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The war Gerrit lost
S2E41 · Is It Season 38 Already? Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 41 · 1:07:57

Is It Season 38 Already? Part 1

The claim that Joseph Smith sent men on missions so he could marry their wives traces back to John C. Bennett, and of the husbands involved, only one was on a mission at the time.

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The question ·

Is it really true that Joseph Smith even sent men on missions and while they were gone, he married their wives? If not, how do we know it isn't?

Sister so-and-so (listener)

After emails from listeners in Australia and Britain, Richard reads a letter from a sister whose attorney relative says Joseph Smith sent men on missions so he could marry their wives. Gerrit asks for grace as he wades into plural marriage, explaining that it spans 70 to 80 years and countless families, and that the polyandrous sealings are especially hard because sources are few. He traces the mission claim to John C. Bennett, the disgraced counselor whose exposé and changing stories no historian trusts, and explains how sealings were understood differently then. He shows from dates that only one husband was on a mission at the time, and sets up next week's look at Marinda and Orson Hyde.

Who comes upJoseph SmithJohn C. BennettOrson PrattAmos LymanAndrew JacksonMarinda HydeOrson Hyde
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The war Gerrit lost

Richard announces they'll finally touch polygamy because of one listener's email.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Richard Miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we're going to hit on a couple of topics that we said that we weren't going to be talking about for some time.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like this was a long running war that I lost somehow.
Richard Somehow. We received an email, and it tugged on the old proverbial heartstrings, and I think that at least, in the words of Dr. Mack and Ernie, we're going to talk about-
Gerrit It's part of it.
Richard Part of it.
Gerrit Just part of it. Well, I mean, it is going to become very obvious to you very quickly why it is the topic so difficult to discuss, because there are so many sources, and there are so many passionate feelings about it that trying to have a conversation in 50 minutes to an hour, to however long this is going to be, we don't even know yet, it just makes it pretty difficult. But before we do anything heavy-
Richard That's right. We're going to start off with Master of the King's Post, Sir Brian Tuke, Secretary of Henry VIII and Cardinal Woolsey, Mailbag.
Gerrit Wow, in remembrance of the Queen.
Richard Of the Queen Mother, that's right.
Gerrit Yeah, very sad or passing, and we have heard from some of our listeners from the realm, from the Commonwealth, who didn't directly address anything about the Queen, but we figured, we like to say that this is now the world-famous, world-renowned Standard of Truth podcast. Yeah, we literally have listeners all around the world now.
Richard That's right, and we're going to prove it by emails that I made up and just wrote before I read them.
Gerrit Which is the reason why they're positive.
Richard That's right. So the subject, it's all positive, I promise. How many emails do you have with that subject heading now?
Gerrit It's honestly the best way to get read on air.
Richard 100%.
Gerrit We've received multiple hate mails that have that just to get us to start reading them. And then we delete them.
Richard The Facebook messages are all just nothing but hate.
Gerrit Yeah, every time they run an ad for the podcast on Facebook, there's a litany of primarily preachers, it seems, who then link to their YouTube of them talking about what a cult Mormonism is, yeah.
Richard We had one a couple of weeks ago, or a week ago, Standard of Truth, more like Standard of Lies, or something along those lines.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard It's pretty good, it was pretty good.
Gerrit How could you even have truth in the name? And then they had a link to like another denominations website.
Richard So, I am a faithful listener all the way from Australia. I have loved listening to your podcast, and for some time now. And of the many valuable podcasts out there, I continue to make time for it. I'm sure I'll be around for season 38. That's obviously a reference to...
Gerrit When we talk about polygamy. She's holding out.
Richard I have learned so much about church history, have been inspired by stories of faith, both familiar and new, and have appreciated your insights on thinking critically about the innumerable sources available and the reliability of information or misinformation. I have also laughed hard, and I love hearing from your wives. I love hearing that your wives are right, they're listening or sleeping as you record this episode.
Gerrit Literally at this moment asleep behind us. 100%. I'd love to have them chime in, but they're both asleep.
Richard Please keep up the good work, Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor LeDuc. Tracy, well, thank you very much, Tracy. That was very nice of you. And we're actually heading out to the great Commonwealth of Australia at the end of November.
Gerrit Yeah, due to, I'd hate to say like a monopoly, a bank error in your favor, essentially due to what could only be deemed an error by both the airlines and we found an incredibly cheap fare that we decided that we would sign up for. And so we're actually gonna be there for a couple days.
Richard We went to Australia and New Zealand for about two weeks. We got the cruise, I think, for 12 days. It was a-
Gerrit 10 days.
Richard Oh, 10 days, pardon me. It was incredibly inexpensive, so-
Gerrit Yeah, 190 bucks.
Richard It was ridiculous.
Gerrit So we're pretty sure they're gonna eventually cancel the cruise because they're gonna realize that we're essentially stealing food from them at this point. They haven't fully opened up cruising there in Australia and New Zealand yet, so maybe they will cancel it. But we are at least slated to fly there.
Richard And if everything gets canceled-
Gerrit To Sydney.
Richard To Sydney, and if everything gets canceled, Tracy, Gerrit is available for multiple firesides and-
Gerrit I can only assume we would draw two to three, maybe even four people.
Richard So the next one, a subject. Your fame reaches across the pond. You have at least nine who are listening. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc, spelled correctly, I love your podcast. Gerrit, I was introduced to it by your sister-in-law, Kim, who is a dear friend. I also told my friend Anne in England, and she listens every week like I do. I am British and lived in the US for 10 years. Anne and I laugh a lot as your laughter is infectious, but Anne says, we don't always understand your American humor, and she spells humor incorrectly.
Gerrit Well, she spells it the King's English way.
Richard There's seven or eight extra U's that she throws in.
Gerrit There's a lot of U's in color or humor. But first of all, how gracious is it of her that she assumes the reason why some of our humor with a U doesn't land is because she's British.
Richard As opposed to not landing because it's simply not funny.
Gerrit Ask Ari. It's not landing because he doesn't think it's funny. It has nothing to do with the cultural divide.
Richard Look, Ari might be wrong about how things are pronounced in Missouri, but he's right about us not being funny.
Gerrit Yeah, no, I get it.
Richard Or at least me not being funny.
Gerrit We do get lots of messages from people that are like, I feel like you have to wade through that we're too self-deprecating. And the problem is it's the Standard of Truth. So all we can do is talk about what we know. And what we know is we're sorry that the podcast isn't better. But this is great. Did she have anything else there?
Richard She did. She said she wished she knew more, she wished she knew what townships were. And so perhaps a parish, a town council, if you're in Scotland, maybe a barony, might be something similar to what a township would be here in America.
Gerrit If she lives in America now, then I can only assume she lives in the West where townships aren't a thing.
Richard Yeah, yeah, it's possible. I just want to say that your podcast is so informative. You get such a great balance between historical and academic content and faith and testimony. I love your testimony of the prophets and our living prophet. You inspire me to use reliable sources and increase my faith by following the prophet. Thank you, regards, Judith. That's very kind of you, Judith. It's very nice of you.
Gerrit Very kind. Thank you very much, Judith. And look, we've got a listener in Britain. We've got a listener in Australia. We've got three listeners in Utah. One in Arizona.
Richard Man, this thing, this thing like a stone cut out right out.
Gerrit Yeah, we are rolling. We will soon fill the whole earth. We really are grateful for the people that wade through our terrible humor. And the reality is we have had some great success, and we're really grateful for the people that have been willing to listen, even when it is about townships, when it's about rice tariffs, ways to spell Richard's name, various different titles he could be granted. And so maybe it's out of that gratitude that even though I have, I had sworn that from where the sun now stands, I will talk about polygamy no more forever.
Richard Well, so just really quick, growing up in Idaho, we learned about Chief Joseph, and this is very-
Gerrit We're both from Idaho, which is also why we don't know how to spell color properly or humor.
Richard So one of the things that Gerrit has talked about is that there's lots of things that we say that we'll get to that we never intend to get to.
Gerrit Like whenever our wife wants us to do a chore around the house, we can say that because they're asleep.
Richard That's right. But so in this particular case, Gerrit is actually holding fairly true to this because he said he wouldn't talk about polygamy until season 38, we're toward the end of season two, and he's not really talking about polygamy. We're just going to jump straight to polyandry. We feel that that's where we want to start.
Gerrit That was the shallow end of the pool that we could wade into. Yeah.
Richard Yes. So, and the reason for it is because there's a specific question that allows for Gerrit to give several examples of how antagonists to the church use the sources or lack of sources to make a particular point and how dangerous that can be in dragging people away.
Gerrit And again, only because I was pricked in the spirit by an email from a listener, I realized that everyone has different questions. And we've got a litany of people that we still need to respond to. And we try to record several of these at once. Richard and I don't live right next to each other. And so it takes a little bit for us to get together. And so we try to record several episodes at once. And so we have mail that stacks up, and we don't have the ability to answer everybody. And I apologize for that if you've e-mailed and we haven't had a chance. And hopefully there's at least other people that are, appreciate the fact that I'm trying to answer this question that this listener has.
Richard So this, like a document turned over from the CIA is highly redacted. We've changed the names to protect the innocent. And one of the things that that's tough with any of the emails that we receive where a member of the family is struggling with this is that we certainly don't want to bring any attention to that, or some people have a sense of embarrassment for whatever reason that's associated with that.
Gerrit And we don't, so feel free to change your own name before you email it to us. Then we don't have to make up a name. And then you have to figure out is mine the name when they made up?
Richard If you can send us a fax that's just all black everywhere, redact it yourself.
Gerrit Yeah, with just like, message to Dr. Dirkmaat, stop. Why does Professor Wadoop call himself Professor? Stop, something like that.
Richard All right, so, and we haven't gotten as many emails on my dissertation topic as we have on polygamy, but keep those coming. We'd love to talk about that as well. So here we have this particular sister and she's talking about a loved one in her family that has been having some issue. So his biggest issues are with Joseph Smith and church history. He hasn't told me many specifics because he says he doesn't want to be the cause of anyone else losing their testimony. But he did tell me he got them from reliable sources. And remember, he is an attorney. That Joseph Smith even sent men on missions and while they were gone, he married their wives and that that was the real reason so many early leaders left the church. He says he knows prophets aren't perfect, but that is disgusting and totally unacceptable.
Richard And he can no longer believe he was inspired of God. He also has issues with where the Book of Mormon really came from, but didn't go into detail. So a member of our ward told me about your podcast. I've listened to about five episodes and love it. It seems like this is one of the biggest issues many leaving the church are having, and understandably so. The issue of polygamy, obviously. I'm not going anywhere because my testimony is too solid to shake, but it would be helpful for many to get some perspective on this. Is it really true? If not, how do we know it isn't? If this is what many who are leaving the church are hearing with no defense of it out there, it's easy to understand why they are. If it is true, it makes it pretty difficult to believe Joseph Smith was a prophet communing with God. I have lost the spirit on occasion for much less than that.
Richard There's more, but she ends with thank you, Sister so-and-so.
Gerrit Right. There's a lot there to unpack, honestly. I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again. And I hope that the people listening will really focus on what I have to say next. And that is regarding plural marriage. There are hundreds of different sources because we're talking about a practice that happened over the course of essentially 70 to 80 years. There are literally tens of thousands of interpersonal relationships that are affected, familial relationships that are affected that in some way reflect on or take part in the practice. There are tens of thousands of polygamous marriages and hundreds of thousands of people that are involved in some way in a family that had practiced plural marriage.
Gerrit That means that for almost anything I say, there is an exception to the rule. And the problem with something that is so controversial or that inspires so much passion as plural marriage does as a topic is that we generally make assumptions and we make those assumptions on the basis of limited information that we've gotten from whatever source has made it readily available to us. Now, sometimes that's a Wikipedia page and sometimes it's a Google search and sometimes it's a TikTok and sometimes it's the Joseph Smith Papers. Those sources are not all created equally, but they all have one thing in common. Any attempt to pass a judgment about any part of plural marriage or the history of plural marriage in our church, in a pithy one-liner is fraught with inaccuracy.
Gerrit It just is. So we have to ask ourselves, are we studying the past to come to a better understanding of it, or are we studying the past to try to prove something one way or the other? We've talked about before on this podcast that the past is a different country. It is a completely different culture when someone says, well, it only stands to reason or it only makes sense that if you're talking about the mid-19th century, almost anything that you will think that would be top of mind to you is completely foreign to someone in that century. So there's a lot of issues. So what I'm asking for is a little bit of grace among the hate mail that I receive. I often receive mail from people who will say things like, well, you talked about this, but you didn't talk about that. There will always be something that I don't have the ability to talk about in a time-limited podcast.
Gerrit So I'm asking for a little bit of grace from the listeners. I'm going to try to cover this very difficult topic in order to answer some questions people have. I will not be able to answer any question definitively. I don't, frankly, I'm not that good a historian, right? Second, I'm not that good a speaker. Third, Richard's a terrible co-host. But in all seriousness, I mean, I can't provide you all of the answers that you might have. And I certainly, in this format, don't have the ability to respond to every single, well, yeah, but, or what about that you or a family member or a friend or an enemy, for that matter, might say about the, about plural marriage or the early church. These things would require literally hundreds of hours to explore completely.
Gerrit So, so if, if you hear me talking about it, you say, well, wait a minute, I heard from my aunt X. Well, yes, it's very possible. In fact, incredibly likely that I do know about that source. But in order to talk about this in a limited format, I'm just not going to be able to talk about every source. So I'm asking for your grace. I'm asking for you to set to yes, yell at the at the car stereo that's playing this right now about what a terrible job I'm doing, but realize I am trying to do a good job, even if it doesn't seem like that. There's a couple of things that I want to address. First of all, if I were doing a series on polygamy, which will happen in season 38, as long as everyone keeps listening, I would of course start with all kinds of background. Here Richard has me jumping directly into polyandry. If you're wondering what that is.
Richard Glad to define what that is.
Gerrit Once Joseph Smith begins teaching and practicing plural marriage in 1841, there are several women who are married to other men legally, so they're married to other men legally, who will then be sealed to Joseph Smith while their husbands are still alive. Now, in some cases, they're actually estranged from their husbands. Remember, this is the 19th century, where it's nearly impossible for a woman to get a divorce. So in those cases, what happens? In those cases, either a woman will stay in an abusive marriage, which is unfortunately the case for a lot of 19th century women, or they'll just simply move to another place. But marriage is still a pretty cultural pressing responsibility. Women have so few rights in the 19th century that it is sometimes essential for them to remarry, just to even have access to property and other economic opportunities.
Gerrit So often what would happen is women would leave their abusive husband, and they would just move to another state and marry someone else. Even though they are technically married to the husband that they are still married to, this actually happens all the time in early America. And the most famous is that it happens with Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson literally marries a woman who is legally married to another man. Now when his political opponents bring that up, this is President Andrew Jackson, the same guy whose giant forehead is on your 20. I don't know if you can pull it out. Look at your 20. Most of it is forehead. It's unbelievable. I don't know who drew the picture, but they were like, okay, we'll have his nose be this big and his forehead will be 18 noses long. I mean, it's gigantic. But Andrew Jackson will marry a woman who is legally married to another man. He had abandoned her, but they'd never actually gotten divorced. When Jackson becomes a big political figure, well guess who comes out of the woodwork waving his marriage certificate, and Andrew Jackson is married to my wife.
Gerrit Andrew Jackson's a bigamist. Now because Andrew Jackson is both a corrupt politician and a powerful politician, I guess I should have just said politician. Because Andrew Jackson is a politician, he's able to manufacture, his friends at the state house in Tennessee, manufacture and post date a bill of divorcement for him, which most historians believe is entirely fraudulent. But back to our current topic. At the time that Joseph Smith introduces plural marriage, there are multiple types of ceilings that are going on. And frankly, as a historian, we have very little way to access what types of ceilings are taking place. As I said, there are some women who are married that are sealed to Joseph, who are either estranged from their husband or, in one case, her husband is not a member of the church, in which case, if she wants to have a ceiling, which they see the ceiling ordinance as an essential ordinance, then perhaps that's the reason why he's sealed to them.
Gerrit But there are a couple of cases in which neither the estranged husband nor the non-member husband would account for this ceiling. Now, let me just say, first of all, in none of those cases is the husband of the woman involved claiming that Joseph Smith has somehow robbed them or violated their marriage or something like that. The claims actually originate from John C. Bennett. Now, I will spend some time at some point in the future. It will have to be like a 94-point podcast though, because my hate runs deep for John C. Bennett. John C. Bennett is actually responsible for not only some of the earliest abuses of plural marriage, but he's also the person almost entirely responsible for the early false information surrounding plural marriage that exists.
Gerrit He is someone who rose very quickly among members of the church and in the ranks of the church, and by 1842, he is a member of the First Presidency. Now, back then, First Presidency is not quite the same as it is today. Today, the First Presidency is made up of people who are already usually senior members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Back then, it is an important position in the church, but the members of its ranks are almost entirely drawn from outside of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In fact, Amos Lyman is the first apostle who becomes a member of the First Presidency, and he only becomes a member of the First Presidency because he's put into the Apostle the Quorum of the Twelve in order to take the place of an apostle who apostatizes. Well, then that apostle repents and comes back, and they want to put him back into the Quorum of the Twelve, but they don't want to call it the Quorum of the Bakers' Dozen Thirteen.
Gerrit Right? So what do you do? So Joseph restores this apostle to his position in the Quorum of the Twelve and takes Amos Lyman into the First Presidency. And so you actually have three members of the First Presidency at that point. Now, that was probably the most meaningless. Was that?
Richard No, no, no. You've talked about more meaningless things than that.
Gerrit Like Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Richard That's right. Who's the person that apostatized and came back?
Gerrit It was Orson Pratt.
Richard Oh, there you go.
Gerrit Anyway, and in fact, he apostatized over the John C. Bennett things.
Richard There you go.
Gerrit You brought it all back. Look at that. You know what? And if we only have to do nine parts of this, you'll eventually get some information. But Richard Shaking is that probably not. Okay. So John C. Bennett is going to... We don't know what John C. Bennett knows about Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage. So part of the reason why it's hard to know what's going on is plural marriage is practiced in secret, and it's only practiced among those few church members who've been taught about it. And all of them are people that are part of what's sometimes called the quorum of the anointed. The few people that have had Joseph teach them the temple endowment, give them the temple endowment in the Red Brick Store and other places. So it is something that is clearly intended to be taught to the entirety of the church at some point. But in the early stages, Joseph is clearly just trying to work things out.
Gerrit We have from multiple sources that Joseph Smith resisted teaching plural marriage. We have from several sources that it appears as early as 1831, Joseph knows that he is eventually going to have to start teaching and practicing plural marriage. Well, a decade goes by, and he still isn't. And so we have from two of Joseph's wives that what finally caused Joseph to start teaching and practicing it was that an angel appeared to Joseph with a drawn sword and said, in one account, either you teach this as you've been commanded or you'll be removed from your place. And then in another account, either you teach this as you've been commanded or you'll be destroyed, removed from your place. I guess if you are destroyed, you are technically removed from your place.
Gerrit So Joseph does this reluctantly. It's practiced secretly. And then on top of that, we don't have as many sources from early Nauvoo as we do from early Utah. So we have a sourcing problem. We have a contextual problem. And then we have John C. Bennett, who's his own spectacular idiocy problem. Bennett, when he learns that Joseph is teaching this principle, decides that it's a perfect opening for himself, and he begins teaching it on his own to other people. Only he teaches them something very different than plural marriage. The plural marriage that Joseph Smith was teaching was that in a few cases, if it was sealed by the power of God, people could be married in polygamous unions.
Gerrit John C. Bennett began teaching people something he called spiritual wifery. And the long and the short of it was that as long as two people were believers, that they could have carnal relations with one another and that with no connections whatsoever. And he would claim that this is in fact Joseph Smith taught him this. Now, of course, he was the one doing it. He was doing it in secret. When it comes to light that John C. Bennett was doing this and by doing it had seduced several women in Nauvoo, Joseph immediately communicates him from the church and he makes a public confession before the city of Nauvoo, before the city council that he had falsely claimed that he had been doing what Joseph Smith had told him to do, that he had committed multiple adulteries and that he was sorry. At the time, he was mayor of Nauvoo, so he has to step down from being mayor and he flees the city.
Gerrit If that was all that happened with good John C. Bennett, then we might not care about him very much anymore. You may be listening right now saying, I don't care about him now. But he writes a series of letters, so even though he makes this public confession, it's almost like he thinks better of it. I don't know. A few weeks later, he starts writing a series of letters and he sends them back to various newspapers in which he recants his confession. He says, I never confessed. I never committed adultery. That was all lies. That was all made up, even though you have hundreds and hundreds of witnesses of this, including the non-Mormon Justice of the Peace, who he swore the affidavit to. He begins to claim that all of the spiritual wifery shenanigans were actually from Joseph. Now, the problem with John C. Bennett is he is a salacious source.
Gerrit He's the kind of source that antagonists love because he wants to give you the inside dirty working details. But he's also, as far as scholars are concerned, a demonstrably dishonest person. What do I mean by that? You're thinking, oh, no, Gerrit, you're just a shill for the church. Well, you're right, I am, because I believe the church is true. But second of all, as a historian, he is not a reliable source. Why do I say that? Well, he will collect his letters and he will eventually write a book called History of the Saints. No, not the Glen Rossen one that you love. And no, Glen Rossen didn't name his series History of the Saints because he's like, you know what? John C. Bennett inspired me.
Richard Yeah, he wrote a good one.
Gerrit No, Rossen's series, which I've actually been on, if you've ever been watching any of them. So maybe it is like John C. Bennett. No, it's a great series about the history of the church. And John C. Bennett, in his book, first of all, he primarily copies Eber Howe's arguments in Mormonism Unveiled. A good portion of the book is just plagiarism, which, you know, there you go.
Richard He's on brand.
Gerrit Yeah, very much so. Second, he is going to tell a very different story about his affiliation with the church. So at this point, when he's writing his book, instead of saying, you know, I was a believer and I came to Nauvoo, but then I saw what was really going on, the inner workings of Mormonism, da-da-da, he actually starts his book this way. Now, this book was published in 1842. It went through a whole bunch of different printings. It became the leading anti-Mormon book for years. But he starts off the book by saying, Reasons for Joining the Mormons. It is, of course, necessary for me to give some explanation of the reasons which led me to join the Mormons and my motives for remaining so long in connection with them. Because, of course, one of the great criticisms that he started to receive is, so you were one of the leaders of this movement, and now you're trying to tell us how horrible they are. Well, if they're so horrible, why did you stay around for as long as you did?
Gerrit Why did you defend Joseph the way that you did? The questions are, if it's painfully obvious, then why were you part of it? This is his answer. I find it almost universally the opinion of those who've heard of me in the eastern part of the United States that I united myself to the Mormons from a conviction of the truth of their doctrines, and that I was, at least for some time, a convert to their pretended religion. This, however, is a very gross error. I never believed in them or their doctrines. Never. How about that? This is and indeed was from the first well-known to my friends and acquaintances, well, not well-known to the Mormons that you were apparently deceiving, in the western country, who were all well aware for my reasons with connecting myself to the prophet. He doesn't provide any of the names of any of those people as I referenced. If you knew, if you know Johnny, if you know Johnny Bennett, you know. Which reasons I will now proceed to state.
Gerrit My attention had long been turned towards the movement and designs of the Mormons, with whom I had become pretty well acquainted years before in the state of Ohio. And after the formation of their establishment at Nauvoo in 1839, the facts and reports respecting them, which I had continually heard, led me to suspect and indeed believe that their leaders had formed and were preparing to execute a daring and colossal scheme of rebellion and usurpation throughout the Northwestern states of the Union. It was to me evident that temporal as well as spiritual empire was the aim, the expectations of the Prophet and his cabinet. The documents that will hereafter be introduced will clearly show the existence of a vast and deep-laid scheme upon their part for conquering the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, and of erecting upon their ruins of their present governments a despotic military and religious empire, the head of which as emperor and pope was to be Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Lord, and his ministers and viceroys, the apostles, high priests, elders, and bishops of the Mormon Church.
Gerrit Now let me just stop there to say, the paragraph I just read, there is not a single historian who... Remember, when I say historian, it means someone with an actual Ph.D. Not someone's friend who's read some things on the YouTube. I mean, an actual historian. Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint? Who believes that paragraph? There is not any evidence at all that the actual plan of the Latter-day Saints was to militarily destroy the states of... Let me list them off again. The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri and create their own military religious empire there. So just remember, this is what John C. Bennett, of his own free will, decided to publish as his reasons for joining. This is the beginning of what you can see is nothing but a salacious and ham-fisted con artist attempting to deceive people.
Gerrit He knows that what's going to sell best is his claim of Mormon treachery and Mormon deceit. And of course, nothing sells like the salaciousness of the realities surrounding plural marriage, at least the way that he's going to present them. He goes on to talk about more and more and more and more of this, but then he's going to say that this is the real reason why he joined the Mormons. It at length occurred to me that the surest and speediest way to overthrow the imposter and to expose his iniquity to the world would be to profess myself a convert to his doctrines and join him at the seat of his dominion. So he goes on. So John C. Bennett will tell us in his book that he never, ever, ever believed. Now, we have multiple documents to the contrary in which he's expressing his belief, but let's take him at his word.
Gerrit That means the entirety of his time that he's with the Latter-day Saints, he's actually doing a sting operation trying to expose the Latter-day Saints in order to bring about their downfall. Now, why does that matter? Well, first of all, you need to be very careful of anyone whose entire motive of being with a religion is to destroy it. So that should send off some alarm bells. Second, if that's his claim, then his desperation to destroy the church is so great, he is absolutely willing to perform a fraud. And like I said, we have dozens and dozens of documents from John C. Bennett in which he expresses his faith, where he defends the church publicly. The Nauvoo Charter that gives the Mormons so much power in Nauvoo, John C. Bennett is one of the primary people who gets it passed.
Gerrit So let me get this straight, you were so worried that the Mormons would become so powerful in Illinois, that you decided to perform this subterfuge to join with them so that you could help them secure an incredibly powerful charter that made them more powerful because your whole plan was to stop them from becoming powerful. Well, the reality is, you also can't find a historian who believes this. You can't find one, and I mean critical, non-Latter-day Saint historians who are incredibly critical of the Church. They don't believe that John C. Bennett never believed and secretly had a plan to join the Church in order to expose them, da-da-da. Why else is that important? Because John C. Bennett is a demonstrable liar in this book, and you're thinking, well, Gerrit, come on, you're just being a little bit emotional. No doubt, no doubt, yes. But he is a demonstrable liar.
Gerrit In the book, he is going to claim that the reason why he's excommunicated has nothing to do with adultery. He didn't commit adultery at all. The reason why he was excommunicated was because he found out that they were committing adultery and polygamy. And when it became obvious that he was going to expose them, then they excommunicated him. They forced him to make a public confession, although he never quite explains how that worked. He was just, you know, I was in fear for my life, so I had to say that I committed all of these sins that I never actually committed, even though I was able to leave peacefully. One of the most amazing things about critics of the early church is how they talk all the time about how in fear of their life they are. That I knew that I would be killed if I did anything. And of course, the reality is no one's ever killed who's apostatizing. And so, I mean, yeah, members of the church get killed by members of the mob, inspired by John C. Bennett's book. Yes. So that does happen.
Gerrit But it's important, because Bennett is going to claim that he never actually committed the sin. And I actually know from John C. Bennett's own mouth that he's a liar, because years later, when he's undertaking a speaking tour in Boston, he is talking about the Mormons. And of course, he's making a lot of money. He's charging 25 cents a head to let people into his little meetings. He, at this meeting, he is accosted by someone in the audience with the fact that he had been excommunicated from the Mormons for committing the same crimes that he's alleging them of having committed. And the same person who said that there was nothing to his excommunication, the same person who's in print, the same person who's like, oh, it was all a lie, it was all a farce, says to this congregation of people that have paid to get in there, yes, he had had what he called an affair with a fair princess of Nauvoo, but they were guilty of far, far worse crimes.
Gerrit So after years of saying that he had never committed adultery, he was losing the audience, that the audience, as you'll see with some of the other sources we use, he's such a disreputable character. He has so little ability to be believed that the audience started to turn on him because they're like, Oh, luckily you were the only one. Thank you for saving the American nation from the Mormon invasion. You know, that kind of thing. And so I think he thought, Hey, you're right. I committed some of their sins, but let me tell you how much worse theirs were. Kind of this idea of let me share with you a little bit of a taste, and then you'll buy into me because of my honesty. The problem is he's on record over and over and over again, saying that he never committed adultery at all. And then he, in a public meeting, said, I committed adultery.
Gerrit So that becomes a problem, right? His entire argument that he was excommunicated solely because he was going to expose their sins, and yet later, after years of denying it, he says, OK, well, yeah, I did commit adultery, but they did worse things. Just like he said that he believed the Church, except that he didn't. He has a lot of great things in his book, and by great, I mean terrible and stupid. One of the things that he's going to claim is that the entirety of the organization of the Relief Society is to be nothing more than just a harem for Joseph Smith and various levels of wives. He's going to claim that there's various levels of the Relief Society, which will sound super familiar to all of you, the cloistered sisters of the Relief Society, the sisters of... He makes these claims, which again, no historian believes is accurate. There's literally no reference to this anywhere by anyone, even other critics.
Gerrit He will include letters in his book that he's going to claim come from Joseph Smith that no historian actually believes Joseph Smith wrote. John C. Bennett is one of our first known foragers of Joseph Smith documents. You know, him and Mark Hoffman sitting in the tree, basically. They are together on this. And so you see how terrible a source John C. Bennett is. Bennett is going to be excommunicated for adultery but claim that he didn't commit adultery, but then eventually admit that he committed adultery. He is, by numerous sources, going to be the source of this false, this complete tainting of the idea of plural marriage by teaching this false doctrine of spiritual wifery. You're thinking, why are you spending any time on this? Well, because Bennett's claims about how early ceilings were being done and what was being done with them, taints all of our understanding of early practice of plural marriage.
Gerrit Why? Because we don't have very many sources on it, and we don't have very many sources at all that describe it in that time period very clearly and directly. But we do have John C. Bennett, and so a lot of times people go to the lowest common denominator. What's an easy source that talks about Joseph Smith polygamy? I know John C.
Intro Bennett.
Gerrit I mean, he was a member of the First Presidency. And why do I spend time on it? Because it's with John C. Bennett that this claim originates. That Joseph was not only marrying women secretly, which of course Joseph was practicing plural marriage. He's sealed to multiple women. In some cases, those ceilings don't appear to be marriages in every sense of the word. They seem to be ceilings for eternity. Or at the very least, these women never live in his household, and they're never a part of his family structure. In other cases, it's possible that some of these ceilings are more dynastic in nature, more adoptionary, right? This is again the reason why it's so hard to talk about plural marriage is there are so many caveats. During this time period that ceiling is first being revealed, there are many types of ceilings that are going on.
Gerrit When we talk about ceiling, all we ever think about is a marriage ceiling. But when we stop and think about it, there's other ceilings too, right? There's ceiling of children to their parents, which we don't think about if you happen to both be married and your children are born in the Covenants, you don't think about that. But none of them have been born in the Covenant. There is no born into the Covenant in the 19th century. And so there's also a great deal of familial ceilings that take place, or often referred to as adoptionary ceilings, where people will ask to be sealed to Brigham Young's family. Now, that seems incredibly weird to you, but it didn't seem that weird to them, in part because most people had been completely rejected and cut off by their families because they had joined the Church. So when you talk about, oh, you can be sealed to your parents, you mean my dad who held a fake funeral for me when I joined the Church and said that I'm dead to him and I can never talk to him again?
Gerrit I can't wait. I can't wait for that day that I'll be sealed to him. Well, then who might I be sealed to? I still want to be sealed to somebody. I'm going to be sealed to Heber C. Kimball because he's the one who baptized me. Now, adoptionary ceilings are very common, and they happen all the way throughout the 19th century until Wilford Woodruff receives the revelation that adoptionary ceilings are going to cease. Now, of course, we still do adoptionary ceilings. My sister is adopted. And she is sealed to my family by the fact that she was adopted, even though she is not the literal blood of my parents, and yet she's sealed to my parents in a ceiling ceremony. So we actually still do adoptionary ceilings. We just only do them now when it's a child being legally adopted to that family. One of our great friends of the podcast, Lisa and her sister Lori, they are twins that were adopted by their parents and sealed to their parents.
Gerrit And that is something that goes on today, obviously still. But it used to happen that people would ask to be sealed to, I want to be sealed to Brigham Young. I want to be sealed to Joseph Smith. So those things happen, and they were quite regular in the past, and they didn't stop until Wilford Woodruff received the direction that they should stop. So those types of sealings are going on as well. Sealings that are simply combining families together, sealings that are actual marriages in every sense of the word. For instance, William Clayton is going to be, he's going to marry several women in the Nauvoo era, and Joseph Smith will perform those marriages. Joseph Smith is well aware of those marriages. And the other types of sealings that are apparently sealings that are marriages, but that also don't seem to have the same domestic implications of marriage, that the couple doesn't live together.
Gerrit In the case of these polyandrous sealings, we don't have very good details on the purpose of them or why they occurred. Several of the women who were participants in these polyandrous sealings, and again, when I say polyandrous, what I mean is they were legally married to another man, and they were sealed to Joseph Smith instead of to their legal husband. In some of these cases, these women certainly will look back on this as a marriage ceiling, even though Joseph Smith isn't going to have any children with any of these women, and none of them are going to live in his household. Again, I'm only talking about the polyandrous sealings. Joseph is going to be married to other women who will some of them live in his household, like Emily and Eliza Partridge and Eliza R. Snow. That's all something for our, you know, 19-part series sometime long after you've stopped listening and I've stopped doing the podcast.
Gerrit But in order to answer the question that was asked about the fact that Joseph sent men on missions just so he could marry their wives, this, the originator of that claim, is the same John C. Bennett, the same one who's telling you that Joseph Smith has an army and he's about to invade Illinois and Iowa, is the one who says that that's what happened. And later detractors will also point to some sources that this is not an argument that's made at the time, but they'll point to some sources that become very popular ways of trying to make this argument. Now, again, there's a lot of things I don't know about polyandrous ceilings. I don't know how and why exactly they happened. I do know that they view the temple ordinances very differently than we do.
Gerrit They see the ceiling more as a part of the endowment itself rather than as a separate thing. To us today, we see the initiatory is something, we see the endowment is something, we see ceiling is something, and they're even more separated by the fact that when you go to work for the dead, you're like, oh, what are you doing today? Oh, I'm going to go do initiatories, right? They see all of those things as part of the endowment in total. So you can see why there might be a much greater desire for someone to want to have a ceiling even if they can't be sealed to their husband. Obviously, not a practice that's done anymore. But back to our question about did Joseph Smith send people on missions? Now, the one that becomes the most popular claim, and no doubt, I mean, I don't know that this woman's loved one was reading through the affidavits published in the Pittsburgh Chronicle newspaper July 29th of 1842 where John C.
Gerrit Bennett makes that claim. But you know what? Here is that affidavit so that we know where this argument is coming from. John C. Bennett, even though he had made an affidavit, even though he had made a public confession of his sins, is now, after having left Nauvoo, trying to rescind all of what he has said and place essentially every accusation on him back on Joseph Smith and the leaders of the church. This is that affidavit. Personally, up here before me, S. Marshall, a Justice of the Peace for Sed County, this is Hancock County, John C. Bennett, who being duly sworn according to the law, deposeth and sayeth that the affidavit taken before Esquire Wells on the 17th of May and the statement before the city council of Nauvoo on the 19th. So these are two separate confessions of his sins. Two separate apologies for what he had done in two separate public places. As published in the WASP of the 25th of June, 1842, are false.
Gerrit Oh, so you mean that they just manufactured those confessions? Are false and were taken under duress, as stated in this letter. So when he means they're false is he means that he lied about them. And then he goes on to make this claim, which again, I don't believe that the woman who wrote in, I don't believe that their family member is reading this affidavit, and I'll demonstrate that in here in a minute, but this is what the affidavit says. The names of the women involved are all redacted. That way, there's no ability for a slander charge, which was a very common thing. If you were to say that someone had committed adultery, and you published that, well, you could easily be charged for slander. As stated in this letter, he had seen Joseph Smith in bed with Mrs. Blank, Mrs. Blank, and that he's seen him in the act of cohabitation with Mrs. Blank and Mrs. Blank, all four of whom he seduced by telling him that the Lord had granted him the blessings of Jacob, and that there was no sin in it.
Gerrit By the way, which is literally what John C. Bennett was doing. It's what he was accused of, was telling them that he could cohabit with anyone, whether there was a marriage or not. That he told him that Bates Noble married him to Blank, and that Brigham Young married him to Blank, and that he had free access to Mrs. Blank, and Mrs. Blank, and Mrs. Blank. There's a lot of blanks in there, I know, sorry. And various others. And this is the first time you get this accusation, whose husbands he had sent off preaching, and not now necessary to mention, and further this deponent sayeth not. So the allegation is first made by John C. Bennett that Joseph was committing adultery with women whose husbands he had sent off on preaching missions. Now, there are some real problems with this claim. First of all, we know the women who were sealed to Joseph who were in legal marriages to other men.
Gerrit None of them, save one, are on missions for the church at the time that those sealings take place. So we know that this part of the argument is patently not true. You know what's really interesting though, because this person had said, you know, well, my loved one, they really know how to read sources. Well, they probably didn't read what this antagonistic newspaper had to say. The Pittsburgh Chronicle is not a fan of Mormonism, but this is how they introduce this affidavit. We know not whether John C. Bennett is worthy of belief, as he swore while in Nauvoo that Joe Smith had never taught him anything contrary to strict morality and virtue. Injustice to the General, however, we publish his last affidavit, although it and his other publications would, under ordinary circumstances, be excluded from our columns.
Gerrit So even though they're going to go on to make an attack on Mormonism, even though they're going to publish John C. Bennett's affidavit, even this antagonistic paper has to point out the gigantic elephant sitting in the room. And that is, the same John C. Bennett who's telling us this is the same person who very publicly and loudly proclaimed that people who thought anything ill of Mormonism were wrong. So why was he doing that? It reminds me of, you know, we already talked about the problem with his book, but it reminds me of a conversation I had once with a friend of mine who had left the church. And we had been pretty close friends. As we were talking, it became pretty apparent that, you know, you felt very antagonistically disposed to things.
Gerrit And I actually asked him at one point, I said, so, you know, what's going on? And he said, well, you know, I just, I don't, I never actually ever really felt the spirit. You know, I just, you know, I know I said that it was true and stuff, because I mean, I'd known the guy for a long time. I know I said it's true, but I mean, I just said that. I never actually felt the spirit. I mean, I just said it. And I was like, well, yeah, but you didn't just say it. Like, I have dozens of letters from you. We wrote each other our entire missions in which you are bearing your testimony to me. You're telling me about miracles that happened on your mission. You're telling me about these incredible spiritual experiences that you had. And he was like, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I know I said that, but like, you know, I guess I just didn't really realize it. You know, I just didn't really know what the spirit really was. And so I was just saying that. And, you know, my point to him was, well, you know, forgive me, but you really aren't the best source then when it comes to whether or not something is from the spirit, because you were certain that it was the spirit when you were telling me before or you were being dishonest with me about what you were feeling.
Gerrit And now you're telling me certainly that you know that it's not true. Well, frankly, you've been certain about a lot of things so far in your life. How do I know that you're going to stop being certain about this? With John C. Bennett, these newspapers, their response to his claims were, man, you were one of the loudest defenders of Mormonism that there was. And now you're trying to claim to us that you never actually believed that you were just saying that you believed so that you could try to expose them even though you never believed, even though you said that you believed. I mean, we hate Mormons, but even we have limits basically is what they're saying.
Richard So this goes back then to the original question from the sister where she's talking about a particular loved one where she says, he did tell me that he got from reliable sources, and remember he is an attorney, that Joseph Smith sent men on missions, and while they were gone, he married their wives. And that is the real reason that so many early leaders left the church. And so it appears that the reference he's making is, it would have to be to that affidavit where it's multiple men.
Gerrit Well, either that or he's simply regurgitating what some other antagonistic site has said. That someone is saying, well, Joseph even sent men on their missions to marry their wives. Well, this is kind of like the discussion that happens. Someday we'll do the Mormon War in Missouri. I think that's 37. Season 37 we'll do that.
Richard It's not nearly as controversial, but it's a tease.
Gerrit It's actually more controversial, but the problem is we probably have to put explicit lyrics on that one, because if we described everything, it would stop being a family-friendly show. That is true. Anyway, but one of the things that actually causes the war is that there's a lie that's told by a Missouri militiaman, who after he loses the Battle of Crooked River because he'd invaded Caldwell County and kidnapped Latter-day Saints, and the Mormon militia responds thinking that they're a mob, he writes to the governor telling him that dozens of men have been slaughtered, that the Mormons, there we were minding our own business and the Mormons came and killed everybody. So the governor, instead of finding out whether or not that had actually happened, just reacted as if it had happened. Now, one of the easiest things in the world to do is to find out whether or not someone is dead. It's the reason why we have so many podcasts, you know, that are based on true crime.
Gerrit I mean, it's one of the easier things to do. If you are saying that there's two dozen people that are dead, well, then we can go find those men that were part of your company, and we can ask them, are you dead? And if they're dead, then you'll know. But you don't have to react thinking that they're all dead, right? This isn't the case of that. When someone alleges, Joseph Smith married these men's wives after he sent them out on missions, and he did use the plural there, well, then we can go to the women who were sealed to Joseph Smith, and we can find out when they were married and when their husbands were on missions. And the reality is that that is not a demonstrable fact. There isn't men sent on missions in order to be sealed, except in the one case that is a possibility.
Gerrit But again, the way this source is presented is presented as multiple men, multiple and factual and from reliable sources. Well, if the Pittsburgh Chronicle of July 1842 is saying that John C. Bennett is not a reliable source, even as it hates Mormons, I'm not entirely sure what would make that an incredibly credible source for someone in the 21st century.
Richard But it is even more than that, just to say, right, so they aren't speaking of the one specific case that we're going to get into in the next episode here, but they're mentioning multiple people. Well, that just absolutely is easily verifiable.
Gerrit It's a falsifiable thing, because we at least have the dates of many of these polyandrous ceilings. And the claim that's made is one that is made as if it's, I mean, how reliable is your source? Because whatever your source is, it doesn't have a date for those ceilings or for those missions. Now, if you are talking about the one possible exception that we're going to talk about next week, well then, why doesn't your explanation to this loved one say that? Why doesn't this explanation focus on the fact that, hey, there might even have been a case where Joseph Smith was sealed to a woman whose husband was on a mission? That's what your email should say.
Richard Not multiple people.
Gerrit Because making it seem like it's a regular thing, making it seem like, you know what, even if you prove one of these was wrong, there's just so many, what difference would it make? It claims an overwhelming weight of evidence, which in fact doesn't exist. And if someone were an attorney, and you had a witness that made multiple false statements, how credible would that witness be either in the eyes of the court or in the eyes of the jury? Frankly, if you have a witness who has been caught lying multiple times about the events in question, I've served on enough juries and have seen that to know that's not a very credible witness. If you're willing to lie about X and you're willing to lie about Y and you're willing to lie about Z, I don't know much about Z2, but I know that you're not credible because you've already been demonstrated lying, you weren't actually there when you said you were, you weren't actually working when you said you were working, and you weren't actually home when you said you were home.
Gerrit So what actually were you doing? No one really knows. And we spend a lot of time on this podcast examining sources because what you find in the TikTok world and the YouTube subreddit world of pithy little memes and short little commentaries, what you find is people making broad generalizations about facts that are designed to shock people. But when push comes to shove, the thing that they are presenting as an absolute fact, you find is based upon a sandier foundation than ever the foolish man built his house on. And so we are going to talk next week about the one that is probably what this family member was referring to. And that is the case of Marinda Hyde's sealing to Joseph Smith and her husband Orson Hyde. So thank you very much.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

That's right, and we're going to prove it by emails that I made up and just wrote before I read them.

RichardBanter

But first of all, how gracious is it of her that she assumes the reason why some of our humor with a U doesn't land is because she's British.

GerritBanter

Look, Ari might be wrong about how things are pronounced in Missouri, but he's right about us not being funny.

RichardBanter

Any attempt to pass a judgment about any part of plural marriage or the history of plural marriage in our church, in a pithy one-liner is fraught with inaccuracy.

GerritInsight

I don't, frankly, I'm not that good a historian, right? Second, I'm not that good a speaker. Third, Richard's a terrible co-host.

GerritBanter

Well, first of all, you need to be very careful of anyone whose entire motive of being with a religion is to destroy it.

GerritInsight

You know, him and Mark Hoffman sitting in the tree, basically.

GerritBanter

I mean, we hate Mormons, but even we have limits basically is what they're saying.

GerritBanter

But when push comes to shove, the thing that they are presenting as an absolute fact, you find is based upon a sandier foundation than ever the foolish man built his house on.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Joseph Smith sent men on missions so he could marry their wives while they were gone.
John C. Bennett was an insider who exposed what really happened in Nauvoo.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

Plural marriage spans 70 to 80 years and tens of thousands of families, so any one-liner about it is fraught with inaccuracy. Give the topic, and those teaching it, some grace.

Be very careful of anyone whose stated reason for joining a religion was to destroy it. John C. Bennett said exactly that, and contradicted himself again and again.

When someone claims something happened "multiple" times, check the dates. The claim that Joseph sent husbands on missions to marry their wives doesn't hold up.

Sealings in Nauvoo were not only marriages; there were also adoptive sealings between families, which went on until Wilford Woodruff's revelation ended them.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Miracles!Richard echoes the announcer's "miracles" in the intro (0:25).
Season 38Polygamy was promised for season 38; Tracy will still be listening then, and Gerrit says the war was lost somehow (0:47, 3:45, 18:57).
Sir Brian Tuke's mailbagNamed for Henry VIII's Master of the King's Post in remembrance of the Queen (1:39).
Emails we made upOnly positive emails get read, so haters now use the same subject line (2:28, 2:47).
The $190 cruiseA fare error sends them to Sydney, and Gerrit might draw four people to a fireside (4:41, 5:53).
Humour with a UJudith's friend Anne blames British culture when the jokes don't land; Ari says they're just not funny (6:31, 7:03).
Wives asleep behind usThe wives are literally asleep while they record, which is also when chores get promised (4:17, 9:39).
Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoGerrit wonders if the First Presidency tangent was the most meaningless; Richard says Guadalupe Hidalgo was worse (26:02).
The John C. Bennett buttonGerrit's hate runs so deep it needs a 94-part podcast (23:29).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
John C. Bennett's 1842 History of the Saints next to his confession and his letters recanting it (31:29).
Adoptive sealings in the 19th century and Wilford Woodruff's revelation ending them (47:01).
The angel with a drawn sword in the accounts of Joseph's plural wives (27:18).
The Battle of Crooked River and the false report that set off the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (1:02:08).
Marinda and Orson Hyde, the one possible case of a husband away on a mission, covered next episode (1:06:50).
SOT Litner · S2E41.