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Lindsay's dissertation
S4E29 · Having Faith Isn't a Cop Out
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 29 · 1:06:07

Having Faith Isn't a Cop Out

After the martyrdom, the rough oak boxes that carried Joseph and Hyrum's bodies home from Carthage were cut up and made into canes, and Heber C. Kimball said people were healed by them.

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The question ·
So how do you bring across the faith position when people feel like faith is a cop-out?
Robin (listener)

Robin, from Calgary, watches family members leave the Church and asks how to explain faith to people who call it a cop-out. Gerrit and Richard say everyone takes something on faith, from dark matter to the Big Bang, and that people who leave rarely ask the deeper question of what life is for if Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet. Rich asks how to help a son and friend troubled by claims about Joseph's plural marriages and Church finances. Gerrit urges people to look at real sources, which antagonists rarely share. Art from Iona, Idaho asks about the 'coffin canes,' and Gerrit reads how the coffin boxes were made into canes, Heber C. Kimball's sermon on healing, and Wilford Woodruff's visit to Lucy Mack Smith, explaining why physical relics mattered so much to early Saints.

Who comes upJoseph SmithHyrum SmithHeber C. KimballWilford WoodruffLucy Mack SmithBrigham YoungSidney RigdonMarinda HydeJeffrey R. HollandEliza R. Snow
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Lindsay's dissertation

A fellow PhD student sends an email as long as a dissertation, and Richard shares his tips.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
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 ever-surprise-that-he's-back, ever-wondering-when-he's-going-to-be-replaced friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. We were talking before the show that I am wearing down my dissertation committee, and they are requiring less and less of me to just get me out of there.
Gerrit We received, well, I think it's fair to say a dissertation itself, actually, from someone also working on their dissertation. And we won't show it to your advisor because then he would know why it is you don't have your dissertation done.
Richard Because you're writing such wonderful and pithy emails.
Gerrit First of all, the email was hilarious. It was outstanding. We don't really have time to recount it here on the air, mainly because we only have an hour-long show. We'd have to break it into more parts than Moroni had for us to read the whole thing. But to sum up, Lindsey was listening to the podcast while she traveled to various places, church history places in the East, while also at least lying to herself that she was going to work on her dissertation. And as Richard can tell you-
Richard Oh, it's not gonna happen.
Gerrit There are a lot of lies that people tell. Things like, I'm gonna join the gym tomorrow and I'm gonna work out every day this month. That's a lie that someone has to-
Richard I have been paying a gym membership for three years and I haven't been in seven months and I don't plan to ever go again.
Gerrit Are you gonna keep paying for the membership?
Richard Of course, because then I eventually feel like, well, I could go tomorrow.
Gerrit Right, because you're like, I don't wanna have, what if I just have the cancellation fees?
Richard The new me starts tomorrow, Gerrit.
Gerrit Yeah, that's it. You know what? You always have tomorrow to look forward to. There's always tomorrow, I learned, on Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit I think that's the song that his girlfriend sings.
Richard It is, and I believe also Annie.
Gerrit Well, I love you tomorrow. That's very different, yeah. But again, tomorrow is when things are gonna be better. It's when you're gonna go to the gym. And apparently, it's when Lindsay's gonna start working on writing her dissertation. She lugged books around everywhere, but instead, the funny part was she said she was listening to us over the GPS, and it would, so we're talking, and then it will say you would turn right on Onkst Road. As soon as she said, I'm like, Onkst Road, she's obviously going to the Whitmer Farm, because you know where that road is. So we appreciate that email, and we appreciate your efforts to complete your dissertation. And Richard has some inside tips.
Richard I do, I do have some inside tips. Just continue to perform in a mediocre or less way over years and years and years, and they will continue to lower the bar until eventually you have a degree, and they send you on your way.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like it's kind of the same as marriage.
Richard I have lowered the bar so much.
Gerrit Well, they just keep lowering the, I mean, eventually, yeah, our wives expect a lot less of us than they once did.
Richard 23 years ago, Becky had a lot of options. She had a lot of options. She was dating people. They were lovely. They had their future ahead of them. She's forgotten all of these people. She hasn't dated any of them, to my knowledge, for some time.
Gerrit Well, at least for you know it.
Richard And so now she's resigned herself to an eternity with me.
Gerrit Yeah. Now, let's not remind her of the fact, although she's sitting in the room with us right now, that Brigham Young said that you have to live so that your wife chooses you in the resurrection, because she might not.
Richard I just hope that none of the people she dated in college are there after the resurrection, just hanging out.
Gerrit Like when they have like roses and they meet her first or something? Like, hey, you remember me from Homeroom? Homeroom? Yeah, you know, in high school.
Richard Yeah, so that's, my hope is that, the key is that we're buried far away, right? Buried perhaps in another country. So when she comes forth from the grave, they won't be anywhere around. Well, I'm not gonna bury her in Logan, that's for sure.
Gerrit Well, that's the reason why it's important that you guys out there, in the resurrection, you're gonna wanna get to your wife quick. You've gotta be the first thing that she sees. You've gotta make sure that you've got roses, that you're looking to continue the courtship. I just need to be able to get to Angie first because if she's so nice that if I say, hey, will you still be married to me? She'll be like, I guess, because she won't say no. It's how she married me in the first place.
Richard I'm looking at burial plots in Cambodia and St. Petersburg, Russia. We've gotta stay as far away from-
Gerrit No, if you go to St. Petersburg, Russia as an American right now, you might just immediately get your own burial plot. You may not even have to buy that.
Richard Yeah, yeah.
Gerrit They've just got to get off the flight straight to the police interrogation headquarters and then to Siberia for a nice, peaceful vacation.
Richard So thank you, Lindsay, for the wonderful email. And this email, Gerrit, in the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag is from Melanie. She says, hello, Gerrit and Richard. There is an exclamation point. I just wanted to say that the two, that you two are such a gift. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of Joseph Smith and church history. Well, you're welcome, Melanie, especially for me. With all of us, as well as your wonderful humor, I teach fifth grade, so I enjoy listening more about American history too.
Gerrit She probably said learning more.
Richard What did I say? Listening? You know what? It does say learning, but I'm going to go with listening.
Gerrit So you're going to make Melanie sound like she doesn't know it? How sentences work?
Richard I'm just going to change this here.
Gerrit Melanie, I need to let you know that right now, he is physically altering your email.
Richard I teach, I teach, like, I'm going to make it say what I said. I teach fifth grade, so I enjoy listening more about American history. You know what? Your grammar is not great, Melanie. I'm going to show you that. Keep up the great work and blessings to you both. Melanie, thank you so much.
Gerrit Yeah. And you know what? I'm glad that you find the humor nice. Obviously we're not everyone's cup of tea. Mainly on a Latter-day Saint podcast, it's hard to be someone's cup of tea because of the whole Word of Wisdom thing. But also-
Richard We're more of an herbal tea.
Gerrit I feel like fifth grade humor is probably right about where we're at. We're more of a chamomile tea. Maybe a lemongrass.
Richard A lemongrass, for sure. Yes. For those that have a sore throat. So now these next two emails are a little bit more of a serious nature, and so I will not alter any of them. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and ABD Dr. LeDuc spelled the worst that anyone has ever spelled it. Yes. Well, he explains that later here in the email here. My name is Robin. I am from Calgary, Alberta. I grew up in Ontario, and so I feel like I can jokingly misspell Professor LeDuc's name there. He spelled it correctly. I also served in Southern California, so I feel a little brotherhood there. I served in the Long Beach Mission, which no longer exists, and I, of course, in the California Riverside Mission, which also doesn't exist in the same form anymore. It's very interesting how it's all carved up there. I've been listening to your podcast for the last few months.
Richard You've been around for a long time, and so I am roughly halfway through. I've enjoyed it thoroughly. In the past 12 months, I've seen my sister-in-law leave the church. She often posts negative comments about the church. Recently she posted about dinosaurs. Some seminary teacher told her dinosaurs were fake and that God put them there from another planet. This one I'm not super worried about. My mother-in-law also has also left the church. Other siblings have left the church. Good friends who were in my mind very valiant have left the church and even started podcasts and other social media to fight against the church. Even my wife is really struggling. She no longer wears her garments and although she really magnifies her calling as a singing time leader, really questions a lot of the gospel. She doesn't like to talk to me about it because the answers are not simple or short. I don't know the circumstances for all my friends and family leaving. It's just hard sometimes. I had a conversation with my mother-in-law and she told her that there is no prerequisite for my love for her.
Richard She said she wouldn't say anything to my kids or me or put us down. I appreciated that. That being said, we do sometimes have conversations about the church. Typically me or one of my brothers-in-law will answer their questions. It's hard because at the end of the day it comes down to faith. To me, this totally makes sense. It doesn't matter how much evidence there is for anything. If there is no faith, then even in the face of evidence, having a testimony is impossible or at least much more difficult. There doesn't seem to be an indicator to show who will be faithful and who will not. So how do you bring across the faith position when people feel like faith is a cop-out? I have looked at the church, well, so let me just pause there because then he goes on to talk about church history tour and other podcasts that he likes and listens to, but I don't want to kind of go lighter as he has a serious question there.
Gerrit Well, I think that the question of how do you talk to people that have doubts is, I mean, that's been a believer's question all the way back to the beginning of Christianity. I mean, Paul is talking to Agrippa, you know, and trying to persuade him, and he doesn't really believe anything that Paul has to say. To me, to say that faith is a cop-out, I understand why someone who's disenchanted with religion says that. I also think that they are overplaying their hand. I think that they don't realize that the things that they blindly believe in, they don't have any explanation of either. For instance, you could ask someone who does not believe in God, why does anything exist?
Gerrit Now, you can have a nice song and a dance about the Big Bang and oh, yes, yeah, all the matter coalesced together and da-da-da. And maybe that is how the universe came into its origination, because that's how God did it. But maybe, right? But that doesn't explain where matter itself comes from. You're starting in the middle of a story where there was all this matter and then it eventually coalesced and it became so super dense that it eventually exploded and shot outward. But there actually isn't an explanation for that. There's no explanation for why matter exists. Why does the universe exist the way that it does? One thing that can't be explained is that everything in the universe, the universal constant, the speed limit of the universe, is the speed of light. And yet for some reason, in a way that's utterly inexplicable, when the universe exploded from the Big Bang, it expanded faster than the speed of light.
Gerrit So nothing can go faster than the speed of light, except for the things that can go faster than the speed of light, which is literally everything, because that's how the universe was created.
Richard Can I give one of my favorites? I know it's one of yours as well. Dark matter and dark energy. Love those. So from nasa.gov, which...
Gerrit Is a highly reputable fake moon landing site.
Richard So about 95% of the mass of our galaxy is invisible and does not interact with light. It is made of a mysterious substance called dark matter, which has never been directly measured. This is one of those things where now the belief that dark matter and dark energy exist and make up 95%...
Gerrit Yeah, not just like a little bit. This isn't like, oh man, I forgot to carry the one in my equation. It is the equation. It's everything.
Richard But that it has to exist, otherwise none of the other things work out and make sense.
Gerrit For our understanding of gravity to function, even with Einstein's theory of general relativity, dark matter has to exist. Dark energy has to exist. And what is dark matter and dark energy? You know, both matter and energy that make up 95% of the universe, but that you can't see, can't measure, can't interact with directly, can't capture, can't replicate, can't demonstrate, can't do anything about.
Richard Gerrit, it's okay though, because this might seem like a cop-out, but I have faith in dark matter and dark energy.
Gerrit I mean, and that's, I mean, I know that's a little more harsh than you'd ever be with someone in your family, but the reality is someone who has trouble believing in God themselves believe in something that cannot be proven, that cannot be demonstrated, and that when it boils down to it, it just has to be, well, in order for the other things we know to work out, these things must exist, even though we can't measure them, can't interact with them, and have spent billions of dollars in multiple, you know, super colliders trying to demonstrate, and we can't do it. And frankly, that would be very similar to the way that we describe the fact that God must exist. So that atheist says, well, dark matter must exist, otherwise these equations don't work. Well, I say God must exist, otherwise we wouldn't have an explanation for any of these equations.
Gerrit And yeah, we can't measure God, we can't demonstrate God, we can't interact with God, but it must exist in order for life to exist. I mean, look, I'm all for playing the odds. I am. But the one over a trillion, you know, to that whatever power that it is, that organic life just spontaneously combusted out of a bunch of inner objects, is you're believing in something in faith quite a bit as well. You aren't calling it faith, but you're believing in something that legitimately can't be demonstrated.
Richard Now, it's possible, Gerrit, in this particular instance, that it's not that they're going from a testimony of the Church, the Restored Gospel, to nothing, but maybe from the Restored Gospel to, you know, that Joseph Smith is a false prophet, the Church isn't. So that maybe there's still a belief in God or Jesus, but that...
Gerrit So, sure, so we believe in God, but the moment Joseph Smith stops being a prophet, the God you believe in created a world that is terrible and horrible, in which almost everyone in it suffers for the brief time that they're here in this world. And by the way, the parting gift you get for the suffering, for the inequity, for the horror of this life, for the sicknesses, for the betrayals, for the damaging things that happened to us in this life is you get to burn in hell for the rest of eternity. I mean, yeah, sure, you don't have to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. But boy, I think a lot of people who make that decision don't realize that it also means that the God that they worship is very different than they want to believe that he is. Now maybe they just go the route of some people and say, well, I don't believe that about God, that everyone burns in hell. I think that God just loves us and he just wants us to do whatever he wants.
Gerrit Okay, but talk about taking something on faith, because you're not even quoting an authority anymore. What authority are you quoting? Where in the Bible does it say God just wants all of us to do whatever we want? I'm pretty sure that's not in one of Paul's letters. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of his letters are, Hey guys, you can't just do whatever you want. That's in the original Greek? In the original Greek. It's like, oh, no, it says Homo ousion. Oh, oh, I didn't realize that it says, it says, hey, hey guys, this isn't like your parents are out of town and you could just throw a rager. So I think when people think deeply about it, I think part of what you're confronting, Robin, is that people probably aren't thinking deeply about it. Most of the people that I talk to who are struggling with different aspects of church history, who are trying to figure out what's right, what's wrong, they know that they're troubled by polygamy, and they know they're troubled by the Book of Abraham, and they're troubled by the translation of the Book of Mormon, and they're troubled by X, and they're troubled by Y.
Gerrit But they haven't stopped to consider how troubling things are if Joseph Smith is not a prophet. Because then you're back to ex nihilo creation. Because if you want to believe in God, I hate to break it to whoever that is. All Christians and Jews and Muslims, they believe that God created literally everything out of nothing. So God created everything out of nothing, including us, by the way. And look at how terrible the world is. And as we've said multiple times on this podcast, people will say things like, well, yeah, that's because Adam and Eve fell. Okay, that's great. That doesn't absolve God. God created Adam and Eve out of nothing. God created Adam and Eve out of nothing knowing that they would eat the fruit, put the tree for them to eat the fruit, knowing that it would condemn all of mankind to mosquitoes and syphilis.
Gerrit I mean, not everyone would get syphilis, but then it would be potential.
Richard That's the name of this episode?
Gerrit It's mosquitoes and syphilis?
Richard It is. That's correct.
Gerrit Okay, but God created them knowing that they would fall and knowing that he, because God decided what the impact of that fall would be. And God decided that the impact of that fall would be that everyone would live a horrible mortal existence. And then, by the way, nearly everyone at the end of that horrible mortal existence would go to an eternal, writhing flames of hell. Why? I mean, again, someone can say, well, that's not what I think about God. Well, I thought this conversation was spinning on the fact that you didn't want to just take things on faith. So now, is it just you? Like, you just know? I mean, it's good to know that you're now the authority on who God is. And it doesn't come from the Bible, don't worry. And it certainly doesn't come from the Book of Mormon, don't worry. It just comes from whatever I think. Well, whatever I think is not a super definitive thing, is it?
Gerrit At least, if it is, then the God you believe in is allowing, essentially, everyone else on earth to believe wrong things and be miserable. And God's allowing that too. So that's, I mean, I think that if people really stopped and thought about what it would mean if the doctrine of the restoration wasn't true, it is almost impossible, and I would say is impossible, but you know, I'm willing to be open to arguments to explain why God created the world that he did with the suffering that he did. And if the only answer that I'm going to get is, well, for the glory of God. Well, remember, God's all powerful. So God could have had just as much glory in a place that wasn't horrific. So how good is he? How does the Latter-day Saint argument get around that?
Gerrit Because we already existed. God didn't thrust us into creation. See, the problem with the standard Christian understanding of ex nihilo creation is, if I'm born in China in 1000 AD and I never even hear the word Jesus, I didn't ask to be born. I didn't exist until God created me. And He created me knowing that I would never hear about Jesus, but also created the terms of my salvation, stating that if I didn't believe in Jesus, I would burn in hell forever.
Richard So that's an interesting point. I go back to, again, I mentioned this before, the barbecue that I ruined at my wife's family get-together when I was talking to my nephew going on a mission. But this was the thing that he was going back to, right? Is using this Latter-day Saint understanding of, well, these are the things that we have to do. And it's like, no, there's nothing.
Gerrit When you're all powerful, you don't have to do anything.
Richard That's the thing that he wasn't, initially, wasn't even able to comprehend. Because in his world view, with the testimony of the Restored Gospel, that, well, so, no, these are the things that we have to do to become more like Heavenly Father. And it's like, no, no, no. Literally, he could save anyone whenever, however. And even Jesus didn't have to come down to save.
Gerrit That's how God chose to save us.
Richard Right. But he doesn't have to do that. It could have done whatever.
Gerrit Well, we don't even have to be fallen. I mean, when you're all powerful and you're creating a world out of nothing, you get to dictate the terms. You get to decide what salvation is. You get to decide what damnation is. And when you're creating it out of nothing and you know everything, including everything of the future, then there's no way to escape the fact that everything about our experience on this earth, God foresaw. If you say he didn't foresee it, then you're saying God is not all powerful. And good luck finding the other actual believing Christians who will line up behind you saying, oh yes, God is not all powerful. It's a standard belief among Christians and Jews and Muslims, among all monotheistic religions, that God is all powerful. And so that takes us all back to the same question. So I feel like when people are just troubled by aspects of church history, I mean, they're not drinking deeply enough from the stream.
Gerrit They are not asking the deeper questions. Okay, let's say Joseph Smith isn't really a prophet. Then what is the purpose of this life? We read on a recent episode, what do Christians say the purpose of life is to bring glory to God? The will of God, for God's pleasure. Okay, that is not comforting literally at all when you're talking to someone whose child just passed away. Yeah, well, it's for God's own pleasure. For Latter-day Saint, because we believe we lived with God before and that the plan was in order to become like God, we had to do what God did, and that is experience a mortal life to be proven and tested to become like Him. There is no arbitrariness about it. We chose to come to a fallen world, knowing that it would be terrible.
Gerrit But also the other great part about Latter-day Saint theology is we believe that because we chose to come here, that everyone is going to go to a great and glorious, inexplicably glorious, heaven. People who have a problem with Joseph Smith or church history, they aren't thinking about that. They aren't thinking about the fact that when you stop being a Latter-day Saint, you go from believing that essentially every single person on earth, or as President Oaks said, with exceptions too few to mention, every person who has ever lived is going to a heaven so indescribable that you can't describe it without having it open to you by God. They aren't thinking about that. They aren't thinking, I'm going to go from believing that every single person on earth is going to heaven and they're going to be happy to believing that almost no one on earth is going to heaven.
Gerrit And not only are they going to not be happy, they are going to writhe in horrific hellfire forever. I mean, someone might say, I don't understand how you can believe in a Joseph Smith that taught polygamy. I don't understand how you can believe in a God that created this horrible world. I don't understand that. Now, if it was necessary, if it was something we chose, if it was something that we chose because we knew it was the only way we could progress, now I understand why we're in this horrible world. But just for God's pleasure, I don't think so. That's not enough for me. And so, look, you know your personal situation is far better than I do. But I just want you to know that we all have family and friends who at times struggle, who surprisingly struggle, who we all have friends and family who have left the church. And all you can do is love them and know that God will be merciful.
Gerrit We don't know how that judgment day is going to work. But we know that we have a father who far from trying to condemn everyone on earth, like Elder Kieran said in conference, is in relentless pursuit of us. And I think that that judgment day is going to be one of great happiness for many people. And I believe in the mercy of the Atonement. I believe it more than I believe in the idea of fire and destruction. We have a related other email, Richard?
Richard And thank you very much, Robin, for that email. We love and appreciate your faith, and it is most certainly not a cop-out. This next email, Gerrit, comes to us from Rich. I'm only reading people from Canada or with my same name.
Gerrit With your same name. That makes sense. Things have become very clear now.
Richard Excuse me. I'm emotional. So this one is similar. Friends and family struggling. I have a deep testimony of the Gospel. Lately, I have both a son and a good friend that are getting caught up in concerns about Joseph Smith, his polygamy practices and the use of ties in the church. I have always kept things simple. I developed a deep and abiding testimony of the atonement through the Book of Mormon in prayer. And I've never looked back. I don't get caught up in the criticisms of the church. I want to help my son and my friend. They are concerned with things about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young being sex addicts and being with young girls and men's wives after they went on missions. I don't know how to balance their concerns or where to guide them. I know that our human and church history are not all clean, but I know that the sources for those issues are not clean either. They are using these things to justify distance from the church. Please help me if you can. I want to help them.
Richard My son is also concerned about the headlines about tithing and misappropriation in recent years with investments.
Gerrit Okay, well, it's a very similar question, although with some more specificity. First of all, again, Rich, I'm sorry to hear that, and I wish there was something that I could do personally to help. In the end, both for Robin and Rich, I mean, faith is a choice. Someone needs to want to believe. And if someone doesn't want to believe, look, I've had all kinds of conversations with people where I have talked about their various questions they have about history. And I've demonstrated to them how inaccurate their arguments are. And it didn't make any difference at all. Because in the end, they wanted to not believe. It's actually difficult to find people that are sincere in their statement that they absolutely want to believe, but they just need to find some answers for things. They certainly are out there. I'm not indicting everybody. But I've had enough conversations with people to realize that sometimes they're using it as an excuse to create distance.
Gerrit That really is the case. And if that's the point of the conversation, it's hard to overcome that. Because if what they want is distance, they're going to get that distance however they justify it. But I can tell you, and you already pointed out, some of these sources aren't very good. I mean, my goodness. I mean, the argument that Joseph Smith is sending men on their missions in order to marry their wives is something that we talked about in a specific detail with Marinda Hyde on this podcast. So I'll point you to that podcast where I believe it might be, is it season 38 already?
Richard I'm finding exactly where it's at, and I'll put the link in the description.
Gerrit Where we talk about that very thing. Where we don't even know when Joseph Smith's sealing to Marinda Hyde took place. Let alone the nature of their marriage. Stating something like, oh, these guys are just sex addicts. It seems pretty crass. Especially given the response from the people who were actually involved in plural marriage. The reality of polygamy is it's a difficult topic. We just talked about it in the last two episodes. Much to everyone's chagrin, I'm sure. But we haven't got all the emails received yet for those. We'll find out. But they are difficult topics. And there's not easy answers to everything. But if you're saying something definitively, like Joseph Smith sent men on their mission so he could marry their wives, well, you don't care about truth at all.
Gerrit You either are uneducated, which is most likely. You don't actually know what the sources say, but you're listening to someone else who's claiming to be an expert. But that expert, of course, isn't actually an expert. Or you're being deliberately deceitful. My guess is that that person doesn't really know, but I think we demonstrated on that podcast pretty well that someone who's cavalierly claiming that Joseph Smith sent Orson Hyde on his mission to marry Marinda Hyde is discounting two separate sources that contradict that from Marinda Hyde. And they're doing it because it's what benefits them. Not because it's a better source, not because, oh, it's an earlier source, not because it's a source that proves X, but because it's what they want to believe. And frankly, when people deal with anti-Mormon material, talk about people believing because they want to believe.
Gerrit Faith is something that you have to want to have. And when you go into anti-Mormon materials, boy, you have to want to believe those negative arguments because they are never the best sourced. They are never the ones that are the earliest. They are never the ones that are dispassionate. They're just the ones that are saying what you want to hear. And frankly, they're not very accurate. So I wish there was a magic bullet I could give you. But as I said with Robin, I mean, you just love your sons. You can point them to the Gospel Topics Essays that are on the Church's website, which provide actual sources from actual people actually involved from actual historians, which is a little bit different than whatever they found on the Internet last week. Someone who's taking someone's argument, who is not a credible source, and using that to change their life, that's a very weird thing.
Gerrit It's a weird thing to say, I've got a problem with the Church's history because of X, but to not even investigate where that source comes from. It seems like a double standard, that we can draw definitive conclusions on one hand, but we're not going to do anything to examine what source it comes from. And of course you have many people involved in all of those things, who utterly refute those claims. The women who are married to Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, utterly refute those claims. And so what, do they just not matter? Does your son not care about what women's voices are? Because they're the ones explaining what their marriages were like. And are we just going to throw their sources out? Their sources don't matter? What's the basis for throwing their sources out? Because we don't like them? Because they're women? What would be a good argument for throwing their source out?
Gerrit Most likely, I would guess that they don't really know those sources exist. And the reason why they don't know those sources exist is because it's not the church that's hiding those sources from them. It's because the person who's telling them the negative thing about the church or the website or the letter to the CES director or whatever source they are trying to use, it is those places that are obfuscating the other sources surrounding plural marriages. It's funny, you read all of those attacks on Joseph or Brigham based upon plural marriage. Why aren't they quoting what the women who are involved are saying? If the whole point is you're worried about those women, why are they silent from those arguments? I think we already know the reason why. Because when Lucy Walker Kimball testifies that she had a miraculous experience that told her to practice polygamy, well, that kind of undermines our argument that it was just all Joseph and all lies.
Gerrit So we just don't tell people those things, right? Or at least the antagonist doesn't. So I wish there was some way to really help in that regard, but I'm afraid there's not. But I do want you to know that there are answers out there if people go to credible sources. But mainly all you can do is love people who are struggling, help provide answers for what they are earnestly seeking questions for, and don't allow their crumbling faith to affect your own.
Richard That's very well said. As I've looked this up, it is... The name of those are... Is it Season 38 already, Part 1 and 2? Guess when we did those, by the way.
Gerrit I'm going to guess in Season 1.
Richard Season 2. So we're never going to talk about polygamy. Now, we're going to hit polyandry. We're going to hit that dead on, Season 2. So I'll put the links there that you can go and find those. And I think that you'll find some additional information as it relates to those things. So we appreciate both of those emails. And again, we are frustrated yet sympathetic to your circumstance. Frustrated at it. We wish that...
Gerrit We could help. We wish we could help. We wish this podcast was better. We wish we were more eloquent. We wish we could read.
Richard Well, I just wish that Melanie could write properly.
Gerrit Well, I mean, yeah, when you alter her... Maybe you should take a remedial fifth grade class from her.
Richard I probably should. That's essentially where my dissertation committee is, actually. That's some of their recent recommendations. This next email that will finish us out as we drag into a full hour will be... This comes from Art. And Art has a unique approach to his email.
Gerrit He sent several emails.
Richard He has, but this one, the entire body of the email he put in the subject. And you know what, Art?
Gerrit It worked.
Richard It caught our attention.
Gerrit Well, it couldn't not because all the words were gigantic because it was in the subject line.
Richard Yeah, it was great. So this comes to us from Art. We do listen to your podcasts live in, is it live? Live.
Gerrit They probably live in Iona.
Richard I assume they listen to it live. We do listen to your podcasts live in Iona. I'm going to try this again.
Gerrit They obviously live in Iona.
Richard Obviously. I'm going to try this again. Let's see if it comes to us from Art, Gerrit. Oh, okay.
Gerrit Should we edit that last part out?
Richard Nope. Well, leave it, it's my mistake.
Gerrit We're going to do it live.
Richard We'll do it live. We'll do it live. We do listen to your podcasts live in Iona, a small town. In fairness though, when you're putting the entire body in a subject, you're not going to be heavy in the punctuation.
Gerrit There's no punctuation.
Richard So there's that possibility. A small town east of IF.
Gerrit As if I wouldn't know where Iona was.
Richard I assume that means in vitro fertilization.
Gerrit No, I am from Shelley, Idaho. Of course, I know where Iona is.
Richard Our question is, what happened to the Saints in Nauvoo after the martyrdom? Have you ever heard of the coffin canes? And are they real? I'm not a good speller, so hope it doesn't come...
Gerrit I'm not sure. Maybe there was more and it got cut off.
Richard It's possible he's dead.
Gerrit Perhaps he died while carving it.
Richard Art, please, please leave us back. Let us know that you're safe and that you're live in Iona.
Gerrit It's possible that he continued and that the subject bar hasn't cut off. And so it just did a dot, dot, dot because it wasn't in the body of the email.
Richard You know what? That's good. That's well done.
Gerrit Well done, Mr. Holmes. Either that or art is peeled over in Iona somewhere.
Richard But it was enough to hit the dot, dot, dot.
Gerrit On the bright side of being lost somewhere in Iona and waiting for authorities to respond is that they can probably find you just doing a house to house check.
Richard Yeah, three houses.
Gerrit Well, it wasn't in the Johnsons. Oh, not in the Ferguson's either.
Richard Have you tried looking in Art's House? We didn't think of that.
Gerrit Oh, let's go to Art's House because they know everyone by first name. 100%. So I wanted to respond to part of that where he talked about the coffin canes. I had intended this podcast to be somewhat lighter than the last two because I...
Richard So we started with two emails from people that have family that are leaving to kind of lighten it up and then get into the coffin canes.
Gerrit I feel like you're the one who chooses these emails. I think you just want me to talk about polygamy so badly.
Richard There's a Canadian and there's someone named Rich. What am I supposed to do?
Gerrit That's true. You were forced into it. So yeah, the question about the coffin canes. Well, I have said before that one of the more difficult documents I've read was the bill that was sent to Emma Smith for the charges of the coffins that were made for her husbands and the care of the bodies from the Hamilton Hotel. There's another bill also for the Hyrum Smith estate, meaning for Mary Fielding Smith, that is for the cost of things incurred while they were in Carthage. And it's one of those documents that I read and it makes me mad.
Gerrit To funeral expenses incurred at Carthage, to taking care of the body of him and expenses, of board and persons necessary in attending to him. To 160 feet pine lumber for his coffin. I don't know why I'm so mad about that.
Richard They murdered him and now they're charging money to take care of him.
Gerrit I think that's it.
Richard I think I nailed it.
Gerrit Let's just send the bill back to Emma and to Mary Fielding. And it's a considerable amount. I mean, $32 is what is eventually on there.
Richard Wow.
Gerrit That's quite a bit. The coffins alone, the 160 feet of pine lumber is $320. But yeah, the taking care of his body and his expenses of persons necessary, $1250. I mean, so we know those coffins were made. And now, of course, those weren't the same coffins they were buried in. Because you might be saying, well, how in the world do you have a coffin cane? I mean, it doesn't make sense that you can have a cane made out of a coffin, given the fact that the coffin goes in the ground. And then what? I mean, if the coffin goes into the ground, you've got to be very industrious in order to end up with wood from the coffin. But because both Joseph and Hyrum were given these temporary coffins before they were reburied, this is where some of these canes likely or at least purportedly come from. Now we do have a pretty good source saying that those canes existed.
Gerrit This is what we get from a discourse by Hebrew C. Kimball in the 1850s. He says, How much would you give for even a cane that Father Abraham had used? Or a coat or a ring that the Savior had worn? Imagine that. If you had a cane that you knew Abraham had as a cane, what would that be worth? Or a ring that Jesus had worn? What would that be worth?
Richard I mean, Catholics, they're big into relics. Pretty priceless.
Gerrit They're fragments of the True Cross all over Europe. The idea being that when Jesus was taken down off the Cross, that people broke up pieces of wood from that Cross and kept those as relics, because this is where the Savior was crucified. Although historians have also noted that if all of the fragments of the True Cross were actually brought back together, it would be a cross that would be about 20 times bigger than an actual cross would be. So not every piece of wood, unless it's like a Lowe's and Fish's Cross story.
Richard It's possible, I mean, there's humidity in Europe and there's expansion of the wood.
Gerrit It would be more likely that the Cross was actually that gigantic, because if you remember our discussion of the Gospel of Peter, right, the Apocryphal Gospel, where in that Gospel, the Cross, the Cross, which stretches all the way up to heaven, comes out of the tomb, walking and talking with Jesus. So maybe that's the Cross, but that-
Richard It's like a Veggie Tales.
Gerrit The problem is that Cross is also alive. So did they kill the Cross and then break it up into pieces?
Richard We believe that everything has intelligence, and so there's an element to that, where they obey.
Gerrit But they did chop up a walking and talking Cross then.
Richard God, it is pretty dark. By the way, so I'm just looking. So a male teacher in the early 1840s, I'm looking for labor, can't find it. A male teacher might be making somewhere around $32 or so per month.
Gerrit Yeah, that would be, look, a dollar a day is a good wage in the 1840s.
Richard So a month's of wages for what it is that this is.
Gerrit It's quite a bit. So imagine what that is today. Just think of that. So back to his quote he receives. The rough oak boxes in which the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were brought from Carthage were made into canes and other articles. I have a cane made from the plank of one of those boxes. So as brother Brigham and a great many others, we prize them highly and esteem them a great blessing. I want to carefully preserve my cane. And when I am done with it here, I shall hand it down to my heir with instructions to him to do the same. And the day will come when there will be multitudes who will be healed and blessed through the instrumentality of those canes. And the devil cannot overcome those who have them in consequence of their faith and confidence in the virtues connected with them.
Gerrit Some do not appreciate these things, nor the counsel of their leaders. And then again, many do appreciate Brother Brigham. They love him and his counsels and his words are jewels to them. When persons do not care anything about his words, what do they care about mine? And if they do not care for his words, they will not care for those of any righteous man. If I had those relics of Abraham and the Savior, which I have mentioned, I would give a great deal for them. In England, when not in a situation to go, I've blessed my handkerchief and asked God to sanctify it and fill it with life and power and sent it to the sick. And hundreds have been healed by it in like manner, I have sent my cane. Dr. Richards used to lay his old black cane on a person's head. And that person has been healed through its instrumentality by the power of God. I have known Joseph hundreds of times to send handkerchiefs to the sick and they have been healed.
Gerrit There are persons in this congregation who have been healed by throwing my old cloak on their beds. So you get this idea that not only are these canes made, but they are at least used in part with some of these other relics as a means of healing people. And before the Lateri of St. in you starts crying out, no, you can never do that with a physical object. No, that's not how it works. I mean, we do put oil on people right now. We do put oil on people right now. So before you say, it doesn't make any sense to have a physical blessed object be a part of someone's healing, you better check your Priesthood Handbook because actually there is a physical blessed object that is a part of healing.
Gerrit And let's think about the Savior Jesus Christ as well. When he spit on the ground and made clay of the spittle and took that clay and anointed the eyes of him that had been born blind, why did Jesus do that? If we say, could Jesus have healed the blind man without putting clay on his eyes? Because I said the word Jesus, I think we all know the answer to that question. Of course he could have healed the blind man without putting clay on his eyes. He was the divine son of God. Of course he could. But even the Lord at times used physical objects in his healing.
Richard I've often wondered why optometry schools haven't used more clay in their studies.
Gerrit Yeah, well, they should. It should just be all clay, like every shipment that's coming in. Did you get the eyeglasses? Nope, we've got clay. I mean, we need eyeglasses for people that are opposed to clay. They have some kind of religious compunction against it.
Richard It's a great point, though. We think of something like that, and our immediate reaction is to be like, you know.
Gerrit That's crazy.
Richard You know?
Gerrit But... But there I am putting oil on someone's head when I give them a blessing. Well, that's different. It's different because it's familiar to you. There's no possible way, though, that someone's like handkerchief could heal somebody. You're right, there's no possible way unless you happen to be a woman who has an issue of blood seven years and touches the hem of Jesus' garment. Now, I get it that the way that we do blessings generally is we anoint with consecrated oil and we put hands on that person's head and we give them a blessing. But Jesus didn't touch the woman at all who was healed. She literally just touched his clothing. And so we actually, you know, it's not just Latter-day Saints who have this tradition of some of these relics perhaps being holy to the point that they aid in healing. Christians have this belief. They all have it because of Jesus in the New Testament.
Gerrit So even a, you know, a dyed-in-the-wool Protestant who can't stand the idea of Catholic relics still believes that there are physical aspects to healing because that's what the Lord Jesus did. And we're not going to say that Jesus did it wrong. That's not the only source we have, though. We actually have a better source talking about these. Well, first of all, a couple of these are actually, I mean, the daughters of the Utah pioneers have a couple of these supposed coffin canes. The Church History Museum has some of them. Obviously, the provenance of everything is different along the way. But one of a really good source for this actually goes back to one of my favorite sources of all time. Those of you who know me know that if I can, I will desperately get back to a Wilford Woodruff journal.
Richard It is your favorite.
Gerrit I love Wilford Woodruff and I love his journal, and not only because of the fact that there's a lot of things in it, but because of how just faithful Wilford Woodruff is. He is just so devoted to the gospel and to the Prophet Joseph Smith that, you know, he's someone you, the more you read about, the more you're like, I wish I could be like Wilford Woodruff. I wish I could somehow be like Wilford Woodruff. I want to be like Wilford Woodruff. Anyway, so in the immediate aftermath of of the murders, most of the apostles, the murders of Joseph and Hyrum, most of the apostles are not in Nauvoo. They're out electioneering for for Joseph Smith because he's running for president. When they find out, they head back and they begin to to settle with, what are they going to do with the leadership of the church?
Gerrit Of course, Sidney Rigdon is going to make his claim. But the the aftermath is still a pretty, it's a pretty difficult time where Wilford Woodruff talks about he and Brigham essentially crying as they think about the fact that Joseph had been murdered. So in that immediate aftermath, it's August 23rd of 1844, so it's not even been two months since Joseph was murdered. And actually, Wilford himself has only been back in the city just days because he had to come back from his mission. I met with the Quorum of the Twelve in council a little time, or some of them. I visited Emma Smith, the widow of the prophet. She let me have a piece of oak for a staff out of the coffin of the prophet, Joseph, who was inhumanly martyred in Carthage, Illinois, in company with his brother Hyrum.
Gerrit Emma also let me have a pair of gloves composed of white cotton and Mrs. Woodruff a cotton handkerchief, both of which the prophet wore while he was living. We called upon Sister Mary Smith, the widow of Hyrum Smith, the patriarch. She gave us some hair from the head of Joseph, Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Don Carlos Smith, all brothers of the same parents. I also obtained some hair of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My object was in putting a portion of each into the top of my staff as a relic of those noble men, master spirits of the 19th century, to hand down to my posterity, to deposit in the most holy and sacred place in the Holy Temple of God on the Consecrated Hill of Zion.
Gerrit I next visited Mother Lucy Smith, the mother of those noble men, even the Lord's anointed, whose names were Joseph, Hyrum, Samuel and Don Carlos, and the wife of Joseph Sr., the first patriarch of the last dispensation. All those men fell directly or indirectly as martyrs for the cause of truth and of God. Joseph and Hyrum being shot in cold blood. The old mother and prophetess felt most heartbroken at the loss of her children and the wicked and cruel treatment she had received from the hands of the Gentile world. She begged a blessing at my hand. I laid my hands upon her head and proclaimed the following by the Spirit of God. And then it goes off to list the blessing that he gave her. Which we don't have time to read here now, but you can see it was in the spirit of keeping something.
Gerrit When I was at the Church's street apartment, at one point we got a file that we looked in that also had at least what purported to be some hair that was cut from the Prophet Joseph Smith and some other relics and other pieces. Very difficult, of course, without doing DNA testing to determine whether or not the veracity of those things. But you can see why someone like Wilford Woodruff or Heber C. Kimball would want to make a memento of the Prophet Joseph. You know, this is, it's probably fairly odd in today's world, but, you know, when I was growing up, everyone had what they called Books of Remembrance, where people kept things in them.
Gerrit And it wasn't just pictures of when they were in a bathtub, when they were four. My mom kept our first tooth that fell out. She kept our first haircut hair.
Richard My mom did as well. Yeah.
Gerrit Now, it wasn't because my mom thought that hair was going to become magical, because by that point, my mom already knew who I was. She knew what I was when she'd picked me up, literally. But so that idea of memory based upon physical objects, it certainly has carried on somewhat in our world today, but much less so than it used to be. And so, yeah, there are canes that are talked about by Heber C. Kimball and Wilfred Woodruff, and there are multiple canes that are in circulation that people at least purport to be those canes. We'd have to get a museum specialist on to talk about the providence of all those things, but that they existed and that people thought they were special, that's a historical reality. And Wilfred Woodruff links his getting his wood for the cane to his testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and to Hyrum, and in some ways as a refutation of the evil world that killed them.
Gerrit So I think that that's an important way to view those things. Why does an 1830 Book of Mormon matter? I don't know, I can't own one, I don't own one. But why would it be special to someone aside from its value? I think it's special because there's power in the fact that it exists. I held Eliza R. Snow's little pocket journal in my hand that's at the Huntington Library. It's teeny, smaller than the palm of my hand. Well, it's about the size of the palm of my hand. I mean, I have relatively large hands, but it's a little pocket journal that she kept as she fought her way across the plains. And I have to tell you that as I held that book, it was a spiritual, powerful experience. It was as if that book, tattered and worn with stained and smudged ink in it, was itself testifying of what Eliza R.
Gerrit Snow believed, sacrificed for and gave the remainder of her life for, because she knew that Joseph was a prophet, that Brigham was a prophet, and that the church was true.
Richard President Holland did a similar thing, speaking of the martyrdom, holding the Book of Mormon that Hyrum had and the dog-eared page, and held it up during general conference, kind of in a similar...
Gerrit Yeah, because there's power, that this is the same book that Hyrum held. And frankly, when we go on these church history tours, that's part of the power. As you walk across the very four boards that are in the School of the Prophets and the Newell K. Whitney store, that you know that there are multiple accounts of the Savior appearing, walking across those four boards. As you go to these places, there's power in these relics or these buildings. And I think it's because we are very open to the Holy Spirit communicating with our spirit, that these people, these stories, these places are real. They are not bedtime stories. They are not things that we just tell each other to make ourselves feel better.
Gerrit Jesus actually did appear to them. Angels appeared to them. The very God of heaven himself appeared to Joseph. And all we have, aside from their testimonies and their scriptures, is sometimes these little bits of things that they possessed. And to me, the power is in the fact that the very existence of Eliza Arseneau's journal is in and of itself a testimony to the woman and prophetess that she was. It demonstrates far greater than some doubting Thomas, who wants to have an explanation for everything, and even if you give an explanation for those things, they're still not going to believe. It demonstrates that there were very, very, very intelligent people, very, very, very headstrong and independently minded people who were touched by the Holy Spirit of God, who witnessed miracle after miracle, and devoted their lives to the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Gerrit And so I think those things are special. So thank you so much for joining us, and hopefully next week we'll find a way to not even reference plural marriage even slightly. What do you think, Richard?
Richard We're going to read three emails about plural marriage.
Gerrit Okay, we'll see you next week.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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I have been paying a gym membership for three years and I haven't been in seven months and I don't plan to ever go again.

RichardBanter

Just continue to perform in a mediocre or less way over years and years and years, and they will continue to lower the bar until eventually you have a degree, and they send you on your way.

RichardBanter

You've gotta be the first thing that she sees. You've gotta make sure that you've got roses, that you're looking to continue the courtship.

GerritBanter

Gerrit, it's okay though, because this might seem like a cop-out, but I have faith in dark matter and dark energy.

RichardBanter

So nothing can go faster than the speed of light, except for the things that can go faster than the speed of light, which is literally everything, because that's how the universe was created.

GerritInsight

We chose to come to a fallen world, knowing that it would be terrible.

GerritInsight

And I believe in the mercy of the Atonement. I believe it more than I believe in the idea of fire and destruction.

GerritInsight

In the end, both for Robin and Rich, I mean, faith is a choice. Someone needs to want to believe.

GerritInsight

But mainly all you can do is love people who are struggling, help provide answers for what they are earnestly seeking questions for, and don't allow their crumbling faith to affect your own.

GerritInsight

I've often wondered why optometry schools haven't used more clay in their studies.

RichardBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Faith is a cop-out; unbelievers only accept what can be proven.
Joseph Smith sent men on missions so he could marry their wives.
Using a physical object in healing isn't something Latter-day Saints or Christians would ever do.
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

Everyone believes something they can't prove; the deeper question for someone leaving is what life means and why God made such a world if Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet.

Faith is a choice. With loved ones who are struggling, love them, help with sincere questions, and don't let their doubts erode your own faith.

When a claim about Church history troubles you, ask where it comes from, and listen to the women and men who were actually there.

The coffin canes were real: the boxes that carried Joseph and Hyrum from Carthage were made into canes, and early Saints prized them as relics and testimonies.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Ever-surprised-he's-backGerrit's intro for Richard, who still says thanks for having me back (0:37, 0:51).
Richard's dissertationWearing down the committee until they lower the bar, with tips for Lindsay (0:51, 3:31, 39:18).
The gym membershipThree years paid, seven months since a visit; the new Richard starts tomorrow (2:18, 2:34).
Beat the old boyfriends at the resurrectionRichard looks at burial plots in Cambodia and St. Petersburg so Becky's college dates aren't nearby (4:31, 5:29).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagRichard edits Melanie's email on air to match his misreading (5:56, 6:48).
Herbal teaNot everyone's cup of tea, especially with the Word of Wisdom; more chamomile or lemongrass (7:08, 7:22).
Mosquitoes and syphilisRichard declares the episode title (20:11).
Is It Season 38 Already?The polyandry episodes, which turn out to be Season 2 (31:44, 38:16).
IdahoArt from Iona, east of IF (not in vitro fertilization), and search parties that know every house by name (40:42, 41:42).
Wilford Woodruff's journalGerrit will desperately get back to it whenever he can (53:43, 54:44).
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
The Season 2 episodes on Marinda Hyde and the claims about missions and plural marriage (31:44).
The bills sent to Emma Smith and Mary Fielding Smith after Carthage (42:34).
Coffin canes in the Church History Museum and the Daughters of Utah Pioneers collections, and how their provenance is traced (53:43).
Wilford Woodruff's staff with the hair of the Smith brothers and the Twelve (55:45).
Eliza R. Snow's pocket trail journal at the Huntington Library (1:01:39).
SOT Litner · S4E29.