Bottom Line Up Front: Brigham Young accomplished a great work, defeating spiritual wifery. But he did his work so thoroughly that it has been difficult for later generations to comprehend what was going on.

In my recent post about giving Joseph Smith a break, there were those who asked for a similar discussion of Brigham Young.

In my “Faithful Joseph” construct, I argue Joseph Smith and his righteous followers predominantly refrained from consummating plural marriages prior to Joseph’s death. If true, then what happened under Brigham’s leadership? There is no question that plural marriages were widely consummated after Brigham Young assumed leadership of the Mormon Church. Continue reading →

26 And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.

27 And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit.

28 And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.

We just had many amazing sessions of General Conference in the last two weeks. And I did not fully realize how amazing they were until this Sunday when I went to fast and testimony meeting at my small-town ward in Colorado. The people in my ward are the salt of the Earth. They are wonderful, nice people who succeed in (mostly) shutting out the many negative things going on in the world. These people concentrate on their families, on their responsibilities, on their callings and on their testimonies.

Several of these good, guileless people used the wonder “ponderize” in their testimonies this Sunday. They said they have been inspired by the word “ponderize” to read the scriptures and memorize them and ponder what they say. Now if you read that word and laughed in a sarcastic, mocking way, you are part of the problem. Because of course that is what I did during Sacrament meeting: I laughed (to myself) at the word “ponderize” rather than immediately appreciate the fact that people actually are taking seriously the advice of people who speak at General Conference.

Why did I laugh? If you are connected to the internet and all of us sometimes cynical Mormons and ex-Mormons out there, you perhaps may have heard the mocking that took place because the son of Brother Durrant tried to commercialize the word “ponderize.” There is a lot of history there that I don’t want to repeat, but the bottom line is this: We should be more like the members of my ward. We should concentrate on the words of the people who speak at General Conference and not get caught up in the various world-created controversies. Satan’s trick is to encourage us to mock Church leaders rather than listen to what they say. Don’t fall for the trick.

With that in mind, I would like to link to Brother Durrant’s talk in the hopes that more people will read it and take in what he has to say.
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Like Meg, I was struck by Elder Anderson’s wonderful talk in the Priesthood Session on the necessity of choosing faith.

There has been quite a lot of attention, both positive and critical towards Elder Anderson’s suggestion that we should “For now, give Brother Joseph a break!”  I thought this was a very valuable suggestion which I heartily endorse. We should look back at Joseph’s life with a lens of charity, a recognition that our culture is dramatically different from his, and a recognition that historical facts can be manipulated and presented in a wide variety of ways. (See Meg’s Faithful Joseph series for an example of one using the same facts that are used to portray Joseph as a scoundrel to show that he was truly a prophet of God). Continue reading →

I was ill earlier this week, so took the opportunity to listen to the Priesthood Session of General Conference. I was particularly heartened by Elder Anderson’s confident advice to “give Brother Joseph a break.”

The theme of the Conference was a call to believe, with many suggestions on how belief could be strengthened. For some, however, it helps to quiet the mocking voices in their heads to provide a plausible alternative to the popular bogeyman of the non-believers, the Joseph as narcissistic imposter who allegedly made up scripture from whole cloth and took dozens of his followers’ daughters and wives to his bed.

First, A Picture

In 1969 a family donated a daguerreotype to the RLDS Church (now the Community of Christ). They claimed it was a picture of Joseph Smith. If it is Joseph, the youth and gaunt look of the man in the image indicate the photo was taken in late 1839. In November-December 1839 Joseph took a trip to Washington D.C. to seek redress for the atrocities perpetuated against the Mormons in Missouri. Due to Joseph’s notoriety, it is reasonable an early daguerreotypist in DC would have sought to capture his likeness.

Rick Brunson has a brief article on his blog describing the evidences Shannon Michael Tracy documents in his book, Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again. In summary, this daguerreotype allegedly matches the death mask using both lineal matching and facial recognition techniques. The image also corresponds with photos taken of Joseph’s skull prior to the remains being reinterred during the early 1900s.

[Updated 10/11/15: There was apparently a storm of controversy about this image and the Tracy book in 2008. One disappointed summary can be found at Juvenile Instructor. When I scanned that article, it appears the author went from hoping this was an image of Joseph Smith to being completely angered by the unprofessionalism of Mr. Tracy. In my reading of this summary, I missed whether the picture had been proven to be not of Joseph. For the record, I was intrigued by seeing this image illustrating a post from a reputable blogger, with the text indicating that they hoped this was an actual image of Joseph Smith. Searching things more, I happened upon the Brunson blog.]

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