"We have an entire generation of people in the church which I like to call the institutionalized Mormons. … It really wasn't until the [1980s] that we had a standardized hymnbook, it really wasn't until the late 70s and early 80s that we really started pushing these lesson manuals; priesthood manuals, Bishop's manuals, and everything got put into a manual. And as much as some of that was good because there is a standardization in the church and as much as it was very good because it put everybody on the same page, literally and figuratively, something that did not make it onto that page was lost and forgotten. So there is an entire generation of people who have been bred on a very, I don't want to say sterile brand of Mormonism, but I just want to say on a different brand than I think was the original brand that both of the Lord Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith anticipated when they formed this Church."
~ Cardon Ellis talking to Marvin Perkins
Blacks in the Scriptures Podcast (January, 29, 2017)
"Christian historians have done the same thing that Mormon historians have done. Listening to the typical Christian you would think that there was always just one doctrine of the trinity, there was always just one doctrine of the Eucharist. What happens is that from the perspective of modernity we look back and we select that one kind of linear line that goes from antiquity to present and ignore all the dead ends and cul-de-sacs along the way. And we've done the same thing in Mormonism. The development and unfolding of the restoration was at times a very complicated and muddy and messy process. But in our manuals of course it's always been absolutely linear, and that's just not an accurate reflection of how we got where we are.
~ Terryl Givens on the Mormon Discussion Podcast (Aug. 9, 2021)
"What I thought I knew [about the law of consecration] is a narrative. Some scholars call it 'folk doctrine.' the Lord did not reveal it; Latter-day Saints invented it. But why would Saints make up such a story? ... it excuses us. ... Many people who have covenanted to keep the revealed law of consecration, however, are not aware of what these revelations [in the D&C] says. Some people similarly do not know that what they have been told about the law is tradition or misinformation--not revelation.
~ Steven C. Harper, Let's Talk about the Law of Consecration, page 8, 12
Before the Mormon Church settled into an absolutely linear presentation in its manuals, the original doctrines of Mormonism was a sexually liberating theo-philosophy based on what I like to call Abrahamic Expansionism. As Peter Coviello argues persuasively in his book Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism), original Mormonism was slowly sterilized by the institutionalizing Brighamite LDS Correlation Program in the 1900s, shortly after the American government and Protestant culture put pressure on Church leaders to conform to Victorian norms. Ever since the 1900s, folk doctrine, man-made tradition, and misinformation has unfortunately been the rule in the Brighamite sect when it comes to sexuality and the body.
Before this shift in the 1900s, in the 1800s you can read the discourses of Brigham Young like I did on my LDS mission, and he speaks freely of the Gods plural and speaks positively of the sensual body's fecundity. But the Utah-based Church in the 1900s, in seeking to look and appear more Protestant started to speak of God singularly and sound more Protestant and Puritan to fit in; in trying to overcome their being judged for their polygamist past, they basically tried to be as puritanical as possible in order to fit into Protestant culture. Joseph Smith was then depicted as monogamous in line with Protestant expectations. The original meaning of Doctrine and Covenants section 132 was ignored and reinterpreted to fit current American Protestant puritanical norms (as Coviello rightly argues).
Peter Coviello convincingly argues that the original intention of Joseph Smith's revelations during the Nauvoo period was clearly aimed at restoring the sensual-human-body to a status of glory: with sensual pleasure as a means to feel joy while in the body rather than repressing human desire and feeling a hatred of the body as depraved as taught by Augustine. In my view,Joseph was engaging in a philosophical vision of restoring the goodness of embodied life to religion, by systemically revealing a more Hebrew theology which corrected the former despising of the sensual-body within Protestantism that largely came from Augustine.
The following brief bullet point summary demonstrates this systematic development in Joseph's thought:
> A fallen and depraved body made for suffering with the goal of discarding it in martyrdom was corrected in the Book of Mormon (publishing 1830) with the philosophy of: there needs be an opposition in all things (2 Ne. 2:11) and man is that he might have joy (2 Nephi 2:25). While the heroes in the book act with valor on the battlefield for the sake of democratic freedom, rather than escaping into a monkish extreme pacifism. Thus we see early kernels of the later theological developments after 1830.
> Augustinian Original Sin was rejected and corrected by Smith in 1842 with the Article of Faith #2, "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”
> The Protestant doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) was corrected with the more Hebrew concept of the Gods organizing pre-existing matter.
> The ancient Platonic idea that matter was corrupt and separate from the pure spirit realm (of Forms) in the heavens was replaced with a radical spiritual naturalism with Joseph Smith declaring that "All spirit is matter ..." (D&C 131: 7-8). This divinized earthly/materiality as not corrupt and fallen but holy and good.
> In contrast to the Puritan God as a vaporous platonic "no-thing" without a sensual body in a non-sensual heaven, Joseph Smith declared that God has a sensual body and "that same sociality which exists among us here [on earth] will exist among us there [in heaven], only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy" (D&C 130: 2: words in brackets my own).
> God the Father is not a "personage of spirit." This was the former Protestant-sounding LDS Doctrine contained in the early LDS Lecture on Faith #5 in 1835. Joseph Smith would soon override the Trinitarian and monotheistic theology of the Lectures on Faith as he evolved in his understanding of the divine; and by the 1840s he believed God the Father has "a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s ... " (D&C 130: 22). In other words, God the Father is not a non-flesh "personage of spirit" (as he thought was the case in 1835 being heavily influenced by Protestantism); but instead, by 1840, he believed that God the Father has a sensual flesh body capable of sexual joy. This was a radical shift from the Protestant view that God the Father is a vaporous platonic no-thing and not composed of matter or flesh. On the 6th of May, 1843 Joseph Smith wrote in his journal, "... interview with a Methodist minister about his God of no body or parts, ..." (Joseph Smith Papers: Journals Vol. 3). Joseph revealed that God is a body of flesh with passionate parts, thus further declaring the material world of matter and flesh as good.
> The Protestant view that flesh was merely carnal and corrupt was no longer accurate in Smith's Nauvoo theo-philosophy. Mankind's spirit was not made out of nothing and put into fallen and depraved flesh bodies and cursed to be tortured in a literal hell (for merely having a flesh body), but instead the human soul was eternal: "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be" (D&C 93:29). Smith declared that people's spirit has "no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal" (Abraham 3: 18). On top of that empowering view of the human spirit, we as eternal spirits gained the divine opportunity to experience a body of flesh on earth (the same or similar body of flesh which clothes the Gods, so that we too can progress to Godhood and go from goodly mortal flesh to immortal glorified flesh.
> In Joseph's afterlife we are not destined to be tortured in a hell for theological thoughtcrimes and for merely having a flesh body; instead the Protestant version of hell is rejected and in Smith's revelations, the Gods reward those who live in the flesh and enjoy life and increase their seed through plural marriage (while those two reject life in the sensual flesh and plural marriage are not able to have an increase and don't become glorified Gods) according to D&C 76 and 132. In my view this was in part meant as motivation for the Saints (at that time) to embrace life in the sensual-body and overcome the ill effects of body-despising Protestant puritanism. In other words, I see plural marriage as the method Smith (and God?) used to liberate the Saints from sexual repression and Protestant Puritanism. Meaning that I see no reason why a believing Latter Day Saint can't see plural marriage as a method, useful at that time for overcoming the apostasy of Protestant puritanism (but need not be the only way for the Saints to become like the Gods in this day and age. I will say more at the end of this post).
> The Protestant/sectarian Trinitarian Godhead was a vaporous immaterial no-thing, without body parts or passions, as a single deity yet three persons. This was corrected by Joseph as he reintroduced the Hebrew concept of a plurality of Gods with flesh bodies and having parts and passions.
> Because of Paul's belief in the imminent end of the mortal world, this led him to encourage the unmarried and widows of his day to remain celibate; then Augustine's later hang-ups about sex contributed to a sex-negative attitude in Christian culture lasting till this day. Influenced by Gentile philosophy, the general cultural frame of mind of Gentile-Christians in the early centuries was a hyper-focus on discarding the flesh body as soon as possible through martydom, or repressing the sensual body through asceticism and monkish orders. This anti-tangible philosophy among some (not all) of the Gentile-Christians was influenced by Platonist philosophy which was at odds with the ancient Jews (and the religion of Jesus himself) that saw the body and sensuality as good.
This body-negating attitude was replaced by Joseph Smith who himself had an athletic nature and a more down to earth and joyful personality compared to the often more somber and serious of his contemporaries. Some people who joined the early Mormon Church and saw Joseph not acting pious (as a minister or prophet was expected to act within the Protestant tradition) but instead being jovial and athletic, often left the church because of this. Joseph enjoyed tangible social activities like wrestling, sports games, and playing around with his kids, as well as joking around and jesting with others; and the joys of life in the body in general. Instead of encouraging celibacy and asceticism, Joseph emphasized full bodied living.
In seeking to encourage Nancy Rigdon to become one of his plural wives he wrote in a letter to her that basically it is the joy and happiness of an intimate sexual relationship that is the object and design of our existence. In dealing with her Protestant Puritan mindset and resistance, he argues that "God is more liberal in his views." In Smith’s pro-body vision, the joys of the flesh are not to be negated and repressed but in fact the Gods themselves are celestially clothed in sensual flesh, and are divine not due to their practicing Puritan piety in the heavens but through their sexual union as male and female bodies united in the joys of physical intimacy forever. So when Joseph said “You have got to learn how to be a God yourselves" in the King Follett discourse, he is referring to the sexual nature of the Gods themselves. Again, he tells Nancy Rigdon that "God is more liberal in his views." This is because the Gods are not as the Protestant Puritans describe "God" (as a vaporous non-sexual no-thing without sexual parts or passions) but instead the Gods are divinized bodies of tangible touch felt flesh: that became divine through the sexual union of male and female sexual bodies. So the embodied Gods are indeed "more liberal" than the Puritan Protestants because the Gods do not embrace the Protestant Creeds, which creeds are an abomination to the Gods because the Protestant creeds reject the laws and ordinances (like plural marriage) and emphasize asceticism and despising the body.
> The Protestant view of heaven was basically a sexless and bodiless "environment"; with the belief that God is three male persons crammed into a single substance among all male angels. In essence, you had the concept of a single dad and bachelor son in the sky surrounded only by men. Smith introduced the concept of embodied male and female divine Gods; and thus "God" is our Heavenly Parents (see D&C 132: 19, 63) who are united in the joys of embodied sexual love.
> Returning to Paul's celibate ideal due to his belief in the imminent end of the mortal world, I'm of the opinion that this Pauline mindset made its way into the Gospels and is why Jesus is depicted as encouraging celibacy by saying those who can accept the calling of becoming a eunuch (celibate) should do so. The Catholic church has used these verses to require their priests to be celibate. I personally do not believe that the historical Jesus ever said this and it sounds too much like it was influenced by the Pauline mindset. Remember that Paul (as an apocalyptic thinker) was presenting Gentiles as "living sacrifices" (willing matryrs) before the soon end of the mortal world; thus, his male and female followers did not need to fully practice Judaism or worry about marriage and children or retirement, as they were mystically dead and buried to the flesh and were to live as female and male virgin brides of Jesus (i.e. Jesus was their fiancée/husband). I argue on my site The Phases & Strategies of God that this was a temporary strategy by Paul during the specific phase ofthe first century when the Jews were under Roman rule. I agree with the general consensus of critical Bible scholarship that this is not likely what the historical Jesus (as a Jew for Judaism) ever said during his lifetime; as it's clear he never abandoned Judaism. For example, according to Catherine M. Murphy, PhD, Jesus’ talk of celibacy in Mathew “doesn’t seem to go back to Jesus. Paul says celibacy is his preference, not the Lord’s command (1 Cor. 7: 6, 25)” (Source: The Historical Jesus for Dummies). The Jesus Seminar, which was comprised of over 70 biblical scholars, produced the book The Five Gospels, which contains a color coded Scholars Version of the gospels. With each color designating how likely it is that Jesus said the words attributed to him. The words in pink mean Jesus probably said something like the passage and black indicated the voting scholar believed Jesus did not say what was in the verse—and instead it comes from later admirers or a different tradition. If the words were red that would have meant it is highly probable that Jesus actually said it. In the passage below where Jesus suggests celibacy in Mathew 19: 10-12, the scholars of the Jesus Seminar color coded it thus:
The disciples say to him, “If this is how it is in the case of a man and his wife, it is better not to marry.” Then he said to them, “Not everyone will be able to accept this advice, only those for whom it was intended. After all, there are castrated men who were born that way, and there are castrated men who were castrated by others, and there are castrated men who castrated themselves because of Heaven’s imperial rule. If you are able to accept this {advice}, do so.”
As we can see The Jesus Seminar does not believe Jesus suggested celibacy for his followers, for there is no red colored words, only pink and black. They comment on the above verse stating:
The editorial frame provided by Mathew in 19:11 and the final sentence of v. 12 are intended to soften what appears to be a harsh recommendation. … Some Fellows argued that the aphorism could readily be detached from its context in Mathew, in which case it may once have circulated independently. Furthermore, the saying may be understood as an attack on a male-dominated, patriarchal society in which male virility and parenthood were the exclusive norms. The true Israel consisted of priests, Levites, and full-blooded male Judeans, all of whom were capable of fathering children. Eunuchs made so by others and males born without testicles were not complete and so could be counted among true Israelites and were therefore excluded from temple service. Regulations governing priests, Levies, and the assembly are given in Lev 21: 16-21; 22: 17; Deut 23:1. If this saying goes back to Jesus, it is possible that he is undermining the depreciation of yet another marginal group, this time the eunuchs, who were subjected to segregation and devaluation, as were the poor, toll collectors, prostitutes, women generally, and children. …The role this text played in encouraging asceticism in the early church, particularly in the form of celibacy, has caused many to conclude that Jesus was the author of the celibate tradition. The Fellows of the Seminar were overwhelmingly of the opinion that Jesus did not advocate celibacy. A majority of the Fellows doubted, in fact, that Jesus himself was celibate. They regard it as probable that he had a special relationship with at least one woman, Mary of Magdala. In any case, the sayings on castration should not be taken as Jesus’ authorization for an ascetic lifestyle; his behavior suggests that he celebrated life by eating, drinking, and fraternizing freely with both women and men.
Source: The Five Gospels by The Jesus Seminar pages 220-221.
In her book Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner's Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven, renowned biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine writes on page 31 regarding Mathew 5:27-28:
Jesus is citing Exodus 20:14 and Deuteronomy 5:18. Leviticus 20.10 ... Adultery in this context--Israel was a polygamist society--means sexual relations between a married or a betrothed woman and a man other than her husband or betrothed. Today, adultery is infidelity by either spouse. At the time of Jesus, a Jewish man could have sexual relations with a divorcee, a prostitute, or an otherwise unmarried and unengaged woman: it might not look nice, but it was not forbidden. …On page 33, regarding Matthew 5: 28, she brings up Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5.21, and explains that "Lust is...a form of greed: the desire to possess what belongs to someone else." In other words, Jesus did not actually have a negative view of human sexual desire. He was simply condemning the desire to steal another man's wife (which was his property per the 10 Commandments). As Amy Jill-Levine points out, Jesus lived in a polygamist society when Jewish men could have sexual relations with a divorced woman, a prostitute, or an unmarried and unengaged woman, and it was not considered illicit/illegal sex. This is important to keep in mind when judging Joseph Smith's doctrine of Plural Marriage.
Many scholars think that Paul was culturally influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the Roman mystery religions that often advocated celibacy. This, combined with Paul's belief in the imminent end of the mortal world, likely contributed to his emphasis on celibacy and the bodies of Gentiles (including the men) being treated as virginal bride-bodies. Again, for more details on my point of view of seeing this as a strategy to conquer Rome see my site The Phases & Strategies of God.
For it is my view that this Pauline emphasis on celibacy and opposing Roman religion and risking martyrdom was a temporary strategy during that particular phase of "God's People." In fact, we find in the New Testament itself, Christians themselves modifying the original authentic Paul's writings; as later Christians who are not Paul claiming to be Paul and wrote what scholars call the Disputed Letters of Paul (disputed meaning it was probably not authentic, i.e. not actually written by Paul but claimed to be). In one of these disputed letters, 1 Timothy 3:12, a deacon is encouraged to have one wife. Ironically, this can also be interpreted as a bishop should have one wife rather than multiple wives so he is not distracted. In other words, the emphasis on "one wife" may be indirectly revealing that polygamy was culturally acceptable at that time. And thus the bishop was to have one wife not because polygamy was immoral, but so that he could focus his time on his clergy work rather than being distracted with other duties with multiple wives and children. Other Christians that wrote scriptures that were not included in the traditional Canon, likewise supported non-celibate sexual relationships in contrast to Paul's authentic letters; and many early Christian groups also disagreed with the heavy emphasis on martyrdom and discarding the body (among the Proto Orthodox Pauline sect).
This tradition of the ideal of celibacy affected centuries of Christian living among the Pauline sects in the early centuries, many Pauline Christians committing to an entire lifetime of celibacy. This is why I argue for interpreting this Pauline phase as a strategy for the first century only. Meanwhile, Jewish Christians (like the sect led by Jesus's brother James), continued to engage in sexual relationships. So we have evidence that while the Pauline strategy was useful during that particular first century phase, there remained in the original Christian groups another strain of pro-bodied sexuality. But unfortunately, centuries later, Catholic and Protestant Creeds later cemented the Pauline celibate mindset by combining the platonic concept of a disembodied father deity composed of a vaporous nonmaterial substance. In this way the tangible body was doubly condemned and the original Hebrew theology believed by the historical Jesus and his brother James were lost in the mix.
According to my theory of God's phases and strategies, Paul's particular theology was meant for the particular contextual phase of the first century. But the Resurrected Christ, or the Post Easter Jesus (as Marcus Borg puts it), revealed through Joseph Smith during the phase of democracy and Americanism a new restored gospel.
We need to keep in mind that in D&C 132, "the Lord" in this section is Jesus speaking to Joseph Smith. So that it is Jesus who says that He gave to King David and Solomon their wives and concubines and they did not sin or commit a crime practicing this alternative sexual lifestyle, that you Emma and others find distasteful and impious (Note: D&C 132 is a letter to Emma). It is Jesus who says I gave wives and concubines to Joseph Smith. So that during the Pauline phase under Roman rule, celibacy and martyrdom was encouraged as a form of psychological warfare against Roman imperialism. But in the new phase of Americanism we have in the restored gospel, as Christ is presenting a different strategy through Joseph Smith as Christbin D&C section 132 encourages concubinage not celibacy.
So what we have here is the "Puritan-Protestant celibate Jesus" replaced with the Hebrew Jesus that is actually more in line with the body affirming historical Jesus described by critical scholars. With the Christ of the restored gospel rejecting platonic puritanical repression, and instead encouraging the Old Testament energy of Eros: through commanding the temporary practice of receiving multiple wives and concubines; wherein monogamous marriage with the woman as the property of the man till death do they part when they become asexual like the sexless angels in heaven, is no longer the theological norm in Nauvoo Mormonism. Instead, the joy of sexual unions is promoted through the temporary practice of plural marriage in order for both the man and woman together as a couple can expand their love and the new Nauvoo theology to their children; as they begin the process of Abrahamic Theosis and eventually partaking of the divine nature by transforming themselves and their consciousness into the image of the sexually liberated divine beings, or in imitation of the sexual Gods; as the Gods are not prudes but are sexually liberated divine beings with sensual bodies that reside on a sphere of erotic sociality (See D&C 130: 2, 8, 22). So what plural marriage did was temporarily change the mindset of the Saints toward embracing the restored theology of embodied Gods.
In view of this backdrop, I think Joseph Smith was thus seeking to restore honor to the sensual body made in God's image, as was the view in the Hebrew Bible and the original religion of Jesus. Thus a full restoration required depicting the physicality of God the Father and temporarily practicing plural marriage: as a way to expiate from the consciousness of the Saints the body denying puritanical creeds. So the question then is, how to depict God as having a sensual body?
The Hebrew Bible had already clearly presented the father deity as having a human form. Yet Christian art, especially after Augustine, generally avoided the sensuality of the human form, especially when depicting God the Father. I cannot prove that Joseph Smith knew he was looking at an Egyptian god with an erection when he chose to use the Egyptian papyrus he purchased to depict God the Father with an erection in the Book of Abraham fascimile 2, figure 7, but I personally believe he knew what he was doing. I do know that subsequent Mormon leaders did become "aware" of the phallic imagery after their adopting of a more Protestant-influenced prudishness (after abandoning polygamy around that time) and so perhaps they wanted to distance themselves from their previous alternative sexual lifestyle (polygamy). So in the 1900s, as they began to look at this image anew through their more Puritanical "Protestantized" eyes, I think they clearly became embarrassing by it; and so according to this image, in the year 1902 and 1921 of publication the Church erased/removed the phallus from the image in these editions of The Pearl of Great Price; but then for whatever reason, they chose to put it back in the 1981 edition. Rather than seeing the image as something to be embarrassed about or fodder for an anti-Mormon stance, I see it as a sex positive choice by Smith as he sought to establish a proper image for Eros in Zion.
As the website fairlatterdaysaints.org puts it in reponse to critics complaining about the graphic image of a god with a penis: "This attitude demonstrates ... an immaturity about sexuality ..." In my mind Joseph Smith intentionally depicted God the Father through this phallic imagery as he in fact wanted to depict God as representing the goodness of fertility and the holiness of the procreative Powers. Evidence for this is in the Mormon Temple endowment, wherein the Mormon initiate was first anointed with oil said to be "preparatory to your becoming a king and a priest unto the most high God." An officiator then blessed their body parts like the eyes and ears to be healthy and then continues the blessing saying: "your vitals and bowels, that they may be healthy and perform their proper functions; ... your loins, that you may be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, that you might have joy in your posterity." After this the initiate to Godhood approaches the veil in the temple where they are to recite certain words describing their endowment as potential future sexual Gods which includes the words: "... strength in the loins ... power in the Priesthood be upon me and upon my posterity through all generations of time and throughout all eternity." This appears to be defining "Power of the priesthood" as the ability to propagate with the man's seed (see Abraham 2:11) in order to, like Abraham, produce a People with a particular theological mindset and culture.
Thus we come full circle in understanding what Joseph Smith meant by "you have got to learn how to become Gods yourselves." That is, you have got to learn how to be a God that is depicted as a phallic deity engaged in sexual relationships with a goddess: who has "strength in the loins and power in his Priesthood (that is, in the seed that is his Priesthood; that is to say, the literal seed, or the potent seed of the body shall all the families of the cosmos be blessed), is upon them as a celestial couple capable of the continuation of lives (see D&C 132: 21-25, 55, 63) through all generations of time and throughout all eternity. Note that, as we saw above, in Abraham 3, the soul is not celestially birthed nor created, but is eternal. Thus the couple that together becomes Gods are not physically reproducing future spirit children (as potential gods) but are theologically reproducing faith in the true nature of Deity by one day organizing intelligences under their rule, who shall become exalted Gods one day like themselves.
Note as well that in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is often a sexually embodied being. See the article here and here that discuss an image of Yahweh with a penis/phallus alongside his wife Asherah.
This article on the book God's Phallus explains why and how the original embodied image of a sexual Yahweh in ancient Judaism slowly evolved as Israelite writers basically reoved his penis from his imagery so to speak, and overtime described him as essentially celibate in later Judaism.
In her book published in 2021, God: An Anatomy, Bible scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou covers the Hebrew God Yahweh's body parts, including his penis and even Yahweh's sex life! Reading these sections of her book, I couldn't help thinking that even though she is not a believer, her objective biblical scholarship actually acts as a form of Mormon apologetics. It is hard to read her book and not see that Joseph Smith was actually very close to creating a theology that best depicts the actual God Yahweh.
Also see:
> Boners in the Bible By Jeremy Myers
> The Mystery of Asherah (blog post)
> God's Body: Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Images of God by Christoph Markschies
> God's Body: The Anthropomorphic God in the Old Testament (Kindle Edition) by Andreas Wagner
> 'You Shall Know Yahweh': Divine Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond by Alan William Bernthal-Hooker
This phallic emphasis in Joseph's imagery of God the Father, when combined with his descriptions of a Heavenly Mother, solidifies for me his positive view of the procreative powers of the body; and his full endorsement of the sensual pleasures of the flesh as good and holy: as it was likewise originally practiced and believed in ancient Israel. No longer would God be presented as a vaporous bodiless no-thing with an Augustinian theology of condemning the sexual body as something to despise, repress, and discard; instead of this Life-negating mindset, in Joseph's restoratiion, God was to be depicted with a proud phallus, and the sexual union of spouses propagating naturally like the Gods. So that rather than the aim of discarding the body to fly up into a sexless sky full of asexual beings, Joseph Smith re-established ancient Hebrew Eros and peopled the heavens with sexual bodies expressing the power of unrepressed love and unity.
I think that even an atheist can appreciate Mormonism through this Life-affirming lens, and see that it deals with the problems that Platonic dualism and Augustinianism did in causing an "apostasy" (falling away) from the original ancient Hebrew theology. Thus Joseph Smith can be seen, from an anthropological and artistic ritual perspective, as restoring ancient Hebrew religion in many ways. Joseph Smith also essentially provides a more psychologically healthy and harmonious vision of deity and the body, in contrast to the unhealthy attitudes of an asexual deity (missing a phallus) and body-denying attitudes of demanded celibacy, life denying asceticism, and sexual repression.
The non-mormon Harold Bloom called Joseph Smith a religious genius. Part of that genius as I see it was how Joseph Smith integrated Hebrew Eros with New Testament Agape. Joseph united earth and sky so to speak. He corrected Platonic Dualism with Hebrew Monism. The Catholic and Protestant Traditions had deemed earthly matter and the tangible body dirty, impure, and inherently depraved. Smith saw this as an apostasy from the original Hebrew Bible's theology, so in contrast he deemed earthly matter and the tangible body as clean, pure, and inherently good. So what Joseph did was unite earth and sky as a compound in one: the idealism of the philosophers and religionists was integrated with the realities of sciences regarding matter and biology; the values and ideals of the Good was united to the muddiness of free agency and character development overtime.
To downplay and ignore Smith's original vision of embodied sexual Gods by arguing that plural marriage was merely to create dynastic unions or provide husbands for widows is a bit dishonest and does a disservice to the radical sexual-liberation philosophy of Joseph Smith. Some Latter-day Saints have even gone so far as to deny that there was any sexual component to Joseph Smith's plural marriages. This led to the Mormon history scholar Michael Quinn producing a document titled EVIDENCE FOR THE SEXUAL SIDE OF JOSEPH SMITH'S POLYGAMY. Most knowledgeable Mormons today acknowledge that Joseph Smith's plural marriages did indeed contain a sexual component. The fact that this is even questioned is evidence of the puritanical mindset that has infiltrated the Utah-based Mormon community.
I believe that to be true to Joseph Smith's vision -- and to respect the early Saints who practiced polygamy by sacrificing their Puritan norms to do so -- it is only right to be honest about Joseph Smith's vision of sexual Gods and how the Saints were to imitate the Gods; and expiate from their consciousness on the metaphorical altar of plural marriage, their previous puritanical Augustinian mindset from the sectarian creeds. Hence plural marriage was a temporary strategy designed to sacrifice and remove the body denying sectarian creeds that denied the true nature of God the Father.
It is clear that Smith was attempting to replace the life-negating mindset that the divine and holy was to be found in the path of discarding the sensual body (through asceticism or martyrdom), by presenting a life-affirming path to the divine and the holy through embracing the body and the pleasures of the holy-flesh; while expanding the soul into Godhood through sexual unions and living fully in the body and loving your tangible life on earth.
In the next blog post in this Series, I will provide a brief bullet point outline that summarizes the Nauvoo theology: which expanded upon the more Protestant sounding theology of the Palmyra and Kirtland periods, toward the theology of the Radiant Body.
