Prophetic Authority, Revelatory Language, and the Debate over Who to Believe

Writing this essay would be much easier if I were standing in front of a whiteboard. The timeline and chronology make clear relationships that are more challenging to articulate. Mormon plurality is always a tricky subject to explain, but particularly complicated is the explanation of the line of prophetic authority to perform plural marriages, its connection to church power, and the issue of religious authenticity.Since the 1930s, John Taylor's 1886 revelation about polygamy has been a touchstone, a marker between Joseph Smith's era of plurality and that of the fundamentalist Mormons who took up the cause in the 1920s. The revelation's physical existence, provenance, and relationship to what came next defined the line between insiders and outsiders in the story of Post-Manifesto polygamy.The story of Mormon polygamy before the 1886 revelation was no less convoluted or complex to describe. For Joseph Smith, plural marriage was an integral part of the restoration of the ancient religion. Based on the model of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other Old Testament prophets, Joseph moved into polygamy cautiously and privately first in the 1830s, and then between 1840 and 1844.There is less evidence than later relationships supporting Fanny Alger as a plural wife in Kirtland during the mid-1830s, but some historians include her as Joseph's first plural wife.1 To date, we know of twenty women who left written records asserting their marriages to Joseph Smith, although the circumstances and quality of these records vary. Another ten or so women have been described as plural wives by those closest to them. Then the next circle of descriptions, further removed from the source, expands the list to more than thirty plural wives.By the time he articulated a revelation formalizing the practice, Smith had married at least twenty-nine women, a group ranging from ages fourteen to fifty-eight, some already married to other men, some young, and some elderly. Although over time church leaders justified plurality due to its enhanced child-producing capabilities, during Joseph Smith's practice, the marriage itself was the central focus.Two of Joseph's well-documented plural wives—Malissa Lott and Emily Partridge—later testified that they had sexual relations with Joseph.2 Other first- or second-hand accounts describe other wives and Joseph's alleged sexual relationships.3 Priesthood men sealed Joseph to other women after his death, which emphasizes the kinship relationships created in this way and the eternal significance of these bonds rather than the production of children.Importantly, Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage before the 1843 revelation because God had inspired him to do so, without basing it on a formal canonized revelation or approval by an official church body.Joseph Smith dictated this revelation, now canonized as section 132 in the Doctrine and Covenants, to William Clayton on July 12, 1843, articulating the doctrine of eternal and plural marriages. Clearly, Joseph understood some of the principles behind this practice and doctrine earlier, but this is the first time he recorded them.Importantly, the revelation describes a process where a man and a woman were “sealed” by someone holding the proper priesthood authority.4The revelation made clear the centrality of the doctrine to the salvation of righteous men and women that would guarantee that upon death and resurrection, they would “pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, . . . which glory shall be fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.”5Doctrine and Covenants 132:38–39 condemns those who take plural wives without God's approval (presumably through the prophet or those designated to perform plural marriages by him), again reiterating and emphasizing the importance of priesthood authority to the practice. Importantly, men without priesthood authority might have performed marriages, but they did not have the binding power after death, and those involved will “remain separately and singly, without exaltation.”6In Nauvoo, some taught plurality privately, a privilege extended to only the most loyal followers of Joseph, and which they did not formally record until 1843. The practice centered on the person of the prophet Joseph Smith, who chose who could participate and who had received both the revelation from God and the authority to put it into practice. By Smith's death, twenty-nine men besides him had married plural wives. When Brigham Young assumed leadership, and before they entirely departed for the West, between 150 and two hundred men had entered plural marriages with multiple wives.The language of Doctrine and Covenants 132, John Taylor's 1886 revelation, and Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto differ in the ways they are situated as the word of God, stating that the Lord inspired them or “thus saith the Lord,” for example. But they also reflect the language of the vehicle or the prophet who allegedly heard the revelation and conveyed it to his followers (however small a group that might have been). Each statement or revelation is situated within a particular set of political and social circumstances and responds to the tension created by outside events, an interpretation of scripture, or an understanding of how the doctrine fits into the Latter-day Saint plan of salvation. Important to this story is Doctrine and Covenants 132:7–19, which emphasizes the importance of proper authority to perform marriage ceremonies, specifically the authority from God to act in His name. The prophet is the presiding High Priest, and as President of the Church, the one who holds this authority. Any claim that rests in the person of anyone besides the church's president and prophet is thus false in the eyes of the Church.During Joseph's lifetime, he often denied the existence of plurality and instead reiterated God's instruction that “no man shall have but one wife.” One could be disciplined or reprimanded if they taught the principle of plural marriage or justified immorality on the grounds of plural marriage. It isn't easy to understand what justified this subterfuge. I have argued in my book, Glorious in Persecution, that the practice of plural marriage was a sacred ritual. Protecting it required a ranking of ills; secrecy, as is true of holy temple rituals, is a prerequisite for keeping the practice and ritual safe, pure, and continuing. Regardless of whether it was to avoid social or legal persecution, the destruction of Nauvoo, the temple, or other property, or to avoid endangering the men and women engaged in the practice, for at least three years, perhaps longer, Joseph said one thing publicly and practiced something entirely different privately.The fundamentalists who chose to believe John and Lorin Woolley and respect the sanctity of the 1886 revelation had precedent to follow in the sometimes public or private realities surrounding plural marriage. As was true in the 1840s, the Church's property and persons were in peril in the 1880s, which partly justified a practice that played out largely out of view. One can understand the confusion over whether there was a private conversation or reality beneath the public accommodation to the U.S. government to save the corporate Church and prevent the persecution of its people in the wake of federal legislation designed to eliminate the practice of polygamy in Utah Territory, to discipline the Church that promoted it, and to punish those who continued in its practice.A timeline or a hierarchical diagram might help clarify which prophet or church leader said this in public and when, while another said this in private and under what circumstances, and what external forces motivated them to react, contract, or reverse their stances. The resulting point-counterpoint is like a complicated game of chess, where it matters that a player moved a chess piece here or there, reflecting a certain internal logic or strategy, but it also matters where they moved the piece next. A prophet's statement, revelation, or authority always trumps what a follower who heard about it later says, does, or directs. In this case, the chess pieces are John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, John Woolley, Lorin Woolley, and the fundamentalist leaders who followed later.The question of priesthood authority is incredibly complicated because it is not entirely linear, moving only from prophet to prophet, but sometimes moving to those the prophet designated with authority, an ever-increasing circle of the most loyal priesthood men around the prophet. Proximity to a prophet (and authorization with priesthood authority) renders one powerful in this dynamic. Both John Woolley's testimony about the production of the 1886 revelation and Lorin Woolley's testimony that he was also there in the Centerville home have a reflected light (Lorin describes the light coming out from under the door of Taylor's room), a type of power one step removed. Both men described these events in similar ways.Woodruff wrote about the way he reached the decision to issue the Manifesto of 1890, “I have arrived at a point in the history of my life as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where I am under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the Church, and after praying to the Lord, and feeling inspired, I have issued the following proclamation, which is sustained by my counselors and the Twelve Apostles.”7 A differing explanation of the motivation behind Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto, in which the Lord “inspired” him about the course of action he needed to take to save the church, also divides the corporate church from the fundamentalists.Indeed, it took almost three decades for the fallout to disperse. Many additional polygamist marriages were performed, some sanctioned by church leaders; many polygamist families continued to cohabit and remained intact; and general dismay about divided loyalties to church, to wives and children, and church doctrines spread through the Latter-day Saint community. There was no clear path forward for at least two but much of three decades, especially after 1904, when President Joseph F. Smith instituted excommunications for those who continued in the doctrine.The statement issued by Heber J. Grant, A.W. Ivins, and J. Reuben Clark in 1933, seeking to put to rest rumors about the 1886 revelation and the fundamentalists’ claims to priesthood authority, articulated a definitive opinion about these “false” claims. “Finally, without direct revelation from the Lord changing the principle that there is never but one man on the earth at one time who holds the keys of the sealing power—and we solemnly affirm that there is not now and there has not been given any revelation making any change in that principle—any such act of ordination by President Taylor as that seemingly alleged by the members of this organization would be completely null and void.”8Again, the number of church leaders who privately condoned additional plural marriages and the sealings that proceeded in the Mormon Mexican colonies, among other examples, suggested that there was a public reality and a private reality.9Before the 1886 revelation, a group of church leaders, including Taylor and George Q. Cannon, met on a Sunday afternoon to talk about their organized resistance to federal persecution.10 The constraints of the underground shaped the last ten years of John Taylor's life as a church leader, prophet, and polygamist. He knew firsthand the personal suffering that resulted from the government crackdown on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its practice of a plurality of wives. Before the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862), he had married fifteen women, and after the Edmunds Tucker Act, he lived in different houses from his wives. One of his many preferred hideouts was John Woolley's Centerville home, a two-story stone house with a central door. The fundamentalists locate their central origin story in the simple rooms of this house, where they believe John Taylor visited with Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith. Taylor recorded the revelation he said he received that night with the words, “Thus saith the Lord: All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority, and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant, for I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with, but they stand forever.”11Three months after the revelation, Taylor married Josephine Elizabeth Roueche on December 19, 1886, who was fifty-two years younger than he was.After that, the official church did not publish or publicize the revelation, and it was not included in future bodies of canonized scripture. Especially after 1904, church leaders either ignored it altogether or denied it existed.A First Presidency statement dated June 17, 1933, described the revelation as “pretended,” and “it should be said that the archives of the Church contain no such revelation; the archives contain no record of any such revelation, nor any evidence justifying a belief that any such revelation was ever given. From the personal knowledge of some of us, from the uniform and common recollection of the presiding quorums of the Church, from the absence in the Church archives of any evidence whatsoever justifying any belief that such a revelation was given, we are justified in affirming that no such revelation exists. Furthermore, insofar as the authorities of the Church are concerned, since this pretended revelation, if ever given, was never presented to and adopted by the Church or by any council of the Church . . . the said pretended revelation could have no validity and no binding effect and force upon Church members, and action under it would be unauthorized, illegal and void.”12Lorin Woolley recorded an account of the night of the revelation in 1929. He wrote that not long after the men in the house had gone to bed, “I was suddenly attracted to a light appearing under the door leading to President Taylor's room and was startled to hear the voices of men talking there. There were three distinct voices.” He was upset by this because he was responsible for keeping everyone out of the room. Later, when Taylor exited the room, Woolley said, “we could scarcely look at him on account of the brightness of his personage.”13According to authors Marianne Watson and Craig Foster, “The revelation, along with Lorin's report, convinced the fundamentalists that a ‘priesthood-authorized’ way had been prepared for those willing to continue the sacred practice of plural marriage.”14The next morning, Taylor gathered all those in the house (including Woolley's wife and daughter Amy) to tell them about what had transpired. They talked for most of the day, eight hours in total, and after they concluded, Taylor asked L. John Nuttall, his secretary, to make five copies of the revelation. Then, in private, he ordained and gave authority to five men—John W. Woolley, Lorin C. Woolley, Charles H. Wilcken, Samuel Bateman, and Apostle George Q. Cannon—to continue to perform plural marriages and to work to ensure the work would continue despite the persecution they were experiencing. One week later, John Woolley married an additional plural wife. Before Taylor died in 1887, he ordained and gave authority to Joseph F. Smith, bringing the number of special men appointed to protect plural marriage to seven. Lorin would later call this group a “Council of Friends.”15After Taylor's death, Wilford Woodruff could not have become the church president and prophet at a worse time. Federal persecution had come to a head, and the church was on the edge of financial and organizational collapse. Adding insult to injury, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Edmunds-Tucker Act in May 1890. Confiscation or escheatment of church properties was guaranteed. The temples built throughout Utah Territory, sites of the most sacred of church rituals, were at risk. In desperation and despair, Woodruff solicited help from the God he believed in and served. He later said, “The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice [of plural marriage]. All the temples [would] go out of our hands.” Then God proceeded to tell him what to do, “and what the result would be if we did not do it.”16Woodruff confided to his journal that he had no choice but was “under the necessity of acting for the Temporal Salvation of the Church.”17The Manifesto ended official Church-sanctioned plural marriage, but the debate continued as families struggled to rearrange, accommodate, or not, and figure out the path forward. According to one historian, “when the practice of the principle was officially discontinued in 1890, many who had taken plural wives found that for them discontinuance was as bitter as commencement had been for their forerunners. . . . There were some who never accepted the change.”18Between 1890 and 1904, and following the publication of what was called the Second Manifesto, church leaders initiated a conflicted public-private conversation over whether the Manifesto was a political exigency or a spiritual revelation, and over the inevitable questions about which doctrine and tradition to follow and which to abandon.19During the 1920s, President Heber J. Grant clamped down on those who continued to teach or practice a plurality of wives through excommunication and church sanction. This inscribed a dividing line between mainstream monogamist Mormons and those who continued in the practice and started to gather around men who claimed to have continued priesthood authority to perform plural marriages, and those who believed their claims. Men like John and Lorin Woolley, John Taylor Jr., and eventually Joseph Musser were all excommunicated for their beliefs and practices. Still, they inspired others by their claims to prophetic authority, their interpretation of the 1886 Taylor revelation, the 1890 Manifesto, and the growing distance between the official church and those who continued to practice polygamy. Polygamy was not the only dividing line, but it was the one that was deepest. Increasingly, these communities gathered in isolated areas of Utah, practicing what they considered to be the nineteenth-century church of Joseph Smith, including the type of marriage they believed would guarantee them a seat in heaven. The various groups codified both Taylor's revelation and Lorin Woolley's statements and other doctrinal explanations created by Musser and others that delineated a different understanding of scripture and church history from that perpetuated by Latter-day Saint leadership and the mainstream church. The gap between them would grow to be wide and deep and virtually impossible to cross.