forever. This is a very important element of any Abrahamic sacrifice: it is always eventually brought to an end by God. The lifting of the exceptional commandment comes as a tangible relief to Abraham.

Why does the Lord bring this relief? We can only reiterate that it is because God is not indifferent between a state of sacrifice and a state of relief, and that all other things being equal, he actively prefers eventual relief to perpetual sacrifice for his innocent children.

Lest we mistake this natural Fatherly preference, Christ asks rhetorically, “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” The great sacrifice to which Abraham’s sacrifice points, the atonement, was also brought to an end by God.

His sacrifice ended. We sing of Christ: “Once rejected by his own now their King, he shall be known. Once forsaken, left alone, now exalted to a throne. Once he groaned in blood and tears, now in glory he appears. Once he suffered grief and pain, now he comes on earth to reign. Once upon the cross he bowed, now his chariot is the cloud. Once all things he meekly bore, but he now will bear no more.”

This sacrificial assignment came to Christ because of his perfect righteousness, but we must understand that though Christ’s sacrifice merited him a reward, His sacrifice did not constitute His reward.

If the Lord has chosen the Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, then we would expect to see an end to the exceptional commandment in this case as well, which end would bring relief. Obedience to God’s exceptional commandment to practice polygamy merited a reward for Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, but it did not constitute their reward. Implicit in God’s sanctioning of Sarah’s demand that Hagar and Ishmael be banished is God’s recognition of the sacrifice and suffering from the point of view of the two mothers involved and his desire to provide relief to them.

Interestingly, God does not condemn either woman for feeling the way she does; he accepts the negative emotional situation as a natural consequence of the departure from the law he has commanded and agrees to a change in the situation to relieve the sorrow and the tension. The appearance of God’s angel to Hagar in two situations and God’s miraculous rescue of Hagar and Ishmael are very important components of this relief.

Before turning to that, I would like to make mention of D&C 132, verse 50. In verse 50, I believe God is extending this analogy of sacrifice and sorrow and eventual relief in relation to polygamy to Joseph Smith’s own personal situation in polygamy. Speaking to Joseph Smith, the Lord says, in that verse “I have seen your sacrifices in obedience to that which I have told you. Go, therefore, and I make a way for your escape, as I accepted the offering of Abraham of his son Isaac.”

Now, Joseph Smith made many sacrifices in his lifetime. But these other sacrifices by Joseph Smith — deprivation of property, of liberty, and so forth are not in the same class as an Abrahamic sacrifice, because God did not command of Joseph a departure from the law. In our opinion, the only sacrifices required of Joseph that meet the characteristics present in the case of Abrahamic sacrifice were Joseph’s sacrifices in connection with polygamy.

Furthermore, all of the surrounding verses to verse 50 are speaking of polygamy, and the only other mention of Isaac in the revelation is with reference to polygamy. The escape is not in reference to escape from enemies or poverty or other travails, because the last phrase about Isaac reiterates that it is an escape from the command of the Lord to depart from God’s law. The whole of which verse 50 is a part begins with verse 36, because they are like bookends: Isaac in verse 36, Isaac again in verse 50.

It seems reasonable to conclude then, that God is speaking of polygamy in verse 50. God is expressing sympathy for the hardships and sorrow imposed on Joseph by the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage. He is promising to count Joseph’s obedience for righteousness, as Abraham’s sacrifice was counted. And, very significantly, he is promising that at some future point Joseph will have an escape from the exceptional commandment to depart from the law of marriage and that his sacrifice and suffering that attended his obedience would come to an end.

This exceptional commandment was given to Joseph because of his great righteousness.

But we must not fail to remember that Joseph’s practice of the exceptional commandment of polygamy merited him a reward, but it could not conceivably constitute his reward under the conceptual framework that the Lord’s argument lays out for us.

Christ chose to sacrifice his life, but regained it and felt the relief and joy that came from living once more. Abraham chose to sacrifice Isaac, but regained Isaac and felt the relief and natural joy that comes from obeying commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” If the Lord chose this Isaac-Hagar analogy with care, and we have every reason to believe that he did, then verse 50 is telling us that one day there would be a “ram in the thicket” for Joseph Smith concerning his Abrahamic sacrifices in polygamy, and that he would feel the relief and natural joy that attends such an escape.

Let’s look at implications for Sundry LDS cultural assumptions about polygamy. If this interpretation of D&C 132 is correct, then some interesting things begin to happen to our casual acceptance of certain “folkways” accepted uncritically in LDS culture. A whole new vision begins to appear when we understand from God’s own reasoning that monogamy is the rule and a blessing and polygamy is the exception and an Abrahamic sacrifice, and that God is not indifferent between the two because God cares about the pain and suffering involved in an Abrahamic sacrifice.

The first interesting thing that happens is that doubt is now cast on the uncritical assumption that polygamous marriage is ubiquitous or even a requirement in the celestial kingdom and that even if we are not commanded to practice polygamy here we may be required to practice it there. As God’s commandments are not temporal but spiritual in nature, God will continue to view polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice even in the context of the hereafter. A general law of God continues, but a departure from the law, involving as it does Christ-like sacrifice about which God is not indifferent, by its very nature is temporally bounded because of God’s love for his children and his desire to see such Christ-like sacrifices come to an eventual end, even if they have wrought great good in their time and place. It is unclear how God could be constrained for all eternity to command a departure from the law of marriage, which departure he himself would desire to bring to an end. To disallow individuals a choice in this important matter, given that God himself is not indifferent about the subject, would imply that heaven is not the best of all possible worlds from God’s own perspective and does not represent perfection.

Some in LDS culture assume that polygamy is not merely a doctrinal necessity but a circumstantial and demographic necessity in the hereafter. Generally, this assumption takes one of two forms. In the first form of the assumption, some assert that there will be more women, many more women who inherit the celestial fullness than men, and since everyone in the highest level of the celestial kingdom is married, polygamy must then follow. There is simply no basis for assuming a celestial sex ratio highly skewed in favor of women.

How could God be no respecter of persons and create a system where one spirit, because it is male has a much worst chance, a much poorer chance of reaching the celestial kingdom than the other sex? If God is the author of all fairness he could not have authored such a system. Even if this system were somehow fair, for such an outcome to ensue would mean that the male gender was disproportionately an attribute of the weakest spirits. My husband is sitting out there in the audience. I can you tell that that’s wrong. There is just no doctrinal basis for such a belief.

Others who feel that polygamy is ubiquitous may not understand, in fact, there are some demographics working against that hypothesis. Some of you may know that I have authored books on the abnormal sex ratios of Asia – that they are branch hypotheses. There are some figures that you may want to know. Even in a normal population, 107 boy babies are born for every 100 girl babies, naturally. The sex ratio evens out at age five, because male babies suffer from disproportionately higher infant mortality than female babies, and we assume that all of those are saved in the celestial kingdom.

Do you want to go back even further? Do you know what the conception sex ratio is? 160 male fetuses are conceived for every 100 female fetuses, naturally. So to somehow think there is a demographic necessity for women to greatly outnumber men in the kingdom — I just really don’t think that we can go with that, at least not with any sort of confidence as well.

We also get some other ones. I will just mention this one. Some believe it’s circumstantial necessity, because one Heavenly Mother is incapable of producing and nurturing the vast numbers of spirit children that Heavenly Father appears to have fathered. I will just give you the Readers Digest version, which is, “Why don’t we ask that about a father?” How do we believe one heavenly father could do it? Alright, we will just leave it there, but it goes to the paper. Then there are still others, who say, look, human male sexual anatomy obviously holds that men are designed to be polygamous. And since male sexual anatomy is an image of our Heavenly Father then, yeah, bingo. Of course, what immediately comes to mind is that wonderful verse about how “the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” which is we know that the lion’s anatomy is perfected for being carnivorous, yet we do not doubt that in heaven the lion will not be acting upon its anatomy. It will be acting upon the piece of the Kingdom of God. So we do not believe that lions are going to be extremely unhappy in the kingdom of heaven because they have to eat straw like the ox. I will just leave that one there.

We see other things as well. In mortality, when God does command polygamy, he understands it as an exceptional sacrifice by the innocent of the joy that would be theirs if they could obey the law instead. This departure from the law can cause pain and sorrow, though it may bring about a greater good. Nevertheless, if his righteous daughters and sons weep because of polygamy, even in the times when the Lord commands it, he is not upset with them. He weeps when they weep because, like Abraham, they are willing to sacrifice and suffer for a time that God’s work of love be accomplished.

Since God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, then his love also dictates that at the earliest possible moment when the exceptional commandment to depart from the law can be lifted, he will do so. If no greater good can come from a Christ-like sacrifice it becomes meaningless and gratuitous suffering. Our understanding of God’s love for his children would appear to preclude that kind of cruelty on the part of our Father in Heaven. Indeed, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law had meaning up until the moment that Christ was resurrected and God’s scrupulously required adherence to know Mosaic law until that time.

But after Christ’s victory, the sacrifices of the Mosaic law became meaningless, and God no longer required them to be performed. This not only applied to the sacrifice of innocent animals, but also to a human sacrifice, circumcision. The commandment to practice circumcision was lifted at the time of Christ’s resurrection (Moroni 8:8). Indeed, continuing Mosaic sacrifice was kind of tantamount to a rejection of Christ or at least a profound misunderstanding of the Atonement, (1:10:00.6)about which God was surely not indifferent.

Indeed, those who desire to practice polygamy in times when God has not commanded it are in spiritual chaos. That desire would be analogous to Abraham, after hearing the voice of the angel and seeing the ram in the thicket, proceeding to kill Isaac anyway as a testimony of his faithfulness to God. We can only surmise that from God’s point of view, such an act would constitute anything but a testimony of faithfulness.

Thus God, although initially commanding Abrahamic sacrifices, also strongly desires to provide the “ram in the thicket.” He is not indifferent about whether that ram is there or not. He isn’t sort of laying back watching heavenly TV or something. Looking at it and watching, going, “Was it time for that ram to appear? I will wait till this next commercial is over.” That’s not our God. He wants that ram to appear and he wants it to appear at the earliest moment that it can — it can be there.

To think otherwise is incompatible with the idea of a loving God, who sees a distinction between pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. There will always be a “ram in the thicket” for those who are faithful in an Abrahamic sacrifice.

What will the “ram” be? In the eternities if the Isaac-Hagar analogy is what we are to be governed by in our understanding, then in the eternities those who sacrificed and suffered like Abraham will have the opportunity to live under the law, not under the departure from the law. Without this affecting either their exaltation or their right to associate with the persons they love. We are not saying that no will live polygamously in heaven. I am not a prophet, seer and revelator. We do claim, given the Lord’s analogy as discussed above, it is plain that no one can be commanded to do so in heaven, and that the choice to opt out of polygamy cannot and will not affect an individual’s exaltation or right to associate with those whom they love.

Whatever escape the Lord has provided for those faithful souls, it will be consistent with the law of sealing and sealing transferability. Some may be unaware that there is an ordinance called the “sealing transfer.” And that in fact over 13,000 sealing transfers took place in the Church in late 1800s. Some people often point to D&C 139 verses 39, 44 and 55, but I think we can also reconcile those scriptures as well.

But I would like to say this because I wish to be perfectly clear on this matter and that is may we pause to say that Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff led the Church with courage, inspiration and nobility at the time when the Saints were commanded to make great sacrifices including the Abrahamic sacrifice of polygamy. They, and all who willingly made the sacrifices required of them by the Lord, are due all our honor. They placed devotion to God above all else, and placed on the altar their reputations and even their very lives and certainly their hearts. In addition, Wilford Woodruff led the Church with inspiration and skill during the period when the Lord rescinded the commandment to practice polygamy, which rescindment must have seemed to many at the time as a great sacrifice, as well. Our understanding of the commandment to practice polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice should cause us to deeply revere those early saints of whom that sacrifice was required. I want to be absolutely plain on that.

This new vision of the compatibility of Jacob 2 and 132 is important for many reasons; however, the most comforting aspect is that those women and men who felt pain at the thought of polygamy are alright in God’s eyes. God would not think it odd if they did feel pain. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy in the new and everlasting covenant because he, too, views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice which will cause suffering, but also for the righteous, paradoxical joy and a closer relationship with him.

We envision God weeping when righteous polygamous husbands and wives wept. Just think of what that means. For those who weep at the mistaken thought they may be commanded to practice polygamy in Heaven, God does not condemn your feelings. On the contrary, God will not command you to practice polygamy in the next life, and if he commands you to practice it in this life, you can rest assured of two things: number one, he will make it up to you – there will be a “ram in the thicket” for you, even if it be in the next life; and two, you can also count on the fact that God will lift the exceptional commandment of polygamy just as soon as his loving purposes in commanding it have been fulfilled. Why? Because he feels compassion for those who make an Abrahamic sacrifice in polygamy in similitude to the Atonement of his son.

Though an exceptional commandment may come to one because of special righteousness, and though obedience to an exceptional commandment to practice polygamy may merit one a great reward, the sacrifice itself cannot constitute that reward, in light of what the Lord has revealed in Doctrine and Covenants 132 about his mind concerning these matters. The Lord desires that all his children have the natural joy that comes from the law of marriage, which law is monogamy in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. God is not indifferent between monogamy and polygamy, and God views polygamy as an Abrahamic sacrifice, which is why he actively and severely restricts its practice even in this dispensation of the restoration of all things by Joseph Smith.

If we as a culture have lost the capacity to see God-commanded polygamy as the Abrahamic sacrifice God tells us it is, if we have lost the capacity to see that God actively desires there be an escape for the righteous who have obeyed this exceptional commandment, then we have lost something profoundly precious. We have lost the vision of the greatness of God’s love for his children. To lose that vision brings “the gall of bitterness,” as Mormon remarked about others who placed similar constraints on God’s love of the innocent, for we “deny” the “mercies” of God.

If cultural misinterpretations cause the women and men of the Church to mourn over polygamy, either because they mistakenly believe God is indifferent between sacrifice and non-sacrifice and so no escape from this sacrifice will be provided by God, or because they are led to feel that they are selfish and not righteous if they feel pain at the thought of polygamy, then these cultural misinterpretations are actively harming our people. We then have a duty to root out these cultural misinterpretations from our midst, lest they cause great spiritual mischief.

I am reminded of a quote by C.S. Lewis: “Not that I am I think in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’” There is something very profound about that.

More Come, Follow Me resources here.

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Hudson was named to the list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009, and in 2015 was recognized as Distinguished Scholar of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA/ISA) and awarded an inaugural Andrew Carnegie Fellowship as well as an inaugural Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Australian National University (2017). Her scholarly books include Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population, Sex and World Peace, The Hillary Doctrine, and The first Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide, as well as a book on religious doctrine entitled Women in Eternity, Women of Zion. Hudson is a co-founder and editorial board member of the online journal of commentary from the Church of Jesus Christ faith community called SquareTwo, the president of the Utah Valley Institute of Cystic Fibrosis, served in the 11th Special Forces US Army Reserve as a wheeled vehicle and power generator mechanic, is a cofounder of the Latter-day Saint National Security Society, and has been a La Leche League Leader for over 30 years. She is married to David Cassler and is the mother of eight children.

The post Come, Follow Me Week 8 – Genesis 18–23 appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Jenny Reeder, First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith

Jenny Reader’s books are for sale in the FAIR bookstore.

Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist at the Church History Department for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University, and an MA from New York University in history, archival management, and documentary editing. Jenny is on the Church Historian’s Press Editorial Board, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Advisory Board, the Mormon History Association’s book awards committee, and the editorial board of Mormon Historical Studies. She has taught at BYU Education Week and has been a featured speaker at BYU Women’s Conference, the BYU Easter Conference, and Time Out for Women. She recently published First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith with Deseret Book, and past publications include At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women and Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies of the Restoration. She leads the “Discourses of Eliza R. Snow” project, collecting and publishing all of Snow’s sermons on the Church Historian’s Press website and a selection of discourses in an upcoming print volume.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #74 – Jenny Reeder, “First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith” appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920

Rebekah Clark is co-author of the book Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah and works as a historian for Better Days, a nonprofit public history organization dedicated to expanding education about Utah women’s history. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, studied as a visiting student at Harvard Law School, and practiced law in Boston for four years. She graduated with a degree in American History and Literature from Harvard University, where her honors thesis focused on Utah women’s activism in the national suffrage movement. She has worked at the LDS Church History Department and taught as an online adjunct faculty member at BYU-Idaho. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Utah State Historical Quarterly, the Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies, Pioneer Magazine, and BYU Law Review and in podcasts by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Church News, What’s Her Name, Zion Art Society, and the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In addition to her work with Better Days, she currently serves on the board of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team. Rebekah lives in Highland with her husband Andrew and their five children.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #71 – Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920 appeared first on FAIR.

This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Brittany Chapman Nash, Let’s Talk About Polygamy

The video of this presentation can be watched on our YouTube channel.

Brittany’s books are available in the FAIR bookstore.

Brittany Chapman Nash is a specialist in Latter-day Saint women’s history and coedited the award-winning four-volume Women of Faith in the Latter Days series and Fearless in the Cause: Remarkable Stories of Women in Church History. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Humanities from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in Victorian Studies from the University of Leicester in England. Brittany worked as a historian for ten years in the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has served on committees in the Mormon History Association, Better Days 2020, and Young Women general board. She is a member of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team, a group dedicated to popularizing the history of Latter-day Saint women. Brittany lives with her husband, Peter, and two young children in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she enjoys working at home with her little ones. She loves learning people’s stories, helping plants to grow, and watching cooking shows with her husband.

The post FAIR Conference Podcast #67 – Brittany Chapman Nash, “Let’s Talk About Polygamy” appeared first on FAIR.

Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor and holds the George H.W. Bush Chair at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. She has previously taught at Brigham Young, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities. Her research foci include foreign policy analysis, security studies, gender and international relations, and methodology. Hudson’s articles have appeared in such journals as International Security, Journal of Peace Research, American Political Science Review, and Foreign Policy Analysis. She is the author or editor of several books, including (with Andrea Den Boer) Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (MIT Press, 2004), which won the American Association of Publishers Award for the Best Book in Political Science, and the Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Best Book in Social Demography, resulting in feature stories in the New York Times, The Economist, 60 Minutes, and other news publications. Hudson was named to the list of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2009. Winner of numerous teaching awards and recipient of a National Science Foundation research grant and a Minerva Initiative grant from the US Department of Defense, she served as the director of graduate studies for the David M. Kennedy Center for International and Area Studies at BYU for eight years, and served as Vice President of the International Studies Association for 2011-2012. Hudson is one of the Principal Investigators of the WomanStats Project, which includes the largest compilation of data on the status of women in the world today. She is also a founding editor of SquareTwo, a founding editorial board member of Foreign Policy Analysis, and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals. She has testified before Congress on three occasions, is president of the Utah Valley Institute of Cystic Fibrosis, and co-founded the LDS National Security Society. Her recent books include Sex and World Peace, co-authored with Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli and Chad Emmett, The Hillary Doctrine, co-authored with Patricia Leidl, and The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide,co-authored with Donna Lee Bowen and Perpetua Lynne Nielsen, all three published by Columbia University Press. She and her husband David, an artist and landscape architect, are the parents of eight children.

Hanna Seariac is a MA student in Greek and Latin at Brigham Young University. She has interests in the interaction that the Greek New Testament has with the Septuagint as well as sacrifice in ancient Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome. She works as a research assistant on a biblical commentary and as a research assistant on early Latter-day Saint history. She values Jesus Christ, family, friends, hiking, baking, and good ice cream.

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