Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's March 16, 2026, and we have a live stream episode. We have two livestream episodes today. It's kind of a busy week on Mormon Stories Podcast, but to begin with, we're super excited to be talking about the polygamy wars, not of the 21st century, which we've covered to some degree on Mormon Stories podcast. We're talking about the Mormon polygamy wars of the 19th century. And joining us today to talk about it coming back on the show is the Michelle Stone. Hey, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [00:00:40] Hello. Thanks for having me back on, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:42] It's great to have you. And Cheryl Bruno. I don't even remember, did you come on Mormon Stories in the early years?

Cheryl Bruno [00:00:49] No, I did not. This is my first time on Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [00:00:52] Well, Cheryl, you and I go way back. Like, I don't know, 2005. How far back do we go?

Cheryl Bruno [00:00:58] Yes, I'm sure that's at least 2005.

John Dehlin [00:01:01] Well, Cheryl Bruno is. Well, tell us who you are, Cheryl, because people know Michelle. But Michelle, I'm gonna have you introduce yourself too. But. But you go first. You go first, Cheryl.

Cheryl Bruno [00:01:11] Well, I am a Mormon historian. I do work on early Mormon history, 19th century Mormon history. I've written three books and many articles, and it's my passion.

John Dehlin [00:01:22] What are your books about?

Cheryl Bruno [00:01:24] I have one book on William Marks, a biography of William Marx that I did with John Dinger. And I also have a book on Mormonism and Freemasonry which was really fascinating. It took 10 years to do or longer with counting all of the work that everyone who contributed to the book did. And my latest one is Secret Covenants is about Mormon polygamy and has made. Many authors have contributed to a compilation on Mormon polygamy and has Signature been

John Dehlin [00:01:55] the publisher for all three of those

Cheryl Bruno [00:01:57] books, Cofert for the first two, and Signature for Secret Covenants.

John Dehlin [00:02:02] Okay. Yeah. You've been doing great work since we blogged together on Mormon Matters. Blog. Before Mormon Matters was a podcast, it was a blog.

Cheryl Bruno [00:02:12] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] And Cheryl, tell me if I'm right. I'm. I'm just trying to really dig deeper into Mormon history. William Marx, as I remember, I'm sort of in with John Turner. I'm in the 1843 time period, kind of Nauvoo. 1843, was it William Marx, one of the people that opposed Joseph Smith's polygamy? Once he.

Cheryl Bruno [00:02:36] Once he learned about it, he didn't vocally oppose It. But later on, he said, I never was for that, you know, and he did not take a plural wife. And yes, he later said I didn't. I gave Joseph Smith leeway to do what he felt was right, but I didn't personally believe in it.

John Dehlin [00:02:55] Nice. All right, well, we'll come back to you in a second. Cheryl, Michelle, remind everyone all about your awesomeness.

Michelle Stone [00:03:03] Gladly. Here's all of my awesomeness. Yeah. So people might remember when I came on John's. I'm thankfully not sick today, so hopefully things will go really well. But my podcast was called 132 Problems Revisiting Mormon Polygamy, and I spent many hours on that until I took it down back in May. And since then, I have been going a slightly different direction. I am in school and I am. Well, I guess I can. I can say I'm starting. I'm. Well, I'm choosing. I haven't officially accept. Chosen which offer I'm accepting, but I'll be starting my PhD program in 19th century American women's religious history next fall, which I'm really excited about.

John Dehlin [00:03:44] You did not tell me that you got accepted.

Michelle Stone [00:03:47] I did. I did.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] I think. Well, you're. Okay. You're just saying you haven't decided yet.

Michelle Stone [00:03:55] I haven't decided.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] Well, I don't think I know where you got accepted, but I'm not saying that.

Michelle Stone [00:04:02] I'm not announcing.

Cheryl Bruno [00:04:03] I.

Michelle Stone [00:04:03] There are enough haters in this world that I've learned to keep my mouth shut. In fact, I maybe shouldn't even say what my plans are.

John Dehlin [00:04:10] Okay, but you've got formal offers and you are going to be deciding soon. Yes. Okay. Congratulations. That's exciting, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [00:04:19] Thank you. I am excited. I've been working really hard, but. Yeah, so I still have. Of my 13 children, seven are living at home. Five of them will likely be coming with us. So I'm, you know, we're. We're going on a new adventure. So it's. It's pretty exciting. So that's. That's what. Why. And then I should say, in addition, Cheryl and I are the co founders of the Journal of Mormon Polygamy, which we are very excited about. And we have our conference coming up this Friday and Saturday in Orem, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Well, yeah, that's. One of the main reasons we organized today was. Was to promote it. So we're going to promote it at the beginning, at the end. But tell us about the conference.

Michelle Stone [00:04:58] Oh, and I just saw that someone asked what I'm getting my master's in. I wanted to clarify I'm actually getting my PhD, not my master's.

John Dehlin [00:05:05] So what your master's thesis is about.

Michelle Stone [00:05:09] Oh, well, I'm going directly. Well, anyway, we can get into that a little bit later because I will be talking about it. But so, yes, what was your question?

Upcoming Conference on Mormon Polygamy

John Dehlin [00:05:16] Oh, okay. Let's talk about the conference.

Michelle Stone [00:05:18] Oh, great. So, yeah, Cheryl, do you want to go ahead?

Cheryl Bruno [00:05:23] Well, our conference will be this weekend, March 20th through 21st. I'll be flying into Salt Lake soon, Wednesday. So I'm really excited about it. We are going to be doing this in conjunction with Utah Valley University, uvu and. But we kind of outgrew our venue. So we are now holding it close by at Lake. What is it? Lakeview.

Michelle Stone [00:05:52] Lake Ridge Junior High School, Yep.

Cheryl Bruno [00:05:57] Where we have a little bit bigger auditorium. So there are still tickets available to our conference now. And so we're excited to be able to offer more of a larger place to accommodate a few more people.

John Dehlin [00:06:13] Tell us really quickly, someone needs to tell us just why you decided to create the journal, why you decided to create the conference really quickly. And then who's going to be speaking, and then we'll talk more about it at the end. Who wants to take that?

Michelle Stone [00:06:25] So actually, our entire presentation is talking about why we created the journal and why we created the conference. So if we can save that question for the presentation. But I'm happy to talk about. Well, Cheryl and I can both talk about the presenters that we have coming to the conference because we're. We're very excited. We have representatives from pretty much every community. One of the things we love about this conference is how we bring voices together. So we have fundamentalists who are presenting Freeman Byrd and then Connor Boyak. Well, Freeman Byrd will be talking about the Council of Friends. Connor Boyak is talking about Eternal Concubine, and then. Cheryl, do you want to take a couple.

Cheryl Bruno [00:07:00] Oh, there's me. I'll be talking about the Jubilee box letters. No, not very many people know about what those are. So you'll find out. We have Adrian Croft, who is our amazing tech guy, who also, we discovered, is a scholar in his own right. And he's going to be talking about Willard Richards and David Dangerfield. His presentation is quite fascinating to me. And we will talk a little bit about it as we get into our presentation. He talks about spiritual wifery. Go ahead, take it away, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [00:07:35] And then we have several presentations that are bringing forward women's voices. Cheryl will be talking about the women's voices in the jubilee box and the tricks. And I also. Should I Always have to plug that. Cheryl has been doing work and people tend to think all of the work on this topic has done and that has been done and all the documents have been found not true. Cheryl single handedly is proving that false because she is discovering new documents that people haven't known what they were and she's putting them all together. She's going to present that Darla Driggs is talking about her polygamous ancestors and sharing some of their stories and really asking insightful questions about their experiences.

Michelle Stone [00:08:07] And then we're excited about Paula Harleen. She's our keynote on Friday night. So the conference will be Friday evening from 5 o' clock till about 8 o' clock and then refreshments after. We have great refreshments. And then all day on Saturday from 9 to 8. Paula is going to be on Friday evening and she is talking about the women in Utah and their experiences. She actually does bike tours in the summers and takes people to the polygamist homes and does history tours that way. So that's really exciting. She's the author of the Polygamist Wives Writing Club. And then, and then, yes, we're really excited about Jeremy Hoop.

Michelle Stone [00:08:39] He's going to be presenting again and a lot of people might know his name. Cheryl, why don't you talk about Ethan? Because we're so excited about his paper and presentation.

Cheryl Bruno [00:08:46] Yes, we kind of discovered Ethan recently when an interpreter article started talking about stylometry. And Ethan, it turns out, is also well versed in it and submitted a paper to our journal kind of rebutting the interpreter article. And he is a brilliant young scholar and we're excited to showcase him. And then we have Michelle, which her people are really looking forward to seeing her presentation, which is about Helen Mar Kimball. And Helen Mar Kimball has been talked about a lot about a polygamous wife. But Michelle has again some new things to tell us. And she talks about the historiography of Helen's story. It's really interesting. Who's next? Michelle, go ahead.

Michelle Stone [00:09:41] Yeah, we're so excited and I just have to ask really fast. Let me interrupt. John, did you see the interpreter article on stylometry, the stylometric analysis of one thing?

John Dehlin [00:09:49] No, I think you mentioned it to me, but I didn't read it. No.

Michelle Stone [00:09:51] Okay. Okay. We could have had a laugh about it if you had seen it. But anyway, we're real. I'm really excited about Ethan's, Ethan's paper. And then of course the brilliant Margaret Toscano. She is going to talk to us about Heavenly Mother or mothers. Some of you will recognize that quote that we heard a little while ago. So she's going to do more of a. Well, I don't want to misspeak, but my understanding is a little bit more of a theological analysis and say what Mormon theology points toward in that regard. And then Gwendolyn Wine is talking about. This is so interesting. I don't know if you knew, but recently the church has changed the heading to section 132 because it used to say as early as 1831, and now they have.

Michelle Stone [00:10:27] Well, it used to say in 1831 and now I said it. I think it says as early as. I hope I'm getting those details correct. But Gwendolyn was already researching and investigating the time period, you know, what sources we have that tell us when that revelation might have happened. We're talking about Joseph Smith's revelation of polygamy, and she's been digging into that. So it's been fun to watch her adjust as the church changed that heading, which really kind of supported her work. So she'll be presenting on that. And then I'll quickly explain our panels, if that's all right, because we're so excited. We have two panels.

Michelle Stone [00:10:59] On Friday night, we're doing a panel on The John Taylor 1886 revelation, which is fascinating. Such an important story. And it's amazing that the church archive, the church history library, released it again just, just this last fall. And it's so interesting because the last statement we have from the church on this panel, I mean, on this revelation, is that it didn't exist. It most likely didn't exist. And now, lo and behold, we have access to it. So that's going to be a fabulous panel. And then we have one more panel that is just asking the question of how do you women. This is a women's panel.

Michelle Stone [00:11:33] How do female members of the church today navigate the question of polygamy if we have different ideas and different views about polygamy? So that'll be our. Our Saturday panel.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] So if people want to register, how do they register? That sounds really exciting. I wish I wasn't going out of town.

Michelle Stone [00:11:49] Yeah, it's going to be great. It's on journal of Mormon polygamy.org okay. And John, we actually, we should have told you this before, but I forgot we have two tickets that we would love to give away during your program if you have a way. You want to set that up or something you want people to do, jump, whatever.

John Dehlin [00:12:09] I'll let Trevor and Julia, decide who the most constructive commenters are who are available and interested in coming, and we'll let. We'll let Trevor and. Or Julia award that at the end of the show.

Cheryl Bruno [00:12:21] Yay.

John Dehlin [00:12:23] But they need to award it to somebody who can actually attend.

Michelle Stone [00:12:26] Yes. Great.

John Dehlin [00:12:27] Okay. Fun. Well, that's really exciting. So those. Thank you for sharing. I think it's really important what y' all are doing, and that's why I wanted to have you both on that. Most of the people I'm guessing, who are tuning in have seen my. My interview with you, Michelle, and maybe it was with Karen, right? Am I getting the name right?

Michelle Stone [00:12:49] Yep, yep. Karen. Karen Hyatt.

John Dehlin [00:12:52] And. But. But for those who don't, you know, well, maybe your presentation is going to give all the context we need. Maybe we don't need to jump in any context. It's going to appear natural as to why you guys are creating the journal and the conference. Is that right?

Cheryl Bruno [00:13:09] Yes.

Michelle Stone [00:13:10] Yeah. We can give a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:13:12] Or do you want to give a little bit of a contextual foundation?

Michelle Stone [00:13:17] And what do you think, Cheryl?

Cheryl Bruno [00:13:19] We can.

Michelle Stone [00:13:19] We'll just really quickly from the beginning. I think it's useful to explain that Cheryl and I started working together, and we can give a little bit of that background maybe later in our presentation. But I do want to say from the beginning that Cheryl and I disagree on pretty much every aspect of polygamy. I. I question its origin. It doesn't look to me that the documents support that it started with Joseph Smith. I think it started in other avenues. And Cheryl strongly disagrees with me, and she believes that the documents do support that Joseph Smith started polygam. And I also how. What I. What I started my podcast talking about is I don't believe that polygamy is of God. And Cheryl, you can go ahead and represent yourself as well, but I think Cheryl holds a lot of space for the possibility that God was trying to do something really good through Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:14:07] What's your view, Cheryl?

Cheryl Bruno [00:14:09] Yes, I think she. She summed it up pretty well. We do disagree on everything, and we have these great conversations where we fight and argue and cry and everything else over documents. So it's really fun that it really adds to our work that we can push against each other and show the other perspective. And we've just had a wonderful time developing this journal so that many voices can be heard on the subject.

Why Polygamy Remains a Contested Issue

John Dehlin [00:14:41] And I'll just weigh in a little bit. And to say this, that one of the. Well, one of the things I love is that y' all Model bridge building in a way that I think Mormon discourse and even Mormon studies and Mormon scholarship and the Mormon Internet really need to have people who see things so differently, but who can cooperate and collaborate and have a good relationship. I just think the world needs more of that in addition to Mormonism. But also we've covered some of these topics on Mormon stories in the past.

John Dehlin [00:15:13] And what both of you have really helped me come to understand is how woefully problematic many of the sources can be that people rely on and how inadequately almost all of us really understand the history and the source documents. And that there really aren't many experts in the world who really, really can claim to be true experts on the source documents of Mormon history, like maybe Todd Compton, you know, maybe George Smith, but he's getting up there. There aren't a lot of people that you would sort of go. They're the ones who really have a firm command. And so I think what you're doing with the journal and with the conference is sorely needed. And I also just think you're both brilliant humans, so you've certainly got my support.

Michelle Stone [00:16:04] Thank you so much, John. I think we both really appreciate that. I have just a couple of things to say. It is true that I think that we have a lack of expertise on particularly the topic of polygamy. I've even heard from historians at the church headquarters that this is a topic that many historians are kind of loathe to touch because it is so complicated and so fraught with different. Different challenges. And I will say that last year at our conference, Todd Compton was. Was one of our presenters. And he actually said in. In the Q and A that he didn't consider himself an expert in Nazi political.

Michelle Stone [00:16:41] And so, so this, this like any idea that people have that we know everything we need to know and that the documents clearly say one thing or the other. I. I think chery conversation that people who say it is absolutely certain generally don't have a very good command of the documents. And that's the huge benefit that Cheryl and I have recognized working together is that it's really challenging to see through your own bias. And so when I will read a document one way and Cheryl will read it a completely different way, we recognize how essential it is to work together so that we can kind of police each other.

Michelle Stone [00:17:15] And that's the only way I know to get through bias, is to work closely with somebody who has an opposite bias. And, and. And so that's why we. That's really why we started the Journal. We wanted to move this conversation and this research off of sort of the polemic world of YouTube and into a scholar, this scholarly engagement of peer review, where we all can have that benefit of. Of. Of subjecting our ideas and our interpretations to people who disagree with us.

John Dehlin [00:17:43] Love it. Anything you want to add, Cheryl?

Cheryl Bruno [00:17:45] Well, I mean, as long as we're calling out names, we have to say Don Bradley and also Brian Hales, who's made many of the documents available to us online. That's where a lot of us go for our documents, is to Brian's site, where he's. He's got a list of many, many of the polygamy documents, and Don has done a lot of work on those documents as well. So there. There are very few people who can say they've seen all these documents, but Don is one of those who. Who's looked at many of them. So I do want us to mention him.

Michelle Stone [00:18:21] Oh, thank you. Yes, absolutely. And he was also one of our presenters last year, and he's coming to our conference again. We love Don Bradley, so thank you for shouting him out. Shirley wouldn't be able to miss that.

John Dehlin [00:18:30] We can talk about them at the end. I struggle with both those guys just because it's hard not to see them as hired hands by the church in some way, even though I know they're gonna say they're independent. But let's. Let's get into the presentation for today

Cheryl Bruno [00:18:44] and with whatever that, too, I think we kind of agree with there.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] All right, well, let's jump in. Let's talk about the presentation. Thanks for pulling this together, Michelle and Cheryl. Let's. Let's dive in.

Cheryl Bruno [00:18:58] Okay, so go ahead, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [00:19:00] So to start, I just wanted to say what Cheryl and I thought would be fun to do is while we disagree on so many things, these are generally the things we agree on is the history of the polygamy war. So, John, if you can go back to the screen, I can start showing. We wanted to ask three basic questions in regard to the church's very complicated, challenging, and I don't want to say schizophrenic, but I kind of want to say schizophrenic, just this really complicated relationship with polygamy. So the first question we wanted to ask is where did we come from? We're going to base this presentation, and where did we come from?

Michelle Stone [00:19:37] Why are we here and where are we going? Which people in our religious context will understand those questions? And so we'll go ahead and dive right in and explain. Explain the history of the church's relationship with polygamy, which really explains the need and the existence of our journal. So here is stage one, the seeds of war.

John Dehlin [00:19:57] Okay.

Cheryl Bruno [00:19:58] Okay, we're gonna start back in Nauvoo, and because that's where really we got started with this whole thing. And if we go to the next slide, we'll see someone who's very familiar. Oh, who is that? That is.

Michelle Stone [00:20:12] Yes.

Cheryl Bruno [00:20:13] And there's only one picture of him, and it's that one. So everyone kind of recognizes who he is. But in 1842, John Bennett had a falling out with Joseph Smith and started accusing Joseph Smith of practicing what he called spiritual wifery or taking many wives. And he had, on the right, you'll see the Sangamo Journal. He had quite a few letters to the editor which were lengthy and talked about all of his accusations. And one of one major one was polygamy. And the Nauvoo expositor, later in 1844, came out with also Nauvoo insiders like William Law. And they started the Nauvoo Expositor to expose what they called also spiritual wifery and Mormon polygamy.

Cheryl Bruno [00:21:05] And they talked about a polygamy revelation that they had seen. So these two journals really brought it fans the flames of the fire. And meanwhile, Joseph Smith and Hyrum were vehemently denying that they practiced this, that they. They had any kind of moral failings at all. And they even put together. Stay on the slideshow because I want to go to the next one.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] Michelle dropped off, so we're going to have to wait until she hops back on. But. But while she's. While she's dropping off. Let me just. Let me just ask Cheryl, just because we're. We're doing this live. So. So my understanding is, is that, you know, when John C. Bennett accuses Joseph of spiritual wifery number one, he's engaging in it himself quite extensively.

John C. Bennett and the Origins of the Polygamy Wars

Cheryl Bruno [00:22:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:06] And the big question is, was Joseph also engaging in it, but basically telling people that when he does it, it's okay, but when John C. Bennett does it, it's not okay? I don't know if that derails us, but I just wanted to.

Cheryl Bruno [00:22:19] No, that's great. That's exactly what the falling out was about, was all about. And interestingly, we have a presentation in our conference that addresses John C. Bennett and what spiritual wifery was, who was practicing it, what it all, you know, he. He untangles that whole mess. Was Joseph Smith practicing, and John C. Bennett was just learning it from Joseph Smith? That's one theory, or was it John C. Bennett who was doing it and then later accusing Joseph, who was innocent there? And that is one of the big questions in, in these polygamy wars is exactly how that happened.

John Dehlin [00:23:01] And in this presentation today, do we want to do little time posts where each of you kind of weigh in on your view, or do we want to keep that?

Cheryl Bruno [00:23:12] We can do that. Yeah, we can do that.

John Dehlin [00:23:15] Okay, so share your view on whether Joseph was also doing it with John C. Bennett, and then Michelle will have you give your view.

Cheryl Bruno [00:23:22] Yes, I believe that there was a form of plural marriage that existed, and John C. Bennett was a Nauvoo insider and that he knew about this. And I think that he wasn't maybe exactly following Joseph's lead or. Well, I mean, see, there's. There's many different possibilities here. It could be that he was doing something a little bit different, or it could be that Joseph, when he saw that John C. Bennett was getting in trouble for it, Joseph shifted and made his polygamy a little bit more based on marriage rather than just association. So it's unclear. We do not have a lot of documentation exactly what happened. But since John C. Bennett was such a friend of Joseph and was such an insider, I think it's very likely that his was based on what he saw Joseph doing.

John Dehlin [00:24:21] I mean, we do have John C. Bennett's book, but I guess so many people think he's not trustworthy. So you can't really trust anything he writes in his book, right, Cheryl?

Cheryl Bruno [00:24:30] Right. He was, yes, he was definitely trying to put the church in a bad light by that point.

John Dehlin [00:24:36] Michelle, do you want to give a quick perspective on John C. Bennett and Joseph Smith?

Michelle Stone [00:24:41] Yeah. So this is what's so interesting and why we started here with stage one, the seeds of war, because from the very beginning, the polygamy wars were happening in Nauvoo. Right. Joseph and Emma and Hyrum and many others were saying one thing, and Joseph's detractors were saying something else. Like we showed with John C. Bennett and the Nauvoo Expositor, and we have a lot their documents. And one question that I often ask and that I have yet to have, what I would consider a substantial answer to, is we all agree that these Nauvoo documents are extremely important. John Bennett, the Nava Expositor, Buckeyes, Lament, many of the others.

Michelle Stone [00:25:14] And the question I have is, are those, do those tell us more about what Joseph Smith was doing or about the rumors that were going around at that time? Because we know there were rumors going around and I'm waiting to find evidence to show me that the people making the accusations actually had first hand information. They were close enough in with Joseph to know more about him than say Emma and Hyrum and the people that we know were closely associated with him. And so I think that's a really important question to ask is are there, do we know enough about, about exactly what these documents tell us for sure.

John Dehlin [00:25:49] And one rumor I remember learning about just recently is that Joseph's daughter Julia was rumored to be Joseph's biological daughter. But we know that she wasn't. But that was a rumor that she later states was going around Nauvoo. Is that right, Michelle?

Michelle Stone [00:26:06] Interesting. That's actually a new rumor to me. I haven't heard that one. But you heard that, Cheryl.

Cheryl Bruno [00:26:11] I have never heard that one either.

John Dehlin [00:26:12] Okay, well it came up with John Turner. Maybe I'm misremembering.

Michelle Stone [00:26:16] Okay, that's very interesting. Yeah. But if we, if we go back to the slides we can see that we have these accusations from John Bennet, the Navu Nava Expositor. Right. But then at the same time we also have many, many statements from Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, Hyrum. They were, Joseph and Hyrum were the co presidents of the church. And then Emma was the elect lady. And Here we have two publications, his and hers publications from 1835, the first issue of the Doctrine Doctrine and Covenants and also Emma's hymn book which both teach about marriage in conjunction. They both are teaching the same message at that point together, which I think is fascinating.

Michelle Stone [00:26:55] Some people will recognize, recognized the doc, the canonized statement on marriage in the Doctrine and Covenants which very much proclaimed for monogamy and only monogamy. And then we also have a number of publications that were put out in the newspapers. This one is the affidavit that was signed by both the men and the women in 1842 they republished. That statement on marriage was published in newspapers repeatedly. While Joseph and Hyrum tried to say this is what we teach, this is what we do, this is what we believe. And they had the leading men and the leading women in the church, some of whom were supposedly married to Joseph Smith at this time, sign affidavits saying they knew of no other form of marriage in the church.

Michelle Stone [00:27:37] And so what we absolutely know in this stage one seeds of war is that there we have contradictory evidence and, and, and we have to sort into it. And I think that it's a mistake to just automatically knee jerk reaction Say we know that these people were lying and these people were not lying. I don't think that we can say that definitively yet. And so I think it's important for people to understand why this conflict started so early.

John Dehlin [00:28:00] Yeah, this is a conundrum for believing Mormons for sure because either Joseph Smith and so many other people, Emma and others were lying and it was in the doctrine and covenants 135, sorry, section 101 from 1835 and they were secretly practicing it. And that makes Joseph a liar and a polygamist. Or on the other hand, it makes those who follow potentially nefarious. And it also implicates that maybe the church hasn't been fully honest with its members. So it's complicated kind of for believing Mormons either way. But it's something that is an important question to try and get to the bottom the of, of.

Michelle Stone [00:28:48] Yeah. And for me, I generally, I like to separate out my testimony, my belief in the church, my connection to the Church. I like to separate that out from my historical investigation the best that I can. I really think that we need to seek what the documents tell us and then let the cons. Right. Let the consequence follow. And, and I think that we can all navigate this in various ways. People have navigated their connection to the Church believing that Joseph Smith manipulated 14 year olds or whatever else it might be. And I, I, I just want to say, I think that the, the questions of faith are separate from the questions of historical investigation.

John Dehlin [00:29:25] Fair. Okay, let's keep going.

Evidence For and Against Joseph Smith's Polygamy

Michelle Stone [00:29:27] And then, yeah, and then I just wanted to share one more slide here. And this is the. Also Emma Smith joined in. We have Hyrum, Emma and Joseph all vociferously defending monogamy and their practice of monogamy. So people will recognize the, the Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo published in the Nauvoo Neighbor. And actually Joseph Smith supported Emma. It was in having his, one of his secretaries, W.W. phelps be the penman for this. And then, and Joseph supported Emma in presenting this to the Relief Society in four separate meetings. And they also had it read in, in a general church wide meeting. So we have a lot of evidence to, to show how hard leaders of the church were trying to support and defend monogamy. So there is just, there is good reason for people to fall on different sides of this based on the Nauvoo era documentation.

John Dehlin [00:30:21] Yeah. I'll just say the narrative that I'm learning is that somehow Joseph was able. This doesn't make sense to me. I'll Just be honest about this. The idea that, like, half the standard narrative is that half of basically Nauvoo from, like, almost 1840, 1841 onward, all knew that Joseph was secretly practicing polygamy, but somehow Hyrum and Emma didn't catch wind of what everybody else knew until, like, the summer of 1843. And I keep asking John Turner, how in the heck did everybody know but Joseph's wife and Joseph's brother? And, of course, denial or, you know, just trust. You know, there are ways that humans can ignore things right in front of their face. So of course we're capable of that. But it doesn't make any sense to me that everyone but Joseph's brother and Joseph's wife were in on the deal. You know what I mean?

Michelle Stone [00:31:20] Absolutely. I think that's actually a really good point. And what I want to point out is that in that slide where we have Bennett and Law, you know, the Law brothers and the Higbees and the Fosters with the Navajo Expositor, the people that were making these accusations were actually the people that were.

Michelle Stone [00:31:35] Many of these people there was. There were people wanting to get Joseph Smith killed. Right. And so Joseph Smith talks about the testimonies of traitors. One of the revelations says that thy friends will not be deceived by the testimonies of traitors. And so it's really interesting because all. All we have from Nauvoo are these accusations, and then Joseph and Emma and Hiram statements. And then we also have Joseph and Emma's letters. And the portrayal that we get from these later documents doesn't, to me, show up in those letters between Joseph and Emma and in many of the other novice documents. I know Cheryl has a different perspective, but I just want to say that the reason that we just assume that Joseph was lying and Emma and Hiram and Emma, she lived many, many years beyond this, and her testimony was consistent throughout her life.

Michelle Stone [00:32:17] She gave repeated testimonies, and it's all later evidence that we got in the Utah era that makes us just decide what we know for certain about navigation.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] Who? I mean, the Partridge account, I think it's Emily Partridge, where she talks about Joseph sealing the part, resealing the Partridge sisters to Joseph with Emma's consent. I mean, you have to kind of explain at least that one away. And I'm sure there's a lot of other things. Cheryl, is there anything else you want to add?

Cheryl Bruno [00:32:47] Yes. I mean, there's several people that said that they were aware that Emma knew about polygamy. I just found one of The Jubilee box letters where Margaret Smoot is talking about that she was aware in Nauvoo that that Emma was knew that that polygamy was happening where Joseph was practicing it. So, I mean, there are there are later. There's a lot of later evidence. There isn't a lot of contemporary evidence. And that's what throws people off, is we don't have the things that are contemporary. But you know, what I will say, because I think this is very important, because some people want to say, well, we have so many people, we have hundreds of people that can testify that they knew about polygamy in Nauvoo.

Cheryl Bruno [00:33:31] Well, these hundreds of people, some people even say thousands of people knew about polygamy in Nauvoo. But I would say that thousands of people knew about the rumors of polygamy. They'd read in the paper John C. Bennett's testimonies and other accusations. So they knew about the accusations. And so later in Utah, some of these people were talking about that they knew this was happening because of rumor. But there were very few inside people who were actually living the practice and knew from personal experience. And that's where we get into trouble when we when, like, my side of the battle starts saying, no, we have so much evidence.

Cheryl Bruno [00:34:16] We actually don't have so much evidence from eyewitnesses. We only have just a few people who were insiders, who were aware that this was happening.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] I've talked to Michelle about this. So let me just ask you super quickly, Cheryl, do you consider the Nauvoo High Council minutes of what, the summer of 1843, where allegedly Hyram goes in and tells the Nauvoo City High Council that, you know, gives them basically a recounting of the revelation that then reappears in almost verbatim in the Navo Expositor. Do you consider that meeting to have happened, as is generally understood?

Cheryl Bruno [00:34:55] CHERYL yes, yes, I would say it's very positive. I'm very positive that it happened the way that the standard narrative portrays it. And the reason, one of the reasons why is because of my biography on William Marx. And he's one of the main people that testified that he was there and he didn't accept polygamy, as many of the people in that in that meeting did. He was one of the three that didn't accept. But yet he does say in later meetings and later interviews, he does say that that happened. So I in in our journal, we're actually going to do a special issue that explores this from many different perspectives.

Cheryl Bruno [00:35:38] But I'm one of the ones that says, yes, Hiram entered the High Council meeting with that revelation, showed them the revelation and that it was about polygamy. And he asked people to either support Joseph or not. And so I'm quite sure that that happened.

John Dehlin [00:35:57] Okay, well, let's keep going in the presentation. Go ahead, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [00:36:03] I just, I never get to respond about the, the expositor in the High Council meeting. Just really quickly, I just want to bring up, and I won't go into it a lot because it is going to be good to do our special issue on this. I'm very excited about it because there are so many different perspectives, but there are many aspects of this that need to be brought up. We actually do not have minutes from that High Council meeting. We don't even have a role of those who attended. We base it on a different meeting that we look at who there was. And then we have Hiram on the record a long time after that high council meeting, April 8 of the next year, giving a strong anti polygamy speech and denying any of those rumors.

Michelle Stone [00:36:38] And then we also have, you know, there are some other challenges and timeline questions and many other aspects that go into this. So I, I want to acknowledge that there's room to, to disagree on this, but that I, I just want to caution anyone for being like, oh, my gosh, that is so obvious. We know absolutely what happened. I, I think it's always good to say, okay, there's, there's more work to be done and more exploration to attend to before we're too certain of our conclusions. I'm not saying that, Cheryl. I'm saying that to your audience in case anyone.

John Dehlin [00:37:07] Super quick, I asked John Turner this just this week, but Cheryl. And I'll ask you too, Michelle. Cheryl, do you consider, like, we know that, like, the copy of the William Clayton journals that are out there are kind of copies or even copies of copies, but we know that the church has allegedly William Clayton's journals and that they're going to be releasing them soon. My question to you, Cheryl, is I asked John Turner this. He's actually held them in his hand and turned the pages and looked at them. He believes they're contemporary, actual diaries or journals of William Clayton. I just want to know, Cheryl, do you believe that? And then, Michelle, I want to know if you believe that.

Cheryl Bruno [00:37:49] Well, I think I can say definitively that they are Nauvoo era journals. I don't know that he. Because there are some differences in this diary and the diary he kept in England where he daily was writing into his journal. And so there's a little bit of differences there. And Jeremy Hoop has done a lot of work on this to show that these were things that were brought in. Maybe he took notes and then at the end of the week, wrote them in the journal or. But I believe that they are very close to the time period. I don't think that he was doing this years and years later in Utah. No. So in that way, I do consider them contemporary journals. They're. They're Nauvoo era journals.

John Dehlin [00:38:30] Because my impression. That's what John Turner said. And my impression was the level. The extent to which he provides detail that can be corroborated with other accounts makes the possibility of that being a manufactured conspiracy as of today, hard for me to swallow. But, Michelle, I want to give you a chance to answer that question, too.

Michelle Stone [00:38:50] Yeah. So I was actually at the conference where Robin Jensen did acknowledge what our interpretation is, that these are recopied journals. So the question of when they were recopied is up for grabs, and that's being investigated by different people. But we know that these are not dated daily journals. That actually wasn't Clayton's modus operandi. When he would do these official records. We have his little day books, as Cheryl said, from his missions and from different time periods. And then we have other records he kept where he would have notes, he would have maybe those day books and. And different things that he would then recopy into these bigger copy books.

Michelle Stone [00:39:25] You have to think about it. You know, they would have these day books that were small that they would fit in their pocket, that they would take their notes on and take around with them. And then they had these larger volumes that would sit on the day desks. And so that we have a diff. A bunch of different kinds. Clayton's journals aren't necessarily these large volumes, like the history of the church volumes. But still, we do know that what his. What his practices were and his practices were to recopy things into these official journals. And then there are many other issues that we look into it.

Michelle Stone [00:39:52] Jeremy Hoop has done a lot of work to date when these were made and for what purpose. But I want to say that even the editor of the William Clayton journal book that is coming or that project that is coming out has acknowledged that these are recopied journals.

John Dehlin [00:40:07] Okay. All right. This is fun. Thanks for letting me throw a question in here and there. Y' all are brilliant. Keep going.

Polygamy Takes Root in Utah and RLDS Opposition Emerges

Michelle Stone [00:40:12] Okay, so the next stage where this. That. So we have that these two versions that are given to us in Nauvoo. And then we come to Utah, and this is where it's planting the flag and where the Utah Saints absolutely espouse polygamy. And so this was at a special conference in August of 1852 where the revelation was read. And it's the first time that we have this revelation that now is 132 in our doctrine and Covenants. And Brigham Young announces that he had had it hidden in his desk. Nobody knew knew about it. He had Orson Pratt give the theological justification, and then he had the revelation read in this church meeting, which was just an astounding thing to have happen.

Michelle Stone [00:40:57] The secret practice all of a sudden is publicly espoused. And immediately after this, this Orson Pratt went to Washington, D.C. where he was publishing the Seer, which was this. This vehicle. You know, it was his. His magazine that he started publishing there in order to try to tell Congress and the government that this was part of their religious freedom and their religious rights. And now they had the documentation to prove it and that they needed to be left alone to practice polygamy. I. I will add really quickly that Emma Smith's testimony is that the first time she ever saw this revelation was when she read it in Orson County.

Michelle Stone [00:41:31] Pratt's the seer. And she gave a really sad statement that says, the Utah Saints are making all of the lies about my husband true.

John Dehlin [00:41:40] Cheryl, anything you want to respond?

Cheryl Bruno [00:41:43] Yes. I think this was a big thing, too, because we. We go from having it being a secret practice, and even when we went. Even when the Saints moved to Utah, it was still fairly secret. But now it's all out in the open. It's like we're gonna just come forward with this. And now that we live in our own little enclave, you know, away from the United States, we can tell you what this is all about. And so this is when it. It starts to become lived openly. And. And we have a kind of a. A big ballooning of the people that start to practice plural marriage. Because now it is. It is public, it is recognized.

John Dehlin [00:42:26] Yeah. I should mention that last Friday, I attended the holding out Help fundraiser that. Tanya. I believe it's Tanya Toole.

Michelle Stone [00:42:39] Tanya Tool is phenomenal.

Cheryl Bruno [00:42:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:42:41] Yeah. And obviously, they have several facilities that they sponsor to help as kind of halfway houses or recovery houses, mostly for women escaping polygamy. And you know what? I was going to open with this thought, but it just now hit me. But what we're dealing with in 20, I think we can all agree on at least many things, but on one thing for sure. There's still a huge, massive mess in 2026 because of all this polygamy. And it impacts tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives in very serious and detrimental ways. And it's all because of this 19th century mess that we're talking about now. And that's right.

Cheryl Bruno [00:43:30] I love how you said it's tangled because at that time, the leaders of the church were saying, you have to live this principle or you cannot be exalted in the celestial kingdom. Right. That they were clearly preaching this. And so now when people look back on the history and this is why we have these polygamy wars and why we're so confused about it, because if the leaders were telling their people that they had to live it to be exalted, then where are we today? Is. Are we still under that same message?

Cheryl Bruno [00:44:05] Should we take that to heart? And many polygamists do they feel like that they are living a higher law that was given during this period of time. And then others say, well, we're a church of continuing revelation. So when the prophet said, now it's time to stop, then we have to stop in that we're not a polygamous church anymore. So it is kind of like Michelle said in the beginning, a little bit schizophrenic to look at it this way.

John Dehlin [00:44:31] Really quick, Cheryl, I think Michelle believes Emma. Is it your view that is it too simplistic or mean spirited to ask you if you believe that Emma just lied later on?

Cheryl Bruno [00:44:45] Well, at our conference last year, we had a little panel on that, and Michelle and I both give our thoughts on that. And I think there are five different possibilities for Emma for her statements, and certainly she was feeling under obligation to keep it secret. If she knew about it in Nauvoo, then she would have thought, as Joseph did, it was something to be kept secret. What if she vowed to keep it secret for the rest of her life and she could kept that vow? You know, that's one of the possibilities. There are several. But I think that it's very possible that she, you know, she was doing the same thing that she had done all along and keeping this very close to her chest and denying that this was happening. And yes, that would be a lie.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] Okay, but. But doing it because she felt she'd made a sacred covenant, possibly, and didn't want to betray that, that covenant she made. That's one possibility.

Cheryl Bruno [00:45:42] That is one.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Yeah. Okay. All right, let's keep going.

Michelle Stone [00:45:48] Okay. So then we have this interesting stage. Oh, Cheryl, do you want to take this one.

Cheryl Bruno [00:45:52] Okay, so, well, here are the saints living in Utah all by themselves, doing whatever they want. And all of a sudden, they get some opposition coming in. The RLDS church has formed in the Midwest. And of course, Joseph Smith III does not believe that his father ever practiced polygamy. He was young when his father died, and he didn't know anything about.

Cheryl Bruno [00:46:16] And he never saw any evidence that his father was practicing polygamy. So he sends missionaries out to Utah, and the Smith boys, Joseph Smith iii, Alexander, David, they come out to do missionary work and to tell the saints that, no, Joseph didn't practice polygamy. And it's interesting, the time period this happened in the latter half of the 1860s. And so Joseph F. Smith, who's the president or who is actually a church historian at the time, looks around and says, do we have any evidence that polygamy was happening in Nauvoo? And he realizes there isn't very much evidence. Okay, so we have Clayton's journal, but we have very little other evidence that we have polygamy happening.

Cheryl Bruno [00:47:09] And so what he decides is he says, well, 1860s, there's still many people living who were around in Navus. Let's get all these people together to put together some affidavits and to sign their names to the fact that they either were sealed to Joseph Smith as a wife or that they knew about this happening. And so here again, we have a little bit of a skirmish, or, you know, we've got the Smith brothers and the RLDS church on one side, and then we have the Mormon, the LDS leaders on the other side. And now we have some women coming in and signing their names to affidavit saying that they actually were sealed to Joseph Smith as well lives.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] Cheryl, let me ask you, what did. So Joseph F. Smith, let's see, is Joe Smith Brigham, John Tiller, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow. So Joseph F. Smith is church historian at the time. He's son of Hyrum. And he, on the one hand, he may have known through family lore through Mary Fielding, which would be his mom, because according to John Turner and the stuff I've read, read, Mary, you know, Hyrum took on at least a third wife because his first wife had passed. Mary Fielding was his second wife. And according to John Turner, Hiram took a third wife in front of Mary Fielding while she was still alive.

Cheryl Bruno [00:48:34] Yeah. Mary's sister Mercy was the. The other.

John Dehlin [00:48:38] Right. So in that sense, for Joseph F. Smith, he would have had direct family story and direct family lore. If the accounts that John Turner and other historians say are correct. But I'm also curious, in addition to that, William Clayton would have still been alive, at least during some of this time. Would William Clayton have offered his journals to Brigham Young? Were they accessible? Did they disappear and show up later? Do you know whether Joseph F. Smith would have even had access to William Clayton's journal?

Cheryl Bruno [00:49:13] Yes. Yes, his journals, William Clayton's journals were being used at that time to write the history of the church. So he had given his journals to the church historians to be able to use those to write the church history. And many of the passages we have in History of the Church come directly from Clayton's journal. And so one of the affidavits that is in the affidavit book that Joseph F. Smith created comes from William Clayton's journal.

John Dehlin [00:49:41] Got it. Michelle, did you want to jump in on any of that?

Michelle Stone [00:49:44] Oh, yeah, I have a lot of things I wanted to say, but let's see. I. I don't know if I'm keeping all of my thoughts straight, but I wanted to say. But it is interesting because William Clayton's journals were used by the Church historians office, which is why some people believe that might have been part of why they were created at the time they did. And we can see when the separate journals start being used. So I just want us to keep our minds a little bit open about that. And what. Oh, yeah. So this is one of the things I wanted to say. This was such an interesting time period.

Michelle Stone [00:50:10] Show you some of the documents that were going back and forth because this really became a publishing war at this point. And, and I know that there was some fear about the Smith boys going to Utah, that their lives might be in danger. But. But, you know, everything turned out okay there. There was a lot of angst and animosity, but I know that we have Brigham Young in 1866 standing up and saying that he knows for a fact that Joseph Smith never denied polygamy. And then we have the Smith boys and other members of the RLDS Church, which had formed later after Joseph Joseph III grew up.

Michelle Stone [00:50:41] And they are publishing the denials, publishing the things that were in the newspapers in Nauvoo. And, and it's interesting to. Like, for example, they published that. That the document we showed from the. The. Oh, from the newspaper with the women signing that they knew of no other form of marriage. And Eliza Snow signed that and then later on had to explain. Come up with an explanation is how I see it, of why she signed that in 1842 when she would have been Joseph's wife. And then later on she has to explain it. And the reason that these conflic is because of the RLDS missionaries coming and the RLDS publications coming forward.

John Dehlin [00:51:17] So if Brigham Young was telling people Joseph never denied practicing polygamy, he would either be conveniently forgetting stuff likely or lying himself. Right.

Michelle Stone [00:51:28] I would say it is impossible that Brigham Young did not know that Joseph Smith denied polygamy because it happened a lot. It was in their scriptures and it was said often. And that's another point I wanted to make about Joseph F. Smith. I think it's really complicated to give him too much credit for having first hand knowledge. Joseph F. Smith is a fascinating person to get into and to understand more about. He had a really, really traumatic childhood that really seemed to affect him for the rest of his life. I believe he was only four years old when his father died. And I don't know of any statement we have from Mary about Hyrum taking another wife.

Michelle Stone [00:52:02] All of those statements come decades later, again from Mercy after Mary's death. And we don't have, I do not have any access to Joseph F. Smith Smith himself sharing firsthand information of his father's polygamy. He did start to keep a diary, a record, or he started to write a history, but he stopped pretty early on. So I think we need to be careful before we say that he had first hand information from his family.

John Dehlin [00:52:26] Okay. And then when we talk about the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of the RLDS Church versus the Mormon Church, this really isn't about, about polygamy. Tell me if I'm wrong. This battle that emerges is about legitimacy. Is it fair to say that the Utah, let's say the Utah Church and the RLDS Church are trying to posture for who is the true heir of Joseph's one true church. And that's why the stakes are so high. Polygamy might be the battleground, but the actual battle is legitimacy for who can claim to be the successor. Is that right?

Cheryl Bruno [00:53:07] You know, that's a very interesting question because I am not sure that's, I'm not sure. I think the battle was mainly over polygamy. At least the pamphlets and things that we have that were written focus on polygamy. And there's not so much of focus on legitimacy. I, I don't know if the RLDS were saying we are the one true church. Of course, the lds, the Utah State Saints were saying we are the one true Church. But I don't know that the battle was so much around legitimacy as it was around. Joseph Smith III was adamant that his father did not practice polygamy, and he wanted everyone to know that.

John Dehlin [00:53:51] So it was kind of protecting his father's legacy in his mind. Maybe. Maybe.

Michelle Stone [00:53:55] I actually. I have a different perspective on that, if it's okay if I share. I actually do think it was very much about the succession claims and about legitimacy, and I think that polygamy was an element of that, because the RLDS Church also started to collect affidavits, and we have several affidavits from RLDS Church members at this point, testifying to hearing Joseph Smith firsthand say that if Brigham Young ever led the church, he would lead it directly to hell. And. And I think that it was. So. I don't think it was just one thing or the other. I think it was. Was that Joseph Smith III was saying, we know that he sent out missionaries to all of the different disparate branches and all of the people who had been members, including the LDS Church.

Michelle Stone [00:54:34] And he was trying to get people to come back to what he saw as the reorganization of the true church. And he was in that process saying, polygamy was never a doctrine of the church, and my father didn't practice it. So I. And really, even the temple lock case was not about polygamy. It became a de facto argument about polygamy because that kind of became the test of who had legitimacy, is who was carrying on Joseph Smith's doctrines. But it really was about who had the right to possess the temple lot. And that was being decided by who was the legitimate successor. So I. I tend to agree a little bit more with John on this.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] All right, well, let's keep going. This is fun.

Affidavits, Emma Smith's Testimony, and the Evidence Battle

Michelle Stone [00:55:15] So here we have. Cheryl, do you want to continue with these?

Cheryl Bruno [00:55:19] Oh, okay. So this was a fun slide we put together last night, and we're just on the phone at late hours, laughing. And this is this. The Mormon Church war. This is exactly what we're talking about. We found this, and it was like, wow, here is Joseph F. Smith. On one side, we don't usually see this picture of him.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] Never seen that before.

Cheryl Bruno [00:55:41] Look how handsome he is. When he was young, he didn't have that long white beard, but. And then on the other side, we have Alexander and Joseph Smith iii. And so this. This is always often in the newspaper, especially the Mormon. The newspapers in Utah and newspapers in the Midwest. And they're always talking about this war that's going on. This, this the Brothers Smith versus Brigham and his polygamous practice practices. So again, I see

John Dehlin [00:56:14] was the year on that 1960, 1869. Is that right?

Michelle Stone [00:56:18] Oh, you know what? I don't have a year on this slide, but it was.

John Dehlin [00:56:21] Okay, fascinating. 1869.

Cheryl Bruno [00:56:24] So that was the very year that Joseph, Joseph F. Smith started the affidavit book. 1869.

John Dehlin [00:56:30] Okay.

Cheryl Bruno [00:56:30] And then here we have some pamphlets. This is Edmund Briggs on the bottom, Alexander on the top. Edmund Brigade. Briggs came out, was another missionary that came out to Utah. And here are some of the addresses, the pamphlets that they put out on polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:56:48] And just to remind our viewers and listeners, the affidavit book is Joseph F. Smith trying to create affidavits to collect evidence from alleged plural wives of Joseph Smith that not only they were married to Joseph Smith polygamously, but even had many of them allegedly had sex. Is that right, Cheryl?

Cheryl Bruno [00:57:09] Well, we don't have, of course, in the affidavit book, we don't have any thing about sex. They're mostly, the affidavits are very dry and they go, you know, I was, I, such and such appear before such and such a justice of the peace. And I say that we were married or sealed in Nauvoo on such and such a date to Joseph Smith. And here were the witnesses. They don't really. Most of the affidavits do not tell a full story. These are come in later testimonies of some of the women. But the, the affidavits that Joseph F. Smith started to collect and included in his book are more kind of dry. And then the woman signs her name to it.

Michelle Stone [00:57:50] Yeah, a good way to think about them. They're actually form letters and Joseph F. Smith was the, the one who composed them. We don't have any that are in, in Joseph Smith F. Smith's affidavit books. We don't have them in the women's hand really much. We know that they were foremost because we have several that actually don't have the date and the signature filled in. And then we can see whose handwriting that they are in. We do get testimonies of women claiming to have been intimate with Joseph Smith. We have two of those in the temple lot. We have two women claim that, and then we have a few other sources here and there. But again, those are decades later. So, so the affidavits, Joseph F. Smith compiled those in 1869, and the temple lot wasn't until 1892 and 1893. So it's much Many decades later even than the affidavits. Oh, we can't hear you.

John Dehlin [00:58:40] Fascinating. Let's keep going. This is fun.

Cheryl Bruno [00:58:42] Yes. I think we are going to move along to the temple lot, aren't we? Now, Michelle, I don't know if we

Michelle Stone [00:58:47] have a slide, but we can talk about it.

Cheryl Bruno [00:58:49] Yeah, well, let's. Let's just talk about this real quick. Right before Emma died, she left a last testimony where she spoke to her son, Joseph Smith iii. And some people wonder how much he was taking her exact words. But we've looked at the documentation of those, and it seems pretty clear that this was a last testimony that she was given and giving. And the wording is pretty. Probably pretty accurate. So this was published in Plano, Illinois, and it made a big stir in Utah that she had had given this last testimony saying that she was not aware that Joseph Smith had any type

Michelle Stone [00:59:34] of plural wife at all.

John Dehlin [00:59:36] That must have been scandalous in. In Utah when that came out.

Cheryl Bruno [00:59:40] Oh, yes, and Eliza R. Snow was jumping up saying she's such a liar. We had a lot of reaction to that.

Michelle Stone [00:59:49] Yeah, we see. We see a renewed anti Emma sentiment coming out in speeches. Eliza said she died with libel on her lips. And at this point is when Eliz Our Snow started adding Smith to the end of her name. After Emma's death and after the testimony was published, she started adding Smith. She started adding Smith as her last name. She started calling herself Eliza Arsenal Smith, which is fascinating because apparently she was married to Brigham Young at this time. She was living in his home as one of his wives and was considered one of his wives. And she never took the last name Young. But after Emma's death, she started to write her name named with Smith, which is very interesting.

Michelle Stone [01:00:30] And I will say it was. It was. I will call out one historian, Brian Hales, who claimed that Joseph F. That Joseph Smith III was a liar. And he actively claimed that Joseph Smith III altered his mother's final testimony. Joseph Smith III is the one who went and interviewed Emma and he did it because. So. Oh, I don't. I always want to go into too many things. But just really quickly. William McClellan, who is one of the. The big sources we rely on for Fanny Alger, which is. You know, there are a lot of questions that people have a lot about a lot of these stories and a lot of these sources.

Michelle Stone [01:01:01] I do not consider William McClellan to be a good source for a variety of reasons, but in his letters that he wrote to Joseph Smith iii, which are some of the evidence that we Use for Fanny Alger. He told them, why don't you ask your mother? She can tell you these things. And Joseph Smith III starts this out by saying, we didn't, you know, we, we. We apologize to our mother for asking her these questions again this way, because Emma had spent her last life just having to live under this. And they presented this testimony, and I think it is adamant. And I was really quite surprised that Brian Hills claimed.

Michelle Stone [01:01:31] He claimed that he had seen Joseph Smith III's notes and that they were different than what was published. But I went and found them, and actually, no, they are exactly the same. We do have good notes to have good reason to believe these were Emma's words faithfully reported in this newspaper.

John Dehlin [01:01:46] All right. Fun. Okay, what happens next?

Michelle Stone [01:01:50] So, okay, let me get to the next slide. And we have now the federal siege. So this is where we start to see something interesting. So we. I hope people are getting a sense of what we are promoting in that last slide. The women on the right were supposed to be Eliza R. Snow and, And Helen Markimbell because they. We start getting all of this writing defending Joseph's polygamy at that period. And then. Yes, right. I could have gone back to us.

Cheryl Bruno [01:02:13] For us.

Michelle Stone [01:02:14] This, this one. Right, Let me see if I can get back to this one. So we have Eliza R. Snow and Helen Mark Kimball. This is the period where Helen was writing all of her things. And then we have the Sons of Emma. But now we come to this next period where we have the federal government really cracking down. So during the. There started to be some pushback against the Mormons, but then everybody got distracted with the Civil War. When the Civil War ended, then the other relic of barbarism, you know, when Abraham Lincoln came into the presidency, the Republican Party was founded around ridding the world of the two relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy.

Michelle Stone [01:02:47] And it really settled down. The nation was so busy during the Civil War, but once the Civil War ended, we start getting some real crackdowns on polygamy. And some people will recognize some of these things that happened with the Edmonds Act. And then it came back bigger with the Edmunds Tucker act. And we had different things. And we start seeing the leaders of the church go to prison and be hunted.

Michelle Stone [01:03:10] John Taylor was living on the underground. He really, really. It was sort of a martyr to polygamy because of an old man trying to live in hiding was very challenging. And. And so we see all of these things happening and the pressure is really being put on to the point that Wilford Woodruff has the endowment house raised. The endowment house was where they were performing these plural marriages. And then they issue the manifestos. And of course, we know the 1890 manifesto attempting to try to say, we're not doing this anymore, when they were still doing it. And then they issue another manifesto in 1904, after some additional things happening, saying, we're really not doing it.

Michelle Stone [01:03:52] And at that point, I think what they. With each of these manifestos, the practice definitely, definitely was minimized. They stopped teaching it publicly, and the number of plural marriages went way down. But there were still a few happening here and there, even after the 1904 Manifestation Manifesto.

Michelle Stone [01:04:11] Cheryl, did you. And. And they were. They were needing to do this so that they could become a state and have power. Part of what was said in that manifesto is, is it better to keep polygamy going and lose all of the temples, have all of the leaders put in prison, or is it better to let polygamy go so that we can keep the church going? And that is what Wilford Woodruff claimed, is that God taught him they needed to do. And it really was another challenging point in the church in these polygamy wars, in this relationship, because they had been been told that this was a principle of God, it was necessary for their exaltation, and all of a sudden, now they're giving into government pressure and stopping it.

Cheryl Bruno [01:04:49] Yes. And so I think that many people were not sure, and I think even many of the leaders were not sure. Is this something that's going to be temporary, that we're going to stop temporarily just so we can get statehood, or is it something that, you know, that we absolutely have to stop? And Todd Compton, in our last conference, talked a little bit about one of his ancestors who was a polygamist, who actually sealed people after the second manifesto was. Was performing these sealings. So we know that it went on for quite some time, and people were still living polygamy for a long time after this.

Cheryl Bruno [01:05:26] These manifestos came out. But gradually it came to be that. That, you know, the church was saying, no, we really mean it, and we're actually going to excommunicate people who are living polygamy. And now we see an interesting thing. It's our. Our next stage is where the LDS Church switches sides and goes over onto the other side. Stage five, switching sides. Now the LDS Church is saying, we don't practice polygamy. And now we have the fundamentalists come in. You see on this little slide, the bearded men over here are people who are saying, no, we need to keep this alive. The church is stopping it, but we need to keep it alive.

Cheryl Bruno [01:06:11] So they come in and they, they go to Short Creek and they form communities of fundamentalist Mormons who want to keep the principle alive.

Michelle Stone [01:06:22] Can I add just a little bit here really quickly? One of the really big differences between the previous stage we showed, which I think Cheryl is exactly right, that he, even some of the leaders were uncertain. Joseph F. Smith is one of those who gave that adamant second manifesto over in conference in 1904. And then when he was questioned about it afterward, he voiced some indifference. And it was actually my great grandfather who. Our family story is that he was sent by Joseph F. Smith to Mexico to take a second wife in 1906. And we know that he was always a member. He was sent to be the mission president multiple times.

Michelle Stone [01:06:55] He worked in the church office building at a apostle, spoke at his funeral. So he really enjoyed the protection. And so the really big difference here is that now with the third manifesto at this stage, five, the church actually means it. Heber J. Grant actually opposes polygamy. And they start, instead of protecting it or being gentle with it, they start cracking down and excommunicating polygamists.

John Dehlin [01:07:19] Fascinating. Yeah. So if I'm getting this history right, right. In the pre Joseph Smith martyrdom era, The standard narrative is that first polygamy was not allowed, it was condemned by the church, but that Joseph eventually started practicing it secretly and eventually the cat got out of the bag and he was marked bartered for it.

John Dehlin [01:07:54] So in some sense he was, you know, violating his own commandments. And much of this history of the official account that main historians accept today, the church has never really bothered to tell its broad membership. And so in that traditional account, you know, members would feel right to feel angry at and or deceive by the Utah Mormon Church for just, just. And I think that's where you know, Karen's, Karen's book comes in, Woe unto you scribes. I think she really tries to make that point that shouldn't the general membership have been informed about DNC 101, which, which you know, condemned polygamy before DNC was changed.

Competing Narratives Around Nauvoo-Era Polygamy

John Dehlin [01:08:46] That's sort of where we are are in the best of situation with Nauvoo era polygamy. Michelle, I'm guessing that you would say that there's another alternative narrative which is as problematic or worse, which is that Joseph and Emma and Hyrum never practiced polygamy, but that Heber and Brigham and William Clayton and others and John C. Bennett were secretly practicing it, unbeknownst to Joseph under his nose, and then rewrote all the history to make it sound like Joseph was practicing it when he wasn't.

John Dehlin [01:09:27] And either way, that leads us into the Brigham Young Utah era, where there's massive deception on the part of the surviving leaders of the church. And then the reorganized church comes in to start sticking to one narrative, which is that Joseph was not practicing it, which forces the Utah Church to really rally around another narrative, which is that it's been practiced since Joseph, Joseph, which means that they're not wanting to call Joseph out as a liar, but in effect, that's kind of what they're doing, or they're lying about Joseph not being a liar. But either way, that's super confusing to the membership and problematic on the part of the leadership.

John Dehlin [01:10:26] Then the church is forced in 1890 to abandon polygamy, but they don't. But they tell people that they are. And that's deeply problematic for the church leadership to be deceiving its own members in the world about its continued practice of polygamy. And then once the church, the Utah Church, finally decides to abandon it officially, then you've got all the fundamentalists jumping in, saying, wait a minute, you taught for decades, almost a century now, that this is required for exaltation.

John Dehlin [01:11:03] You can't go back on this now. So we're going to carry the practice forward. What a crazy history. And we're not even done. But that's my best summary so far of what I'm hearing. But one thing I'm taking away from this, and Michelle, I don't know if you'll feel frustrated with this summary or not, is that this feels condemnatory of top Mormon church leadership for at least 100 years, regardless of whether you're more leaning towards Cheryl's narrative and the prevailing historical, professional narrative or Michelle's narrative. Either way, top Mormon church leadership isn't coming out looking very great so far.

Michelle Stone [01:11:48] Do you want to go for Cheryl or do you want me to?

Cheryl Bruno [01:11:50] Well, let me just quickly say that either way, either side you're on, this is a big mess. It's a huge mess. And what is a member supposed to think? You know, and I think that you. I think you summed it up pretty well, John, by saying, you know, showing the back and forth. And now if we're looking at the history, it's really hard for us to just get a grip on. On what it all means to people today.

John Dehlin [01:12:18] Yeah, because. Because. Because they either have to. I mean, they have to believe that their leaders have been lying to them and hiding and doing crazy things, or they have to believe that their leaders, I mean, I mean, on the one hand, their leaders were practicing a practice that's abominable. On the other hand. What's the other hand, Cheryl? I mean, I think that's Michelle's position that, like, it can't be that our top church leaders were practicing a practice so terrible with God's blessing. Cheryl, what would be the other side of that concern?

Cheryl Bruno [01:12:57] So, I mean, I've heard Brian Hills express it and many other apologists express it that, you know, if you do get, if you are getting this revelation from God, saying that we need. And we don't quite understand it being our immortal selves, we don't understand why God has revealed that this. And then he's like, well, what are, what is Joseph supposed to do when he's under, you know, all this pressure from, you know, people trying to kill him? What is he supposed to do while he keeps it under wraps? And then what is Wilford Woodruff supposed to do? What are the church leaders supposed to do when we see that we need to get along with the rest of the United States? You know, how can we do this and still obey a commitment time that's from God? So that's kind of the apologist view

Michelle Stone [01:13:43] of it, I guess.

John Dehlin [01:13:44] You helped me summarize it. The other option, either church leaders were terrible and abusive in many ways, or God is kind of a monster requiring all of this of his prophets and of his women. Like, those are those. I think those are maybe two of the big challenges or choices that people have to make. Now, Michelle, you may not like me.

Cheryl Bruno [01:14:08] Oh, I have to jump in for just a minute because there's more than two choices on that one. Because many people do see polygamy as a beautiful principle, something that they can live, that teaches them, you know, charity, love of sacrifice. And so, I mean, we have to leave a little bit of space for that. It's not that we, we don't either have to choose, you know, that God is a monster, or, you know, we can, can. We can choose that God is a loving God and he's showing us this particular way of living that can be helpful for our progression. That's just one of the perspectives.

John Dehlin [01:14:47] Okay. And Michelle, did you want to add anything to my false dichotomy?

Michelle Stone [01:14:51] Oh, well, well, I, I tend to. I tend to see it a little bit more your way. Again, I think that it's.

Cheryl Bruno [01:14:58] Is.

Michelle Stone [01:14:58] I think it is, you know, we can see that if there was one thing that the church would just go away, it is polygamy. I think it has been the biggest problem that the church has had to deal with from day one. Joseph Smith said, no sooner had I started to receive revelations than people accused me of having multiple wives. Right? So from the very beginning, it was something that plagued Joseph Smith. And then the. The. We can. We can kind of decide where the problem really emerged. But. But I do think that this Utah era of teaching polygamy, creating this evidence and then proclaiming that this was an eternal principle that could never be taken from the earth or the church would be an apostasy, that really did create a problem.

Michelle Stone [01:15:41] And I think that, you know, the church just wishes that it would never be talked about, that it would be buried, that it would just go away, that it never happened. And I think that tells us something too. And I personally do.

Michelle Stone [01:15:55] I do. My perspective is. And I. I hold space for people to disagree and see it differently. But for me, I do think that somebody did something terribly wrong, and I can explain why. And our. And our choices are Joseph Smith and, And any. Anyone that was involved with him, Heber J. Grant, and I mean, Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young and those people or God. Because I cannot wrap my mind around a God commanding a prophet to break his wife's heart, to betray her multiple times with all of her best friends, all of the sisters in the Relief Society that he at the same time told them, told them to look to her and to sustain her in her position.

Michelle Stone [01:16:36] And then they would. You know, it was part of the culture back then that you would have young girls come live in your home and help. And they, they. They were part of this. That girls would come in and help Emma and Joseph kind of serve in their home, and Emma would train them in how to do the. Do these homemaking skill skills. And to have. This isn't just a man sleeping with the babysitter one time, which right there. I'm sorry, if. If a man says God commanded him to sleep with the babysitter, I have a lot of problems with that. But this is kind of perpetually sleeping with every single babysitter over years.

Michelle Stone [01:17:10] And so, so it's hard for me to get behind a God that. That commands that. And I do think we have scriptures that say, like, for example, I like that Nephi said, said, I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded. For I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he hath commanded them. Right? We don't, we don't believe in a God according to the scriptures that Joseph Smith brought forward. I shouldn't say we, but Joseph Smith, as in my understanding, didn't teach a God that would say, go do this, a horrible thing, and I'm not going to tell you how to do it.

Michelle Stone [01:17:42] Which is kind of the apologetic lens. We also have the precedent of, of, of the, the biblical story of Mary and Joseph and that God said, okay, Mary, you're going to have my child, right? But God sent an angel to tell Joseph at the same time. So I see this. If this was coming from God, I see God preparing both Joseph and Emma in a way that they could both accept it. Because I know that we have apologists that say nobody will ever be forced and it's everybody's choice. And I'm like, how was it ever Emma's choice choice? How was that ever Emma's choice? And, and what do we, how do we explain that away?

Michelle Stone [01:18:19] Right? And then I think that the scriptures teach. I think that the things that are taught throughout the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants are actually very profound and beautiful. And I think that we see a God who has a certain perspective of women that does not seem to be consistent with portions of 132 and with our polygamy narrative. So that is my perspective. We just have to analyze lies. Like, this is a huge problem for the church. Connor Boyak, who's presenting at our conference, he called it the wound that would net, that will not heal. We do. We have a wound at the center of the church that will not heal.

Michelle Stone [01:18:51] And it's this polygamy mess. And so that's why I think the best thing we could do is get in and do the investigation, clean it out and see where this started, and then try to come to peace with it instead of trying to just bury it and don't talk about it. That just isn't a good way to try to solve things.

The John Taylor Revelation and Church Narrative

John Dehlin [01:19:07] All right, well, I don't want to cut our presentation short, so let's keep going, but this is great. Thanks for letting me process this.

Cheryl Bruno [01:19:13] As I'm listening, our next few stages talk about how this narrative, this church narrative. Okay, go ahead, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [01:19:20] Oh, no. Do you want to talk about these really quickly in this, the establishment of the RLDS church? Cheryl.

Cheryl Bruno [01:19:26] So we will also have a presentation. Our conference is going to include so many things that are apropos to what's happening today. And this is something that has made the church news was the John Taylor revelation. Right. And so this is one thing that John Taylor did was was he wrote a revelation on polygamy saying that it would never, never be rescinded. And so this is one thing that the flds, the fundamentalists branches of the Mormon Church Church rely on is that there was this revelation by John Taylor. And so we have a fundamentalist who's going to be speaking on the Council of Friends, which was organized about that time. And we also have a panel, as Michelle told you at the beginning, that we'll be Talking about the 1886 revelation of John Taylor. And then here is.

John Dehlin [01:20:21] Okay, let me just say, and I, I did an episode with Brian Buchana canon about the John Taylor revelation. For those who don't know who never been Mormon, John Taylor was the third president or prophet of the Mormon Church. So when he's receiving a revelation saying polygamy will never be taken again from the earth, that's a big deal. But it's also a very big deal that that revelation has been kind of intentionally hid from the membership until I believe Michelle, you said today, like last year. So that's all pretty, pretty significant stuff.

Cheryl Bruno [01:20:55] Yeah, it's. We can get so into depth on some of these things that we'll never be able to finish. But I mean, I'd love to talk more about that. Here is the man, the gentleman right in the, in the front there is Richard R. Lyman. And so even later into the 18, into the 1900s, the 19, you know, 20s and 30s and 40s, we have people who still believe in polygamy. And Richard R. Lyman was an apostle of the church and he was married to Amy, who was right underneath him. Amy Brown Lyman, the general president of the Relief Society. So they were top echelon people and he became involved with a woman who they mutually made a covenant to live polygamy.

Cheryl Bruno [01:21:41] And so they were actually in their 70s when they were discovered and I guess ran out of town at a rail almost. Two of the, the high church leaders investigated them, found them in bed together and and shoved them out of doors in their underwear where the Trib took lots of pictures.

Cheryl Bruno [01:22:07] So I haven't seen those pictures, but I guess it was big scale scandal. And so we have continued people who live this. These other pictures are from a polygamist raid in Arizona that happened as late as 1953, where the church was actually

Michelle Stone [01:22:27] part of

Cheryl Bruno [01:22:31] taking these children away from their parents and trying to get all These people in who lived in Short Creek. John, you probably know a little bit more about this than I do to stop practicing polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:22:46] Yeah, yeah. And we've covered, we've covered the Richard Lyman thing on Mormon stories. I'm just asking Brooklyn or Julia to include those links because we have done some in depth coverage of those, those topics and they're really fascinating things that most faithful orthodox Mormons have never heard. Heard of. But it's kind of relevant to know that an apostle, a Mormon apostle of the LDS Church in the mid-1900s was excommunicated for having an affair while he was an apostle with a woman he probably believed was his polygamous wife.

Cheryl Bruno [01:23:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:21] Yeah.

Cheryl Bruno [01:23:22] So how did the narrative become embedded? Let's go to Michelle for that.

Michelle Stone [01:23:26] Yeah. So. So we've watched, we've watched as the LDS Church was preaching this and then this starts, started to genuinely prosecute it. Right. And then I think they wanted to bury it at that point. They just said polygamy is now buried. We're not going to talk about it anymore. But then we have the rebirth now in the academic turn. We get the academics starting to dig back out the evidence about polygamy. This, this big mess. And that starts with Fawn Brody. In my understanding, in the 1940s, she wrote the first academic book of Joseph Smith. It does have some issues, but it was, it was really, really groundbreaking work for her day.

Michelle Stone [01:24:02] And she brought out many new documents that had not been known before. And this really is when the current embedded narrative that we have began to come forward. And this is this period that we're going to go over the next few stages. So yes, we have Fawn Brody with her. No Man Knows My History. The first academic coverage of Joseph Smith and then of course was responded to. We have have to include Q. Nibley's no ma', Am, that's Not History. And that really is an interesting response to read because one of the central pieces of Fawn Brody's work was Joseph Smith's polygamy. She was the first one.

Michelle Stone [01:24:36] In fact, Todd Compton kind of built on Fawn Brody's work because she did do very short biographies of each of the, each of the supposed wives, which was really impressive work in the appendix. Yes. But that's, that's where we get most of the information that is, that was built on by later, later writers.

John Dehlin [01:24:52] Tom Compton kind of took Bomb Brody's appendix and expanded it, I'm guessing.

Michelle Stone [01:24:57] Yes, that's, that's how it appears to me. Yes. And it's Interesting to read how Hugh Nibley had to respond and how he had to walk this fine line of trying to say that Fawn Brody was wrong about everything while also not saying that she's wrong about Joseph Smith's polygamy. Because. Because the LDS Church, ever since Brigham Young, has had to keep the narrative that polygamy is bad. We don't do it, but we're not going to say outright that Joseph Smith didn't do it. So that was an interesting phase.

John Dehlin [01:25:25] And I would just have to say Hugh Nibley's response to Fon Brody is one of the biggest embarrassments of the modern Mormon Church, in my opinion.

Michelle Stone [01:25:33] It was not great, I don't think. I think that Fawn Brody's book leaves a lot to be desired. I think we need to do more reinvestigation, especially since it was a psychological biography, you know, psychological history. But yeah, I, I'm not a fan of Hugh Nibly's response.

John Dehlin [01:25:48] I think F. Brody's book is brilliant, personally having just read it recently, cover to cover, every single word, including the appendix. But I think John Turner's book gives us way more detail because he just had access to more documents. I think Richard Bushman's book grossly neglects the. The depth of discussion around polygamy, in my opinion.

Michelle Stone [01:26:14] I think Bushman, I. I cover that in really briefly. In my paper that I just did on Helen Bushman admitted that he said that if he redid his book again, he should have written more specifically about Helen Mark Kimball and he should have written more about polygamy. So I think he agrees with you, John.

John Dehlin [01:26:28] Yeah, yeah, I think so, too. All right, so we've got credible historians writing about Joseph Smith's polygamy or as Michelle might say, Joseph Smith's alleged polygamy. Look at me. Where do we go from there?

Michelle Stone [01:26:43] Yep.

Cheryl Bruno [01:26:43] And I guess.

Michelle Stone [01:26:44] I guess I'll take this one as well. So this is a really interesting period. This is the 70s and 80s particularly, is when now we have seen the LDS church switch sides. Now we see the RLDS church switch sides. And kind of in this same academic revival, the RLDS historians get in and start seeing that the RLDS Church did not have it exactly right either, because the RLDS Church's ideas were they kind of lumped together eternal marriage and many of these other principles with polygamy. And they wanted to say Joseph Smith was not involved in any of it, and there was no polygamy happening in Nauvoo.

Michelle Stone [01:27:16] And as the RLDS Church historians started to see that that story wasn't exactly right. They switched their position on polygamy. And so we can see some of the books that were written. This is of course, Richard Howard. This was of just a monumentally important paper that he wrote as the official church historian. He wrote, wrote this for the RLDS Church, but then they had him publish it in an academic journal instead of publishing it by the church. And it just opened the door to the consideration that Joseph Smith had started polygamy, which was, which really like the LDS Church, has its articles of faith. The RLDS Church was begun with certain articles of faith.

Michelle Stone [01:27:53] And one of them was Joseph Smith iii. And his very first, his very first public statement as the church church president when it was in the reorganization was that Joseph Smith did not participate in polygamy. So this was really going against what they had always believed. And then we also have Bruce, I mean, Robert Flanders with his Nauvoo kingdom on the Mississippi. This is actually the first book I'm aware of from an RLDS author saying that Joseph Smith had, had originated polygamy. This was before Richard Howard. And then we also have Roger Launius and others. And so there was, was this academic move in the RLDS Church to change their perspective.

Michelle Stone [01:28:33] And of course, I've looked into this and it's. I, I want to be, I want to caution people against assuming that it was because the evidence was so strong. It was undeniable because there were a lot of, again, there were a lot of motivations and a lot of other factors going into play. I did a deep investigation in this and I'm sure I will write a paper on it at some point. But it's not as simple as it appears. It's not that the evidence was so overwhelming that they couldn't deny it anymore. And it's not that it went against their, their desires and their motives and their best interest to say this because the leaders and the historians who were saying this, this was in their interest. This was what they wanted to say. And I can go on unless anyone has a comment or question.

John Dehlin [01:29:14] I'll just say from my observation, a couple things. It is a significant blow to the, you know, I think it's general. It would, it would be fair to say that it would generally be perceived as a significant blow to the group of people that would want to say Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy to learn that the RLDS Church, who for over a century denied it and in many ways had many, many reasons to not reverse, one being their own credibility.

John Dehlin [01:29:50] I think it's fair to say it would be seen as a significant blow to those who don't believe justice Practice polygamy to have had the RLDS church change that position. And then the only second thing I would say, Michelle, is that many people see your, I don't want to say movement, but your position and the position of those who you collaborate with with as being kind of a rebirth or an extension of the position that the RLDS Church once held and is now abandoned. I hope that didn't feel offensive or reductionary in any way, but you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Michelle Stone [01:30:31] Oh, yeah, not at all. So I think these are some important things to get into. First of all, I think that the important thing to do here is to look at these things that were written. The paper by Dick Howard, the. The book by Bruce.

Michelle Stone [01:30:47] Bruce Flanders, Robert Flanders, sorry, Bob Flanders, and the other things that were written. And what we should. I think what we should not do is say, look, they had every motive to say this and they changed their minds. Therefore, that proves that. I think what we should do is say what were the specific sources that they were using and what. Anything of those sources. And that's the work that I, that I have done and that I continue to do. And I will say again, it's important to recognize that for these historians writing this history and this leadership, they had really had a big change and they were motivated to take the RLDS Church out of sort of the strange Mormon, Mormon ethos and move them more into just being like the other, the other Christian churches.

Michelle Stone [01:31:30] They were trying to move that direction. They were trying to distance themselves from Joseph Smith. And they're also, like I said, said the, the view that they had been raised with wasn't quite right. So when they saw documents that opposed their view in the position that they were in, they just said, oh, that other view is right, rather than saying, oh, we got portions of our view wrong. There was polygamy happening in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith was teaching eternal marriage. Rather, they just said, oh, the LDS Church view is right and we're going to distance ourselves from Joseph Smith. And then if that makes sense. So I think it's more important, like, for example, one of the.

Michelle Stone [01:32:06] What I had planned to do my dissertation on. But I have a couple of different things I'm considering, but one is I want to look at what they did, just for one specific example, with Emma Smith's voice, because they literally relegated her to A footnote or even not that. So. So in writing these new histories, they again were very selective of what sources they use and which ones they relied on. And I think that's been a problem we have seen throughout polygamy.

Cheryl Bruno [01:32:31] And let me just jump in here about this because we tend to think when we're, when we're discussing Fawn Brody and some of these others who are writing at this period of time, we tend to think they have the same access to documents as we do today. And that is not true. They did not have very much, very good access to documents. Fawn Brody did a lot of behind the scenes digging and, and lots of research and so did these. Others of these RLDs had actually a little bit more access because remember, the LDS Church at this time had basically shut it down. They were not letting people see polygamy documents. And so now we want to get into a different period where the church starts opening up just a little bit.

Michelle Stone [01:33:18] Can I first just finish this one really quickly? Because I just wanted to go into this really. Yes, yes. Because we need to say, we need to say that this RLDS Church shift, we like to present it as they went against their bias because the evidence was so strong. And I really do not think that is the case. If we look into the history, like I said, there were more progressive RLDS historians and some leadership who wanted to step away from Joseph Smith. Those who wanted to remain with Joseph Smith thought the evidence was very solid. And this is Richard Price, Richard and Pamela Price.

Michelle Stone [01:33:47] This is the Restoration Bookstore. And they became quite famous for starting this, writing this Joseph Smith fought polygamy. So they carried on this tradition. And actually when the RLDS church went in this very progressive direction of saying Joseph Smith had practiced polygamy, stepping away from Joseph Smith. And then the last final thing was giving the, the extending the priesthood, the mechanic priesthood officially to women. In the 80s there was a huge schism in that church. And from what I have have been told and what I understand, actually the largest congregations, the most ti, the highest tithe paying congregations, they left the church at that point and formed the restoration branches.

Michelle Stone [01:34:25] And Richard, and Richard Price was a leader of one of those. And so that really is where the RLDS Church started to, to go down the path that has led to where it really has struggled financially ever since this period because they alienated so many of their. Oh, sorry, I went forward. They alienated so many of their most faithful members. And, and Richard and Pamela Price did a lot of work to compile the evidence to say that Joseph Smith had not practiced polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:34:52] I guess the only thing I want to ask, and I don't want to bog us down is just were they, are they professional historians? Are they professionally trained historians? Were they basically writing books to defend their faith? Or were they, you know, masters or PHC level historians that were doing their best under their rigorous academic training to be as neutral and objective as possible in what they were writing? Do we know?

Michelle Stone [01:35:18] So, yes, I can say that definitively. No, they were not. They were very much writing from a perspective. However, what I find valuable in their work is not the arguments they make, it's the documents that they bring forward. Similar to Brian Hills. Right, Because Brian Hills also is not a true trained historian. And he is, he's considered the, you know, the best lds. Not by us, I know, but by many people. But his work is very useful because of the documents that he brings forward. And that's really what the prices are saying.

John Dehlin [01:35:48] Okay. Okay.

Cheryl Bruno [01:35:49] Yes, John, if you're doing any kind of research on Mormon polygamy, you're going to benefit from the work of Brian Hales.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] I totally, I totally agree with that. I totally acknowledge that.

Michelle Stone [01:36:01] And I guess I want to add. And we should also be looking at the work of the prices because even the Joseph Smith papers has sources that come from the prices because there was like the prices catalog some of the things that happened. They would go look sources specifically in Nauvoo and in Illinois. And then when they would go back, those sources would not be there anymore. And they could look in the logs and see that it looked like people from the LDS Church history library had come and she just absconded with the sources. And so there are, there are like, like the prices work is, is important in the same way that Brian Hill's work is important.

John Dehlin [01:36:37] All right, Cheryl, keep going.

The Arrington Era and Internal Mormon Historical Reckoning

Cheryl Bruno [01:36:38] Okay, so I'm going to talk about Camelot. John, I think you're maybe a little bit younger than me, so I don't know if you remember this Leonard Arrington and all the documents that became available through the church. He was, he was instrumental, instrumental in helping members of the church, historians and others who are interested get access to documents that the church had just wanted to be buried and hidden away in a vault and, and no one really have access to them. So we have this period of time where we have all these documents coming out and it's a wonderful, glorious time for. Oh, look at, at all these wonderful documents.

Cheryl Bruno [01:37:20] Some of you can even look at those documents and know exactly what they are just from a glance, because we now have access to them on every level. Like, even a amateur historian can go in and look at these very, very important historical documents dealing with Mormon polygamy. And I was a college student at BYU when all of. Of this was happening. And there was an underground. A document underground where when a document came out, it. Somebody at the church history church, I guess it was the office building is where they kept the stuff. And you'd Xerox it, and then Grandpa's bookstore would get a copy of it and he'd make copies for everyone that came in.

Cheryl Bruno [01:38:07] And this was a Grandpa was Ernest strip, who wasn't an older gentleman. He was young, a young polygamist who made all these documents available to people. And then there was the 70s Press, kind of an underground BYU student newspaper who also loved to make documents available and all of these things.

John Dehlin [01:38:29] Cheryl and Sandra Tanner were publishing a lot of these documents.

Cheryl Bruno [01:38:33] Absolutely. Yes, they were

John Dehlin [01:38:36] as well.

Cheryl Bruno [01:38:37] Right. And so that's when we get just this proliferation of documents and we get, okay, Mormon Enigma was written by these. Valine Avery and. And who was Linda Newell. Linda Newell. Sorry, I don't even know if those were. Were them. They.

Michelle Stone [01:38:56] I think, yeah, that was in the New York Times by Linda Newell's death. That's where this picture came from.

Cheryl Bruno [01:39:01] Okay. So we know at least one of them is Linda Newell.

John Dehlin [01:39:03] And.

Cheryl Bruno [01:39:03] And then we get Mike Quinn and there's Leonard Arrington up at the top. Right. And we get Todd Compton. Another important person was Dennell Bachman, who did his thesis on Mormon polygamy. And Michelle and I have been through that with the fine tooth comb and, you know, really interested in what he had to say as he was looking at new documents that were coming out.

Michelle Stone [01:39:29] Yeah, Dennis Bachman is the one that. He was the first one in modern history that we know of to see the affidavits. And. And so he got Joseph F. Smith's affidavits, and he had other. There are other documents. So I. I looked into this a little bit because of the. One of the documents that I'm working on very closely was what they. They were all cataloged in 1975 because the church history library moved into the church office building. And it seems that at that point, a lot of things that had just been in boxes were cataloged. And so that's when a lot of documents were coming out that hadn't been seen before.

Michelle Stone [01:40:01] And. And the historians were so excited to see them that from my perspective, they just said, wow, look at this document, look at what it tells us, particularly if it was particularly salacious or, you know, in that way, and they would choose which documents to just believe. So from my perspective, there wasn't a lot of critical analysis being done on these documents at this time because it was so exciting to have in this period of discovery.

Cheryl Bruno [01:40:25] And I hate to skim over this because it's really important, but we only have a few more minutes left. And I do want to talk about what came next was kind of. Oh, let's see.

Michelle Stone [01:40:36] Well, first response. Like, right.

Cheryl Bruno [01:40:39] Well, first, I just want to talk about the blogger Knackle. John and I were involved in the blogger Knackle. And this is where some of these things were discussed. And a very important part of this movement now is. Is Mormon stories comes along.

Michelle Stone [01:40:53] I think that's in our next phase. Can I just finish this one up first and then we'll get to that next? Because I think another interesting part, if we go back into what we're talking about here, is the church response. So all of these documents are coming out, but it definitely created some discomfort because now we're getting documents that are telling a story. Oh, we didn't have our slide here. I was going to include in 1977, in front of the church office went a beautiful, beautiful statue, a bronze statue of Joseph and Emma Smith that many people will recognize. We did have a slide of that, but it disappeared.

Michelle Stone [01:41:22] And. And so the church was trying to promote this story of Joseph Smith as a monogamist at this time period, sort of to counteract these documents coming out. So it was really complicated because, again, the church thought they had buried this back in the 30s and 40s when they started to really take it seriously. They wanted it gone. They wanted polygamy dead and buried. And then, of course, Fawn Brody brought it out, and then this proliferation of documents was being looked at. And the church's response was, no, it's monogamy. It's always been monogamy. Joseph Smith was a monogamous. So we get the statue. And then if we want to add this slide back, we also get the the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church series and Brigham Young.

Michelle Stone [01:41:59] If you look through it, there's not much about polygamy in it. If you look through Joseph. And that was in, I want to say, the 1980s or the 1990s. Joseph Smith was in 2007. And then, of course, we have President Hinckley going on Larry King Live saying that we have nothing to do with polygamy. It's not polygamy. It's not doctrinal. Those people are completely different from us. They are nothing. They have nothing to do with us. So there was this big. This period of a big attempt to distance the church from polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:42:27] Yeah. And they even changed these manuals to take Brigham talking about his wives. They literally edited his own quotes to make it sound like he was saying wife.

Michelle Stone [01:42:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:42:42] To deceive people.

Michelle Stone [01:42:44] Well, yeah, I, I. And see, I like to look at it with charity for everybody. I think everyone's trying to do their best. I think the historians are trying to make something that makes. Make a story that makes sense. I think that the church is trying to say, how do we protect faith? And, you know, I don't think that they're saying, how can we deceive people? I think they're saying, how do we navigate this incredibly thorny problem of polygamy? So that's how I like to perceive it. But I understand what you're saying.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] Yeah, I, I think they have good intentions, but there's no way to conclude that they're not being deceptive.

Michelle Stone [01:43:17] It's challenging. It's a challenging topic for sure.

John Dehlin [01:43:22] Okay, Cheryl, say good things about Mormon stories.

Cheryl Bruno [01:43:24] Mormon stories.

Michelle Stone [01:43:25] Come along.

Cheryl Bruno [01:43:26] Look at, look at the. That little computer monitor. Mormon stories was so important in getting some of these things out. Documents and discussions about all of these. We talked a lot. I mean, we heard a lot about polygamy because people were confused. People were, you know, they wanted to. They wanted to get this out. They wanted to talk about it. And John was able to give information. There was a CES letter that came out that gave. Gave lots of information. Here's the Mormon archipelago.

Michelle Stone [01:43:57] Which one you want?

Cheryl Bruno [01:43:58] The blue one? The blue. Oh, there we go. Remember, John, you and I were both on there, and it was a place where you could go and get information and just to discuss all of these things. And especially was a big topic of discussion.

John Dehlin [01:44:14] I'm not sure there'd be Mormon stories without the blogger Nackel. That first year I was off for Microsoft 2004, I discovered feminist Mormon Housewives by Common Consent and. And Times and Seasons. And that was a big impetus, along with my master's degree in instructional technology, to start Mormon Stories. And then as soon as I started Mormon Stories, I'm interviewing Grant Palmer. I'm interviewing Richard Bushman. I'm interviewing Todd Compton.

John Dehlin [01:44:44] I'm interviewing Anne Wilde. People don't know that. My very first video interview ever. I just took a VHS video recorder to polygamist Ann Wild's house. She had been married. She had been Ogden Kraut's third wife. And I interviewed her all about being, you know, becoming a polygamist as a mainstream Mormon living like in suburban Sandy. And she marries Ogden Kraut, divorces her faithful Mormon husband because she discovers the journal discourses and believes that polygamy is the way. So she divorces her faithful LDS husband to Mary Ogden Kraut so that she could live the principle. That's one of my favorite interviews and it was really, really early on.

John Dehlin [01:45:31] But I do feel like one of my main goals with Mormon Stories was to put push Mormon history out of pinheaded, ivory towered academia in silos into the Mormon mainstream. And then I was super grateful when Jeremy Runnels and others Mormon think was a really good influence there as well.

John Dehlin [01:45:55] Yeah, we tried to get it out from the 20,000 people that followed academic Mormon history. We wanted hundreds of thousands of Mormons, Mormons to learn about factual Mormon history. So that's hopefully that was a little bit of our contribution.

Cheryl Bruno [01:46:11] Yes, it was an amazing success that way. It really did get this out. And over on the right there is Lindsay Hanson Park's Year of Polygamy series which also gave a lot of attention to polygamy that many people did not know about some of these things until they heard them from Lindsay.

Michelle Stone [01:46:30] Yeah, so this period brought John, your work work brought this into the zeitgeist of the standard Mormon member who was not getting it from the teachers teachings of the presidents of the church manuals. Right. And so, and so that led to Cheryl, if you want to continue. The church responded.

Cheryl Bruno [01:46:48] Oh yes, the church responded to this. And so we have Brian Hills's series come out, which was sort of a church view. He gives the standard narrative in, in in his set of books on Joseph Smith's polygamy. And then we also have the net on the next slide we have Saints, which is sort of a an overview of history and their view of polygamy. It talks about. And also on the church's website they have many little blurbs about polygamy that you can read on the church's website. That gives you the standard perception. This narrative helps us to understand polygamy from the church's perspective.

John Dehlin [01:47:34] I think we're missing the gospel topics essays on polygamy that came before Saints.

Michelle Stone [01:47:39] Yeah, this actually the gospel topics essay. So we went a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:47:43] I see, I see.

Michelle Stone [01:47:44] So what we had, how I see this happening is that Brian Hales was doing his work. He wasn't a Church employee, and he's not a trained historian, but he was trying to come up with an apologetic. Apologetic reading on all of this. These documents that were proliferating, proliferating. And I think that he was seeing people being converted to polygamy by these documents come out that come out, and also people being converted away from the church. So he gave this faithful apologetic response in his books, which then it looks to me like was kind of picked up by the Gospel Topics essay and Saints. They kind of use that same apologetic that he developed, because there they hadn't had one before because they had just tried to bury it. So they hadn't tried to explain these things before this period.

John Dehlin [01:48:26] Beautiful.

The Archival Revolution and Modern Scholarship

Michelle Stone [01:48:28] So and then we move on to the archival revolution. And all of a sudden, like Cheryl was talking about, the access to documents in this last. Like. Like in these last decades has been phenomenal. We have the Joseph Smith papers, which completely changed the. The landscape of what people had access to. So. And then also some of the different things that have happened. We have. We just had a lot of new information coming out. Previous historians had not had access to Todd Compton. People don't realize his book was written almost 30 years ago, right before he had access to things like the Joseph Smith papers. And then also. Let's see. Did we do a slide here, Cheryl? I can't remember if we did.

Cheryl Bruno [01:49:08] Yes, I think.

Michelle Stone [01:49:09] Yes. Okay, we did. So we have Joseph Smith papers also. In 2020, with the shutdown, many documents began to be digitized at the church history library. And before that, you had to make an appointment. You had to go to the library to see the documents, and also you had to be given permission. Right. And now many of the documents, like all of the. All of the affidavits are just digitized and are available for anybody to look at online, which is massively helpful. And then we also, also the community of Christ, they have a phenomenal archivist who is so good at responding. I don't think their things are digitized, but she gives wonderful access to her documents.

Michelle Stone [01:49:47] We have the Wilford Woodruff papers. And then, of course, we had Hugo Perego's important work to show that the DNA evidence points to. They're not being a descendant from Joseph Smith with any wife other than Emma. And so this. When people like to say that.

Michelle Stone [01:50:01] That our work is sort of just a. A resurrection, a reincarnation of the RLDS work, that actually is not quite accurate because it's been the like. For me, I never really looked at the RLDS work. I looked at the Joseph Smith Papers and these other, these other archives that became readily available for research. And that really is what has birthed this new.

John Dehlin [01:50:25] Oh, so the book Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy was not foundational to your position, Michelle.

Michelle Stone [01:50:32] It.

Cheryl Bruno [01:50:32] It.

Michelle Stone [01:50:32] Now it, it wasn't to me. Of course, you know this. There, there are communities just like your Mormon stories community was so important. There have been different communities like Hemlock Knots and you know, we had, we had nods to these things in the, in this, the, the art that we had for this stage. There were many different communities that were bringing forward things. So I don't know exactly how much came from the prices. I know that I have used the prices and have relay red light on them, but for me, I, it was. My story was not that I read the Price's work and then changed my mind. I have used them as a reference after I have already been doing my work.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] Let me just say. Okay, that makes sense. Let me just say a couple things. Just. I know you. It's impossible to do a comprehensive timeline, but I just want to add a couple things. My understanding is the Joseph Smith Papers project starts before Mormon stories ever started, so around 2002. But, you know, it took them a while to start putting stuff online. So I don't want to make it sound like the Joseph Smith Papers project started like as a result of Mormon Stories. I think it started before. Did you have a response to that?

Michelle Stone [01:51:40] No, I think that's good. Thank you. I didn't mean to make it sound that way. I'm sorry if I did. I think, I think that it has. It has been an ongoing process. And so as they have brought more and more documents forward and digitized them, it's been incredibly useful.

John Dehlin [01:51:53] Yeah. Yeah. The other, other thing I want to say is it just feels like ex Mormon historians often get left off. So it is. Oh, I'm sorry, this is an accusatory. But there's nothing in this presentation about Sandra and Gerald Tanner that I saw and I, I think they were crucial. And then I also think Dan Vogel's work has been crucial and I think Gret Palmer's work has been crucial, but there's some stigma. And maybe Michelle or maybe Cheryl, because you're even more dialed into the, the sensibilities of the. The faith politics behind the traditional Mormon history community and Mormon scholar community. You could talk about this, but it does frustrate me that oftentimes Gerald Siddra 10 Tanner, Grant Palmer, Dan Vogel and others often just tend to get completely left off and ignored for Their contributions, which I think are also very important.

Cheryl Bruno [01:52:55] Yes. I want to really thank you for making that point because along with my visits to Grandpa's bookstore, I had Gerald and Sandra Tenors Red, large red book. What was that called? Mormonism, Shadow or Reality? That was very important for me. And they. What they did was they xeroxed these documents and just put them in a book. You know, the Xerox. That's how we did it back then, before we had digitization. We had to, you know, make a copy. And those copies of those documents were in that book for, you know, for historians to use, and many historians did use the. The. Those resources.

John Dehlin [01:53:38] What about Dan and. I mean, what about Dan and Grant, too? Right? Like.

Cheryl Bruno [01:53:41] Right, right, absolutely. And Dan. I mean, I think we think of Dan is. Because he's still doing great work, and so we don't realize how many years he's been working on this and how many years he's been influential.

John Dehlin [01:53:56] Yeah, I appreciate. I appreciate that acknowledgment. Did you want to say something about Michelle?

Michelle Stone [01:54:00] Yeah, I actually also really appreciate you bringing that up. I want. I wanted to say there was no disrespect or shade. Intention intended. We, Cheryl and I put this together really quickly. We knew. We left. We left things out. From my experience, the main things I have been pointed to when I have brought up polygamy are Todd Compton and Brian Hills. Those seem to be two of the central things centering on Joseph Smith's polygamy, where these other writers, like, we also didn't bring up Bushman and we didn't bring up many of the other writers because they're doing more of broad spectrum coverage. Like, even Quinn didn't necessarily do very much on.

Michelle Stone [01:54:33] On Joseph Smith's polygamy in his Mormon Hierarchies book. You know, it's more limited. And so I think a lot of these other books don't center on polygamy the same way the sources that we've looked at did. But. But you're right that. Absolutely. Gerald and Sandra Tanner did a lot on polygamy, and I guess.

John Dehlin [01:54:50] I guess Michael Quinn did help chronicle post manifesto polygamy. Yes, that was. That was a contribution of Michael Quinn say that, too.

Cheryl Bruno [01:54:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:59] All right. Well, I don't. I don't want to belabor that point, but I appreciate y' all acknowledging it. I did do an episode with Grant Palmer where he talked about allegations against Joseph Smith for sexual impropriety. And I think that, you know, some of those things are at least worth thinking about. Or contemplating as well. All right, so let's go ahead and let you guys finish up and wrap up.

Michelle Stone [01:55:23] Yes.

Cheryl Bruno [01:55:24] Well, all of this has led to the question, why are we here? Why is the journal Mormon Polygamy here? And I think that as these things became more available and especially to a wide community of people, the grassroots community, and everybody, you know, felt that they could grab a document and expound on it, you know, and some people were doing really good work, some people were doing not so good work. Some people were mistaken. And, you know, we had some. Some issues going on here and there. And so Michelle and I have decided that what we really need is we need a scholarly venue where scholars can come together from all sides, from all perspectives, and talk to each other and respect each other and look at documents together and try to see what was happening.

Cheryl Bruno [01:56:14] Because they're very difficult when you have a bias, which I know that I do. And everyone will probably admit that they have a bias bias. When they're looking at a document, they immediately are going to see it through their bias. And so it really helps for us to have a scholarly place where we can come together and discuss these things, put out scholarly papers that are peer reviewed, have a conference once a year. And that is why we started the journal Mormon Polygamy.

Michelle Stone [01:56:40] Can. Can we back up just really quickly and finish this? We have just two more slides, but go ahead. John, you were going to say something, and then. And then we'll just sum this up before we get to what.

John Dehlin [01:56:50] Yeah, really quickly. Like the, The. The question I've been asking Michelle a lot is, is why. Why don't we just do this in the journal Mormon History? Why don't we just do this in the John Whitmer Journal of whatever, the John Whitmer Association? Why don't we. Why don't we arbitrate or discuss or dispute the credibility of historical documents of whether or not Joseph did practice polygamy? Why does it need its own journal? Why can't it be one of the main tasks of modern Mormon historians in already established journals?

Michelle Stone [01:57:29] I think that's such a great question. Can I just sum up the rest of the presentation really quickly and then we'll get to that. We kind of jumped ahead a little bit because we're quick.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] We'll have to be super quick.

Michelle Stone [01:57:37] Okay. Okay. So we'll just sum up really fast. So, yeah, so we have this. The rise of this new movement, Right? And then this is what's interesting. We can go through to the next slide quickly. We'll just Sum up really quickly this strange place that we're in now, the

John Dehlin [01:57:49] rise of polygamy skepticism. That's basically stuff that's associated with you, right Michelle?

Michelle Stone [01:57:54] Yes, yes. We have Whitney Horning wrote books. Rob Fotheringham did videos and hemlock knots came around. Yep. Karen Hyatt. Hyatt recently did hers. We have Jeremy Hoop, we have many others that started to say look at these documents.

John Dehlin [01:58:09] We haven't looked at 132 reasons.

Michelle Stone [01:58:11] Yeah, 130 problems. But it all started to show that there are holes in our narrative like like you said, John, that you've kind of recently realized is that the the polygamy. SCOTT the scholarship on this topic still leaves much to be desired. So this new movement came about asking these questions and then if we could just show this last slide quickly because I think it's an interesting way to sum up where we find a ourselves now where really what this is trying to show is that well, if we can go back to this one really quickly, what the church is in in a position where that first circle on the left is kind of the historians and sort of your community, John, people that were doing that work and trying to get that work out.

Michelle Stone [01:58:48] The church does not really want us to be there. That middle circle is sort of my community that is trying to relook at relook at this. And the church does not want us to be in that position. And then the other side is the fact that fundamentalist community who are trying to live these things and the church does not want us there. So it's really interesting to see kind of the limited perspective we're allowed to have on polygamy in the church day. It's been an ongoing problem and that is the reason I mean that kind of brings us to why we are here is like Cheryl was saying, we are trying to get rid of I mean we are trying to elevate the discourse over this polemic engagement and bring it and to for me to answer quickly your question of why not just publish in the existence existing journals.

Michelle Stone [01:59:28] For one thing that Cheryl talks a lot about it as well is that there is people do not realize how much work there is to do on this and there isn't room in the existing journals to handle all of the all of the topics that need to be investigated. For example, we've started our journal and at our conference we will have in in print the first two issues and we'll have the third, the third issue available for sale that will be shipped to people we're calling it our triple combination. You get the first three issues, but we've already, in the short time that we've existed, have three issues coming out and we have material for many more issues going forward.

Michelle Stone [02:00:00] So really there are just too many articles that are being written on this topic. Also, one thing I will add is that the line between peer review and gatekeeping is a fine line. And when we see things happening that appear to be an attempt to silence and to gatekeep, not, not necessarily for scholarly reasons, but for other reasons that become the concern. So we have an exceptional peer review process that we are engaging. We have an incredible journal editor. She is extremely competent and we are very happy to be offering very high quality peer reviewed scholarship without the danger of gatekeeping.

John Dehlin [02:00:40] Yeah. And I've experienced some of that gatekeeping myself in various ways with, you know, with the Mormon studies crowd. And I think it's understandable on some level because number one, the church has so much money and power, two, they oftentimes control people's access to the archives. A lot of those scholars sitting in down chairs where, you know, even just this week there's a book I wanted to cover where one of the authors of the book wouldn't come on Mormon Stories stories because he's got donors who fund his academic chair and he said he might lose donations if he simply comes on Mormon Stories and talks about a book he published.

John Dehlin [02:01:24] So there's a lot of fear about being open and honest. There's a lot of fear of retribution by the Mormon Church and then there's a lot of faith politics where depending on who has the money, who has the power, they want to inch out or ignore or discredit somebody that doesn't share their faith or social worldview. So that's an unfortunate aspect to the Mormon studies crowd. And I don't know if Cheryl, you don't like that type of characterization or if you agree with it.

Cheryl Bruno [02:01:55] No, but I mean, I've experienced it myself. Last year I submitted to one of these conferences, scholarly conferences, and I was told fled out. Submit next year on something other than polygamy and we'll consider it.

John Dehlin [02:02:08] Yeah, so.

Michelle Stone [02:02:09] And I think they said as long as you weren't working with me anymore as well, that if you were even

Cheryl Bruno [02:02:13] working, that I submitted a paper to be presented with Michelle's paper and I

Michelle Stone [02:02:20] was accepted to present at one of these conferences. And then the, you know, the, the behind the scenes politicking happened and I was disinfecting, invited.

John Dehlin [02:02:30] And I've also seen how the Typical paid Mormon apologists associated with BYU have risen up to try and smear and discredit and frankly undermine this conference and your efforts. And I think that's deplorable and detestable. There were really, really credible big names associated with you guys that people worked behind the scenes intentionally to undermine and convince to not appear here for what I think are nefarious and unproductive reasons. And it's disgusting when that type of stuff happens. So I'm so thrilled and honored that y' all would come on Mormon Stories. I think what you're doing is important. I have deep respect for you, Cheryl, and for you, Michelle.

John Dehlin [02:03:13] I think what you're doing is good. I think we're all going to benefit from learning about these documents better. I have become a better talker, discusser about these issues from y' all challenging me. And I'm going to try and get John Turner to show up at one of your future conferences because what you're doing is so cool. Really quickly, we don't have time to re talk about the conference in depth, but promote it one last time and then I got to run.

Conference Preview, Closing Thoughts, and Listener Questions

Michelle Stone [02:03:41] Yep. We just wanted to show our three issues that are coming out that'll be available at the conference. It's on Friday and Saturday. And I guess the last question we wanted to end with is, is this is an. Oh, do you want to say anything?

John Dehlin [02:03:53] How do people register?

Michelle Stone [02:03:55] Journalofmorompolygamy.org that says register now.

Cheryl Bruno [02:04:00] Push that button. Register now.

John Dehlin [02:04:01] Okay. I hope everybody attends. And Julia or Brooklyn, please paste a link to the conference in the journal here in the comments and also in the show notes. Final, final thoughts.

Michelle Stone [02:04:12] Yep. We also will have registration available at the door. And even though this is put on with uvu, we outgrew that venue. So we have, we are at Lake Ridge Junior High just east of UVU in Orem is where you can come to the conference.

John Dehlin [02:04:23] Wow, you're so successful. You outgrew UVU as a venue. That's amazing.

Michelle Stone [02:04:27] And then we just wanted to sum up by asking the question, this is an open ended question of where are we going? And Cheryl. And my hope is that people will get involved and join in these, these fascinating discussions and open, I think all of us being open minded, open to exploration, open to where the evidence and the research leads is very good for us and, and that we hoped, just like you, John, to see less of the effort to silence and stifle these scholarly endeavors.

John Dehlin [02:04:56] Speaking of that, Michelle, and you may not want to comment, so please Say no comment. I think there's a lot of people that feel like you took down 132 reasons or problems. You took down 132 problems because of threats from your church leaders. There are a lot of people concerned that you're continuing to evolve in this might lead. Lead to your excommunication. Speaking of being silenced, do you want to talk about any of that, or do you want to not talk about any of that?

Michelle Stone [02:05:23] I think. Well, right now I just want to focus on the work that we're doing, and we can come back for another conversation when we have more time, if that's all right. But I. I am. I am thankful that I. It is challenging, right? It is challenging because we have all these fine lines that aren't defined that we're trying to figure out, but scholarly endeavors, pursuing my PhD and writing academic papers and providing a venue for academic papers, that is. But like, that's one good thing to clarify is that the Journal of Mormon Polygamy is not a polygamy denier journal. It's not a 132 problems journal.

Michelle Stone [02:05:56] It's not a Michelle Stone journal. This is something that we, Cheryl and I are collaborating on again, you know, across party lines, trying to bring every perspective to. And so I think there is a difference between, you know, having a podcast where I am promoting one perspective and engaging in scholarly first, and I. Yeah, anyway, that's basically what I would like

John Dehlin [02:06:20] to say, that engaging in purely scholarly endeavors protects one from excommunication. Unfortunately, that's not what our history shows us. I also want to just say, Dan Vogel, if you're listening, I would pay for you to come out and also participate in a future conference on the Journal of Mormon Polygamy, because wouldn't it be great if Dan Vogel could enter this conversation in a healthy, productive way?

Cheryl Bruno [02:06:41] We would ask Dan and others to contribute to the Journal and also to be on our.

John Dehlin [02:06:48] In our finance. I'll personally pay for John Turner and Dan Vogel to come speak at the journal Mormon History.

Cheryl Bruno [02:06:56] I love it. Next year. Next year in Jerusalem.

John Dehlin [02:07:00] Okay, well, amazing. I'm sorry, I got to run, but Cheryl Bruno, Michelle Stone, thanks for what you're doing. I hope your conference and your journal are super successful.

Cheryl Bruno [02:07:08] Thank you.

Michelle Stone [02:07:09] Thank you so much, John. We really appreciate it.

John Dehlin [02:07:12] Come back. Okay.

Michelle Stone [02:07:13] All right. We'll do.

John Dehlin [02:07:14] All right. Thanks. Good to see you, Cheryl. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Mormon Stories. Please support the conference. Thanks to everyone who supports what we do. We're coming right back. We've got a fantastic episode just at about 15:13 minutes. Chase McWhorter from Secret Lies of Mormon Wives is going to be on Mormon Stories. We're super excited about that. Mostly we're grateful to Brooklyn and Julia for all they do behind the scenes. Thanks to our donors that make all this possible. Thanks to our viewers and listeners. Please subscribe. We recently passed the 300,000 subscriber mark on YouTube. We're stoked about that, but we always appreciate.

John Dehlin [02:07:51] Let's make it 350. Please like please subscribe. Please donate@mormonstories.org donate if you value this type of content. Check out all the good things out there. We've got more good stuff coming in the weeks, years and months ahead. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you all again. Check out my Joseph Smith series with John Turner. We're like 40 episodes in to an in depth dive on Joseph Smith. We talked a lot about polygamy. We talk almost exclusively about polygamy. Now we're in the Nauvoo so section, so check that else as well. Our LDS discussion series covers polygamy quite in depth.

John Dehlin [02:08:24] It's good stuff, so check that out too. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care everybody.

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