The early church and polygamy

This is a post that is actually from a good exmo friend of mine named Jean. It is her thoughts on the early church and polygamy

Art

Some new thoughts on the early church and polygamy - No I'm not for it;-)Share
Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 11:03am
In the beginning was Sidney (Rigdon) and Sidney had the word and Sidney preached the word. And Satan came into his heart and he was jealous of Alexander Campbell who was the Baptist Minister who was his mentor. He wanted to be successful like him and have his very own church.

Now from early in Sidney's life he had been subject to seizures since being dragged by a horse according to his brother John - a physician. Sidney felt that when he had these seizures he was having a religious experience; rather like those that are entheogen induced or even NDE's. He was known to channel dead prophets. He wanted his own church so badly he could taste it. He knew that he would need more than a few changes to some doctrines to beat out the prominent ministers and great minds of the day; he needed a front man; someone with charisma - a known seer. Unfortunately for poor Sidney the man he chose for the job was a megalomaniac with a huge sexual appetite.

After Sidney and partner in crime Oliver (Cowdery) started to write the new bible (using as a base Solomon Spalding's story, Manuscript Found rather than Gold Plates Found) he realized that it would be necessary to convince people that he was actually an apostle like Paul, called by God himself, while Joseph Smith; the front man began his spellbinding performance as a seer. He used his magic stone to tell people where to dig for buried treasure and they believed him and even paid him. When he was taken to court on trial for being a glass looker or conjuror in Bainbridge, NY in 1826, he and others testified of these facts. This was at a time when he supposedly had already seen God and Jesus and the Gold Plates shown him by the angel Moroni, formerly known as Nephi. Joe's job was to pretend to translate the gold plates while Rigdon and Cowdery were working their own magic writing the manuscript for what was to become The Book of Mormon.

They needed a gullible man with money; enter Martin Harris - a great believer in the power of magic; very erratic and joining at least 8 different religions in his life time. Martin was convinced by Joe to mortgage his farm to pay for the printing of the 'translation of the gold plates'. Joe did his job quite well except he couldn't quite keep his story straight; that is quite difficult when you are lying and telling the story you have been told to tell. Keeping their stories all the same became another problem for them later on. Oh what a tangled web they wove.

And it came to pass (lol) that eventually, the 'translation' went off to the printers and the book was printed. When Joe discovered that they couldn't sell any copies of the book and he needed to pay Martin back his mortgage money as promised by himself, the seer, he tried to sell the copyright to the book in Canada after receiving a revelation from God instructing them to do so. God was obviously confused about how gullible Canadians were because the attempt failed.

Back to Sidney whom you will remember, only wanted his own church; not much to ask is it? Sidney and Oliver helped Joseph with the revelations that he spewed out with regularity, but the voices found by computer experts show that they belonged to Sidney and Oliver - not Joe. They did all the ordaining and such BEFORE the church was organized. Now Joe, the megalomaniac, had position and adoration from the growing group of members of The Church of Christ and Sidney started to pout. The ruse was for Parley (Pratt) to pretend to take the Book of Mormon to the preacher Sidney who had managed to pull away after him over 100 or so members of Alexander Campbell's flock of believers. All of the members of this group followed Sidney into the waters of baptism.
When Joe's great position as a prophet of God started to elevate him instead of Sidney, the power struggle began and continued even after Joe's death. Joe's elevated status created for him a pop star type of reputation and his sexual appetite could not be satisfied with only one woman. So many women and so little time!

Enter Fanny Alger, 16 year old housemaid for Emma, Joe's wife. This is Joe's first known affair and it was very quickly hushed up. Oliver and Sidney had not done all that work of deception only to have Joe ruin it by his sexual encounters, just a year or two after launching the new church. Oliver later called it a dirty, nasty little affair

When Joe pulled the same stunt in 1838 with Lucinda Pendleton (Morgan Harris Smith), Oliver's name was blackened and he was excommunicated from the church; a practice that would continue with anyone who refused to do Joe's bidding. As Joe's ego grew, the power struggle between him and Sidney grew to greater heights. Sidney had done all the work, came up with the revelations and Joe kept screwing around causing members to leave or be excommunicated.

As people began to discover Joe's indiscretions he began to take into his confidence an inner circle of men with whom he shared the 'doctrine' of polygamy. Though at first, as the story goes, they were appalled, they soon began to take new wives and their first wives just had to put up with it. Joe meanwhile went on a rampage of (affairs) 'marriages' coercing young teenaged women and the wives of other men with revelations regarding an angel with a drawn sword threatening to take his life if they did not comply.

It is easy to see what was happening here. Not every man could be asked to live polygamy for three reasons.

1. There were not enough women for that to happen
2. Joe knew that many would leave the church if it became known
3. The elite; those in his inner circle needed to feel special in order for him to maintain their allegiance.

So certain 'righteous' men were 'called' to practice polygamy as a higher law in a little secret group, making them feel superior to the others and giving them all the sex they wanted.

Number 1. problem was solved by Joe in marrying other men's wives. He still got to have free reign with his sexual appetite and his growing narcissism without taking women 'off the market'.

Number 2. Keeping it secret kept members in the church and
Number 3. those who DID know were doing it too so they had to be quiet about it.

Sidney was not into polygamy and when Joe decided to add Sidney's daughter Nancy to his harem and was rebuffed, that was pretty much the end of Sidney's days in the Church.

Joe then decided that 34 wives or so was not enough and asked Jane Law to become his polyandrous wife. Jane was very angry and told her husband who happened to be Joe's counselor; true and faithful and not among those who believed that Joe was practicing polygamy, until his very own wife was propositioned. They were excommunicated over this whole nasty little affair - to use Oliver's words and along with some other disgruntled members he bought a printing press and you know the rest of the story; it led to Joseph and brother Hyrum's deaths, leaving many young women widowed, spoiled and taken on then by Brigham and Heber; becoming part of their harems. So sad for these young women who had been duped into thinking that it was required of them by god.

After the Saints had endured their dangerous trek across the plains their sense of solidarity deepened in their trials. In 1857 Brigham Young the person who had wrested leadership from poor Sidney after the death of Joe, announced the revelation on polygamy to all members. Even going so far as saying that men needed to have more than one wife to inherit the highest degree of glory. This is when polygamy got out of hand and the numbers of men practicing polygamy grew until the government of the United States threatened to take the church's assets and to deny Utah statehood. It was not until long after Brigham's death that the practice actually was called to a real halt by the prophet of the day. It continued until 1906 and some members and general authorities still refused to give it up. Today they are known as Fundamentalist Mormons; a name the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints says they have no right to use; they are not Mormons. What is it about the Fundies behavior that makes them any different from the early Mormons? Why don't they have the right to use the name?

What happened to poor old Sidney? Well, he kept trying to have his own church until the day he died.
RIP Sidney, Solomon Spalding, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Joe and Hyrum and all those who were used and abused by a man who would be king and another who would lead a church. I'm open for debate or questions about my source material. Some of this is my opinion based on a lot of reading.