“Then what about the fact that there were still apostles of the church living polygamously in the United States in the 1940s?” he said.
What? I was so shocked at this I could hardly breathe. It felt like my head was floating above my neck by several inches. That wasn’t true, surely. I made a squawking sound, but I couldn’t get out any words.
“That isn’t possible,” Kurt said.
“Look it up. You’ll see it’s true. In 1943, apostle Richard Lyman was excommunicated for living in a polygamous marriage. Rebecca, can you get that essay by Michael Quinn?” He nodded toward the bookcase and Rebecca moved to obey him.
But when he offered the ancient and well-read copy of the magazine Dialogue to Kurt, Kurt simply put it down, unopened. I didn’t blame him. Rebecca handed it to me and I glanced at it briefly, but not closely. Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth. I wanted to remain a Mormon. I was clinging desperately to my faith, even now.
“Whatever you say about the past, polygamy is no longer a part of our doctrine” Kurt said.
“What about Doctrine and Covenants Section 132?” asked Stephen. He began to quote: “For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.”
“That’s referring to marriage in the temple forever,” said Kurt. “It has nothing to do with polygamy.”
I certainly wanted what Kurt said to be true, but I had read that section of the Doctrine and Covenants, the scriptures that Joseph Smith had written during the early days of the church in the 1830s and 1840s, and I wasn’t sure you could get around reading it as about polygamy.
Stephen continued, still quoting, “Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and he abode in my law;
“And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified;
“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.”
I got so tired sometimes of all the old scriptures about men becoming gods. Women were supposed to become goddesses, too, according to the temple, but we also promised to obey our husbands, so what did godhood mean to us?
“Polygamy continues to be the law of the holy priesthood,” Stephen said. “God Himself is bound by laws and that is one. He cannot offer the blessings of the holy priesthood to those who do not abide by the laws He has instituted.”
I shook my head adamantly. “No,” I said, but Stephen was waiting for Kurt’s response.
“It sounds like you’re commanding God, when God works within the laws of the countries the gospel has to be spread within,” Kurt said, his fists clenched. “He has done that many times. Many of the policies of the church are changed to deal with different cultures. Polygamy was a law God used for a time, but it isn’t a requirement. It’s not part of the church anymore.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. My friend Anna had been angry that her husband hadn’t been sealed to her after his first wife died, when he could have been. Men were routinely allowed to be sealed to more than one spouse, while women could only be sealed to one in this life. Even if they had children with both, it was routinely said that the children would be sealed to the first husband alone because there was no polyandry in heaven, only polygyny.
Stephen went on, triumphant now that he could see he had gotten to both me and Kurt on an emotional level. “And I suppose you also did not hear that a resurrected Joseph Smith appeared to John Taylor in 1886, four years before the first Manifesto? He warned John Taylor that the church would be led astray and that he had to give the priesthood keys in secret to those who would wait and continue to practice God’s law until Joseph himself and Christ appeared to take the keys back. The true law of the church has been polygamy all this time.”
“A resurrected Joseph Smith? But his bones rest in his grave, with his wife, Emma,” said Kurt. “I’ve been to that grave in Nauvoo. Hyrum’s bones are there, as well.”
We’d taken all our children there, in fact, years ago.