In the following posts in the blog series Sex, Gods, & Mormon Zion, I will cover the transition of Joseph Smith's thought from his originally more Protestant theo-philosophy prior to 1836, and his progression in thought toward using revelatory wisdom in the direction of a more pro-body philosophy (that I have called Abrahamic Expansionism). In doing so the question will arise as to what shall one do with this information and philosophical analysis in regards to Mormonism today? If one is a Latter-day Saint, what does this mean?
So I will begin by laying down my thoughts and positions here before we proceed, so as to avoid any misunderstanding as to my actual positions and points of view.
I Do Not Advocate Modern Polygamy & What Latter-day Saints Can Do in order to be True to their Polygamist Ancestors
I want to present some disclaimers so that I am no misunderstood to be advocating things I am not. To begin, I don't think a modern LDS member should return to the practice of polygamy in order to maintain the spirit of Joseph Smith's Nauvoo Vision and his theo-philosophy of Abrahamic Expansionism. They can instead be true to the original vision by helping to eradicate the current shame culture in the Utah-based Mormon Church, knowing that it is sustained by Protestant Dogma and is similar to the purity cult mentality among Evangelicals. They can be more open to discussing sexuality more freely in ways that are not repressing and psychologically damaging, as the courageous Mormon Elizabeth Smart is campaigning for. On YouTube, you will find videos of active LDS members campaigning against this shame culture that is often perpetuated in Brighmite LDS Church culture.
Mormons can also embrace the spirit of Nauvoo by having happier marriages that are not sexually repressive by becoming educated in the joys of the sensual body within a committed monogamous marriage. They can focus on healthy sexual relationships in general. LDS culture can move toward treating Mormons who happen to divorce more compassionately with a less of a stigma put on them for being newly single. The Saints can move toward trying to remove feelings of shame one might feel after a divorce in Mormon culture. LDS culture can move toward not being judgmental of those have experienced multiple monogamous marriages. They can work toward becoming more acceptable and less shameful in general.
Sexual Ethics
A good summary of the sexual ethics I advocate is from page 237 of the book Living on the Inside of the Edge by Christian Kimball:
People are not objects
Sexuality feels good. Everything from a long, lingering hug to a kiss to more intense sexual actions can be mutually pleasurable for the people involved. But there is also a way to use sexuality for your own pleasure, to take more than you give, to treat people as objects for your own use. I believe that the appropriate use of sexuality involves treating your relationship partner as a whole person and not as an object. ...
... Finlayson-Fife said, “As a faith community we need to do a better job of addressing single adult sexuality . . . and the way to do it is to talk differently about sexuality in general. We need to create an ethic around sexuality in which we teach the value and potential goodness of our God-given desires, as well as the importance of channeling our sexual energy toward choices that forge our strength and benefit those we love, depending on the relational context we are in.” [Footnote: Candice Madsen, “Expert Q and A: How singles can embrace both chastity and sexuality,” Deseret News, December 29, 2015.]
Also, while I am not a member of the Reorganized LDS Church (Community of Christ), I found their document Community of Christ Statement of Sexual Ethics as found on their website, something that I agree with as it states (words in brackets are my own):
The International Leaders Council (ILC), a group of 84 representatives from around the worldwide church, considered the Community of Christ Statement of Sexual Ethics [published in 2012, and retrieved from their website in 2022].
Statement of Sexual Ethics
We will…
uphold the principles of moral behavior and relationships provided in Doctrine and Covenants …, approved by the World Conference, as foundational for sexual ethics throughout the worldwide church. These principles are:
a. The worth and giftedness of all people
b. Protect the most vulnerable
c. Christ-like love
d. Mutual respect
e. Responsibility
f. Justice
g. Covenant
h. Faithfulness
We also Affirm…
a. Sexuality is part of the goodness and sacredness of human creation and is not inherently sinful.[1]
b. Humans are born as sexual beings and sexually develop during various stages of their lives.
c. Sexuality embraces the possibilities and joys of loving relationship, pleasure, reproduction, intimacy, and
wholeness. All of these possibilities have physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects.
d. Moral sexual relationships demonstrate the principles of Christ-like love, mutual respect, responsibility, justice, covenant, and faithfulness.
e. People who engage in moral sexual relationships express sincere concern in motive and act for mutual consent, personhood, integrity, dignity, wholeness, and the Worth of All Persons. Human worth applies
to all regardless of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or physical or mental capacity.
f. The sacrament of monogamous marriage, based on the principle of covenant initiated by God, is the relationship through which sexuality can fulfill its potential to bless human lives. The sacrament of marriage
stresses sexual fidelity to one’s spouse. It promotes love, trust, companionship, intimacy, spirituality, and peace.[2]
g. Couples involved in sexual activity have responsibility for each other’s physical, mental, and spiritual
health.
h. Sexual ethics should be the same for all people without discrimination.
i. People can lead fulfilling lives in harmony with God’s will without being sexually active.[3]
[1] Some Christian traditions view sexual desire and subsequent actions as resulting from original sin and in need of constant forgiveness.
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 150:10a states that “monogamy is the basic principle on which Christian married life is built.” [Note: this is from the original 1835 D&C publication. The Utah-based Brighanite Church removed this section]. The church recognizes civil marriages as valid. The church offers the sacrament of marriage, which is recognized as legal by most governments. In addition to the human commitment made that includes legal rights, the sacrament of marriage emphasizes God’s desire to strengthen and enrich the marriage.
[3] Christian tradition teaches that celibacy is a valid personal
choice or even the Spirit’s gift given to some as part of their
discipleship or ministerial calling.
In Addition, We…
a. Evaluate the morality of sexual activity by the degree of mature love, justice, covenant, and faithfulness
present in a relationship.
b. Stress that sexual desire itself does not morally justify sexual activity.
c. Renounce as immoral sexual activities that are selfish, irresponsible, promiscuous, degrading, or abusive.
d. Denounce all forms of exploitation, abuse, and sexual violence. …
I agree with everything written above, as it encourages monogamy and marriage but also embraces without shame other nonmarital forms of mature and healthy expressions of sexuality that is safe, consensual and legal; including a proper reverence for the voluntary choice of celibacy.
I also listened to one of the top leaders of the Community of Christ discuss how the idea of anyone going through a "worthiness interview" in their church and being shamed for engaging in safe, consensual and legal sexual activity would be unheard of. Thus, I find it intriguing that a group of Smith-Rigdon Restorationists, who consider Joseph Smith's revelations scripture, do not have the same Augustinian attitudes about sexuality as the Brigamite leaders do.
So to be clear, I'm not campaigning for a return to the practice of polygamy. I abhor the exploitation and crimes that have occurred in modern Fundamentalist-Mormon cult compounds. However, after watching documentaries like Netflix's My Three Wives, I'm not completely against consensual and healthy forms of polygamy. I'm also not against gay marriage for that matter. I believe in people practicing their free agency.
I think that for the Saints to have begun as practicing an alternative lifestyle, it is rather odd that the current Institutional Salt Lake based Church sounds like other Fundamentalist-Protestants in shunning others attempting to practice alternative lifestyles when their LDS ancestors did just that. The Utah-based Mormon Church can still endorse monogamy without so judgmentally and harshly condemning these alternative lifestyles.
Manifesting the Spirit of Nauvoo in Non-Polygamist Ways
The spirit of Nauvoo can express itself in other ways as well. What would it be like for the Brighamite Mormon Church to preach financial modesty more than "modesty" when it comes to clothing style, when showing off your wealth and being selfish is much more often condemned in LDS scripture than how one dresses. What would it be like for Bishops not to ask young adults if they masturbate with a condemning attitude? What would it be like for Mormons to be able to go to the temple regardless of their sexual past (assuming such a past did not involve anything illegal and nonconsensual)? What if the temple questions focused more on the content of your character than on the use of your genitals?
Again, to be clear, I'm not advocating libertinism and "one night stands" and disrespecting and harming others in any way whatsoever. Again, I agree with the statement on sexual ethics by The Community of Christ listed above. I do believe that sex is a sacred act and probably not "safe" for most younger people who are less emotionally mature. I believe that there are dangers to premarital sex such as unwanted sexual diseases/illnesses and unwanted pregnancy. However, the solution is not the purity culture of the Evangelicals but a healthy and mature attitude about sex and people being taught safe sex.
To be a modern Nauvoo Mormon in spirit, in my view, is to no longer see the body as depraved or shameful; and sexual activity among mature consenting adults (even outside of a monogamous marriage) as not inherently wrong or depraved. One could still choose to be celibate before monogamous marriage, but to be a Nauvoo Mormon in spirit is to no longer shame those who have engaged in legal sexual activity outside of monogamous marriage; in fact, I believe that to shame and condemn these Saints in such situations is to undermine everything that Joseph Smith sought to accomplish in Nauvoo. As I believe Smith was seeking to liberate the Saints from the body-degrading concept of the Protestant God who's without parts or passions, and was trying to overturn the Augustinian puritanical mindset: that preached that sex was for procreation only in a monogamous marriage, and sex for joy was often discouraged. Smith objected to this bodiless Protestant God and puritanical mindset and replaced it with his revelatory wisdom of Abrahamic Expansionism; so for modern Saints to return to that puritanical mindset that Smith essentially died to overturn, is to not be true to the spirit of Nauvoo.
I believe that the original doctrine of Abrahamic Expansionism is a more empowering and positive philosophy and theology than puritanical theologies, as it has much of the positive aspects of Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Nietzscheanism, etc., but without the problematic aspects of those philosophies. In other words, I think that Joseph Smith was a great dramatic artist and masonic-midrashic philosopher, who was quite successful at integrating the masculine and dionysian aspects of the Hebrew Bible; and mixing it with the more feminine and apollonian aspects of the New Testament. I think Joseph Smith in many ways was more Epicurean like Thomas Jefferson was and yet more compassionate than Thomas Jefferson was; he was as pro-organic-Life as Nietzsche was but unlike Nietzsche's dangerous anti-Christian rhetoric, Joseph Smith was very much a Christian in many ways in temperament and vision.
Joseph Smith as Inspired but Not Perfect
I believe that, from a philosophical and ancient Hebrew Bible perspective, Smith was inspired to move away from Puritanism toward Abrahamic Expansionism. Even from an atheistic or naturalistic perspective, Smith was moving toward a more pro-organic-Life, a pro-body life affirming theology, that better reflects Life and Nature itself; sex as good and for joy and happiness not merely procreation, and the body as not metaphysically depraved. Hence, Smith was, at the very least, moving the Saints toward a more humanistic view of sex and the body which even atheists and agnostics can see as a good thing.
Was Joseph Smith perfect? No. He was only human. Did he do things, in seeking to change the minds of the Saints away from Augustinian Puritanism and toward Abrahamic Expansionism, that are problematic? Yes. I am not going to defend all of Joseph's actions. I think that in his enthusiasm to restore the ancient attitudes and practices of the Hebrew Bible in regards to sexuality and the body through Plural Marriage, he often acted impulsively and imperfectly in his attempt to persuade some LDS members to the practice of Plural Marriage. Like many other fallible prophets throughout the Old Testament, he was not always free from error. But I found that when I examined each case of Smith's polygamists activities within the larger picture of him seeking to liberate the Saints through the social experiment of the Plurality of Wives, I begin to have more patience for Smith and his faults and mistakes in how he carried out this task. In other words, did he always act perfectly? No. Did he use methods most of us would disapprove of today? Yes. But we need to put things in perspective. For example, he did not marry anyone that was not of legal age (in that context of the 1840s). He always got consent from the parents of the younger women. So a lot of the criticisms leveled by Critics of the Restoration are not as bad as the fuller picture represents. For more details on the thorny issues of Joseph's polygamy and a defense of his behavior, see debunking-cesletter.com/polygamy-polyandry
The following site page lists several additional books and resources defending early LDS ploygamy:
ldsscriptureteachings.org/2021/10/dc-129-132-quotes-and-notes
It is also interesting that in many countries, polygamy is morally accepted; as this pew article explains and presents this image:
Click Image to Enlarge
Thus I find much of exmormon atheists decrying polygamy, has more to do with their far-Left political ideologies than the actual practice of polygamy. I mean these same exmormons would probably be respectful upon meeting a Nigerian Christian man and his wives.
Joseph Smith is not faultless and he is not my guru, but I simply admire his unencumbered pro-body and soul-expanding Life Philosophy. I value his theological attempt to integrate the best in Christianity with the more pro-bodied erotic elements of Hebrew Bible; combining the best of the science and philosophy of his day, into a fraternal philosophical theology that can for many unify, liberate, and expand human consciousness.
Further Changes I would Like to See in Utah-based LDS Church Culture
So to sum up, in my view, rather than returning to the Palmyra period and abandoning Joseph’s Nauvoo enlightenment period and his attempt to sexually liberate the Saints from body-denying Augustinism and Puritanism; I would instead promote some more cultural reforms in attitude about the sensual body within the current Brighamite LDS Church. I would go beyond just the Lds.org Essays and temple changes, which are a good start but not enough. I would especially like to see more cultural changes in regards to the current unhealthy LDS shame culture and the policies surrounding private worthiness interviews: where Mormons are asked intrusive, inappropriate and explicit sexual questions in the Brighamite sect. I would actually completely end “worthiness interviews” and declare all are worthy who come unto Christ, and focus instead on one's testimony of Jesus's Way/Path.
I would put more of a focus on Smith’s doctrine of embodied, sensual, and loving Heavenly Parents (with sexual parts and passions as male and female Divinities); and talk more openly about safe sex and legal and healthy sexual activity within the bonds of love. I would promote the idea that consensual, legal, adult sex in and of itself is good (not inherently "dirty") and masturbation is not evil but natural. I would return to the early emphasis on Zion and tithing on one’s surplus and abandon correlating a set dogma within stifling manuals with one word answers to set questions; and focus more on LDS scripture itself, LDS history like The Joseph Smith Papers, and have a more "free form" in church with more open philosophical discussion and exploration for edification as was practiced freely in the days of Joseph Smith.
