Once again I am compelled to warn those faithful members of the church that although this post is badly written (Luke has a bad ear infection as has been waking on the hour, every hour for the last 3 nights so I'm not totally in the game) it does contain some upsetting facts. Things that ate at me until I had to learn about them for myself. Things that ultimately led to my "apostasy".
I kept hearing the term “Mormon Apologists” and decided to figure out who these people were and why people on the outside of the church didn’t seem to respect them. It turns out that there are people whose job it is to apologize for the church. They make excuses for the inconsistencies or problems people find with the church and spend their life doing so. Hugh Nibley is the most renowned of these apologists. Sounds like a good place to start.
First I went back to The Wives of Joseph Smith as it was a well-documented site and although the subject material wasn’t “comfortable” I felt it allowed the story to be told in a fair light. Each wife had her own story, some of which were upsetting but it also included many of the women’s eventual testimonies of the law of polygamy. I decided to take my time and read each of the stories as I would encourage everyone to. Some of the stories were heartbreaking, such as Helen Mar Kimball, Fanny Alger, Lucy Walker, the list continues but one that confused and upset me was that of Zina Huntington Jacobs so I decided to look a little further.
Staying true to my goal I found an article about Zina from FAIRLDS (a well-known apologetics site) and read it. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this. First Zina was approached by Joseph 3 times to marry him while being courted by another man, she prayed, told Joseph no, and eventually married the other man (a good upstanding LDS guy whom she loved and that loved and adored her). After she married Henry, Joseph took it a step further and told her “I have put it off and put it off until an angel with a drawn sword has stood before me and told me if I did not establish that principle [plurality of wives] and live it, I would lose my position and my life and the Church could progress no further." This bothered me as at that time Joseph already had at least 4 other wives so he was already living his Celestial Law. Why would he be required to marry an already married woman? Only eight months after marrying her first husband (and pregnant with his child) she was sealed to Joseph, without Emma or Henry knowing, and told to keep it a secret. I was floored! I was always told that polygamy was necessary because of all the widowed women while crossing the plains. That they needed to be taken care of so the most faithful of the men were asked to take extra wives to help ease their burdens. Most importantly the first wife always had to give consent. This didn’t add up! This didn’t make sense. Then there was more!!! After Joseph’s death Brigham took many of Joseph’s wives for his own… including Zina, who was now very pregnant with her second child (also Henry’s). Henry was there at the temple and watched his wife be sealed to Joseph (with Young as proxy) then married to Brigham. After the marriage Zina was then left to return to Henry. They weren’t allowed to stay together long as Henry was sent on a mission, while extremely ill, and soon after Brigham took Zina and their children as his “property”. Although Henry would never be seen as Zina’s husband after his departure his love still shows in the letters he wrote her. Wow, that poor woman. I can’t imagine how awful that would have been. Then I realized that all of this was found in an article trying to “explain away” the horrific life this woman was forced to live. What else was out there?
At this point I was trying to form my opinion of Joseph. I still believed the Book of Mormon to be true which meant that Joseph had to be called of God, so what happened? After translating the BOM and starting the church did he start to waver? Was he just a man who allowed too much power to go to his head? Were girls really marrying at ages 14-16 or was that another “explanation”? Why did Emma stay with Joseph? Was she a conspirator or did she really believe all that he taught? What kind of man could do this to so many innocent women? Then a quote came to mind "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty." (Sixty-first Semiannual General Conference of the Church, Monday, October 6, 1890, John Taylor) So if Joseph wasn't removed either he was a fraud, or marrying young girls and married women was sanctioned by God.
So I decided to look into the Book of Mormon.
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