Introduction and Podcast Overview

Part 1 of 5 · Ep. 42

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website. Also, please help us promote Mormon stories via Digg.com and Sustained.org for all this and more. Please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. Almost anywhere you go on Planet Earth, at least one thing is certain. If you mention the word Mormon to someone who has heard of Mormons before, one word almost without fail, immediately comes to their mind. Polygamy. Yet to this day, polygamy remains one of the least understood principles within Mormonism, both among LDS Church members and non members of the Church. As we seek to learn more about the history and practice of polygamy, perhaps who is better to hear from than a woman who has practiced polygamy or lived the principle herself for over 30 years? Her name is Ann Wilde. Ann Wilde was raised as a regular member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the 1950s. She attended Brigham Young University. She was sealed in the Los Angeles Temple to her first husband and had three children with him. But during those first nine years of marriage, Anne slowly realized that the teachings of the modern LDS Church differed, sometimes dramatically, from the early teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and others. After much contemplation and prayer, Ann Wilde decided that in her mind, the LDS Church had gone astray and that it was God's will for her to to become a fundamentalist Mormon and to begin living the law of polygamy once again. Thus began Anne's 30 plus year relationship with Ogden Kraut, a somewhat well known Salt Lake City polygamist who passed away a few years ago. In part one of a five part interview with Ms. Wilde, Anne provides an overview of the history of polygamy within the LDS Church, along with the primary events that led to the LDS Church's decision to stop teaching polygamy as doctrine. Within this episode we learn to what extent did Joseph Smith practice polygamy? What did and didn't Emma know? Was polygamy publicly admitted or denied during the Nauvoo years of the Church? What role did polygamy play in Joseph Smith's martyrdom? Was the practice of polygamy just a mild suggestion or was it taught as a requirement for exaltation within Mormon doctrine? What were the events that led to the LDS Church's decision to stop teaching Polygamy as a doctrine of the Church. And finally, did the LDS Church continue secretly sanctioning polygamy after the official manifesto was released in 1890? Your story today on Mormon Stories. Hello, Ann Wilde.

Meet Anne B. Wilde: Personal Background

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:38] Hello, John.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] Thank you for. Thank you for coming on Mormon Stories.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:42] Thank you for asking me.

John Dehlin [00:03:44] It's a pleasure to be here in your home, and I've waited a long time to interview you, so.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:51] Well, I'm glad we were finally able to work it out.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, the way I kind of wanted to begin was to do a quick overview of the history of. Of polygamy within the LDS Church and beyond through your eyes, because I assume that up to a certain point, members of the Fundamentalist Mormons or members of the LDS Church sort of believe the same history, at least to a certain extent. So for our listeners who aren't up to speed on that history, would you mind taking us through LDS and Mormon polygamy history through your eyes?

Biblical and Early Mormon Roots of Polygamy

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:37] Okay. Well, initially, of course, it was a Bible doctrine. We're taking it back into the Old Testament with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses. A lot of the early prophets had plural wives. And so when Joseph Smith was about to restore the gospel directly from the Lord, I believe one of the principles and ordinances that was revealed to him was that of plural marriage. We prefer to call it celestial plural marriage because that determines how you live it on a higher plane, rather than just plural marriage or polygamy as the world might see it. In the early 1830s, apparently he did receive a revelation which is now recorded in section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And it was to the fact that, or to the effect that Joseph Smith asked why some of the early prophets had more than one wife. And God's answer to him was that it was an eternal principle and that he was commanded to live it and also reveal it to the other leaders and members of the church over a period of time. So it continued on in the Church for many years. It did not continued on as a law of the priesthood, I should say for many years. In 1852, after Brigham Young led the Saints out here to the Valley, it was voted on and accepted by church members as a law of the Church, a tenant of their belief. And so from then until 1890, it was actually an established practice and belief of the LDS Church. Because of a lot of persecution from the government and threats of taking away church property and personal property and so forth, they issued what's called a manifesto, which I'm sure most people are familiar with it was really a press release. Fundamentalist Mormons don't really consider it a revelation because it started out thus saith the Lord, and we're not aware of too many revelations that start out with to whom it may concern. So they issued this press release to the government with the idea that they would know that we were going to try as a church to discontinue that practice so the persecution would stop and so that eventually we could become a state. So in 1890, even though the manifesto was issued at that time, there were a lot of the leaders of the church that continued living thorough marriage, taking new wives, performing other plural marriages. And so it wasn't until really 1904, when the second manifesto came along, that there were teeth put in that first manifesto. So we believe then that it was a law of the priesthood at the time. Joseph Smith had it revealed to him, and it is continued as a law of the priesthood until contemporary. Until today. It was a law of the church from 1852 to 1890, and then it became a law of the priesthood continually, but back in the responsibility of a priesthood ordinance after the Church gave it up as one of their beliefs. So Even though section 132 is still in the Doctrine and Covenants, and we still believe it's an eternal principle, we understand why the Church gave it up, and we are very careful in our regard and our respect for the LDS Church. We feel like they do a lot of good. And even though they have given up or changed a lot of those original doctrines, we feel like there's still a lot of very fine people in the Church and we respect and honor the organization.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] So that was a great overview. Thank you for giving that. If you don't mind, I'd love to delve a little bit deeper into the actual practice of polygamy in the early church, to the extent that you're comfortable or knowledgeable about it. So as I understand it, they're saying that. They say that Joseph Smith received the revelation maybe around 1831, and that the first potential wife that he took on was Fanny Altrus. What do you know about. What do you. Do you know anything about Fanny Altar? Some people say that that wasn't a really good example of how polygamy ought to have happened. What do you know about that story?

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:03] Well, I understand she was staying in the home, kind of helping Emma with the chores. And it was a secret from Emma. And of course, that's not the ideal is to have it be a secret. In some cases, that has to happen. If the first wife is not in agreement. But there's so many different ways of living this. There's not a recipe book that says this is the way you live through a marriage. There wasn't then and there's not now. It has to depend on the family and their relationship with the Lord and what they feel impressed to do. As long as people are treated fairly, I think. And I've read some journals and other histories of the church where it seems to me like the way it was started was that Joseph Smith would call one. One man into an office, or Emma recalls seeing them walking along by the banks of the Mississippi river, and he would teach him the law of plural marriage and then ask him to go into that lifestyle. So it was done very secretly at first. Gradually, of course, it got out, and many of the people living in the areas surrounding where the Mormons were found out that they were living that lifestyle. They were persecuted because of it. And so it's kind of a lot that way today. It's comparable, because in many cases, plural families do live this principle very quietly. In some cases, the neighbors probably don't even know if the wives aren't all living in the same house. He might visit and then go to another house and visit another plural wife, and the neighbors probably just think he's away a lot. So there's all different ways of living it.

John Dehlin [00:10:39] And so when we have a rigid conception of what polygamy ought to be like, sort of taking traditional American monogamous families and trying to say that it with Joseph, it should have looked as much like that as possible, just with a couple extra wives, that's probably unrealistic or maybe even unfair.

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:58] Well, there's a lot of similarities, and there's a lot of differences. Naturally, after it became a law of the church, there was kind of a pattern that was suggested. ORSON Pratt had 27 rules that he thought would apply and would be a good guide for plural families. There was a time when the order of things was that the prospective husband would go to the father, the church president would be involved in the decision, and they'd go to the girl and get permission along the way. But as the church grew, and then, of course, the church gave it up, then those that pattern was not continued, you just did the best you could. In 1886, John Taylor received the revelation from the Lord, we believe as fundamentalist Mormons. And in that revelation, it said that men must use their free agency in these matters, because God, knowing that the church would eventually give it up, he provided a way for that to be kept alive, like I mentioned, as a priesthood law.

John Dehlin [00:11:58] So you mentioned earlier that under some rare circumstances that a husband may even have to keep polygamy from their wife and not let her know about it. And those who have read about Emma and Joseph know that that might have happened with them. How in the world could a woman, or even a faithful person who believes in just being honest, how do you grapple with that?

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:23] Well, hopefully that's the minority of cases. That's not the way it should be. In fact, in section 132, it talks about the law of Sarah, which is that the first wife gives any subsequent wives to her husband. It's with her knowledge and consent. And the actual ceremony shows her placing the hand of the forthcoming wife into the hand of her husband. It's part of the ceremony. There are cases, though, where I am aware that the first wife is so adamantly against it, that in that case, the husband can be exempt from the law of Sarah, which means he does not need to get her permission, but he goes ahead and lives it without that. But that is not the ideal.

John Dehlin [00:13:10] As a woman, you would probably be sad if you found out that your husband was doing that you didn't know about it. How do you sort of grasp the morality of that or the ethics?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:23] A lot of things have to be done in secret. And if you do not go along with a principle that means everything to the husband, then usually the way I have understood that, the husband will say, okay, I believe this doctrine. I want to live it. I would like you to live it with me. But I cannot let you make that decision for me, which I feel affects my exaltation. So you open the door for that wife, you encourage her, you try and help her understand it to the point where she'll accept it. But after a period of time, and there's no definite period of time, but you can see, if the husband can see that she is definitely not going to give her consent, then he may have to do it without her knowledge.

John Dehlin [00:14:07] Right. So following along that lines with Joseph's practice of polygamy, a lot of people, when they read about the Nauvoo time, have some confusion. I, growing up, was sort of taught that the reason why Mormons practiced polygamy was because all the men were being killed off on the frontier by those who were persecuting us. So all these women were left without spouses. And so polygamy was instilled to help give these women a home and comfort, etc.

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:45] That's what Mark E. Peterson taught in his book Way of the Master. He just said it's kind of. He called them welfare wives. But that is not the way we perceive it at all. We perceive it as an eternal principle, an exalting principle. And without living that in a righteous way, you will not get to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. It has nothing to do with numbers.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] Okay. And so, having grown up with that understanding myself, then when I found out that a lot of the women that Joseph married were 16, 18, 14 year olds, that sort of threw that theory out the window. And I think studies have shown that polygamous marriages tend to marry a lower age than the age of the husband, not a higher age. And so it's probably fair to say that a lot of the polygamous marriages that happened in the early church were teenage women. Is that right?

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:35] Oh, I think some of them were. I don't know what the percentage was, but I do know that a lot of them maybe were widows or maybe their husband had left the Mormon Church and she was without a husband and had small children. And so one of the other leaders or adult male members of the church would marry her to provide for her and her children. So it's not always just that they married young wives, although I understand that did happen.

John Dehlin [00:16:03] So what is your perception on. On a man taking a really young additional wife? How do you grapple with that? Some people say, oh, that's inappropriate. I know that there's a different context between today and 150 years ago, but what are your thoughts on that practice?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:23] I think in the early days of the church, a woman or a young girl was more mature. At an earlier age. The older sisters in the family usually help take care of the younger kids and the family. And so they. They didn't have malls and other things to hang out in where they remained. I think at a lower maturity level today. I believe that. And we encourage people in our lifestyle to wait till the girls are 18, which is the legal age in the state of Utah. That is just, to me, it's common sense. There may be occasions where there should be an exception to that, and that may be up to the family. But since we have been working with the Attorney General's office and that law is on the books in the state of Utah, that you're 18 for a legal marriage or any marriage for that matter. The law was changed recently. It used to be 14 with parental consent, and 16 is a legal marriage. They raised that a few years ago. Now it's 16 with parental consent. And 18 for a legal marriage. We have to understand in our lifestyle that that applies only to legal marriages. The first marriage that we have is usually a legal marriage. The subsequent marriages are priesthood sealings or religious commitment ceremonies. And that law of parental consent does not apply to that type of a religious sealing, only to the legal marriages.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] I see. And I imagine the legal age for a woman to be married back in the 1830s and fortunately was 14. Do you have any idea what the.

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:58] I think it was around 14, but I'm not sure. I know it was earlier or younger than it is now.

John Dehlin [00:18:04] Okay. Another huge issue that a lot of LDS people are struggling with today is this notion of polyandry. The notion that at times Joseph Smith apparently married women who were at the time married to other living men who were in marriages with other men. Are you aware of that and how have you worked through that yourself?

Joseph Smith's Plural Marriages and Legacy

Anne B. Wilde [00:18:27] I read Todd Compton's book In Sacred Loneliness, and I realized as I read through and I had heard even before I read his book, that he did marry women that were already married. I have a couple of things that have helped me in understanding this. One is I have a strong testimony that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. That is the foundation for my beliefs. I believe too that he probably knew before he came down in this life. He knew in the pre existence which women were to be. He would to offer to be a wife in his family doesn't necessarily mean they would join his family, but I think he somehow knew in the pre existence that he was to offer them that opportunity. So knowing those two things, I think he went about living that principle. And even though it's hard for people to understand, and it's really hard in a few ways for me to understand when they indeed were married to a righteous man already. But maybe he had a prior knowledge that we're not aware of. And so I don't criticize Joseph Smith for his living of plural marriage.

John Dehlin [00:19:42] Right. Okay. I would say that at least half the members of the LDS Church are completely unaware as to the circumstances that sort of led up to Joseph's martyrdom and how relevant the polygamy question was in his eventual martyrdom. I would imagine that that's an important, important thing from your perspective, that it's at least part of what he died for or was willing to die for. Can you tell us your understanding of what role polygamy or plural marriage played in the circumstances that led up to his martyrdom?

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:21] Well, that was one of the reasons that the saints were persecuted as much as they were like, they went from state to state and in five different, four or five different states that the saints lived in, it was against state law to live plural marriage, but they lived it anyway. And so because of the fact that they were perceived as lawbreakers and so forth, that was one of the reasons they were persecuted. However, polygamy is the most obvious and noticeable doctrine that the church had that they were persecuted for. There were some other things too. One of them, Joseph Smith was a candidate for president. He read some of the Eastern papers and he said, gee, I seem to be so popular, I'm afraid I might win. So I think the fact that there was of plenty political issue there that had something to do with his martyrdom, plural marriage, I think, certainly was one of them. I think the fact that they were at one time the largest city in the state of Illinois before Chicago became really a big city, and they had one of the largest, if not the largest, military organization with the Nauvoo Legion, that was a threat. I think there were so many things that were happening that the people outside the LDS church began to be intimidated and a little bit fearful about the amount of control that Joseph Smith had over this growing group of people in this church. So I think there were several reasons why the martyrdom came about.

John Dehlin [00:21:47] Do you sort of agree that at least some of the immediate circumstances were that that William Law, who was a member of the first presidency at the time, never liked the idea of polygamy, didn't know about it for a while. When he found out, he.

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:02] I'm sure he was one of the people that brought this on. I think John C. Bennett, I think the Law brothers, the Higbee's, the Fosters, there were several that were meeting secretly. There's a story about the conspiracy of Nauvoo where Joseph Smith asked two young boys to go to this conspiratorial meeting, find out what was going on, and then report back to him, which they did. And they did it at the risk of their lives. So there were leaders in the church that absolutely were dead set against polygamy and felt like Joseph was living it incorrectly. And so they were conspiring to take his life.

John Dehlin [00:22:36] And when William Law published the Nauvoo Expositor, one of the allegations was plural marriage. And is it fair to say that Joseph was worried that the awareness of polygamy would become too broad and it might lead to unbearable persecution and that's why he ordered the destruction of the printing press?

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:55] Well, yeah. Nobody likes to see themselves strum through the mud. And that's what they were doing in this Nauvoo Expositor. They were revealing things that probably he didn't want the public to know. They were hard to explain to people. I'm sure that was another thing that had something to do with it.

John Dehlin [00:23:10] So you feel it might have even been reasonable for him to order the destruction, to keep the peace and to protect the city, etc.

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:16] Yeah, there's probably a lot of reasons for that.

John Dehlin [00:23:19] For you, Joseph's a prophet, and so

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:21] you're not that he was perfect. He even said, he says, you believe in me when I speak as a prophet, otherwise when I speak as a man, consider it as such. And there were two times that I'm aware of that he issued a false prophecy. One was regarding going to Canada to get the copyright for the Book of Mormon. So he was not perfect, but I think he was an excellent prophet. I really do. I have a testimony of that. And he was the man that God wanted to be there to restore the Gospel.

John Dehlin [00:23:53] One last question about Joseph's practice. Do we know whether he cohabitated with his plural wives? Some people say they were just in spirit or in name only. They were spiritual wives, but not individuals.

Anne B. Wilde [00:24:05] I'm sure there were some like that. Now, I know I can't say I know. I feel in my heart and in my research that yes, he did cohabit with some of them. And there is the account where he had a daughter, Josephine. So he. And then there are evidences in journals where somebody says Joseph and so. And so one of his wives stayed in such and such a room and the house was. They were. So there's pretty good evidence that, yes, he did cohabitate with at least some of them.

John Dehlin [00:24:32] With at least some. Okay, so when Brigham. Oh, one very important thing. I think it's pretty much fair to say that Joseph publicly denied ever practicing polygamy and that even when Emma was interviewed after the LDS Church had left Illinois that she claimed that he never practiced polygamy. And the whole Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints seemed to have been built on the foundation that polygamy was never practiced by Joseph and that in fact, it was Brigham Young who started polygamy. How do you reconcile the fact that he had to be dishonest publicly about it?

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:13] Well, technically, that's the case. When you're the leader of a church, you say as much as you can publicly. But there's a of lot, lot of things that you don't want the world to know. And it's not really any of their concern. However, Emma was actually a witness to his sealing to the Partridge sisters and to the Lawrence sisters. The fact that she denied it later, that was her decision. She didn't want her children knowing that he lived that. However, Joseph, the oldest son, and David, I think it was David, the youngest one, actually made trips out to Salt Lake and talked to some of Joseph's plural wives, and they had to admit that he did live plural marriage. So whether or not he actually got up and said, I live plural marriage, I don't see that recorded anywhere. But he definitely lived it. And there's all kinds of evidence that he did. It did not start with Brigham Young. Brigham Young made the statement that I teach nothing save that Joseph Smith taught it to me first. He did enlarge upon some of the doctrines like the two temple ceremony and things like that. But most of the teachings came directly from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young, and he just carried them on.

John Dehlin [00:26:20] Okay. And the fact that he felt like he had to deny it, you just see as a practical reality for living in a harsh world.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:28] Well, yeah, I mean, I'm sure President Hinckley doesn't tell us everything that's going on in their quorum meetings. It's not something that you say publicly. Well, Joseph Smith was in a very precarious position. He lived at a tough time when there was all this persecution going on. He would tell the people as much as he felt like he could, and the rest of it, he had to keep quiet.

John Dehlin [00:26:50] Okay.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:52] So

John Dehlin [00:26:54] Brigham Young, you know, Joseph Smith was martyred. There were a few years of uncertainty in the church, and then Brigham Young brought many of the Latter Day Saints out to Utah. Is there anything interesting about how polygamy evolved in terms of how it was lived or how it was incorporated into the doctrines or teachings or structures of the church? And one of the things I'll add, you know, a lot of people say that early LDS leaders actually taught that polygamy was not just a good thing to do, it was a requirement for exalted. Talk about sort of the Brigham Young to Wilford Woodruff years of polygamy in Utah.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:36] I recently put together a little book called An Essential for Exaltation. And in that is a compilation of 33 quotes, scriptures, and early experiences that said that a celestial plural marriage was essential to reach the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. That was a teaching in the church at the time that they accepted it. Let's see. I was going to say something else about that. It slipped my mind right now, but I do know that it was a very strong teaching and requirement. Oh, I know what I was going to say. In 1882, there was a revelation that was given to John Taylor, I believe, and it said that he was to call Teasdale and Heber J. Grant and I think one other person to one of the positions as a general authority, an apostle or an assistant or a 70, if they would conform and obey his law, meaning the law of plural marriage. So at that time in the 1880s, it was a requirement to become a general authority was to live plural marriage. So it was very definitely emphasized and

John Dehlin [00:28:50] taught by many that it was a requirement for exaltation, not just something good.

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:54] And I believe that today,

John Dehlin [00:28:58] but the Book of Mormon. If you read the Book of Mormon, it almost talks about plural marriage as something that is, by design, a temporary situation. Do you know the scripture?

Anne B. Wilde [00:29:06] Yeah, in Jacob too. Whoever is talking Jacob or whoever I think it was. But you know, when you read that whole chapter, one or two chapters surrounding that Jacob, he's talking to the people at that time, and they were very wicked and they were abusing women, and the women were calling upon the Lord in sorrow to take away this abuse and so forth that was happening. And so God no longer required that from their hands because of the abuse. So, yes, they were told to just have one wife at that time. However, we don't know what the leaders were doing then. Maybe they were taking wives just like Joseph Smith. Smith did. And nothing was said about it publicly or on record. So I know people point to the Book of Mormon and say, yeah, but the Book of Mormon said you only should have one wife. Well, you have to understand the situation and the circumstances surrounding that passage of Scripture. Right.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] Okay. So lots of persecution ensued in the Utah early, you know, late 19th century. Eventually we had to come out and say, we're going to stop the practice. But I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that between 1890, which is the manifesto that's in the LDS Church's scriptures today, and 1904, 1905, like you said, not only were members of the church allowed to still perform polygamous marriages, but apostles and even, maybe even members of first presidencies, not only performed additional polygamy, polygamous ceremonies, but also some of them took on additional wives themselves. What are your thoughts about that?

Anne B. Wilde [00:30:43] Well, it's kind of confusing for people to read that and try and figure it out, but I think they realized that it was a law of the priesthood and that they can continue living it as a law of the Gospel out of the priesthood, even though it was no longer a law of the church. So with that information, which I'm sure they were aware of, they continued to live it until it just got to the point where it had to totally go underground. And then that's where fundamentalist Mormonism came in. Starting at 1886, with John Taylor setting apart men to keep that principle alive separate from the church, Then it's just continued on down through today with priesthood being passed on and the right to perform that ceremony, that ordinance outside the church.

John Dehlin [00:31:25] So it sounds like, you know, what do we know about John Taylor's deliberations about whether or not to end it? Did he ever consider ending it? What do we know about. What do we know about the deliberations that Wilford Woodruff experienced? You know, was there turmoil as they tried to decide what to do? What do we know about it?

Anne B. Wilde [00:31:43] I'm sure there was. In fact, it was. According to history and records, George Q. Cannon was very concerned about it, as well as a lot of the members of the church and the leaders. How much persecution should they go through for this principle? So they were considering a manifesto when John Taylor was president of the church. And George Q. Cannon brought him a manifesto of sorts and said, will you take this up with the Lord and see if we should issue this? And so John Taylor did. And that's where this 1886 revelation came from. When he asked the Lord about whether or not to sign this manifesto, the next morning, he reported, did the answer claim clear and strong to him from the Lord. And he said, rather than sign that, I would rather have my tongue torn out of my mouth and my arm severed from my body. So he was adamant in the fact that he would not compromise with the government. And then there was one revelation that John Taylor received that trying to think. I think that was in 1889. And in that revelation, it said, make no more compromises with the government. So, you know, the Lord was trying to prepare the way for the leaders, and especially John Taylor, to remain firm in the belief of that doctrine. In fact, it's kind of interesting. The whole time that the government was passing some of these laws against plural marriage, like the Edmunds Law, Edmunds, Tucker, Mora law, God was revealing things to. Wilford Woodruff received a couple of them himself, and then John Taylor received most of them during that decade between 1880 and 1890. These revelations were to encourage the Saints and help them to be valiant and stand by the doctrines and not compromise.

John Dehlin [00:33:37] This program has been a production of Mormon stories podcast. To comment on this episode or to peruse the archives of past episodes, please visit us online@mormonstories.org Also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories podcast by making a contribution today or by voting for this episode@digg.com and sustained.org thanks again for listening. It.

John Taylor's Revelation and Plural Marriage Genealogy

Part 2 of 5 · Ep. 43

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website. Also, please help us promote Mormon stories via Digg.com and Sustained.org for all this and more. Please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in to Mormon Stories Podcast in part two of our five part series on Mormon Fundamentalist polygamy. We continue our interview today with Anne Wilde, Mormon Fundamentalist polygamist and the founder of Principle Voices, a Mormon fundamentalist advocacy group. As we mentioned in part one, Ann Wilde has been a Mormon fundamentalist for over 30 years and participated in a polygamous marriage for virtually all of that time until until her husband's death. In this episode, Ann discusses the rise of Mormon fundamentalism as a result of the LDS Church's renunciation of several early key church doctrines, including the teaching of polygamy or celestial marriage. Anne discusses her view on how President John Taylor of the LDS Church commissioned several individuals to continue secretly the practice of polygamy, how the major polygamous sects have evolved from this early commission. Your story today on Mormon stories, This revelation you talk about that John Taylor received, did you say 1886?

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:08] Uh huh.

John Dehlin [00:02:09] Tell me, tell us again what that revelation was and where it's recorded.

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:13] Okay. Well there is a copy of it in John Taylor's own handwriting and it has been put out in pamphlets and booklets that fundamentalists have put out. But the story is that he gave there were five copies of it and they passed down. One of them went to his son, John W. Taylor, and apparently from what I understand, there is an original copy of it in the Church archives or Church First Presidency say. So there is a way that you can trace it, but the Church calls it a spurious revelation. Markey Peterson certainly did. But we as fundamentalists believe that it was an actual revelation and very important in knowing what the desires of the Lord were to us to keep that doctrine alive.

John Dehlin [00:03:03] Remind us what it says again, just one last time.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:05] Well, it just said you use your free agency in these matters and can I it was an eternal law and can I revoke an eternal law? No, he could not and he said he wouldn't. So based on that we have that. We feel like we have the right and the authority and the commission to keep on living that doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:03:26] Okay, so from your point of view. John Taylor was a true prophet until the end.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:30] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:03:31] Which sort of sets up, I imagine, Wilford Woodruff to be sort of the guy that maybe fell. Fell off the.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:39] Well, you know, some fundamentalist Mormons are quite critical of him. I choose to feel like he was there for a reason and he did what was best for the church. And he himself knew that this could be continued as a priesthood law. But when the majority of the people themselves didn't want to live this, I mean, when that was presented in the tabernacle or wherever it was that it was presented at conference time in early October of 1890, the report is that, of course, that everybody voted for it. Well, there were some that did not. But a lot of the. Excuse me. A lot of the members of the church at that time were relieved to have that burden. They considered it a burden lifted from them. They didn't have that responsibility or requirement to live it anymore.

John Dehlin [00:04:29] So.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:29] So that was fine with the majority of the church. And I feel like President Woodruff was acting in their behalf.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] Were there apostles that opposed adamantly the decision?

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:40] Oh, I'm sure there were. There was Matthias Cowley and John W. Tater, which were two that were disfellowshipped and excommunicated from the Quorum in an effort to show the government that the church meant business, that they were going to handle those people that took more wives. And B.H. roberts, there's the account of him sitting on the stand and when it was put to a vote, he says, I could not vote for it. It was the awfulest day of my life. And his hand, he just couldn't raise it in favor of it. So I'm sure there were people in the audience that either didn't vote or maybe a few that voted against it, but you don't have too many records of that other than in journals.

John Dehlin [00:05:17] Okay, so it sounds like they had some behind the scenes discussion and decided consciously we're going to publicly state a position that we're going to stop it, but we are going to continue the

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:31] practice as a priesthood law, not as a church law.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] So there's a separation of priesthood. Talk about that for a second.

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:39] Well, I think I mentioned that John Taylor called men the next day after he received this revelation and appointed men to keep this principle alive and to see that not a year passed that a child was not born in plural marriage. So that was passed down through men that were appointed with the authority and the calling to keep that alive.

John Dehlin [00:06:00] But that's probably something that the LDS

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:02] Church would deny ever happened, I probably would imagine.

John Dehlin [00:06:06] Okay, so that's through journals or through personal accounts, that.

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:11] That version, in my way of looking at it, there's enough evidence for me to believe that.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] Okay, so there's a separation of priesthood from. From the church in some aspects, which is foreign for a member of the LDS Church to think about, because they think of them as completely intertwined.

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:27] I know. And that's not the way we look at it at all. If you look back on the history of the church, in 1829, the Aaronic priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith. This is probably a year before the church was organized in 1830. And even though we don't have the exact date of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood, it's common belief. Except I know Michael Quinn feels like the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood came after 1830. But let's just say for the sake of argument, because that's what most people believe, and the church teaches that both priesthoods were restored before 1830. Well, there was no church, and yet there was priesthood. So that proves that you can. That priesthood can exist separate from the church. So I feel like as long as the church is obeying and adhering to priesthood laws and ordinances, then there are men that naturally hold that priesthood. But if they do away with the priesthood laws, then I feel like those laws can be lived separate from the church as a law of the priesthood.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] So at some point there was sort of a fork where the church, the official church, ended it and stopped it and realized they had to really cut it off. But it continued.

Anne B. Wilde [00:07:40] Well, it's just like, when does it get dark? You know, the sun just gradually goes down. I think it's that way with plural marriage. There were people that kept on living it long past 1904. So it wasn't all of a sudden, the church no longer practiced plural marriage because there were individuals in it that kept on living it.

John Dehlin [00:07:58] So talk about how it. How it continued, you know, through the mid-1900s to today. I mean, what's its genealogy?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:06] Okay, well, depends on who you ask as to how to. How to trace that. But I can say generally that, like I say, John Taylor set aside, set apart men to keep our marriage alive. Those men, one of them was Loren C. Woolley. And then when. And there was George Q. Cannon, Daniel Bateman, Charles Wilkin. Joseph F. Smith was called back from his mission in Hawaii, and he was given that commission. So there were Joseph F. Smith, Joseph F. Smith, who became the sixth president of the church. These Men were commissioned to keep plural marriage alive. And actually this was a secretive thing. You're not going to read that in church history, but it's definitely in some of the journal entries and information that's been passed down through fundamentalist Mormons. Okay, so these men, then they began dying off. I mean, they kept that principle alive from what I understand. And then until Lorne Woolley, who was a bodyguard at the Centerville house where John Taylor received this revelation, he was the only remaining member of that group of men that was commissioned to keep plural marriage alive. So he, according to our information, called six other men so that they would have a council of sorts or enough men to keep this principal alive. And so just briefly, it was Loren Woolley. He called Joseph Broadbent, John Y. Barlow, Joseph Messer, Legrand Woolley, Charles Zitting and Lewis Kelch. Then gradually those men began to die off. But when Joseph Messer was. Was the senior member of that council, there became a split. And that's where he called Rulon Allred and Owen Allred and some of the other brethren to start a new council. That's where the Allred group came from, called Apostolic United Brethren. Then some of the others in the original council, like John Y. Barlow, he wanted to call Leroy Johnson and Marion Hammond. There was a lot of confusion. I don't know if I need to go into too much detail here, but that's how the FLDS down in Short Creek got started, is that they started with Roy Johnson and Marion Hammond and then later they were just called the community at Short Creek. Later on they formed what's called the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. And they are now known as flds. After Leroy Johnson, it was Rulon Jeffs. Rulon Jeffs son took over after. Even before Rulon died. And that's Warren Jeffs. And that's the one that people know all about today. So that's kind of the history of that group. And then the ULRIA group started with Joseph Musser. And then there have been other groups that have come up because their main difference pretty much is differences in claims of authority, priesthood authority. So today we have the two major groups that I mentioned to you. Then we also have Centennial Park. There's a community of about 1500 that were separated from the Short Creek group. And then we have the Davis County Co Op or the Kingston Group. They have about 1500 in their community and they're spread around, interspersed in Salt Lake Valley and elsewhere. And then we have smaller groups as well. And then I can't forget the independence because those people who are fundamentalist Mormons and do not belong to a group, we term ourselves independents, but we all kind of fall under the generic term of fundamentalist Mormons because as compared to liberal Mormons or orthodox or feminist Mormons, we are the fundamentalist Mormons because we believe in the fundamental or early teachings and doctrines of the Church. We still like to be called Mormons because after all, we do believe in Joseph Smith who established the Mormon Church and we believe in the Book of Mormon. And in fact we don't go along with the changes that have taken place throughout the last hundred and so years.

John Dehlin [00:12:26] So this is an interesting notion. So several men were called to continue the practice, Joseph F. Smith being one of them, yet he ultimately became prophet. So at some point he must have stopped encouraging or I don't know if he ever decided.

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:43] There's an occasion where I read in a journal where he performed two plural marriages in southern Utah and then went back to Salt Lake or came back here and delivered a very fiery sermon against it. So it's just another case of them doing one thing privately and saying another thing publicly.

John Dehlin [00:12:59] Right. But at some point, whoever became the apostles and prophets of the LDS Church, they had to have, they had to have sort of stopped supporting it.

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:09] But I wonder publicly they did. We don't know what happened privately.

John Dehlin [00:13:13] Oh, so do we have a sense for whether they were aware of the polygamy that is being practiced in the tens, twenties, thirties, forties?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:23] I'm sure they realized there were some because they were cutting people off the church. If it was found that they had more than one wife, people were excommunicated from the church, so they knew very well that it was still going on.

John Dehlin [00:13:35] But do you have a sense for whether they were sad that they had to do that or were they.

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:39] I don't know what they felt.

John Dehlin [00:13:40] So there's.

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:41] Yeah, because I felt, I think that because of their position, they felt like they were doing what they had to do because of the beliefs of the Church.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] Right. Okay. So if, if the priesthood is the essential thing here in terms of the practice being continued, how do you know when the priesthood is valid and validly hand down versus not validly hand down? It sounds like some of these sects disagree as to who has the authority and who doesn't.

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:11] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] The LDS Church stems from the same line of authority, at least at some point. So what's your view or what are fundamentalist Mormons view on when, when is priesthood authority valid and when isn't it

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:24] okay, well, two thoughts come to mind in answer to that question. For one thing, in the 1930s, President Heber J. Grant said, you know, I don't think it's necessary for us to continue conferring priesthood and then ordaining to an office. So he said, we're not going to do that anymore. We're just going to ordain to an office. So for 36 years until President McKay became President of the church, they were not conferring priesthood, Aaronic or Melchizedek, they were just ordaining to an office in whichever priesthood it was. President McKay came along and said, whoops, we should have been conferring priesthood all this time. So he went back to it and I have copies of the Bishop's Handbook where it had the wording for one and then the wording for the other, and then the wording became, okay, we confer you to the priesthood of Aaron and ordain you to the office of deacon, whatever one. So one question arises then. If a man was ordained to the office in the priesthood during that 36 year period, does he really have priesthood because he did not confer it, he did not have it conferred correctly? That's just a question. Another one is in determining whether somebody has priesthood. I think if they obey priesthood laws and don't fight against true priesthood laws, then chances are they have priesthood if it was conferred properly.

John Dehlin [00:15:48] Yeah. This notion of getting the Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthood separate from the office, I haven't even ever considered that.

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:57] I have the actual photographs of the quotes from the bishops, but they weren't

John Dehlin [00:16:00] separate blessings, were they?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:03] No. The way that President McKay changed it back to was we confer upon you the priesthood of Aaron or the Mechazde priesthood and ordain you to the office of that was all in the same blessing.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] So, okay, so how would we sort out the fact that various fundamentalist sects, if we can call them sects, deny each other's authority?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:25] How do we know what that's their free agency.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] But I mean, do you view all the authority as valid? How do we know what authority is valid?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:33] Well, that's got to be an individual testimony. There are people in all those groups that they have their own testimony that the leader of that particular group has priesthood authority. I respect that, but my testimony is that I do feel like there's priesthood authority out there, but I have never been impressed to join any of the groups. I know people in all the groups. I love and respect them, their decisions. I'm friends with Them, and that's why they're members of groups and members that are people that are not members. That's a free agency choice.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] But it's pretty safe to say they all deny the validity of each other's. Each sect denies the validity of other

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:11] sects in most cases, I think. Yeah, like somebody in the all rare group is not going to recognize the priesthood and flds, for example.

John Dehlin [00:17:18] Right, okay.

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:19] Well, just like the LDS Church doesn't recognize the priesthood authority of the Catholic

John Dehlin [00:17:23] Church either, or of any other church.

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:25] Yeah. Right.

John Dehlin [00:17:28] So in your tradition or your belief system, how is authority handed down? Or is it.

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:35] Yeah, it has to be conferred correctly. My husband had it conferred on him properly by somebody in authority, and I definitely feel like he had the priesthood and had the right to exercise that priesthood. I saw evidence of just is an individual, but it has to be conferred by somebody who has conferred on him. But that doesn't necessarily have to come through a group in my estimation.

Fundamentalist vs. Mainstream Mormon Beliefs

John Dehlin [00:18:01] So let's transition just a tiny bit and talk about the beliefs of fundamentalist Mormons. You know, when President Hinckley's interviewed by Larry King, he says polygamy is not doctrinal. When the church comes out with a press release, it seems like an attempt is made to distance the church as completely and as thoroughly as possible from these fundamentalist Mormons. In fact, the church doesn't even want them to be called Mormons.

Anne B. Wilde [00:18:30] I understand that. I feel like we have the right to label ourselves. With all due respect, I can see where he's coming from, and I know why he wants to distance it. I mean, you don't send out 50,000 missionaries all over the world and then have any connection to polygamy because it affects their proselyting program. So I understand that. In fact, we make every effort in the media interviews we've had that we distinguish ourselves from the mainstream church because we don't want them to associate the two. We live it as an early LDS Church doctrine, but we do it now separate. Like I've explained before, it was interesting. During the Olympics in 2002, we had media from all over the world come into the Salt Lake Valley. And the joke was we know a lot of the local media. And so these media reporters would come in, well, where are the venues and where are the polygamists? Because they automatically associated Utah with polygamy, the LDS Church with polygamy. And that really isn't accurate, but that's what outside people have associated. So when they come and have interviews with us, we made that Distinction that we live it now as a law of the priesthood separate from the law of the Church.

John Dehlin [00:19:47] Right. So let's just. You know, I've always been a little bit uncomfortable with the degree to which the attempts have been made to distance ourselves. It's almost like there's a sense of being ashamed or that these people are unclean. You know, what I want to do is talk about the beliefs that a traditional member of the LDS Church and a fundamentalist share. So let's start right at the very top and enumerate for us in a stream of consciousness all the beliefs that we share.

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:17] Well, I'd say the articles of faith, the four standard works, all the early teachings of the church that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and John Taylor taught. I think the Church believed in those, but they believe in them more as a historical thing now. My husband and I wrote 65 books. My husband was Ogden Kraut, and we wrote 65 books on church history and doctrine. And one of the books is called 95 Theses. And in that book is a compilation of quotes on 95 different doctrines and ordinances of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, or of the Gospel, and how they have evolved and changed over the years. And so let's consider just a few of them on how they've changed. Gathering of Israel. The Church no longer preaches gathering. They say, stay in the countries where you are. Rebaptism is another one. They don't believe in rebaptism anymore. Brigham Young was rebaptized seven times. Said every time he passed a stream of water, he had the desire to be baptized and have a clean start. The ordination of 70s, the position of 70s, they no longer have 70s in the stakes. The position of patriarch has changed. That is an emeritus position now. And the power and position of the patriarch has changed drastically through the years. I could just go on and on with the doctrines that have changed. So fundamentalist Mormons believe in the way those doctrines were taught in the early days of the church and not the way that they have been changed to what they are teaching now.

John Dehlin [00:22:01] So you believe in God, you believe in Jesus the Holy Ghost, you believe in the Book of Mormon Bible, Jesus, the atonement that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that he was given the priesthood, that God told him to start the church?

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:16] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:22:19] You believe in eternal marriages, Obviously.

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:21] I hope so. I'm not doing this just for fun and games.

John Dehlin [00:22:26] And you believe in priesthood. Talk a little bit about temple work. Do you believe in proxy work for the dead in the endowment we did

Temple Practices and Eternal Principles

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:35] when the temple work was first started. We believe that there have been changes made in the temple. In 1990, there was drastic changes made in the temple ceremony itself. So we believe in temple work. Yes, but the temples are not open to us right now because people that practice and live plural marriage do not belong to the church and don't get temple recommends. So even though we might believe that that's when it's in order, that's definitely a good thing. We do not have access to temples right now.

John Dehlin [00:23:09] So is that something you feel sad about? Regret? Do you wish you could?

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:12] No, because I feel like so many things are out of order right now that I am waiting for the promise that's given in the section 85 of the doctrine and Covenants, where it says that the house of God will be set in order. And when that time comes, then I think temples will be set in order as well, and that the righteous people will be able to take advantage of that.

John Dehlin [00:23:39] That's actually interesting because we're sort of taught that every dispensation has God's hand and direction in it and God's true prophet. We're taught that there was an apostasy after Jesus left the earth, that the church was created to sort of be the last organization before the second coming of Christ to usher in the millennium. First of all, I'm not aware of any revelation or talk about the church falling into apostasy itself. It seems like you kind of believe that.

Anne B. Wilde [00:24:13] Well, we very definitely believe. Well, how can something be set in order unless it's first out of order? And if we believe in the Doctrine and covenants, Section 85 says the House of God will be set in order. Now, the House of God is not just the church. It's the whole thing. It's the Kingdom of God. It's everything. Kingdom of God and the LDS Church are two separate things. That's another difference that we have in the Kingdom of God. And. And the church is being the same thing.

John Dehlin [00:24:39] What is the Kingdom of God?

Anne B. Wilde [00:24:40] The Kingdom of God is a political kingdom, and it includes all churches. And it was set up. Joseph Smith restored that in 1843 when he set up the Council of Fifty. And that council, that was the governing body that kind of helped the pioneers come out here to the Valley. It was under that organization. Brigham Young was at the head of it. But it's two separate organizations from the LDS Church. One's ecclesiastical, the other's political, and the

John Dehlin [00:25:10] Kingdom of God is the political one. Okay, and you still believe Much more

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:13] encompassing than just the LDS church. So when it says the house of God will be set in order, then that includes the church, but is not exclusive of it.

John Dehlin [00:25:22] Okay, in this Kingdom of God notion, you still believe in.

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:26] Absolutely. Ogden. We wrote a book through three books called the Kingdom of God, and it traces the whole history and the pre existence. And then the second volume is from Adam to Christ, and then the third volume is from Christ to today and how that kingdom is defined and functions.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] So what's kept you guys from building your own temples and performing the ordinances in the temple?

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:48] Well, I understand one or two of the groups have done that. I don't feel like that's something that I should be concerned with personally.

John Dehlin [00:25:59] And have you thought to wonder why God hasn't continued having a prophet on the earth today? Why he's sort of withdrawn that.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:14] Well, you look back through history and like you say, there was an apostasy after Christ. There's always in every dispensation there's been a restoration or an establishment of true principles, and then there's been a falling away. And I don't think our dispensation is any different. It's a tough period of time. Heber C. Kimball prophesied. He says, and there will be a test. A test, a test. And who will be able to stand? I think in our opinion, he was talking about the test of deception. And that's an important gift right now, is to be able to. To discern the gift of discernment is important to know where the truth is and what true principles you should live right now. Because sometimes it means you have to decide whether you want to stay a member of the church or if you want to live eternal principles.

John Dehlin [00:27:05] Now, the term fundamentalist seems to sort of indicate that once something's set up, it can't change, that it shouldn't change.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:14] Well, eternal by definition means unchanging, never stopping, ongoing. You define that word itself, it doesn't mean that it's true one minute and then not true the next. So if it's an eternal principle, it doesn't mean man can stop it. They can stop it as far as their acceptance of it, but the principle will go on being true.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] But I'm sure you'd acknowledge that there were lots of changes in the Old Testament on how things were practiced.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:42] And then there's a practices and eternal principles are two different things.

John Dehlin [00:27:46] So help me out with that.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:47] Okay? They weren't supposed to take more than how many steps on the Sabbath.

John Dehlin [00:27:51] Right.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:51] That's a Practice, that's not an eternal principle. Noah was commanded to build an ark. That doesn't mean it's an eternal principle. And we all run out and build an ark.

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Right.

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:59] So you have to separate the practices from an eternal principle.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] Okay.

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:04] It's the eternal principles that don't change.

John Dehlin [00:28:06] So, for example, between Old Testament Judaic law and New Testament, you don't think there were any principles that changed?

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:16] Well, Christ said he came to fulfill the law, and, you know, I guess we'd have to take it individually one at a time. But just by definition and my way of looking at it, if it's an eternal principle, it's always true. But people can choose whether or not they want to live it.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] So law of Moses was a. Was a practice, not a principle.

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:35] Which lie. Are you referring to the Commandments?

John Dehlin [00:28:39] The Ten Commandments?

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:42] That would take some explaining. Probably. Yeah, I understand that that was a law. I don't know. That's not an eternal principle. To me, it's a law. At the time, it was a secular law.

John Dehlin [00:28:56] Right,

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:59] but just because something's a law doesn't make it an eternal principle. The Ten Commandments, too, is a substitute law. There was a higher law revealed to Moses, and then when he came down and saw the condition of the people and how wicked they were, he destroyed that higher law, went back up and got the Ten Commandments. The first set of the laws that he got were written by the finger of the Lord. The second set, the Ten Commandments, were written by his hand.

John Dehlin [00:29:23] Okay, so this makes me a bit curious now as to your beliefs about Jesus. In the New Testament times, with the Da Vinci Code out, there are people who speculate that Jesus may have been married. So I wonder whether you guys have a view on that and even more broadly, whether he may have practiced plural marriage.

Anne B. Wilde [00:29:44] Okay, yes. My husband and I wrote the very first book that we wrote, was called Jesus Was Married, and we do believe that he was married. In fact, we did take it another step further, and we believe that he had more than one wife, Mary Martha, Mary Magdalene. And we believed also that there was a posterity there. And it's interesting now since the Da Vinci Code, that there have been other Bible scholars coming out and saying that they do believe that Christ was married. For example, he was a rabbi. He was referred to with that title. And at that time, it was a requirement for rabbis to be married. In the book that we wrote, there's scholars that existed and were contemporaries of Christ that had reference to that. There's one scripture, an older scripture that says, and King's daughters were among his honorable wives. So we feel like there's sufficient evidence to show that, yes, indeed, he was married and had a posterity.

John Dehlin [00:30:48] This program has been a production of Mormon Stories Podcast. To comment on this episode or to peruse the archives of past episodes, please visit us online@mormonstories.org Also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories Podcast by making a contribution today or by voting for this episode at@dig.com and sustained.org. thanks again for listening.

Anne Wilde's Personal Story and Conversion

Part 3 of 5 · Ep. 44

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website. Also, please help us promote Mormon stories via Digg.com and Sustained.org for all this and more. Please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. When members of the LDS Church think of Mormon fundamentalists, the stereotype is quite vivid. We think of Amish like plain clothed women with long hair, born and raised into a cultish like small town somewhere in southern Utah, probably uneducated, probably a bit kooky or strange. But just like most stereotypes, this perception does not quite hold up. Take Ann Wilde. Raised in the LDS Church, attended Brigham Young University and graduated with honors. Married in the Los Angeles temple, had three children with her first husband. Taught Gospel doctrine in her ward. Very articulate and competent. Then after nine years of marriage while living in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, not Colorado City, Ann decided to become a Mormon fundamentalist and a polygamist. During these 30 plus years, all of her neighbors thought she was just a divorcee. She continued attending her Salt Lake City LDS ward and even raised her kids as members of the church. How did this happen? How did she keep it hidden and make it work for all those years remaining active in her Salt Lake City ward? And what was it like to live the principal in the 20th and even the 21st centuries? Ann's story and your story today on Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:02:26] Well, Ann, if you don't mind, I'd like to now take some time to talk about you and your story.

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:34] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:02:34] And I'd like to begin just by telling us about your early childhood and your background.

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:40] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:02:40] And I'll kind of guide and ask.

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:43] Skip through that. The early childhood in a hurry. But I was born and raised in the LDS Church and I went to

John Dehlin [00:02:50] be where were you born?

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:51] In Detroit, Michigan. My dad was in motion pictures and he happened to be on assignment in Detroit at the time. So I was born there and we were only there for a few more months and then we went back to Hollywood and Beverly Hills where I lived until I was five and my folks got divorced. My mom got a job, supported the two of us and then we moved to Salt Lake. She remarried to a good Mormon man.

John Dehlin [00:03:15] What age did you move to Salt Lake?

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:16] Oh, probably about eight. I was already baptized in Southern California, so I was about nine, maybe between eight and nine and then when she remarried I. We moved back down to California to a little community called Taft near Bakersfield. And I went to school, high school. Graduated from Taft High.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] Did you go to seminary?

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:41] They didn't have seminary and Taft. There were only three members of the church in our whole high school. So we had a small branch at first when I first moved in there and then it became a ward. My dad later on became bishop. I got a scholarship to go to byu. Went there for four years.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] What year? Just so I could. Unless you're uncomfortable.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:01] I graduated from high school in 54. This can tell everybody my age, which I don't care. Then I went to BYU and graduated from there with honors in 58. 1958. Graduated in business education.

John Dehlin [00:04:14] Was that Pre Wilkinson then?

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:16] No, he was president of the university when I was there. In fact, I worked for him part time after I graduated because I got a full time job working for the administrative assistant to President Wilkinson. And then when I got married and had a baby, then I just went back to work occasionally and I took his secretary's place when they go on vacation.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] So you've met.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:42] I worked for President Wilkinson.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] Oh wow.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:44] Part time. And he was. Let's see, how does.

John Dehlin [00:04:51] Focused.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:52] Yeah, he's very focused. I don't intimidate very easily but he intimidated me when he'd call in to dictate because this was in the days where you didn't try shorthand. I was nervous. So anyway, fortunately it wasn't my full time job and I muddled through okay. But you know, I would not want to work for a man like that as a full time job. I've had some wonderful bosses and he was not at the top of the list. But he did a lot for byu. He really did. He put him on the map and some of his tactics were a little bit hard to explain in my book. But nevertheless, I think he was a man that really was the man that needed to be there at the time. But enough of BYU real quick.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] What are your recollections of your church experience growing up in the church and of your beliefs and your faith and your testimony?

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:43] Oh, I was a dyed in the woe. Mormon, Absolutely. I just thought when I went to the Y that it was the most wonderful school in the world and I was very active in student government. I went through the Cougarette Spurs, White Key, you know, all the honorary service organizations. I was balnor, which was one of the prominent social units because they didn't have the others. Just had a great time at college

John Dehlin [00:06:10] and even as a child, did the church mean a lot to you?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:13] Well, yes, but my mom was married to a non Mormon at first. My real dad was a non Mormon, so I don't recall. I imagine we went to church when I was really young, but I don't remember that. I do remember going after the age of five, I went to Wilshire Ward down in Southern California, and that's the ward I was baptized in.

John Dehlin [00:06:36] And your experiences in that ward, did the church become extremely important to you?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:39] Oh, they'd always. That's all I remember is the church being a very vital part of my life.

John Dehlin [00:06:44] Do you remember ever having to gain a testimony or was it just always there?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:49] It grew in degrees and intensity, but yeah, I remember the first time I paid tithing. I got a dime and I went down and paid a penny and filled out the form and stuck it in the envelope. So I've always been a firm believer in tithing. And my mother taught me wonderful honesty principles. And the church meant everything to her. She had to learn kind of the hard way because she remembered, which is amazing to me because my mother was so strong in the church that she would ever marry somebody outside the church, and she realized that that was probably a mistake, but nevertheless, he was a good man. But it just. The marriage didn't work. And then her second marriage was to somebody in the church. Then we. After I graduated from college from the Y, I worked for a year and then I married in the temple, in monogamy in the Los Angeles temple. Then we moved to Provo because my husband hadn't graduated from college yet. He graduated from the Y and then worked on his master's for a while and got a job. So anyway, the marriage was a little difficult much of the time. And so after nine years and three children later, we got a divorce. In that period of time, however, both of us learned that there had been a lot of changes made in the LDS Church. And we realized.

John Dehlin [00:08:14] Just so I can understand, no rot, what time period was this?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:17] Well, I got married in 59. I graduated from BYU in 50. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] And so at the time, this is before Leonard Arrington, so Joseph Fielding Smith was probably church historian. There probably wasn't a lot of church history out there published, you know, accurate, honest church history. Like, what were you reading?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:37] Documentary history of the church, Comprehensive history of the church. Those two sets are already out there.

John Dehlin [00:08:41] Okay, so what were the things you were reading, you and your husband?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:44] A lot of it was talking to people and then reading journals and just comparing. Okay. Journal of Discourses. You know, you read in there and they say, oh, they're teaching Adam, Michael, Adam God doctrine. And then they're not teaching it today. And then we just started comparing about the teachings of the early leaders and then the teachings of today.

John Dehlin [00:09:06] And that was starting to trouble you and your first doctrine?

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:09] I don't know if it troubled me. I just realized it's just like a stream of water. It's the purest at its source. So if these doctrines were once true beginning stages of the church, then they must still be true. Like we talked about earlier being eternal principles. So we just began reading and talking to a lot of people and making that decision on our own, but we still kept active in the church. Making what decision to believe in those rather than in the teachings that were contemporary.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] Did you have friends who Absolutely. Who were intellectually fundamentalist?

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:42] You know, we weren't called fundamentalists then. I don't think. I don't recall that term being used when I was with my first husband. And we just believed in the early teachings of the church, but we weren't called fundamentalist Mormons or fundamentalists at that time. That term came later. That term came with Joseph Messer. Well, he died in 54, so maybe it was out there, But I don't recall referring to myself as a fundamental. You were just attending until the last 15, 20 years.

John Dehlin [00:10:14] So you were just attending a normal ward. In the 60s, I was just a

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:17] regular member of the church, but I did a lot of reading about the early history.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] So did you start thinking of yourself as different from the traditional members then?

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:28] Well, I didn't know. But what? A lot of them thought the same thing. I didn't know. We didn't go around talking to a lot of people about it, but there were some that we were close to. We had kind of study groups. And then I began to realize, well, yeah, you have to be careful what you say, because if you say something about some of these doctrines in a Gospel doctrine class, you could get in trouble. So, yeah, I realized there were some differences, very definitely.

John Dehlin [00:10:51] But you and your husband talked about

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:53] it openly to each other and to certain people, to certain friends.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] Okay. And you had three children, you said, yeah.

Anne B. Wilde [00:11:01] And then when the marriage ended in divorce, in the meantime, we had met, like I say, we met with these other people that were believers like we were. And one of them was Ogden Kraut. And so I eventually became his second wife and was married to him for 33 years, very, very happily. We had a wonderful marriage. I was very Very fortunate to have been sealed to such a good man.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] So there's a jump between. There's a. Probably a pretty huge emotional and intellectual jump between maybe believing that a little bit differently than the average member of the church and actually deciding to become a plural wife.

Anne B. Wilde [00:11:43] What, Philip, was a real decision that we had to do with fasting and prayer. Otherwise, I never would have made that decision. And I don't know if I want to go into that. That's kind of a personal thing. But I will tell you that I got a definite answer to prayer. I have never questioned for a minute the fact that I, number one, was to live plural marriage, and number two was to be in that family. Never once have I questioned those two things. And so, consequently, I felt very lucky that I was able to abide by those laws.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] And what are you comfortable telling us about what it was like to live in that family for you? Well, what was the difference you had to make?

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:24] What was hard?

John Dehlin [00:12:25] What was easy?

John Dehlin [00:12:25] What was fun?

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:28] The wives in Ogden's family all had their separate homes. We never lived together. There were two of them that lived together for a little while, but basically, we all had our separate homes. And that's a matter of choice. A lot of fundamentalist families, some of the wives want to live together, or maybe they'll live together for a while. And then when they start having children and the family gets too big, they have to have separate homes just for space reasons. So every family decides that for themselves if they want to live together or in separate homes. For us, living separately was the best. We had a printing press and ink and all the papers and a lot of company and little kids running around would have been kind of difficult. I wanted to have more children, but was not able to. And so Ogden and I considered our 65 books. Our kids took about nine months a book, so.

John Dehlin [00:13:21] So where did you lived?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:23] In Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] Here in Salt Lake.

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:26] Different parts of Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [00:13:27] Did neighbors know? Did they not know?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:29] Not for a long, long time. We lived it very secretly, very carefully. My kids were still young. I didn't want to burden them with that knowledge when they couldn't even understand how to explain it. So we were very careful. He didn't live in town, and so he'd come in on weekends sometimes. We'd talk on the phone frequently and get together on weekends and go visit bookstores and paper companies and start getting supplies.

John Dehlin [00:13:56] Was that lonely to Mel?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:57] No, I'm not a lonely person. I basically, I like my space, and I loved being with him, too. So I had the best of both worlds and the independence that I wanted. And I could do things with my kids one on one or with girlfriends or, you know, whatever. And then when he was there, then had wonderful times with him.

Family, Finances, and Daily Life in Plural Marriage

John Dehlin [00:14:20] So what about your parents or siblings or.

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:24] I'm an only child, so I don't have siblings. And my parents didn't know until just a few years before they died. Because I realized that if I told them, it would have broken their heart because they were very mainstream Mormons and I knew that if I told them I was living polygamy, that that would, you know, be very hard for them to except. So because they lived in another state or at least in another city, I did not tell him until later on.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] So how many years went by between entering and Utah?

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:56] Oh, several. It was just a few years before they died in 91.

John Dehlin [00:15:01] So probably 20 years.

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:03] Pardon?

John Dehlin [00:15:04] 20 years.

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:06] I was married to Ogden in 69. 89. Yeah. 22 years. Well, yeah, I was married probably approximately 20 years before they found out.

John Dehlin [00:15:16] Did you have any close friends that you maintained that they were friends before and you maintained the friendships after?

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:24] High school friends, college friends? They did not know and they just thought I was a gay divorcee. They couldn't understand why I was so happy and why I didn't want to go out and remarry. And I said my pat answer was, I like things the way they are and I didn't tell them how they were. But it's just for the same reason. It's just, why should I explain and go through all that when it's not necessary? So if I'd have had children in the plural marriage, then I would have had to approach it a different way. But since I didn't have to account for additional children in the second marriage, then it made it a little easier, although we would love to have had more children.

John Dehlin [00:16:02] What was Ogden like?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:04] The closest thing to a perfect man I've ever met, really. He was absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:16:08] What was his profession?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:09] He was a scientific photographer. And people didn't know out there until later on. And then they knew, but they just kind of overlooked it because there was so much immorality out there. And I don't want to say too much about it, but where he worked, that when he was asked about it, he said, well, if you want to say something about my lifestyle, I'll report this person and this person. This person that are living or sleeping around. So at least he was doing it with the idea. But being a strongly held religious conviction, he took responsibility for his Wives and children. And it was a very high moral standard that we adhered to. So as far as what he was like, he was kind, he had a great sense of humor, he was honest, he was intelligent, he had a terrific memory. He was an excellent writer, had a lot of friends. Not many people, nobody that I know that ever met him and visited with him disliked him. He was just a very likable, friendly guy.

John Dehlin [00:17:15] What led to him deciding to practice

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:18] just reading, just like my first husband and I did. He was an avid reader and he worked down at the Dream Mine for a while. And that's a whole other story. Probably don't need to get into that. But he knew Bishop Coyle and he did a lot of reading while he was working down there. He went on a mission without Persis script, which was very unusual for the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:17:43] So he was raised LDS Church?

Anne B. Wilde [00:17:44] No, he was a convert. He joined in his late teens and then just started reading everything he could find on the church and on the gospel. He went on a mission, like I say, to Southern California and Arizona without Persia script. Had some wonderful experiences. In fact, he even wrote a book called Missionary Experiences where he compiled and told all about them. He started teaching gospel doctrine. And because of that he decided like people were asking him, for example, well, what about Jesus being married? There was a class on it. So he thought, well, I'll put together a little something on that subject. So he did, and it later on became a book. And that was his first book. So because of the information he gathered for his classes, that's what got him started writing books. And then he realized as he was doing this research that he would present the information on a particular subject, like say, re baptism. He'd go back to the early days of the church and get quotes and experiences and things and then follow it on through. And then people could see for themselves how it had changed and was eventually given up in the church. But it still remains the law of the priesthood. So these books that he has written have been circulated all over. We get orders even today from people all over the world.

John Dehlin [00:19:11] And you self publish?

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:12] Yeah. He became a printer against his better judgment, but he realized he couldn't afford having him printed any other way. So we just started out with a little mimeograph. We started out with a ditto machine, then we got a mimeograph machine and then an offset press.

John Dehlin [00:19:30] Which of your book might be the most popular?

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:32] Jesus was Married.

John Dehlin [00:19:33] And how many copies do you have?

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:35] Several thousand. I really don't know because I got it recorded But I have to look it up. But he also wrote one on the three Nephites calling an election Seers and Seer Stones re baptism the 70s. Six volumes on the Holy Priesthood. Different aspects of it.

John Dehlin [00:19:55] Kind of a scholar.

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:56] Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:59] So did the entire family ever get together, like for dinner or.

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:05] Occasionally, but not very often because of geography. We did not all live in the same town and that was by their choice.

John Dehlin [00:20:13] Right. So like once a year or.

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:16] I can't just occasionally, but not very often. Our family is not the ideal polygamous family that you. Oh. Pattern your life after this. We did the best we could. And we all realized that Ogden's first responsibility was writing books because that was his mission. And I was just glad that I could work with him. So we saw a lot of each other and writing the books together. He would write them, I'd help him a little bit with the research. I'd typeset them, edit them, he would print them, I'd collate them, we'd both bind them. You know, we just worked together as a team and it was a wonderful experience.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] So there wasn't a strong sense of sisterhood between you and the other?

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:59] Somewhat, but not as much as most families. And I wished it could have been different, but no, it was not. But we got along okay. We didn't get together or have that bond that a lot of families have.

John Dehlin [00:21:15] That makes sense. How do finances work in an arrangement? You can talk about yours or generally.

Anne B. Wilde [00:21:25] Well, I was always able to support myself and I was glad for that because I didn't want to be a financial burden to him when he had a big family like that. I just thought, you know, if I can support myself, that's great. And I graduated from college, was trained in business. I knew office work, I typed theses, and even during the time I was married, in my first marriage, I helped support the family.

John Dehlin [00:21:48] So what did you do? What kind of things did you do?

Anne B. Wilde [00:21:51] Office work. I never had trouble finding a job because I was recommended or whatever. Like I say, I worked at home some of the time and I was always there for my kids came home from school, I had part time jobs or worked at home. So my kids were not latchkey kids.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] So you were industrious?

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:10] Yeah, well, sometimes it was kind of tight, but we managed and we always had a nice clean home. We lived in a good neighborhood. My kids were well provided for and they were happy and we just had a good family. Now, in some cases, this is something that each individual family has to work out for Themselves how to do the finances. Now, if you have a very big family, then it's going to be very hard for a man to support the whole family unless he has a darn good job. So some of the times the wives will work or the older children or whatever, they just work together as a family and make sure that the needs are met of the family. And this is one of the good things, I think, about plural marriage is that a woman can have the best of both worlds. She can have a family and have a lot of children, and then she can also go back to school and get a college degree or advanced degree. She can have a career and know that her kids are well provided for because there's a sister wife that will agree ahead of time that she'll take care of the kids. And then in return, the wife that goes to work will share her income maybe with her or whatever. It just works out. So the idea with a plural family is that the family is an important, important unit, and you try to provide for the needs and the basic necessities for all members of the family. However, that can happen a lot of times people have a family business where they can work together and provide for each other.

John Dehlin [00:23:42] Did you live in fear of being discovered?

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:44] No, not particularly. I played games. I don't live in fear. I call it playing games. For example, like if Aga and I went to the. The grocery store and I saw somebody I knew and he knew just to walk on and pretend like we weren't even together. So I didn't. Maybe some people would call that living in fear. I didn't. I thought it was a fun game to play. And then we'd laugh about it afterward and I'd say, oh, that's so and so from the ward, you know, and so we just didn't go places where we thought we would be recognized by so somebody else.

John Dehlin [00:24:19] You probably also tried to. You probably had to be private and guarded about how you talk to people and who you talk to.

Anne B. Wilde [00:24:26] Well, they just thought I was a divorced person. Yeah, I just lived that kind of a life. So as far as anybody knew in the ward, I was just a single divorced mother raising three kids.

John Dehlin [00:24:37] So if you're comfortable talking about this. When did you decide to tell your children and how did you do it?

Anne B. Wilde [00:24:45] When I thought they were old enough to handle it. I think my daughter was 9 or 10, and she was a very responsible a student. And so I was able to explain it to her. But I said, you know, it's best if you don't say anything to anybody because it's hard to have other people understand it. And then my boys just kind of gradually when they got older. I can't remember a real traumatic time. I explained it at some point. My three kids have not accepted this as a lifestyle for them. It has not been their choice, but they have respected my choice and they've seen how happy I was and they got along really well with Ogden. So it was just a free agency choice.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] Did they maintain relationships with their father, with their.

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:33] Yes, for a while. But, you know, he was not the kind of dad that came around much.

John Dehlin [00:25:37] He.

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:37] And he died shortly after, so

John Dehlin [00:25:42] he

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:42] wasn't really a part of their life.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] And was Ogden in any way able to be a father to them?

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:46] He was, in a way, but he didn't want them to think that he was trying to take the place of their father. And so he's very careful about that. But he was very good with them. We'd go on canyon picnics together and things like that where he just kind of was. He never was called dad by my kids. He was called Ogden. But he did what he could to be kind of a father figure for him as much as possible.

John Dehlin [00:26:12] And so it was never a traumatic, huge issue for them emotionally or psychologically at some point in their lives?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:18] I don't think so. They did resent the fact that when I became more public, when we wrote our book In December of 2000, there was a lot of media around and they had a little trouble seeing their mother's picture in the local papers and local tv.

John Dehlin [00:26:35] Which book is this?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:36] Voices in Harmony. Okay, that's one. I don't know if you can see that. That's a book that the three of us wrote. That's Mary Batchelor, Marianne Watson and myself. It's a compilation of a hundred testimonies and experiences that women have had in this lifestyle as a plural wife.

John Dehlin [00:26:57] Now these women are friends or just other.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:59] No. We sent out 700 different letters asking people if they wanted to participate in this project of a book that they could do so anonymously. We realized that all the media had had for years and years was the negative anti polygamist people that had left with bitter experiences. The government and the media both. That's all they had resource to to report. Well, three of us decided enough. We wanted somebody. We thought somebody ought to step forward and show that there's another side of the story. That there are a lot of women that are very happy in this lifestyle. They chose it freely as consenting adults. And they didn't have to be forced into it as young girls. And so the stereotypes are just not true. So by writing this book and asking people to contribute to was just like Christmas morning. It was amazing. I go out to my mailbox because my address was on the address that they were to respond to. And here would be two or three letters from these women. And they could use their initials or a pseudonym or no name at all because we knew they wouldn't participate at all if they had to use their real name. Still too risky to come out publicly. So they sent me these letters and it was so much fun to compile these wonderful experiences of women that had just absolutely faith promoting experiences in this lifestyle. So after I became more public, my kids kind of resented that. And so I tried to be careful. And maybe one of the other girls would do the local media for a while. And I do the ones that were out of state or out of the country.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] Did Ogden help you with that book? Was he still.

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:42] He printed it. That's the only way he had. But he was a very supportive. He thought it was wonderful that we were willing to step up and speak out. And so we sold a thousand copies in about a month. So he printed another thousand copies just shortly before he died.

Navigating Jealousy and Emotional Challenges

John Dehlin [00:29:01] How did you avoid feelings of jealousy or envy?

Anne B. Wilde [00:29:05] Well, it's easier if you live in separate houses to begin with. And I know that that is a problem. And we get asked that question frequently is how do you deal with that? That's got to be an individual adjustment. If you realize the importance of living this principle and you do it for religious reasons and you take it out of the bedroom and bring it into the kitchen and the living room where most of your time is spent anyway, then that kind of helps. Fortunately, I was blessed and I did not have those feelings of jealousy. I knew how much I was loved by my husband and how much I loved him. And. And I think if a woman knows that she's really loved sincerely and deeply by her husband, she can make that adjustment. And it's the key for the man to help each wife feel sincerely loved and appreciated and that her voice counts. And that somebody, if he takes another wife, it doesn't mean that he loves the existing wives any less. It's just like a mother having children. When she has a second and third child, she doesn't love the first one any less. She has a greater capacity to love them all. So that's the way we feel it is with a plural family. A husband has a greater capacity to love each additional person that comes along.

John Dehlin [00:30:21] Yeah, I know a lot of men who have a hard time being a good husband to one wife.

Anne B. Wilde [00:30:27] Right.

John Dehlin [00:30:28] You know, my wife asked the question in as we talked about this interview. Can a man really love and fulfill and satisfy multiple women?

Anne B. Wilde [00:30:40] Absolutely. That's my answer.

John Dehlin [00:30:44] It probably takes a remarkable man.

Anne B. Wilde [00:30:46] Not all men are cut out to live this. Not all women are supposed to live this principle. And if man is that he might have joy, which is what God has told us, then I feel like if you can receive joy and have a true sense of happiness in this lifestyle, then great. And I truly was happy in it. I had my independence, I had my space. I had the love of a wonderful man. We worked together on these books and we got testimonies together and had a lot of friends that we could talk about the gospel with and do things socially with. I just feel like I couldn't have been blessed anymore.

John Dehlin [00:31:27] Do you have a sense for whether Ogden's other wives also were as fulfilled and happy?

Anne B. Wilde [00:31:32] I think they basically were. They could see that we worked together so well that I think there might have been a little bit of a resentment there. But, you know, he tried to make up for that by doing things with them and making sure their needs were met. And, you know, we just tried to work it out as best we could could.

John Dehlin [00:31:52] This program has been a production of Mormon Stories Podcast. To comment on this episode or to peruse the archives of past episodes, please visit us online@mormonstories.org Also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories Podcast by making a contribution today or by voting for this episode@digg.com and sustained.org thanks again for listening.

Part 4 of 5 · Ep. 45

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website. Also, please help us promote Mormon stories via Digg.com and Sustained.org for all this and more. Please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. When many of us as Mormons think about 21st century polygamy, we often associate it with what we see on TV or read in the newspaper. 60 year old men taking 13 year old child brides, incest wives being reassigned to other husbands, welfare fraud. Basically we think about the most egregious examples to come out of the isolated, closed communities of the fundamentalist LDS Church led by Warren Jeffs. And while this ugly side of polygamy definitely exists, it is not the complete picture. Members of the FLDS Church make up less than one third of all Mormon polygamists. Many of them live in suburban Salt Lake City neighborhoods, dress in modern clothing, hold modern jobs, and in some cases even attend the LDS Church wards. On today's Mormon Stories podcast, Ann Wilde discusses polygamy gone wrong and polygamy gone right, the ugly and the beautiful sides of polygamy from her experiences both as a practicing polygamist and as a friend to literally hundreds of polygamous families throughout Salt Lake City and Utah. Your story today on Mormon Stories.

Polygamy Gone Wrong: Problems and Abuses

John Dehlin [00:02:11] So what happened after the book came out this Voices in Harmony?

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:16] Well, that was kind of the beginning of the last six years of being pretty public and having a lot of media interviews. And we do have a message that we would like to get out and that is that we would like to have people understand our lifestyle better, show an element of respect and understanding, and eventually have it decriminalized. We feel like if it's between consenting adults and all the parties are in agreement, we're not doing anybody any harm. And certainly with all the alternative lifestyles that are out there today, this is certainly one that ought to be considered as legitimate. Recently I read a newspaper article that said there are more alternative lifestyle people living in alternative lifestyles than there are in the nuclear family, which is a husband, a wife and two or three kids. That means that there are more families that are maybe single parents, there may be gay couples, there may be divorced, widowed, a grandmother raising a grandchild, polygamous. All these I categorize as alternative lifestyles as compared to the nuclear family. Well if there's more of the alternative lifestyle people now than there are the others, I think that's important for people who are making laws and. And dealing in social services and things like that to understand that they cannot put everybody in the same box, that they have to understand there's a lot of diversity in the people and in different families in America. So because of that, I feel like people need to understand that ours is a viable family lifestyle, that we in most cases assume responsibility for our families. This lifestyle is all about families, after all. It's having children and bringing up righteous children, if possible. So that's a challenge for any parent, I'm sure. But. So we have tried to get this message out that we should not be criminals. We should not be considered as felons, which in the state of Utah, we are, if we're taken to court. But we shouldn't even really be guilty of a misdemeanor unless we're breaking some other law. And if some families are guilty of welfare fraud or forced marriages or any kind of abuse, then naturally those issues should be addressed. And the Attorney General in the state of Utah, Mark Shurtlove, has been very good to separate the crimes from the culture. And just because somebody is living in plural marriage doesn't mean they're criminals. So we have worked with him on the Safety Net Committee. And fortunately, they have consulted with us to understand our communities better and our lifestyle and beliefs. So they're better able to make the best decisions about our culture. They're able to provide the services that we are entitled to. And our motto is do nothing about us without us. So here they were building committees, they were considering laws and all that, and we weren't even. Our voice wasn't even heard. But now, thanks to Mark Shurtlep and Paul Murphy in the AG's office, they have included us in these committee meetings. And we're very glad for that because I think it builds confidence and trust in both sides. We're able to help our own people understand, you know, there are services that you qualify for, and you need to know how to go about applying for those. And the government is not necessarily an enemy as long as you're not breaking any other laws. And on the other hand, we tell the government officials, okay, we're not criminals by nature. We do not believe in abuse or forced marriages or those stereotypes that some people associate with polygamists. They're certainly not true across the board.

John Dehlin [00:06:00] Let's talk about that. I would love you to characterize two things. One is Polygamy gone wrong, which is what are the things that you would say. There are a lot of stereotypes about fundamentals, polygamists and you know, I have a bunch of them here that people, like you said, forced into marriages. The people live too much off the government. There are welfare issues that people's wives are taken away from them and reassigned to others. You know, there are even crazy allegations of animal sacrifice and stuff like that. Tell me in underage and incest. Tell me. Paint a picture for me of what polygamy gone wrong is. If you're able to. I don't want you to offend anybody. But what would paint a picture of polygamy gone wrong and then counterpose that with polygamy gone right?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:56] From your perspective, polygamy gone wrong is when there's unrighteous dominion. I think you can just narrow it down with that. Whether it's the husband of the family, whether it's a leader in a group, whether it's whatever. If he exercises unrighteous dominion over the people that are under his stewardship, then I feel like that's when these other things can enter in. If there's free agency and the desire to obey the laws, not only the laws of the lamb, but God's laws. I mean, child abuse is certainly not. It's breaking one of God's laws. Abuse of. Of any kind, whether it's welfare or family members or anything like that, naturally, we feel is an incorrect process, procedure. I think in the case that you're talking about, those things that you mentioned, they have existed, to my knowledge, in one or two of the groups. There have been incidences of that. But I hope people understand there's so much diversity in our lifestyle and families that that is not the case case in a lot of the families that I'm aware of. The FLDS under the leadership of Warren Jeffs, this is once again an unrighteous dominion situation. As far as I see it. There is a man that likes the power has exercised, maybe control that I feel is inappropriate in my personal opinion. And so therefore he has taken families, split families apart, taking the man away from his wives and children. In some cases, I understand, maybe the man was so dictatorial that the women asked to be taken away from him. I don't know all the details of those families down there, but it just seems to me there are some inappropriate things that have happened in that particular group. And that seems to be what the media has picked up on over the years, those situations. That is not the general rule in most of the other groups or the independents. We have our free agency, and it's interesting. And when we did our book, we sent out a questionnaire, and one of the questions was, let's see. The point I was getting at was, how many children in your adult children in your family entered the principal? And you'd think that if a family was really strong in this lifestyle, that their children would stay in it as well. To me, the response came back about a third to a fourth of the adult children. Now people might think, well, gee, that's a low number. Why weren't there more of them? To me, that says that those children being raised by public schools and all the influences in the outside world, at least they were given their free agency and they were not forced to live it if they didn't want to. Now, in the FLDS community down in ldl Colorado city, I'm sure the percentage is much higher because there they're not even supposed to associate with people outside their community. And they are most of the time placed in a plural family or told who they should marry by Warren Jeffs or the leader of that community. And I think this is a case of one man having a lot of authority and power over the people. And one of the reasons why Centennial park they split from the FLDS people was because they wanted a council rule. They didn't want that much power invested in one man. So they formed another community or group, if you want to call it that, in about 1986. That's why they called themselves Centennial Park 100 years after the 1886 revelation to John Taylor. So they wanted the council rule and then FLDS kept with the mun wan rule. And that was a real source of contention between those people. So they resolved it in that way. So I think the idea of polygamy gone wrong would stem mostly from unrighteous

John Dehlin [00:11:06] demeanor and breaking the law.

Anne B. Wilde [00:11:09] Yeah, breaking laws that really should be kept. Laws of God or laws of man. Now, I understand we're breaking the laws of the land by living thorough marriage. That's why we want to get it changed. We'd like it to be criminalized. We'd like the Reynolds decision of 1879 to be overturned, which said that you could believe what you wanted, but you couldn't pray, practice it, referring to plural marriage. So there's some legislation now and some cases that are coming up that we hope at least one will go before the United States supreme court where that might be overturned. So there are things in the mill where we're hoping that that can be changed.

John Dehlin [00:11:47] What about lowering the marriage age?

Anne B. Wilde [00:11:50] Well, no, I think it ought. Just generally speaking, and I can't speak for everybody, but I think generally speaking, 18 is a good age, and that is the legal age for it. We recommend to the people, as we talk to them in our own lifestyle that it would be wise, if possible, that we make sure that the boys and the girls both are at least 18. And that's certainly what the attorney General recommends.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] How does a community deal with the dynamic if they're practicing polygamy of there being too many men? Some have said it seems to be an impractical practice because you got too many men.

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:29] Yeah, but you're looking at such a small percentage of the population in Salt Lake, in Utah, in the United States. It just isn't really a problem because even though I think birth rate is pretty well like 50, 50, 51, 49, whatever, we're talking about such a small percentage of that that it just hasn't been a problem. I know there are some men that would like to have more wives, but, you know, it's not typical for a man to have more than two or three. That's the average. And when we sent out that questionnaire, that's what came back. The average number of wives in a plural family is around two or three. You do hear of some of the leaders having more than that, or some of the men maybe having a few more than that, but that's not the general rule. So logistically, it's just not that difficult to have more wives.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] Only when you're in a contained society,

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:26] that may be a problem. And that's where incest, I think, has come in. Because I know in one or two of the groups, they have married cousins and half brothers or sisters or something like that, which is not something that I myself would do. But I'm not going to judge them for their decisions. I mean, you look at the beginning in Adam and Eve, I mean, they must have married brothers and sisters and even in cousins in Old Testament times and a lot of the states in the United States, it's not against the law to marry first cousins. So your definition of incest is going to vary from state to state.

Polygamy Gone Right: Positive Examples and Estimates

John Dehlin [00:14:07] Okay, so now tell us about polygamy gone. Right. And when, you know, even when cohabitating even is involved, you know, you gave us an example of how it can work and maybe even a bit easier when the wives live in separate houses. Tell us about polygamy. God. Right. Paint a picture for us.

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:27] Okay. There's so many women that I know that this is just a wonderful lifestyle for them. They freely chosen it. One experience that I think of every once in a while when I think of a plural family is this one girl that I know very well. She was raised in polygamy. Her father had a few wives. They all lived close together, but in separate homes. She always knew where her dad was. She could come home from school, and if she needed her dad for something, she could go over there. She was always welcome in any of those homes. And she could sit down if he was free, just like any father, and have time with him. And the way she described it and so backing up a little bit. So because of her happy childhood, she wanted that same happiness for her children. So she is a plural wife, very happy in it. Her kids were raised with a loving mother and a father and several mothers. And the way she termed it was that there were more people for her to love and more people that loved her. So it's really a matter of time.

John Dehlin [00:15:27] Say that one more time. I'm sorry.

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:28] Okay. There's more people for her to love. There's more mothers and siblings, and there's more people to love her. So really, a plural family is about family, love, siblings. A lot of times, siblings are best friends, whether they go to private school or home school or go to public school. Many times they have siblings the same age, and they're their best friends.

John Dehlin [00:15:51] Does a child of one wife call the child of a sister, wife, brother and sister?

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:57] Oh, yes, Usually, yeah. They don't distinguish. In most cases, like half brother, half sister. This is my brother. And some of them might say, well, his mother is Aunt Susie or something like that. But a lot of them, they just call. Some of them call him Mama, Mom, Susie, or just mom or whatever. They have their own ways of identifying each other. In the early days of the church, I think they were called Aunt, you know, like Aunt Jane, and meaning his sister wife. But I wanted to get back to. After our book came out and we realized that it was really interesting to see how thirsty the media was for somebody on the positive side of plural marriage to explain it. They just absolutely thought this was wonderful. So because of that, a couple of us decided. Well, it was gentleman decided that he would like to work with me in putting out a book, a magazine called Mormon Focus, which we did. And that is right here. It was just one issue, the premiere issue, and it came out in 2003, and it shows three sister wives on the COVID We were hoping to have it come out like bimonthly. Or quarterly. But after setting this up and getting it published, we didn't get the financial support we were hoping for. So it was just the one issue, but it really stands alone. It has articles in there. Like, one article is about three different polygamous families and how each one dealt with the challenges and the family problems and everything that came up and the rewards as well. And they were different ages, different dynamics in the family. Another one talked about the manifesto. Another article talked about the different diversities of the groups called Community Focus. And it tells a little history of the different groups and independents and so forth. So that has served as a good tool. Like, if we go out doing a presentation up at a university, for example, in a class, we'll hand out complimentary copies because we paid for the printing expense. Now when we do a presentation for a social services department, we were able to hand those out so that they can read for themselves a little bit more about the lifestyle. Then after the magazine came out, the three of us that wrote the book, plus another girl, Linda Kelch, decided that we needed to be kind of an organized entity. So. So that when people referred to us, they would have a name by which we should be known. So we called ourselves First Principal Voices of Polygamy. And about a year or two ago, we decided to drop the polygamy part and just say principal voices Principle, meaning the principle of plural marriage, or a matter of principle, you know, principle to live. So since then, we have worked with, like I say, the attorney general's office, different government agents, agencies. We've done a lot of presentations for social services groups and college classes. We have been a resource for people who are writing articles or books or doing TV documentaries. It's just been a voice that we felt had not been heard before. So now we're glad that people are willing to listen and learn more about us. And what we eventually hope is that people will understand our lifestyle a little better and treat us with respect. After all, many of the people in the LDS Church had ancestors that lived this lifestyle. And of all people, it ought to be understanding of that. It's people in the church that had those kind of ancestors.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Sure. Do you have a sense for how many people are living under polygamy today in the United States?

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:58] In the United States. Excuse me, in the United States, I've heard the figure 100,000, but that includes Christian polygamists, secular Muslim, Jews, Mormon, you know, priesthood, Mormon, polygamous. So there's all kinds of polygamists. They don't necessarily live it or believe in it as a religious belief, but as a cultural lifestyle. Over about three quarters of the countries in the world, it's not against the law to live polygamy, but of course it is in the United States. So because of that, I think that it's necessary for people to understand we're not the minority, really. I mean, the people that actually practice it might be. But as far as those who stem from early Mormonism, I did a survey on that a couple of years ago and came up with a figure of about 37,000, and that included 15,000 independent fundamentalists, 8 to 10,000 FLDS, 7500 All Red Group, 1500 Centennial Park, 1500 Kingstons, and 1500 that were just members of some smaller groups. So out of that 37,000, however, a lot of them are children and a lot of them have a belief in it but aren't necessarily practicing it. So it doesn't mean that there's 37,000 actual adults living in a plural family. Right.

John Dehlin [00:21:33] So do you have a sense for, you know, you talked about sort of polygamy gone wrong and polygamy gone right. Do you have a sense for what percentage of those who are living in it are doing it right versus versus the more negative stereotypes?

Anne B. Wilde [00:21:45] I would certainly hope that there's well over 50% that have done it right. But I have no way of knowing that because, well, to begin with, there's a lot of people down in the Colorado City Hilldale community that I think probably are very happy, but I have no way of knowing that because they've been so isolated and secluded.

John Dehlin [00:22:04] So as a spokeswoman, you're not able to communicate with those groups to make

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:08] sure they're one group and speak spokesperson is used very loosely because I am not a designated spokesperson for these groups. I have worked with a lot of them, and we do have a coalition committee now that has representatives from all the groups except flds.

John Dehlin [00:22:25] So FLDS just wants nothing to do.

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:27] They have been invited to participate with us, and they have chosen not to. So I do not know firsthand too much of what's going on down there, although I have talked to some. Some people that have left. But the other people that I know and the other groups, they're going to have problems in a monogamous marriage. So you're going to have problems in a polygamous marriage, maybe even a few more in some cases. But most of the people that enter into this with a full knowledge of the fact that there's going to be more than one wife and with A knowledge that it's a religious principle and that God is a part of their relationship. They know that ahead of time. And so they're willing to make sacrifices and overcome the jealousy and the problems that might arise because they're familiar with it ahead of time. So as far as polygamy gone. Right. I would certainly hope that in most cases it's well over 50%, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

John Dehlin [00:23:23] But in your experience, the extreme negative things that are emphasized in the media aren't the norm or typical for. For the people that you've come to know?

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:35] Absolutely not. Because they focused on a lot of them, flds, and, you know, that's maybe happens down there, but as far as

John Dehlin [00:23:46] numerically, they're less than a third.

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:48] Yeah, absolutely. Probably about a fourth.

John Dehlin [00:23:52] Okay, okay.

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:53] Third to a fourth.

John Dehlin [00:23:54] And they sort of. I don't want to put you on record here, but they kind of give polygamists a bad name.

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:58] Maybe they do, because that's the only information that the media has been picking up on for years. And our voice, even though it's coming out more and more now, it's still baby steps. And they love to pick. The media loves to pick up on the sensational. The Warren Jeffs trial now coming up and all that. It just focuses on a lot of the negative that happens in the lifestyle and certainly, you know, a happy family that's not newsworthy. What do you report on if it's a happy family? I think Big Love has done a lot to dispel some of the stereotypes, and I was glad when we started watching that. The only thing is, the first two episodes were a little too intimate for our taste, but I feel like it showed the diversity in our culture that you have, for example, plural family that lived in an average neighborhood, a little above average. They had a swimming pool in the backyard with the three wives living next to each other. And then they also showed an isolated community that had a very strong leader and had maybe evidences of abuse. You have to see the dynamics of all different kinds of variety of people that live this lifestyle.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] I forgot to ask you this. Did you continue to attend the LDS Church throughout your.

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:21] I did for a long time after. And then there came a point where we had a lot of company because of the books that we were writing. We had a lot of company, and the best day for them to come was on Sunday. So it seemed like my time was better spent talking about the principles of the gospel, the. That we believed in, than going and listening to classes on following the leader and what we term the milk of the gospel, which I'm not saying isn't important, but I felt like my time was better spent talking about things that I could not learn in church.

John Dehlin [00:25:56] But at least for 10, 15 years, you continued?

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:59] Oh, yeah, I continued going. I wanted my kids to be raised in the church, and so I went as long as they wanted to go.

John Dehlin [00:26:05] So they were raised in the church. Oh, yeah, your children.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:07] Right. Well, when they got to be teenagers, they themselves chose to be inactive, all three of them.

John Dehlin [00:26:13] Okay, do you have a sense for how, you know, you talk about independent polygamists, Is that right?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:21] Well, independent fundamentalist Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] Independent fundamentals.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:26] We're all fundamentalist Mormons. I'm sorry.

John Dehlin [00:26:27] I'm sorry.

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:28] No, that's okay. We consider ourselves to be independent where the others are.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] Do you have a sense for how prevalent independent fundamentalist Mormons are in Provo or in Salt Lake City?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:42] Oh, by area? No, I think probably most of them are in the Salt Lake area, but I know of some in Provo and all over because we had so many people come and visit us that were interested in Ogden's books and in the discussions that we had, they believed in those early doctrines. So in belief at least, they were a fundamentalist Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:27:05] And do you sense that they live in arrangements much like yours and Ogden's were, that the wives live in separate

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:11] houses if they're independent? Some of them just the same. Some of them live in separate houses. Some of them might live together.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Do you have a sense for how common it is for them to still attend LDS Church wards?

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:25] Well, if they do, they've had to do it very quietly without saying how they believe. So if they go to gospel doctrine class, they don't say, oh, but in section 132, it says so I imagine there are some that attend church and believe in the early doctrines, but they go along with the church for whatever reason, to whatever degree. Maybe they want their kids to go to primary and be raised in the church, so they're very careful about. About what they say to enable them to do that. Or maybe they can see a lot of good in the church that they want to take advantage of, but then their private beliefs might be different.

John Dehlin [00:28:05] Do you have a sense that that's the exception for independence or the.

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:10] Oh, yeah. I think most people, if they're a fundamentalist Mormon at all, they are not members of the church as a whole. But I don't know them all, so I don't know for sure. But I would say that most of them get to a point where they can no longer support the teachings and the leadership of the LDS Church. And so they are eventually either they ask for their name to be taken off or they are discovered by something they say or did and they are excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] What's kept this group from banding together and trying to form a church?

Anne B. Wilde [00:28:45] Well, that isn't the main we're told not to do that. Who, in 1886, when John Taylor had the revelation and told those men to keep plural marriage alive, told him that that was a commandment from God. Somewhere along the line they were instructed not to congregate, proselyte, collect tithing, form churches, that their commission was solely to keep plural marriage alike. That's the way I believe. Now, if you talk to some people in some of these other groups, they vary in that because they feel like there was a definite council, priesthood council that was formed at that time and that they were to do the things that the church did not do correctly. But my understanding of it is that the main thing they were commissioned to do was keep plural marriage alive, not form a church.

John Dehlin [00:29:35] This program has been a production of Mormon Stories Podcast. To comment on this episode or to peruse the archives of past episodes, please visit us online@mormonstories.org Also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories Podcast by making a contribution today or by voting for this episode@digg.com and sustained.org thanks again for listening.

Part 5 of 5 · Ep. 46

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you its listeners to keep Mormon Stories alive. Please consider donating today@mormonstories.org to make a contribution to Mormon Stories. Just click on the Make a Donation button at the top right of the MormonStories.org website. Also, please help us promote Mormon stories via Digg.com and Sustained.org for all this and more. Please check out MormonStories.org and thank you for listening. In the final portion of our five part interview with Ann Wilde, Mormon fundamentalist and polygamist, Ann shares with us her views on a plethora of topics including the Adam God theory, blood atonement, blacks in the priesthood, feminism and homosexuality. She also discusses her view of the future both for Mormon fundamentalism and the world. And in my favorite part of the entire series, Anne concludes by sharing with us her testimony. Your story today on Mormon Stories.

Key Doctrinal Differences from Mainstream Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:01:37] Okay, so let's turn to a discussion a bit about your beliefs and views relative to to the mainstream LDS Church and kind of close on talking about some of these issues. To begin with. There are a lot of. Well, let me ask this first. What are the if you had to enumerate, and you've done this a bit, if you had to enumerate the main eternal truths or principles that a fundamentalist sort of feels really should not have been changed, that were really important and crucial, that have been either watered down or taken away, tell us what those are.

Anne B. Wilde [00:02:22] Well, I think we discussed some of them earlier and you know, there's 95 of them at least that we've gone through. But I would say probably the most important, and I'm not saying that they should have kept them as a church that was a democratic decision or, you know, a decision that came as a result of the opinions of most of the people in the church that they didn't want to believe them anymore or practice them. So I would say probably the top three would be the distinctions between a fundamentalist Mormon and the LDS Church teaching today. Polygamy, Adam God doctrine, and the Kingdom of God. United order. Well, yeah, probably ought to include united order law of consecration in there. So talk about which one.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] Why Adam God? Tell us what that belief is and why you think that's important.

Anne B. Wilde [00:03:15] Okay. The little couplet that says as God is man may become as man is God once was. And that to me is encapsulated the Adam God doctrine, meaning that if man lives a worthy life, obeys all the commandments, I realized that nobody's perfect. But if they fulfill the requirements that they can become a God. Adam apparently did that on his world. He lived and kept the commandments sufficient so that he qualified for becoming a God. One of those requirements was to have more than one wife. So he worked his way up and became a God. And as far as Brigham Young was concerned, he said, adam is our God and the only God with whom we have to do so. There's a lot more that you can add to that, but that doctrine was taught in the early days of the church. In fact, there's a case where a man was actually excommunicated for not believing in that doctrine in the days of Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:04:20] Let me ask you about that. So are you saying that the Adam who started human existence on planet Earth was actually God the Father, Elohim, Michael.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:30] He was Michael the Archangel. He was the only God that we have to do with on our world.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] But when you think about that, he's

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:38] the Father of our spirits and our bodies.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] So when you think about the narrative in the Old Testament, let's say, or in traditional Mormon LDS theology, there's God the Father, Elohim, there's Jesus.

Anne B. Wilde [00:04:53] Elohim is a council of gods. He's a member of that council. Elohim is plural.

John Dehlin [00:05:00] So the way I grew up, I thought of God the Father as having the name Elohim. That's not how you understand it.

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:06] No, it's not correct if you define it. Elohim is a plural, and so that's a council of gods. And Adam or Michael as God, he was really Michael, and when he came down on Earth, he became Adam. It's a terminology thing.

John Dehlin [00:05:23] But anyway, what about Jesus being Jehovah in the previous.

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:26] Well, see, I don't believe that Jesus was Jehovah. That's a Jehovah.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] What did Joseph and Brigham believe?

Anne B. Wilde [00:05:33] This is. It's more complicated that we have time to go into. I believe that Jehovah was the Jesus on Adam's world. So you've got Elohim, Jehovah and Michael as one Godhead. And then you've got Michael or Adam and Jesus Christ. And then we won't even go into the third member, the Godhead, which is the Holy Ghost. But there's a man that occupies that office. So there's a dual Godhead there. And if you kind of picture it that way, it helps to understand it. But, you know, it would take me a half an hour, really, to explain this so the lay member could understand it. And I hate to get into it.

John Dehlin [00:06:04] No, that's good. Okay. So, Michael. So is Jesus, the son of Michael.

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:12] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:06:13] Who's also God. So how did God govern the world while living in it?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:18] Well, he had a God. He had a God on his Earth, and he's the one that Michael was learning from. So when he was walking and talking in the Garden of Eden, he was talking to his God. That was God on his world when he was a man.

John Dehlin [00:06:34] But. Was Michael, who became Adam on planet Earth? Is he the God that we pray to now?

Anne B. Wilde [00:06:45] Well, he's the God that I pray to. Okay, as Michael, as a God. I don't pray to Adam when he was here on Earth. I pray to the office that he had, he held and that he does now hold as God of this Earth.

John Dehlin [00:06:59] But since he was brought out of the Garden of Eden and lived temporally, there had to have been a time where the God of this Earth was actually being human.

Anne B. Wilde [00:07:07] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:07:08] And maybe he had someone else helping him.

Anne B. Wilde [00:07:10] Absolutely. His God and Jehovah of his world. He had to learn somehow how to do all this, how to create a world, how to start things rolling. But, you know, if he was the father of our spirits, which Brigham Young said he was, why would he send somebody else down to be the father of their bodies? Those are his children. He's entitled to the right to come down after fathering them as spirit children. He's entitled to come down and start them with mortal bodies as well, in my view.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] And so when he died, he was transfigured.

Anne B. Wilde [00:07:45] It's just different roles of Godhead, you know, like the president of the church can also be a home teacher.

John Dehlin [00:07:51] Right? Right.

Anne B. Wilde [00:07:51] Okay. So he can be God then, part of his being. God means you come down and provide mortal bodies for your children, for your spirit children. And then after you get that ball rolling, then you go back and you might take another wife. He brought Eve here, who's a mother of all living, meaning all the spirits that were here. The way I understand it, then he might have taken another wife and gone down to another world and started the ball rolling down on another earth.

John Dehlin [00:08:17] And would he have been immediately resurrected upon dying, or would his resurrection have had to happen?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:23] You can't be a God without being resurrected and glorified and sanctified. So he was already all that. Then by taking and eating mortal food, he became a carnal man again. And then when he quit eating mortal food, then he became a God with whatever kind of body. Gods have resurrected bodies.

John Dehlin [00:08:43] So he had a body before as

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:45] an exalted being, because he lived on another world of his Own.

John Dehlin [00:08:48] And this is the last question I asked. So did he have to lose his old body, get a new body?

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:52] He still has the same body, it's

John Dehlin [00:08:54] just different because he didn't have to go through a birth process again.

Anne B. Wilde [00:08:56] No, no, he still has the same body.

John Dehlin [00:08:58] That's how he showed up in the garden.

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:00] It's either a mortal body or a resurrected body which goes through whatever stages depending upon the role that he's playing at the time.

John Dehlin [00:09:08] And in the Garden when he talked to God,

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:13] he was in a terrestrial state then because we understand the Garden of Eden was a terrestrial condition. When he was cast out of the Garden, it was a telestial condition. So he had a celestial body, a terrestrial body in the garden and, and a telestial body. Then he went back to a celestial body.

John Dehlin [00:09:29] Do you think he operated under a veil of forgetness while he was on the Earth?

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:32] Well, when he was cast out of the garden he was. Remember it was said that you will forget what you've learned here.

John Dehlin [00:09:38] Okay, so he.

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:39] The veil of forgetting or something.

John Dehlin [00:09:41] So the original sin that non Mormons usually call it, he wasn't sort of knowledgeable of all his past experiences of God.

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:49] He had, from what I understand, there was a veil placed upon him so that he did not know. But.

John Dehlin [00:09:55] And during his earthly years he probably didn't know he was.

Anne B. Wilde [00:09:59] Oh, I think he had a pretty good idea who he was. I mean, but he didn't have to. I don't know that question.

John Dehlin [00:10:04] I've never actually thought about this. So I'm just trying to understand. Okay, so Adam God doctrine. And then you talked about the kingdom of.

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:13] Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God, Just the kingdom, political kingdom of God. There's a kingdom of heaven which is. Kingdom of God is the kingdom of heaven on earth. It's the same type of organization, the same kingdom.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] Okay. Someday there's going to be a political entity that governs humans on the earth that's separate from man's government and Christ

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:35] will be over that.

John Dehlin [00:10:36] Christ will be over.

Anne B. Wilde [00:10:37] Well, he is now, but we just don't see the evidence of the kingdom in action right now. Just like we don't see much evidence of the United Order right now. There are different united orders that do exist on some level, but as far as church wide or any great community living that there's not a sizable group that lives it right now.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] Okay, What about the teaching of blood atonement? Is that one of the 95?

Anne B. Wilde [00:11:09] Yeah, it's one of the things that have changed the that was a doctrine. I don't know if it was really practiced that much, even in the early days. Although Brigham Young said that if he ever saw a couple in bed committing adultery in the act, he wouldn't be afraid to run a javelin through them. And the reason he said that is because by shedding their blood, he felt like that was a partial atonement for the sin that they were committing. Now, I really don't understand. We did write a book on that, and I understand it to some level, but I don't know if it's really important to get into at this point. I do feel like I don't ever want to have to be the executor of that doctrine, and I'm glad I don't have to have anything to do with it. But it doesn't mean that it can't be done in a way that would benefit the victims of that. That would be the only reason that I can see doing that. That if you commit a sin that is beyond Christ's atonement, then by shedding your own blood, that would help in the atonement, in your own personal atonement. But, you know, that's another complicated thing that I don't think we have time to get into. No, this is truth.

Women, Social Issues, and Modern Challenges

John Dehlin [00:12:23] So separate from early doctrine of the Church, as an LDS person who is dealing with the modern world, there are all sorts of issues that we have to deal with that I'm curious to what extent you've had to deal with them and how you would come down or how the average fundamentalist Mormon might come down on it. So I'll just list a couple and you just tell me birth control.

Anne B. Wilde [00:12:51] I will speak for myself on that one. I believe that, and I never had to practice that because I always wanted the children and they just didn't come. I feel like abstinence is, for me, would be the best way of birth control. I would never do anything to prevent having children myself.

John Dehlin [00:13:12] What about feminism?

Anne B. Wilde [00:13:14] You know, believe it or not, this is a feminist lifestyle, and I know people will take exception to that. But if you stop and think about it, the woman can have a family. She can have a career, she can go back to school, get an education. She can have time with her friends to go to dinner and a movie without family. She really has, like I said before, the best of both worlds. So, in fact, I consider myself to be a feminist fundamentalist, because a feminist, by definition is anyone who is concerned about the rights and privileges of women. Well, I feel like I have every right and privilege that a woman would ever want. In my estimation, anything that I'd ever want anyway. And I know it would be hard for a lot of women to share a husband, and that would just probably be off the charts for a lot of people. But as far as I was concerned, I think it's very close to being a feminist. Although I still don't feel like you should usurp the role of the father in the home. I still look to my husband and did and still do as the father in the home. And I would never want to be the leader in the home, but I want my voice to be heard and considered and appreciated and kind of serve as a counselor.

John Dehlin [00:14:33] But women in the priesthood, probably not.

Anne B. Wilde [00:14:35] I am not in favor of women receiving the priesthood because they already share in the blessings, the opportunities, practically everything but the responsibilities. And there does come a time when. If and when she gets her second anointing, she does get priesthood, and she is ordained a queen and a priestess in the priesthood. So there is a time when she has a priesthood.

John Dehlin [00:14:58] That is another doctrine we used to

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:00] teach second anointings is not taught anymore either. Well, I understand apparently among the general authorities, there are a few that have that provision. It's kind of interesting because you look at the endowment today in the temple, and it's a conditional promise. You're ordained to become such without going into the temple ceremony. So you're supposed to live worthy enough to have that sealed upon you, that first endowment. Well, who in the church now gets that? So they're giving the conditional promise without the sealing of the promise. It's kind of interesting. Everybody's in limbo.

Guest [00:15:37] What about.

John Dehlin [00:15:38] It's a sensitive subject. What about blacks and race as it relates to.

Anne B. Wilde [00:15:42] Okay. And we get asked that question a lot. And the reason we're. One of the things that we are talking about are equal civil rights for ethnic groups, religious groups. We are trying to get our equal civil rights. I think the blacks ought to have their equal civil rights. Excuse me. I don't like to discuss the religious rights because that's where we have some differences. But publicly, I think everybody ought to have equal civil rights.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] How about homosexuality?

Anne B. Wilde [00:16:17] Same there. Equal civil rights. I feel we are not trying to get legal marriages, legal marriage licenses. And I'm wondering in my own way of looking at it, if a legal marriage license would be the thing that would best suit gay couples. Now, maybe in some cases it would. I feel like they ought to have legal rights as far as if there's a death, they ought to have some kind of legal right in determining what is done with the deceased. I have a cousin that went through this, and for a whole day his partner died. For a whole day he was there with the police because he couldn't authorize removal of that body. They had been together as a couple for years, and they had to wait till a blood relative came to release that body. I think that's criminal. So I think there ought to be provisions made for them to have some kind of legal decisions visiting in the hospital or insurance or whatever. But I don't know, and this is out of my realm, whether or not a legal marriage license would be the answer to that. We do not want. Most of us do not want to legalize plural marriage because we only want one legal marriage license, which would be the first one to conform with the law. Any subsequent marriages with plural wives are married by priesthood. It's a religious ceiling that's more important to us than any marriage licensed by the government. We want to be recognized by God because we're looking at this as an eternal principle. So the important thing to us is to have it decriminalized so we aren't looked at as felons or any kind of criminals. But it's a religious ceiling that is the most important thing for us.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] Just quickly, just to briefly revisit the race question I asked you when Joseph Smith. You know, I learned just in the past 10 years that apparently Joseph Smith ordained some black men to the priesthood.

Anne B. Wilde [00:18:17] He didn't ordain him, but he. Somebody did. Zebedee Coltrane asked him about that.

John Dehlin [00:18:24] Elijah Abel.

Anne B. Wilde [00:18:24] Elijah Abel, yeah, but Zebedee asked him about that. And that's another long story. But Joseph Smith did say to Elijah evil, apparently, according to one account that I read, that it was not the right time for him to receive the priesthood, but when the time came, he would be the first in line or among the first to receive it. So I think Joseph Smith, just like anyone else that's starting a religion or a corporation or anything else, they don't know everything at first. They learn as they go along. And I think Joseph Smith realized that it was done without his knowledge, apparently with Elijah Abel. And then when they came and asked him about it, then. Then that's when the discussion came up. So I feel like he was still learning a lot of these things as he went along.

John Dehlin [00:19:14] So maybe it was never God's will that blacks receive the priesthood. Potentially. That might be one interpretation of the history in those early years before Brigham Young made it really clear.

Anne B. Wilde [00:19:29] Yeah, I guess without going into it and detail, I just feel like it was not the right time. But I do feel like they will get an opportunity eventually.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] So you mentioned something about Joseph Smith having to learn and maybe making some mistakes. And we've talked about how God definitely made some changes between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And then there's definitely been changes between the New Testament and the LDS Church in its early years. How do you know what needs to be embraced as a fundamental concept and what latitude for progress and improvement can be allowed in God's church?

Anne B. Wilde [00:20:17] I think we touched on that earlier. If it's an eternal principle, they're unchangeable. If it's a practice or tradition or a work, a lot of times, not a lot of times, but there is a reference that says this work is no longer required at your hands. Well, work is not an eternal principle. It's a definition of terms you have to decide. And that's up to the individual, I guess, to decide what is an eternal principle. Some of them are very clear. And what is a work or a practice or a custom? For example, for a while we had Sunday school in the morning on Sunday and sacrament meeting in the afternoon or evening, and then Relief Society on another day of the week and primary mutual. Well, pretty soon they came along and decided, no, we want to have all the meetings on Sunday. I don't see anything wrong with that. That's a work or a practice or whatever. That's fine. That's not an eternal principle. I think an eternal principle is to keep the Sabbath day holy. It doesn't designate whether you do it on Saturday or Sunday. But I think everybody, if you obey the commandments, you keep a day of the week holy as a Sabbath day. So that's to me an eternal principle. Whereas when you have your meetings, whether it's two or three days of the week or on a Monday, I don't think that's important.

Polygamy Beyond Mormonism and Its Legal Future

John Dehlin [00:21:39] Okay, If. How do you feel about the practice of polygamy disconnected with Mormon beliefs? You talked about this a bit, but let's say that for some reason your conviction about Mormonism just withered away. Would you feel then like all polygamy should, should be made illegal or banned? Or in other words, do you support polygamy only within the confines of a believing Mormon?

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:09] Well, that's the only reason I live. It is because of a religious belief. But like I mentioned to you, there's many countries in the world that live it as a secular practice, as a tradition, just because it's Convenient. So if there were no Mormonism, I probably wouldn't live it. No, because I base that on my religious conviction.

John Dehlin [00:22:31] One of the things I struggle with is knowing that my grandmother was the daughter of a polygamous wife that most of the world associates Mormon, Mormon with the LDS Church, polygamy with the LDS Church. It's our heritage. It's been taught from the rooftops by prophets of old as a requirement of salvation.

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:51] Yet today, exaltation, not salvation, salvation is universal.

John Dehlin [00:22:55] You're right.

Anne B. Wilde [00:22:55] Exaltation and people interchange those. And I just like to make it, you know.

John Dehlin [00:22:59] Thank you. But today, when Gordon B. Hinckley is asked by Larry King what he believes about polygamy or his views on polygamy, he says, it's not doctrinal or it's in the past. Why do we have to talk about that? And when the church puts out a press release, it really tries hard to say distance. And a lot of Mormons, probably, a lot of LDS people, probably maybe show some discrimination or some feelings of inferiority. Do you have feelings about all those things? Do you feel like.

Anne B. Wilde [00:23:34] I can understand why President Hinckley says those things because he's speaking for the church and they are trying to distance themselves from polygamy in order to help the missionary effort and the proselyting. And polygamy is a very unpopular thing in the United States. And people do have a tendency to look down on those that live it as a general rule. And that's why we're trying to improve that image. So I can understand why he would say that. I don't know quite how he can say truthfully that it's not doctrinal, because it's still in the Doctrine and Covenants. I mean, it's a doctrine, and it's in section 132. It's a doctrine. Now, whether or not it's a doctrine, they accept at least the practice of that, that's another thing. But I don't feel generally that people have looked down on me. I think if they have as a person, it's because they don't understand the lifestyle. A lot of the people I associate even with today, well, not so much now since I've become more public. But there were a lot of people over six years ago that didn't know I was a polygamist, and they didn't look down on me for any particular reason, as people found out. I think they've had, in some cases, more respect because I have been able to come out and defend a lifestyle that I Feel is very dear to my heart and very important in my life.

John Dehlin [00:24:58] But do you ever feel like instead of distancing themselves from you, that these of all people are the people that should be showing support, that should be showing kindness, showing extra love, at least

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:13] understanding because of their ancestors, living it.

John Dehlin [00:25:16] But do you ever kind of think that they should be your friends and your supporters, even though they don't choose to practice it? Do you ever wish that they would actually be supportive?

Anne B. Wilde [00:25:26] Well, sure, you can wish that, but I can understand why they don't. Because they have been taught for the last how many years that you follow the leader of the church, you follow the brethren. There's a whole book. Follow the brethren. They have been taught so strongly that they should do that that they don't dare deviate from that. So if the leader of the church says, we do not believe in practice or adhere to in any way polygamy, then they feel duty bound in order to be a good member of the church to follow that advice. So in doing so, they could get in trouble by even associating with a polygamous family. And some have. So I can understand then why they have to draw the line because their own church membership is at stake.

John Dehlin [00:26:12] And the leaders, what about them?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:15] What about them?

John Dehlin [00:26:17] You're just saying that, that they. They're trying to take care of the church and make sure it's successful. So you don't expect them to be more supportive?

Anne B. Wilde [00:26:25] Oh, no. It'll become. I anticipate that it will be decriminalized politically by the government, at least by the federal government, long before the Church would ever accept it. I don't see the Church ever accepting it as a tenant of their faith, the way things are now. But like the 85th section says, when it's set in order, then it will come back. But the way it is now, with the leaders we have now and the Quorum of the twelve working their way up, I don't see any of them bringing it back.

John Dehlin [00:26:57] Okay, so let's talk about the future. What are your hopes or your dreams or your vision for the situation for polygamy in the United States as a citizen? And then how do you see things shaping up either with the LDS Church or just in your vision, your doctrine and view for the future in terms of Christ coming again, the millennium. Talk about the future of polygamy as you see it and maybe would like to see it temporally and then spiritually?

Anne B. Wilde [00:27:34] Well, first of all, we would like to see a case go before the Supreme Court where they overturn the Reynolds decision of 1879, which removes a lot of the stigma of living it. Then by. Of course, I realize it's the states that make laws about marriage for each state. So we can't expect the federal government to say, okay, it's decriminalized. That is the job of the states, the way the laws are set up. But by overturning Reynolds, that opens the door for the states to decriminalize it. So as far as the political thing, that's what I'd like to see. And I'd like people in the United States to understand it better, to remove the stigma from it, to understand that this is a viable alternative lifestyle, that we're about families. We're not trying to cheat the government basically out of welfare. If we're recognized and we don't have to worry about losing jobs, I think we can support our families better. But if you have to keep it quiet and don't tell anybody at work that you're a polygamist because you might lose your job, then your financial income is in jeopardy. So I think, all in all, if the stigma is removed from it federally, then that would help a lot. I'd like to see that. As far as the church goes, like I say, I don't anticipate any changes that way, but I would like to see the members of the church at least understand it to the degree that they don't look down their noses, keep their children from playing with polygamous children. We're not out to convert anybody. Really, we aren't. We just want to be able to live it quietly or at least be accepted in our choice to live it. So I don't care if the church doesn't accept it as a tenant, because most of us are out of the church anyway, and we recognize the difference between the gospel and the church. The gospel principles, like I say, are eternal and they can exist separate from the church. The church can accept or reject those principles. So that's the important thing to me, is to realize that I can still live the gospel principles without the church, even though I enjoyed it while I was there. It can be done as long as you have the priesthood to perform the ordinances that are necessary. So that's pretty much the way I

John Dehlin [00:29:50] see it, as a precursor to the millennium. How do you. Do you see God raising up a new prophet and starting a new church again?

Hopes for the Future and Closing Reflections

Anne B. Wilde [00:30:00] No, he said he would never, never do that, that it would be set in order. But it doesn't mean you have to start all over from the beginning. But I do feel like new individuals will have to take the leadership roles. Because I don't see the ones we have now changing. So my understanding of the setting and order is Joseph Smith coming back and calling men that have been tried and tested and will remain true to these eternal principles, calling them to the positions to go forth. I can't remember where the saying came from that regarding the setting in order, first it would be the church, then the state, and then the nation. So you have to have a nucleus to work with. So the church or the kingdom of God will be set in order first, and then it will spread from there.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] And I sense that you're a modest woman. But I'll just ask because I'm curious. Do you see when Christ coming maybe having a special place in his heart for those who had the courage to live the principle in spite of all the adversity?

Anne B. Wilde [00:31:10] No more than anybody else that lives as principle as best as they can. For some reason, I feel like we are doing what the Lord wants us to do right now. But there's other women that would be just as capable, if not more so. It's just that the risk was too great. And the three of us that wrote the book felt very strongly impressed to do it. And that kind of opened the doors for what followed. But I don't anticipate I just will be lucky as anything if I can just have a little niche somewhere in the celestial kingdom. I certainly hope for that. Because I don't want to spend eternity without my husband. And in order for me to be with him, I feel like the only marriages in heaven are plural marriages. I don't think there's any monogamous marriages. So in order for me to be with him, we have to have a plural marriage.

John Dehlin [00:32:04] And if you had a closing statement, you can call it a testimony or a wish or an aspiration. You've got at least 3,000 people listening and watching you at this point. What would you like to leave us with as your parting words or thoughts or feelings or testimony?

Anne B. Wilde [00:32:25] I just am very grateful to the Lord. I wasn't expecting this. Let's see.

Guest [00:32:36] I am very grateful that I live at a time when I can live this principle and only hope that I have done it honorably. I'm grateful to be a voice in defense of it. But there's so much more to the

Anne B. Wilde [00:32:52] gospel than just plural marriage.

Guest [00:32:55] And that's what I try to live as well, and be an example. And I'm grateful for the wonderful friends that I have made in the journey. I've met so many wonderful women. I just am amazed at their courage and valiancy and testimonies and feel privileged to associate with them. That's it.

John Dehlin [00:33:31] Well, Ann Wilde, it is a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Guest [00:33:37] Thank you. Sorry for the emotion.

John Dehlin [00:33:41] No, no worries at all. Thank you very much.

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