rerelease of S1E9 D&C 49

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.

Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello.

Gerrit And we are excited to spend a little bit more time here on early church history with you. Today, I thought we'd talk about one of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that is really one of the most unique sections that there is. I mean, you could say that about, I mean, they're all revelations, right? So, you know, we know what the most unique revelation is. We're talking about a revelation from God, so it's, they're all going to be relatively unique, I guess. But there really aren't very many sections in the Doctrine and Covenants that directly reference another religion. I mean, we all know that, you know, at least according to some of Joseph Smith's accounts of the First Vision, he's told not to join any other faith. In one account of the First Vision, he asked directly, should I join the Methodists, right? So, I can imagine that if you happen to read, you know, Neibaur's account of Joseph's First Vision, maybe if you're a Methodist, it's a little bit offensive. But really what you have in most revelations is the Lord teaching things that the rest of the Christian world just doesn't really believe.

Gerrit It doesn't really jive with them, right? And so, here you have something that's really different, in part because of the question that is raised. But this is a revelation which the Lord gives that is specifically directed towards this radical Christian sect. And because of that, I think it's interesting to look at, and in part because it's the same reason why you should study other religions. You should, if you have a chance, you should study other faiths. Because one of the best ways to really understand what it is that you believe and why it matters is to find out what someone else believes. Because then you'll be like, oh, I really like how they do this. I wish I did more of that in my worship. I'm going to start doing more of that in my worship, right? Or there might be things where you say, I'm glad that we believe in a pre-existence, because I wouldn't have that same question if I didn't believe in a pre-existence.

Gerrit Well, in this case, you have this revelation that's directed at him. So this is Doctrine and Covenants, Section 49. And we'll go through part of it, as well as the call and how it happens here in just a second. But let me start with who the Shakers are. Probably, while many of our listeners have friends who are Baptists and Presbyterians and Methodists and Episcopalians, I'm going to make one of those over-the-top statements that you probably shouldn't make when you don't know who's going to be listening to the podcast. I don't think any of you have any friends who are Shakers. And I feel pretty confident in saying that, unless, of course, someone in Sabbathday Lake, Maine, is downloading this podcast, you know, they're scrolling through the Apple.

Richard We're huge in Sabbathday, Maine.

Gerrit Well, yeah, I've seen the numbers. The downloads in Sabbathday Lake are, you know, I don't even think they have internet in Sabbathday. I'm not even sure if Maine has internet, honestly, and outside of Portland and Bangor. But anyway, the reality is there's no Shakers left. There's two Shakers left and possibly a third based upon some other things. But it's essentially a dead Christian sect now. And so, you know, here we have this revelation in our Doctrine and Covenants, this to this, that's about this religious group that no longer exists. So the bright part about that is, I can talk about the Shakers. I'm not saying I'm an expert on Shaker theology. I mean, I have studied some of it, but no doubt there's someone listening to this who knows better than me. And no doubt even beyond, there's someone who thinks they know better than me. And that's probably, you know, that's the most common that we all deal with whenever we do Sunday School, right? But the Shakers start essentially as a radical Quaker group.

Gerrit So now, I've just introduced a whole other religion, right? I mean, Quaker, you mean like the oatmeal? Yes, similar to the oatmeal. The Quakers are a radical Protestant group that have really rejected all of the formalities of Christian worship. Not all, but many of them. For instance, they reject the idea of this kind of creedal notion. They reject the idea of churches having power and authority. Their worship services are individuals being motivated. If you go to a Quaker worship service, the thing that it would most closely resemble to you as a Latter-day Saint is a Fast and Testimony meeting. Only, instead of having a bishop get up and start it, and you have a meeting, and you do, you would just sit there. Everyone would sit there, usually in a circle facing each other, until someone felt moved upon by the Holy Spirit to stand up and speak.

Gerrit And because of this removal of traditional Christian authority. Quakers were persecuted pretty greatly in England because one of the things that they were adamant about was they were pacifists. They believed that it was wrong to kill under any circumstance. And so, as you might imagine, telling your king that you aren't willing to go fight the French, I hesitate to bring up fighting the French because of Richard's heritage, but telling the king that you're not going to go fight the French is not a way to win friends and influence people with the king. Because the king sees you as a weapon for him. And when you say, yeah, I'm sorry. And because they didn't believe that you should recognize earthly authorities, it actually challenged the whole class system in England. You know, they wouldn't doff their hat to other gentlemen because in God's eyes, we're all equal. Now, one of the beautiful things that comes out of Quakerism is this, this really early push towards inequality of the genders, a rejection of slavery as being an evil because, you know, God's seeing everyone as equal.

Gerrit So there's some really great aspects to it. There are many Quakers still today. Quakerism still exists. But Shakers are a radical offshoot of them. A group of radical Quakers in England begin to separate themselves and they eventually come to coalesce around a woman by the name of Mother Ann Lee. Now, she was a powerful, very well-spoken woman who believes she was receiving revelations from God. And in part, they were telling the world about the truth about how God really wanted us to worship. There were two aspects of Shaker belief that are going to be both the most interesting and the most important for our story here. The first is that, as you read in your section heading to D&C 49, the headings trying to explain to you that Shakers believe that Jesus had already come in the form of Mother Ann Lee.

Gerrit That's a... That technically is true, that they believe that she's come, that Christ has come as Mother Ann Lee. But we should probably explain it a little bit better, because I remember when I first read that when I was younger, I even had a conversation with my dad, what they believe that Jesus just came back and was a woman this time. I mean, how would we know then? You know, well, she taught and other shakers believed that in fact, there was a difference between Jesus and Christ's spirit. That Jesus was just a mortal man, and that the fullness of God's power rested down upon Jesus, and that's why he was doing miracles, that's why he was, you know, considered the son of God. But that the divine part of Jesus was this power of God called Christ's spirit. That's what it was.

Gerrit Well, shakers believe that that same fullness of God's power rested down upon Mother Ann Lee. She was the female equivalent of Jesus as the male equivalent. So it is technically true to say that the shakers believe that Christ had come again in the form of Mother Ann Lee. But again, they're not thinking of Christ and Jesus as being the same thing. Jesus is the man. He's immortal and Christ's spirit is this power of God. And so they don't believe in this eminent return of Jesus, that Jesus is going to come back to the earth himself physically. Shakers reject that. So that's a big part of their theology. In fact, they're actually called the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing. That's the name of their church. Well, they believe that Second Appearing is coming to Mother Ann Lee. That's what that Second Appearing is. Well, the second and probably even more, well, scandalous if we had to call it that, the one that you'll remember best after this podcast is that Shakers believed in absolute celibacy.

Gerrit This is something that Mother Ann Lee began to teach. Now, she herself did not live a life of celibacy. She actually had been married, and she actually had several children that died very early on. And so, of course, some historians theorize, well, maybe that's the reason why she had such a negative feeling towards the idea of children being born or of marriage. But that's not what she's saying. She's saying that this is something God has revealed to her. And so, you're thinking, well, so they're saying that you should be totally celibate unless you're married. No, that's not what they're saying. They're saying that even if you are married, essentially, you should have no physical aspect to your marriage ever again. Your marriage, should it for all intents and purposes be dissolved, that marriage in and of itself was wrong. Marriage was a sin, let alone fornication.

Gerrit I mean, look, you can find all kinds of Christians who will say that fornication is a sin. She's saying that sexual relations of any kind are sinful. And that becomes one of the deciding factors of her followers. This belief that sexual relations are absolutely wrong. Okay, so we'll cover some more of their beliefs here in a second, but let me set the stage of what's going on and why this matters. There's a convert in Ohio in 1831. He might have converted in 1830. I'm not entirely sure if he was one of the ones that converts in this early missionary effort. At any rate, by the time Joseph Smith arrives in February of 1831 in Ohio, you know, remember this is all of the Saints have been commanded by D&C 37 and D&C 38 to leave everything they have in New York if they can't sell it and to quickly move to Ohio where these other members now. When they arrive, shortly after they arrive, Joseph Smith receives Doctrine and Covenants, Section 42, which outlines this idea of consecrating properties to the church.

Gerrit Well, one of the early converts to the church there, his name is Leman Copley. So remember that name, Leman Copley. Copley is a former shaker. He apparently was a shaker. Here is what the missionaries are teaching and becomes converted by it. He appears to be a pretty good member. He has a thousand acre farm in nearby Thompson, Ohio. It's 20 or so miles outside of Kirtland. I mean, a thousand acres is, you know, that's a lot. I mean, I guess it's not a lot if you live in like, you know, Ely, Nevada, right outside of that. And then it's not. Then it's like, oh, you mean like just that over there. But in terms of actual good ground, that's a lot of ground. And he agrees to consecrate this land to the settling of all of these New York saints that are coming who have nothing. I mean, they've given up primarily the saints that have lived in Colesville who are fleeing persecution.

Gerrit They're following the Revelation. And Lehman Copley, this converted shaker, says, you can settle on my ground. Well, Lehman Copley still feels very strongly about his beliefs. He's come into the Latter-day St. Foll, but he hasn't yet fully given up all of his former shaker beliefs. I mean, that's part of the problem. And frankly, I mean, if you think about it, for these poor people, I mean, we have, at the very least, as modern converts to the church, when people come into the church, you have all kinds of things set up to help people understand these new beliefs. You know, you got missionary discussions and new member discussions, and you got all kinds of manuals that are set up, and you've got a lot of things that can actually help you navigate into, you know, what is this new church?

Gerrit Because some questions you might not have asked yet, right? I mean, you might come from a church where the idea of one thing is, you just always have assumed, but it wasn't a major part of your conversion to ask a question about that thing. So, this is what is said in Joseph Smith's history, right? Said that Copley was apparently honest-hearted, but still retained ideas that the Shakers were right in some particulars of their faith.

Richard So this poses the question, or this brings up the question in my mind of, so of all the early converts to the church, are they predominantly from one faith or another, or there's a mix of all kinds?

Gerrit There's a mix of all kinds, but what do you have the fewest of? Well, you have the fewest of what the United States has the fewest of, obviously. So you get very few Catholics, even though there are quite a few Catholics, but Latter-day Saints are seen as essentially a radical Protestant religion. I mean, given the fact that Protestants have been saying for, at that point, 300 years, that the Catholic Church was wrong to claim that it had authority, you know, Latter-day Saints saying, by the way, everyone's wrong to claim they have authority, is kind of old hat, right? I mean, you will have some very prominent Catholics who join the church. I mean, that's the reality, but not very many of them. Among Protestants, it really, they really are drawn from usually, and again, there's no, there are people listening to this podcast right now, who are like, actually, I know exactly where all of them are coming from.

Gerrit But there are quite a few that come from the main churches, right? The Presbyterian Church, Baptist Church, and especially, there seems to be a special affinity for Methodists. Now, in this very early part of the church, there's actually quite a few members of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Later, these are going to be called Campbellites, and even later, the Disciples of Christ. Because that's what Sidney Rigdon was an offshoot of, and that's what most of his congregation was. So at this particular point in the church, you probably got, not a majority, but a plurality of people that were at once affiliated in some way with the Campbellite Movement. The Campbellite Movement is a Christian primitivism. I mean, I know that sounds weird when you say that. That's just the lingo. When you say Christian primitivism, it makes it sound like they just haven't developed fire yet.

Gerrit But what it means is trying to get back to the original Christian church. And that's exactly how Campbell taught. I mean, he also rejected creeds. And so, if we can get back to what only the Bible says, and none of this tradition, and none of this what someone decided, well, it makes sense X because of Y. No, if it's not in the Bible, it's not. We just throw it out if it's not in the Bible. Well, that is certainly one of the driving forces of his movement. And so, at this point in the church, in the early church, you have some Methodists who have converted. And Methodists are among the main line, although Calvinists would reject Methodists as being main line. But among the standard Protestant sects, it appears that Methodists have a greater affinity for Latter-day Saint teaching. I think in part that's because there are similarities to their Theology of Salvation.

Gerrit You know, they follow an Arminian Theology. Arminian Theology, following Iacobus Arminius, this idea that you have some part to play in your own salvation. Now, you, of course, don't save yourself, but the fact that you have the ability to choose whether or not you accept Jesus' grace is this part of action on your part. And it's very much in opposition to the Calvinist Theology, which is held by most Protestants in America at the time. So if you're a Methodist and you believe that you have to choose to accept Jesus and that Jesus died for everyone, well, those are two beliefs that Latter-day Saints have that you can get behind. Much more difficult for someone who's a very strict Calvinist who believes that Jesus only died for the people that God already knew he was going to save, a limited atonement, and that there is no actual free will, right, that God's already chosen, he's predestined to who he's going to save.

Gerrit Well, that's a harder hill to climb, right? But there certainly are people joining the church from every kind of sect. At this particular point in early 1831, probably a plurality of them are in some way affiliated with this Campbellite movement teaching because there's so many that were converted from Rigdon's congregation.

Richard So could you speak to this? It's kind of a weird thing, only the Bible. We're getting rid of these creeds, only the Bible, only the Bible, except also the Book of Mormon.

Gerrit Well, and that's the reason why not every Campbellite becomes a Latter-day Saint. It's the reason why Alexander Campbell doesn't become a Latter-day Saint. I mean, what Campbellism does, and actually some of the brethren talk about this later in Utah. They talk about their affiliation with the disciples of Christ tradition and how it actually prepared the way for them to receive truth because what it did was it solidified in their minds that the current trappings of Christianity, the various sects and warring against each other, that they were somehow all incorrect and that what we had to do was to get back to Jesus' original church. Well, when Joseph Smith comes along and says, I've spoken to Jesus and he has given authority to restore his original church, that can really speak to you. Now, if you decide to focus on the other aspect of Campbellite theology, and that is if it's not in the Bible, it's not true, well, becomes pretty quick to say the Book of Mormon is not in the Bible, right?

Gerrit And so what? Most Campbellites aren't going to become Latter-day Saints, but I think that's what it prepares the way for them. You're thinking we've got to get back to Jesus' church, and then here comes a prophet who says, Jesus is restoring his church and I'm going to get back to it. So, back to the Shakers, they have this belief in that it's even more radical. They have this belief that is going to be so pervasive, and like I said, the two that are the biggest, is that the, that Jesus is not coming in, that this Christ Spirit had already rested upon Mother Ann Lee in the 1770s, and that in order to truly follow God, you had to be absolutely and totally celibate. Now, I'm not entirely sure which beliefs that Copley was still retaining.

Gerrit It doesn't tell us that. Joseph Smith's history just simply says that he had retained some of these. But interestingly, that even after what ends up happening with Copley, the history is pretty kind to him, that he was apparently honest-hearted, that he really did want to go help his shaker brothers and sisters. And in fact, he is the one who is saying, you know, we need to send missionaries up there. We need to go talk to these people. I'm telling you, if you talk to them, they are going to love this. I mean, I'm sure there were people listening who had the experience when they were on their mission, and they were teaching someone who was really excited about the Book of Mormon, and you meet with them and they say something to the effect of, oh, I've got to talk to my pastor about this. You don't understand. He's going to love this. If he knew that there was another testament of Jesus Christ, he would be so excited. And you're thinking to yourself, if not saying, I'm pretty sure he's not going to be excited about it.

Gerrit Well, no, no, no, you don't understand. This guy loves, yeah, I think he knows about it. I mean, I had that conversation multiple times. But he really wants to go up and preach to the Shakers and have them have the ability to accept it. So it's really coming from a good place. So after making that request, the Lord is going to give this revelation. The date on the revelation was changed. If you have access to a 1981 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and access to a 2013 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, you'll see that one of the things that was discovered with more sources and more writings is that the previous date, this had previously been classified as a March 1831 revelation, that now we actually have the precise date as the May 7th, 1831 revelation. That actually matters because it's kind of cool.

Gerrit They, we know from Shaker records that these missionaries, they travel the 20 or so miles to North Union Village, to the Shaker commune there, immediately, because they arrive on May 7th, and the revelation is received on May 7th. That means these guys were, you know, they had their Cheerios half eaten, and they, you know, dropped the spoon in the bowl, hopped on a horse and rode off. Starting with verses 1 and 2 of Doctrine and Covenants, section 49. Harken unto my word, my servant Sidney, and Parley, and Lehmann, it's Lehmann Copley. For behold, verily I say unto you that I give unto you a commandment that you shall go and preach my gospel, which you received, even as you received it, unto the shakers. Behold, I say unto you that they desire to know the truth in part, but not all, for they are not right before me and must needs repent. So it's interesting here. You know, God's recognizing, in much the same way he tells Joseph, actually, on multiple occasions, that there are good people of the world that are kept from the truth simply because they know not where to find it.

Gerrit The shakers, just like Leman Copley, are honest at heart. They want to know the truth. They want to do what's right by God. They just don't have all of the truth revealed to them. And so that's an interesting thing you get out of verse 2 there in Doctrine of Section 49. So what I want to do now is I want to go through some of the doctrines. And again, you could pull out more. And in fact, if you're following along with your Doctrine of Section 49 to this, and also not asleep, you can no doubt pull some more out. But the first doctrine that I want to cover that the Lord directly talks about in Doctrine of Section 49 is this. First doctrine, that baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus Christ for their mission of sins was essential for salvation and must be done by proper authority. Now, shakers, much like many Protestant sects, had come to see that baptism was not an essential aspect of salvation.

Gerrit Now, of course, it's easy to see why. If Protestants are holding that the only thing that saves you is faith, that all you have to have is faith to be saved, well, then anything else by definition can't be essential, right? You can't say that the only thing that's essential is faith, and also baptism, and also some other things as well. If there's only one thing that's essential, then that one thing is essential. And so this is not that different among shakers than it is among other Protestant groups. But for instance, let me read from a shaker teaching manual as they summarize their belief, belief surrounding baptism. No enlightened or good spirit will controvert the doctrine of spiritual baptism being essential to salvation from sin, and from the nature that produces sin. Shakers argued that, well, sure, you know, Moses might have passed through the Red Sea, and that was a baptism of a type of the Israelites.

Gerrit And yes, John the Baptist might have baptized people prior to the crucifixion. But that after that, the baptism that's being talked about is the baptism of the Spirit. Yeah, this is something that's familiar to both Protestants and Latter-day Saints. We talk about being baptized by the Holy Ghost. Shakers believe that that was the only baptism that mattered. That, yeah, salvation depended upon you having the Holy Spirit come upon you and burn your sins out of you. But that spiritual baptism was the only one that mattered. Physical water baptism, that wasn't essential at all. What mattered was that you had faith, and that faith was manifested by this spiritual baptism you received. So, that's pretty different than what Latter-day Saints believe. And so, maybe this is one of the points that Leman Copley had a question about. Well, what do you have the Lord say? This is verses 11 through 14 of Doctrine and Covenants, section 49.

Gerrit The Lord says, wherefore? I give unto you a commandment, that you go among this people, and say unto them, like unto my apostle of old, whose name was Peter, believe on the name of the Lord Jesus, who was on the earth, and is to come, the beginning and the end. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, according to the holy commandment for the remission of sins, and whoso doeth this shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church. Now, there's a lot going on there, but one of the things that the Lord is stressing is, very interestingly, instead of using the example of Jesus' baptism to say, see, even Jesus got baptized, well the Lord knows that the Shakers are teaching that after the time of Jesus, the baptism that was needed was a spiritual baptism. You need to be baptized by the Spirit. So the Lord uses the example of Peter preaching to those who are converted in Acts chapter two and three, right?

Gerrit That, you know, can any forbid water that these two should be baptized, right? This idea that it is still a water baptism after Jesus is gone. And then second of all, verse 12, that you believe on the name of the Lord Jesus. Notice, not on Christ's Spirit, right? It's making a difference here, a distinction, that Jesus is the Lord, the man Jesus is in fact divine, who is on earth and is to come the beginning and the end. It's Jesus who is John chapter 1 verse 1. It's Jesus who is the beginning and the end, the word, right? So that's a subtle hint to something we'll cover more, and that is that the Lord Jesus is the Lord Jesus. But this direct response, and then after you have been baptized by water, then you'll receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands of the elders of the church.

Gerrit So it's really kind of point by point going through and refuting this idea of shaker theology that baptism is only a spiritual aspect. Now again, are there some shakers who have water baptisms? Of course, because there are no, you know, there's no natural increase in shakerism for reasons that we'll talk about a lot more in detail here in a minute. Almost all shakers actually had been, you know, I don't know, almost all is probably an overstatement, but many, many shakers actually had been baptized in other faiths when they were younger. You know, if they were Lutherans or Congregationalists, they might have been baptized, you know, when they were younger and yet hadn't been admitted to the church yet or whatever. But they didn't see it as an essential thing. So, the next point, so that's that first point, that's the first doctrine, baptism by immersion. The second point, and the one that we'll probably spend a lot of time on, you know, mainly because it's probably the most unique and most fun, is this idea of absolute celibacy.

Gerrit Again, it's not hard for a Latter-day Saint to understand the idea that, well, if you're not married, then all sexual relations are wrong. I mean, that's pretty standard Latter-day Saint fare. But that's not what the Shakers are saying. They are saying any sexual relations are wrong. Any. Even inside of a marriage. Well, where can they come with that? Well, surprisingly, to some students of the Bible, when they are reading the Bible, they will come across passages that don't always suggest that marriage is as essential as Latter-day Saint suggests that it is. My favorite is in 1st Corinthians, where the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians. Now, Paul really believes that the Second Coming of Jesus is coming soon, and he wants people to be prepared for. Of course, no man knows the day or hour, right? So Paul wants to be prepared. But he writes to them about marriage. Now, concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, so apparently the Corinthians have this question.

Gerrit Should we still even be getting married? You know, if Jesus is coming tomorrow, should we get married, right? I don't know if that's exactly what they said, but sounds like that's the question Paul's responding to. And Paul's response is, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and every woman have her own husband. This is not a ringing endorsement of marriage, right? This is not Paul saying, you know, if you're not married by the time you're 30, you're a menace to society. I mean, the reality is, I guess because you're going to fornicate anyway, fine. I guess you can get married, but only because you're going to fornicate. You know, as he's talking about how he'd rather people remain single even as he is, verse nine, he says, but if they cannot contain, let them marry. Right. So because we all know everyone's going to fornicate anyway, let them marry, for it's better to marry than to burn.

Gerrit Now, you don't have that on a whole lot of anniversary cards or like wedding thank you cards when people are getting married, like, well, I guess it'll be harder for you to burn now. But what it's emblematic of is this kind of strain in early Christian thought. And again, look, I'm not an expert in all of these things. There are people who are great experts even inside the church, but so I'm just giving you an overview. There's a strain in Christian thought that places celibacy as somehow higher than marriage and it does it quite a bit. There are reasons for that. But let me go to the next verse that is the most often used to describe what Christians think about marriage today. And to understand why it is that the Shakers could develop their theology to the point where they didn't believe in marriage at all.

Gerrit Well, this is a story from Matthew chapter 22. It's verses 23 through 30. It's also in Mark chapter 12 if you want to read it there. This is the story of, it's not a parable, it's an actual event, of the Sadducees coming to Jesus. So it's almost always in the New Testament that it's the Pharisees that Jesus is questioning, the Pharisees Jesus is talking to. He has fewer interactions with the Sadducees. But one of the reasons why, verse 23 says, that same day came to him Sadducees which say that there is no resurrection. One of the aspects of the Sadducees was they had a very limited view of what they accepted as canonical as far as what was going, what they should follow. In fact, it seems to be that many of the Sadducees, if not all of them, I mean, you obviously can't speak for all of them, don't even believe that there is an afterlife.

Gerrit Or if there is an afterlife, it's certainly not one that you want, right? That they see religion as being a part of what you do in the here and now, not in the future. Well, Pharisees, by contrast, very much believed in a resurrection, very much accepted the remainder of the Hebrew Bible. And so you can see why, as Jesus preaches of a resurrection, that he would be easily classified by the by the Sadducees as being just another crazy Pharisee, essentially. So they came to challenge him. Once they hear that he's talking about resurrection, okay, this guy's going after our bread and butter here. And so they do what many people do to challenge other people's faith. This is actually a technique that people use. And it's good to see that it's got a long, firm, 2,000 year backing because it's exactly what was used against Jesus.

Gerrit And what I mean by that technique is by presenting to a believer that the doctrine that they hold very close, that they hold very dear, has some holes in it, right? More to the point, not so much holes, but questions that they don't have an answer to, right? So that someone might say, well, if you're saying X, then what about Y because of X? Well, frankly, if a believer might not have an answer to Y, and that can even sometimes cause a faith crisis. That's exactly what the Sadducees are doing here. They're presenting to Jesus this, you know, technically possible but almost thoroughly impossible scenario of a man and a woman, of a woman marrying a man. And this is the scenario. We'll just read it.

Gerrit Master Moses said, if a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed into his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren. And the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issues, so they had no kids, left his wife to his brother. Likewise, the second also, and the third, and also down to the seventh. Now, you might be thinking, these are called the Leverett marriages. Well, what happens if the second brother is already married? Well, that actually didn't matter in first century Judaism because the idea of plural marriage was still something that could be practiced. So, and certainly at the time that Moses is teaching it. So you might in fact have a wife become a second wife of this other brother. Anyway, they say this, okay? So this woman is married to a man. He dies. So she marries his brother and then he dies. So she marries his brother and then he dies. So she marries his brother and he dies. At this point, the equivalent of whatever the Hasmonean dynasty's FBI is should probably be involved because if this woman is essentially the black widow, right, she's the kiss of death.

Gerrit Every man she marries is dying. You know, what's going on? You know, time to check and see what's in that Mesopotamian. She's serving him. But the idea is that it's technically possible, right? And that's exactly what the Sadducees wanted to do. Present a scenario that is so ridiculous, but technically possible. And then ask this question. Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her. This is the point. In order to prove that resurrection doesn't really exist, the Sadducees present this farcical, this almost impossible scenario, but technically possible scenario, with suspecting that Jesus wouldn't be able to answer the question. And if you can't answer the question of who she's going to be with in the next life, well, then I guess we've proven how ridiculous resurrection is.

Gerrit You see the tactic. The tactic is to deride resurrection by simply making a believer in the resurrection realize that they don't exactly know how it's all going to work in the resurrection. You might have someone even try to do that with you today. How is it possible that not one jot or tittle of your body will pass away? How is it possible that every hair of your head is going to be restored? I mean, what about people that have been incinerated? What about the people? I mean, they'll go on down the line. How is that even possible? And their argument will be, because you can't explain to me how it's possible, well, then resurrection must not be possible. It's interesting that critics of religion are actually engaged in the same kinds of tactics that apparently have been around for thousands of years. So even though you think that guy with his YouTube channel has come up with a brand new idea, actually, no, he hasn't. So Jesus responds to this in a way that becomes the standard for most Christian churches.

Gerrit And that is, he says, ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are the angels of God in heaven. And Jesus essentially dismisses their question in the first, first of all, by saying they don't even understand how marriage works, because they don't understand the scriptures. They already don't believe in resurrection. And of course, modern prophets have said that what is meant by this verse is that by the time of the resurrection, all of these questions about marriage will have already been settled. They will already be determined. That someone will have already made their choice, had the ability to be sealed prior to that. Now, of course, that's not a Christian belief. This is the reason why Christians all believe that there's no marriage in the next life. That marriage is only for this life. In the resurrection, there is no marriage. And that's standard belief across essentially every Christian denomination.

Gerrit And so, what it means is that for shakers, it was easy for them to make the transition. Well, look, if we pray, if the Lord prays, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Well, if that literally happens then, if God's kingdom becomes the same on earth as it is in heaven, well, we're being told here by Matthew 22 that in heaven there is no marriage. So it's important to recognize why Christians think that. They think it because they believe that this is what Jesus is saying, that Jesus' response is that there is no such thing as marriage in heaven. And that's not to say that Christians don't believe in marriage. I mean, of course they believe in marriage. It's one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. I mean, Christians believe in marriage, but they also believe that it's only for this earth. And the reality is that, again, there's still this strain in Christian thought that is saying that you are somehow more righteous if you don't get married, right?

Gerrit That somehow being in a position to have sexual relations, even if it's the kind of sexual relations that are ordained by God, right, for procreation, that is still further away from God than if you never had any sexual relations. And in fact, there's early Christian writings that talk about this as well. Many of... We all know that the books that are in the New Testament, probably because you memorized a song that sounds like Follow the Prophet, they help you memorize them, but there are many other books that were in circulation at the time that the Bible's canon comes together slowly over the course of years. You have all these different books in circulation. There are some that people thought should also be included in the New Testament canon. Many of these books have a celibacy theme to them. They're mainly Gnostic books, but they have a theme in them that being celibate is greater than marriage.

Gerrit The one that comes to mind the most is The Axe of Thomas. Thomas is the same Thomas that thrusts his hand into the side, the doubting Thomas we talk about. Well, he, according to The Axe of Thomas, is called by Jesus to go on a mission to India, and so most of this book takes place in India. Now, I'm not saying that Thomas actually wrote this book. Scholars believe that this book was written hundreds of years after Thomas was even alive. Now, is that possible? I guess, but it's not. It's seen as an apocryphal or a pseudepigraph. It's a book that someone claims is written by Thomas, but it is not written by him. At any rate, the primary point of a good portion of The Axe of Thomas is that celibacy is better than marriage. And in fact, he gets to India and there's a royal wedding that's about to take place, and he converts the bride and groom and convinces them that even if they go through with their marriage, that they have to live an utterly celibate life for the remainder of their lives in order to honor God.

Gerrit Well, as you might imagine, the in-laws-to-be who thought they were getting grandchildren and a royal union out of this were not exactly happy and it leads to all kinds of things. But there's a reason why in this early Christian thought, there's this thought that marriage is somehow less than being celibate. And Shakers really pick up on this idea. In fact, here's something from, you know, Shakers argued, look, all Christians know that having children is actually a sinful thing. You know that because if you go back to the law, go back to Leviticus, right? That men learned from, this is from their manual, men learned the depravity of their nature, that they could not cohabit, even in the marriage state, even simply to propagate their species, without committing sin at the same time. That every child, however legally brought into existence, a sin offering was required before the Lord as an atonement.

Gerrit So they go back to the fact that when a child is born, that there's this sin offering that's made. And saying, see, even in the Old Testament, God was teaching that actually procreation is sinful. They go on to say, virgin purity or total abstinence from, and I'll let you just decide for yourself what you think this terminology means, from all generative and carnal works. So, you know, you can probably figure out what that's meaning as far as chastity, arises from the progressive nature of man. In fact, going on to say, reproduction is the first and lowest of all rational and intelligent existence. It is animal and nothing else. Shakers will often make reference to that. People who have sexual relations, are no better than dogs. They, you know, just like dogs, they're in heat and they have sexual relations, and that's because it's their animal nature.

Gerrit That's what people are. People are at their most animal, when they have sexual relations.

Richard So it's interesting though, as you have this being a radical sect, a radical sect, a radical sect, a Protestantism, that they're kind of harkening to a very common theme within Catholicism. I mean, this is a pretty common theme, that this idea of, sure, you get married within the church and that's fine, but the higher calling, at least since the 11th century-ish, is a life of celibacy.

Gerrit Right, because, you know, it wasn't always that Catholic clergy, you know, bishops and priests and monks and nuns, were not allowed to marry, although that was always the idea that it would be better if they didn't marry. You know, it's very interesting. Actually, technically, there actually are some married Catholic priests today, actually. And you think, no, actually, I'm pretty sure there's not. No, there are, because in Catholicism, marriage is seen as a sacrament, and so there is no reason why you can break that sacrament, right? So, if you're a Protestant minister, and you convert to Catholicism, and become a priest, you can keep, and you're already married, you can keep your wife.

Richard That sounds like a cheap code.

Gerrit Well, it sounds like, yeah. So, I think what I want everyone to take away from this podcast, is if you're planning to become a Catholic priest, get married in a Protestant religion first. Then, become a Catholic priest, and you can bring your wife with you. But the reality is, yeah, that it's this idea that there's this holiness that's greater. Now, to them, of course, the Shakers think that Catholics are just about, you know, they're the worst of everything.

Richard But that's what's interesting to me, is that this thing is a pretty prominent Catholic.

Gerrit But they're going strictly by the Bible, right? And what is Paul saying? I mean, they're going to quote Paul all day long and twice on Sunday. And again, especially on Sunday, even even even Jesus, right? Again, part of the shaker argument is, Jesus is praying that the kingdom of heaven becomes the kingdom on earth. Well, if there's no marriage in heaven, then this earth can't be the kingdom of heaven, unless there's no marriage here either. Part of the argument that's made is, look, it's actually, it's the natural consequence, the logical consequence of saying that every person is born in sin, right? If by maintaining this idea of original sin, there is a logical consequence to it. If every single person is born with a sin nature, then what's the only way that you could actually eliminate sin from the world?

Gerrit I mean, it sounds almost like we're talking about Thanos here at this point, right? But the reality is if there were no people, people sin. So if every time you bring a child into the world, you bring a sinner into the world. In fact, as they, again, this is from this Shaker manual, virgin purity is the root of religious communion. Sexual relations confine the love principle in man to a small circle of which self is the center. So another argument Shakers are making. Look, you're supposed to care about other people more than you care about yourself. But the moment you form a sexual union with someone, you suddenly care about that person more than you care about the community at large. And frankly, I think that they are correct in their conclusion. If you think about it, if you were with a group of people who are all starving and you had your last bit of food left to give, and one of those people was your wife or your husband, I think we all know who would get the food first, right?

Gerrit I mean, the reality is, or, you know, to take it a further, if one of them was your child, well, they'd get the food first, right? Because you have this connection to them which you wouldn't have if you were completely chaste and still a virgin. So, this idea is so entrenched among shakers that they actually don't believe you can be holy if you are in any way participating in sexual relations. And this is going to be a real problem for the missionaries when they arrive, because for the missionaries, they're all married men. So they show up married men, and they are coming to a community that sets as the very lowest bar. If you are participating in sexual relations, you can't be a part of the community.

Richard Was Copley married?

Gerrit Yeah, he was. I don't know when he got married. So he seems to have been married before, because he has a son who's relatively old. He gets married, I think, and then joins the Shakers, probably with his wife. Now, even though they're legally married, they no longer would have sexual relations. And in fact, the Shaker elder who begins to accost Copley when all these guys show up, really, he alludes to that. That the only reason why you've joined these Mormons is so you could go back to the pleasures of the flesh. Right? I'm assuming he's meeting with his wife, right? Shakers call this taking up your cross, right? Taking up your cross was eschewing all sexual relations. That's taking up your cross. At any rate, the Revelation is very specific. But again, this is super early. Remember, this is May of 1831. We are a decade away from Joseph Smith receiving Revelation about eternal marriage.

Gerrit Although he's going to get some inklings along the way. But listen to how the Lord talks about marriage here. This is verses 15 through 17, if you're following along. And again, not asleep. And again, Verily I say to you, that whoso forbid to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God on the man. So that's a pretty clear statement, right? Marriage is not just okay in God's eyes. Marriage isn't just, I guess, because you're all fornicators, you can marry, right? In fact, verses 16 and 17 go on to explain it further. Wherefore it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. And all this of the earth might answer the end of its creation, that it might be filled with the measure of man according to his creation before the world was made. In these verses, the Lord is saying the shakers couldn't have it more backward. They think that the propagation of man is what is continuing sin in this world and destroying God's creation.

Gerrit The Lord is saying the entire purpose of the creation of the world was for the propagation of mankind. Right? That that's a pretty big divergence that the earth might answer the end of its creation. I created the world so that men and women could propagate and have families and have children and populate the world. That's the exact opposite of we've got to find a way to have nobody be a part of us. You might be wondering, right, well, there's no child of record baptisms in shakerism, right? Because if you have a child in the shaker community, you're kicked out of the shaker community. The child might actually get to stay, but you are no longer a shaker. You're not allowed to have sexual relations. So how do shakers grow? Well, one, through preaching, and you might think, well, it sounds like that's a pretty harsh doctrine.

Gerrit There might not be very many people who join. There's not, there's never a ton of shakers, but there are other parts of shakerism that's really appealing to people. I mean, if you're a woman in an abusive home, the idea that you can go to a commune where men and women are completely separate, where marriage relations not only aren't recognized, they're sinful, that sounds pretty good. You know, it sounds pretty good to be able to have a place where that pressure is not there. The fact that women are elevated to such a standard of equality inside of shakerism. The fact that shakers are opposed to things like slavery. I mean, look, there's a lot of beautiful aspects to shaker theology. One aspect of shaker theology that a Latter-day Saint might feel some great kinship of is shakers believed, just as there was this Christ Spirit that rested down upon the female equivalent to Jesus, which is Mother Ann Lee, they also believed that there was a female component to God.

Gerrit Now, they're not thinking about it the way you are, because Latter-day Saints think about God as being a person. You think about God as being a guy, to be any more blasphemous, right? And you think about that because of the revelations that I taught you, that God is your father, that he's an exalted man, and that you have a Heavenly Mother who's an exalted woman. Christians don't think of God as being a man. God is. God is everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time. God is spirit. God is. God is. God isn't a person, right? So what Shakers are arguing is that that, whatever God is, that entity, there's a female component to that entity. And so, again, you could see how that would be very attractive. The idea of holding goods in common, very much like Latter-day Saints. The idea that we're going to, we are not going to hold one person above another.

Gerrit We are going to share all of our goods. Now, one of the reasons why Shakers generally end up having better treatment than Latter-day Saints do. Yeah, Shakers gather together in communities. They have really odd theologies. Well, how come people aren't burning down Shaker houses all the time? One of the main reasons is that part of Shaker theology is to be completely aloof from the remainder of society, which means they don't vote. They don't participate in elections and things like that, which means if 5,000 Shakers move to your town, well, then it's easier to buy a nicely-hewn chair. But it's not going to affect who your next mayor is. If 5,000 Mormons move to your town, yeah, everything is changed on a political level because Latter-day Saints do participate in politics. There's obviously a lot more things we could talk about other than that. But here, the Shakers are challenged directly by the Lord.

Gerrit That marriage is ordained to God. And again, not just that marriage is okay, but it's actually the purpose for which the world was created. Again, leading into the theology that we will later have. This next part of the theology is probably the part of D&C 49 that many people have read the most and know the most about. Apparently, some Shakers, and clearly the North Union Shakers that they're going to preach to, had come to extend their pacifism. And they are absolute pacifists. And I mean, pacifists like, they are like the anti-Nephi-Lehi's in the Book of Mormon. If someone is going to come and kill you, you let them kill you. You don't enact violence at all. For any reason at all. Well, that began to be extended to the idea of the belief of animals, right?

Gerrit So this, at least this shaker commune, and it becomes more general later, come to this belief that it is absolutely a sin to kill and eat animals. And so they're clearly teaching that. So part of what the Lord teaches is verses 18 through 21. And who so forbid to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God. For behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which come out of the earth is ordained for the use of man, for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance. But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin. So in that point, the Lord is saying, the shaker idea that they should have things in common is a true idea. The world, the rest of the world lies in sin, because they aren't recognizing that. But verse 21 also, and woe be unto the man that shedeth blood or that wasteth flesh and hath no need. So again, this is not the Lord saying or certainly not me saying, that if you've decided to be a vegetarian in your life, that you're somehow a sinner.

Gerrit I've actually heard people try to use D&C 49 to make that argument. That is not what the Lord is saying. The Lord is saying, if you are teaching people that it is a sin in the eyes of God to ever eat meat, well, you've gone beyond the line. I mean, you've crossed multiple lines at this point, right? You've swerved all across the four center highway, and you're in the other median at this point. So this is, you know, if someone wants to be a vegetarian, clearly we have vegetarians in this church, in full faith and fellowship. But the moment we begin to say, I received a revelation that anyone who eats meat is going to burn in hell, I think it's safe to say that we've gone beyond the mark. So that's not going to make shakers happy either. The last doctrine that we'll cover here is one that we've already covered a little bit, and that is this, of course, this idea of Jesus, this central shaker belief that Jesus was just a mortal, and that what mattered was this Christ Spirit, and that that Christ Spirit had rested down on Mother Ann Lee.

Gerrit You start with verse 6. They have done unto the Son of Man, even as they have listed, and he has taken his power on the right hand of God. So the Son of Man, this reference to Jesus' mortality, at least that's how many Christians take it at the time, he has taken his power on the right hand of glory, and now reigneth in the heavens, and will reign till he descends on earth to put all enemies under his feet, which time is not. We just covered a little earlier that the Lord is saying that he is going to actually come physically. Many other Christians, not just Shakers, were what we call a-millennialists, meaning they didn't think that the Second Coming of Jesus was literal. It was spiritual. It was figurative. It was, you know, the Second Coming was when the Christ spirit purges sin out of your heart with fire. When you're baptized with fire, that's your Second Coming, essentially, right?

Gerrit And so part of what this is teaching is that, no, this is a literal. Not only is it Jesus who is exalted because he is divine, but it's going to be a literal Second Coming. Verses 22 and 23. Again, verily I say unto you, that the Son of man cometh not in the form of a woman, neither of a man traveling on the earth. Wherefore be not deceived, but continue in steadfastness, looking forth for the heavens to be shaken and the earth to tremble into real to and fro as a drunken man, for the valleys to be exalted, for the mountains to be made low, for the rough places to become smooth, and all this when the angel shall sound his trumpet. This is a very literal, pre-millennial idea that Jesus is going to come and he is going to come personally and in power and glory, and there will be cataclysms that surround that. And again, that's obviously very opposite of what the Shakers are teaching and central to their beliefs. As you might imagine, the revelation even ends off with this idea.

Gerrit Instead of talking simply about these things in the abstract, verse 28 says, Behold, I am Jesus Christ. So not separating the Jesus and the Christ to these Shakers. That the person giving this revelation is Jesus. Behold, I am Jesus Christ and I come quickly. Right? This refutation of this central bedrock belief. Now, the reception of this by the Shakers, you might imagine, is not very good. In fact, while they allow the elders to read this revelation, they read the entire revelation to them, they are immediately set upon by the Shaker elders who say, who are you to even talk to us? You are all carnal men. What they mean by that is that you are participating in sexual relations with your wives. Each of their wives. And so therefore, you have no holiness about you at all.

Gerrit You haven't even taken up the first step of taking up your cross, and that is denying all sexual relations. And so, they don't even really want to listen to what these men have to say. Come back and talk to me when you are single. When you have actually taken up your cross the way I have. When you have actually denied yourself the way I have. And really is a great example of when we feel like we know what the most important part of the gospel is. Sometimes that will cause us to feel so strongly about it that it can cause us to reject what it is that's taught by prophetic leaders. I mean, I've heard multiple stories and, you know, I don't mean to belittle it, but I've heard multiple stories of men who were so adamant about the scouting program that, when the church ended it, it was an actual problem for their faith. How could the church end what is the greatest program that was ever created that was so central, right?

Gerrit Now, to me, because I hate camping, I was like, sounds like it's inspired. But the reality is whenever we allow a certain aspect of our belief to trump what can then come from prophetic utterance, we're in a dangerous place. And I've talked about this on the other podcasts. I mean, the central aspect of our worship is following Jesus and loving other people. Well, how do we follow Jesus? Jesus has a prophet on the earth today. The moment that we reject what that prophet is teaching because we're pretty certain that we know better, we're on pretty shaky ground. Unfortunately, for the Latter-day Saints, for Leman Copley, for all the shakers, the shakers reject this and the saints leave. And in fact, it's a pretty testy exchange, it seems. Oliver Cowdery, who's been taught by Revelation that if people don't accept your testimony, you should shake the dust off, proceeds to begin shaking the dust off his coattails on the shakers, which elicits an even more angry response from the shakers.

Gerrit How dare you, you filthy animal, shake your dirty coattails at me.

Richard As angry as a pacifist can be.

Gerrit Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm sure Oliver Cowdery wasn't worried about getting punched. You know, I mean, that's the best part about making pacifists angry, is that you're not worried about the physical violence. But not only does the shaker mission end up in failure in the sense that these shakers aren't converted. Leman Copley, who had, I think he had conjured up in his mind the idea that they were going to go there in the same way that he was converted powerfully. They were all going to be converted, and all of his friends and relatives were now going to come back into the church, and he was going to create a whole new branch in North Union. And they not only don't convert, they turn to him and they accuse him of only bringing Mormon elders here because he was so desperate to have sexual relations. Again, that's why you would even follow this, right? Well, Copway actually stays up at the Shakers for a little while. And when he finally comes down, he comes back to his farm, that thousand acre farm in Thompson, where the Colesville Saints are already living, and he orders them all off.

Gerrit He rejects his Mormonism, and it seems to have re-embraced his Shakerism, and the first thing he does is he orders all these Latter-day Saints off the property. And it's a traumatic thing for the Colesville Saints who've just given up everything. And this is in Doctrine and Covenants, Section 54, where they go to Joseph immediately after, and they say, you know, what are we supposed to do? We're being driven off of this land that we've already planted all the fields. We've already started building houses. I mean, we put in all this effort. We just walked 400 miles from Colesville. Well, I mean, I think that they think that God is going to say, oh, no worries, we've got a spot for you right here on Fresno G. Williams Farm here in town. And instead, verse 7 of D&C 54 tells these Colesville saints, wherefore, go to now and flee the land, lest your enemies come upon you, and take your journey, and appoint whom you will to be your leader, and pay monies for you, and take your journey into the regions westward, under the land of Missouri, under the borders of the Lamanites.

Gerrit So these people are told, instead of God fixing something for them at that moment, that they're going to walk another thousand miles. So these poor saints have already suffered a great deal of persecution. They've already given up their wealth and their status as middle class, you know, some well-off Americans, to move, sight unseen, to the Kirtland area, only to within three weeks of the time of their arrival, be told by God to now go another thousand miles. And I wish I could tell you that it was all smooth sailing for them when they got to Missouri, but because I said the word Missouri, you already know that it's not. I mean, spoiler alert, there's going to be problems in Missouri going forward. And so, I think it's one of the cool things to take out of Doctrine and Covenants 49, connected to 54, is the faith exercised by the Colesville Saints, as opposed to the lack of faith exercised by Leman Copley.

Gerrit Copley had things not go the way he wanted them to go when they went to go preach to the Shakers, and it causes him to lose his faith. The Colesville Saints had things not go the way they wanted them to go as they were being ordered off of land, and that Copley was actually such a jerk about it. He actually fined them $60 for damaging his property, and Joseph Knight Jr. wrote pretty bitterly about it. He says, I suppose we were fined for planting his fields and fixing up all of his buildings. You know, I mean, he had to fine us for that. I mean, they're pretty bitter about it because they spent all this man hours doing it. Now this, it's interesting if you, at some point in the future, we'll talk about Doctrine and Covenants Section 41, in which Joseph Smith himself almost settled on that Thompson land, but by revelation is told not to. I think one of the things to take away from the discussion about Doctrine and Covenants Section 49 is first of all, again, like I said, part of the way that you can understand what it is that you believe is by studying what it is that others believe.

Gerrit And it helps bring your beliefs into greater relief, helps you feel better about your beliefs, and hopefully helps you find ways that you can improve how you're living your own religion. You might find aspects of what another is doing to say, I mean, I look at how devout Muslims are praying multiple times a day, and I'm barely praying at night. Maybe I can take that into my, I can look at how devout they are and I can try to at least replicate that with the truth that I have. And second of all, I think one of the great takeaways is really this, the beginning of this doctrine of marriage, which is so unique to Latter-day Saint Christians. It's interesting that this is both, at the same time, both one of the most powerful doctrines in our church and also one of the ones that causes the most heartburn. And it's because we don't know exactly how marriage is going to work in the next life.

Gerrit You know, in future podcasts, we'll talk about the restoration of the sealing power and eternal marriage. But I think I'd just like to leave with the idea that we don't have everything revealed on how exactly marriage is going to work in the next life. Now, I understand that there's all kinds of people who think they know how it's going to work in the next life. I get that. You've got that everywhere you look. I'm talking about having been revealed from a prophet exactly how those ceilings, those marriages will work. And because we haven't had everything revealed, it sometimes is an opening for people to challenge our faith. Much like the Sadducees attempting to prove that resurrection couldn't possibly be a true doctrine if you don't know exactly how the resurrection works or how do the logistics work in the resurrection, sometimes either in our own musings or because people deliberately antagonize us this way, they will say, well, how are ceilings supposed to work in the next life?

Gerrit Right? I mean, a scenario of someone's great grandmother is married to three different men. Well, when you go and do temple work for that great grandmother, you seal her to all three of those men. So now who is she married to? Is grandma on the next life, you know, practicing polyandry where she's married to all three of them? How could that possibly work? And the fact that we don't know how that sealing will be adjudicated in the next life can actually cause us to sometimes have a faith crisis. Someone might say, well, wait a minute, if this man sealed to these two women, does that mean he's practicing polygamy in the next life? And the reality is we don't have answers to those questions. They haven't been revealed. The Church's Gospel Topics Essay on the issue says that, that very little has been revealed on how those sealings work. We simply have to have faith in God, like the Colesville Saints, that at the end of that thousand miles, God's going to know what's best for us.

Gerrit Also really important, that if you are someone who's struggling over this idea of, I just don't feel comfortable with how sealings work, remember that the only reason you have a question of who is married to who in the next life, is because Joseph Smith's a prophet of God. That's it, because there aren't any Presbyterians, certainly not any Shakers, that are wondering who is married to who in the next life. And the reason why is they already have the answer. Nobody, no one's married to anyone in the next life in Christian theology. So whether you're a Methodist or a Congregationalist, you're a Pentecostal or a Shaker, marriage doesn't exist in the next life for Christians. The only reason we have questions about how marriage works, about how sealing works, is because Joseph Smith was a prophet. And so I would hope that as you're working through, and look, these are very natural questions.

Gerrit It's not an unnatural thing to have that question. It's not a symbol of lack of faith. It's called being a person that you would have a question like that. How does marriage work in the next life? Well, I'd hope that you would recognize that the very fact that you have a question of how marriage works in the next life is actually a testament to the fact that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. Because the only reason you believe that marriage exists at all in the next life is because God gave a revelation to Joseph Smith and told him that. We don't know exactly how everything will work. But we know that the Lord has said that there will be no more tears. That everything that's been taken from us, we will be recompensed. Everyone is going to be perfectly happy. Everyone's going to have an equal opportunity. All of those things are true. The problem is that sometimes we just don't know how it will happen.

Gerrit And I hope that we can have faith that it will happen. Even if we can't fill in all the blanks. That we won't allow the sadducees of our life to try to shoot holes in what it is that we believe simply because we don't have answers to everything. No one has answers to everything. Nobody does. So if that becomes the litmus test for belief, no one will ever believe. Because no one has the answers to everything, except for God, of course, right? And I don't have as directed connection to him as I'd like, right? So I hope that you can take that away. Sometimes with our questions and our wonderings, we won't have an answer and we end up having to trust that however it works out, it will work out. Why? Because God promised it. And how do I know that God promised it? Because Joseph Smith saw God. That's how I know. I hope that you enjoyed this and I look forward to talking more about these things as we go forward in the future.

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.

rerelease of S1E9 D&C 49

A revelation that names another church

Alexander Neibaur's account of the First Vision (transcribed 'Nebar's')

Doctrine and Covenants 49, section heading

Doctrine and Covenants 37 and 38

Doctrine and Covenants 42

Joseph Smith's history, on Leman Copley

1981 and 2013 editions of the Doctrine and Covenants

Shaker records of the missionaries' arrival at North Union

Doctrine and Covenants 49:1-2

Shaker teaching manual (title not named on air)

Doctrine and Covenants 49:11-14

Acts 2 and 3

John 1:1

1 Corinthians 7:1-2 (verses identified, not cited on air)

1 Corinthians 7:9

Matthew 22:23-30 (also Mark 12)

Matthew 22:29-30

Matthew 6:10, the Lord's Prayer (identified, not cited on air)

Acts of Thomas

Leviticus, the sin offering after childbirth (Leviticus 12, identified, not cited on air)

Doctrine and Covenants 49:15-17

Anti-Nephi-Lehies, Book of Mormon (Alma 24, identified, not cited on air)

Doctrine and Covenants 49:18-21

Doctrine and Covenants 49:6

Doctrine and Covenants 49:22-23

Doctrine and Covenants 49:28

Doctrine and Covenants 24:15 (identified, not cited on air; the instruction also appears in later revelations)

Doctrine and Covenants 54:7

Joseph Knight Jr.'s account of the Thompson eviction (document not named on air)

Doctrine and Covenants 41

Gospel Topics essay on sealings (title not named on air)

What is the official name of the Shakers?

From 1830 to 1981

Money said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words