This is like the Catholic church finally admitting, after centuries, that yes, the Earth does go around the Sun (it took the Church 350 years to apologize for punishing Galileo on this issue).

Well, it took the Mormon Church only half that time—170 years—to acknowledge that its founder, the con man Joseph Smith, was a polygamist, having had between 30 and 40 wives. Not only that, but his wives were as young as 14 years old, and some of them were already married.

As anyone who’s read Mormon history knows, Joseph Smith could not control his concupiscence, and had a revelation that Mormons (i.e., he) could have multiple wives. (This resembles the convenient revelation that Mormon elders had in 1978 that blacks could now be lay priests, a position that was previously forbidden to blacks.) The Mormon God changes his mind with alarming frequency!

But, as an article in Monday’s New York Times shows, Smith’s sordid history is not to be found on Mormon websites and, in fact, many Mormons don’t seem to know anything about his polygamy. That’s like Christians not knowing that Jesus turned water into wine. In fact, it’s worse, because this is a matter of history amply recorded in the last two hundred years. Most Mormons already know about Brigham Young‘s polygamy, but not Smith’s—even though Smith’s “plural wives” have been admitted by the Church since 1852 and even Wikipedia, for crying out loud, has a list of his wives. 

Are Mormons that ignorant, or are they willfully overlooking Smith’s behavior? (The polygamy is but one of Smith’s many stupid and unethical acts.) As the Times notes, many Mormons were surprised as well as grief-sticken at the “new” revelations:

The church’s disclosures, in a series of essays online, are part of an effort to be transparent about its history at a time when church members are increasingly encountering disturbing claims about the faith on the Internet. Many Mormons, especially those with polygamous ancestors, say they were well aware that Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, practiced polygamy when he led the flock in Salt Lake City. But they did not know the full truth about Smith.

“Joseph Smith was presented to me as a practically perfect prophet, and this is true for a lot of people,” said Emily Jensen, a blogger and editor in Farmington, Utah, who often writes about Mormon issues.

She said the reaction of some Mormons to the church’s disclosures resembled the five stages of grief in which the first stage is denial, and the second is anger. Members are saying on blogs and social media, “This is not the church I grew up with, this is not the Joseph Smith I love,” Ms. Jensen said.

Too bad. The Joseph Smith that Ms. Jensen loved was also a liar and a faker, with a history of run-ins with the law, and not just because he claimed to be a prophet.

You can find the Church’s admission on its official site in an article called, “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo.”  As the essay explains, the commandment to have “plural marriages” (the euphemism for “polygamy”) came from God, who decreed it and then (as in the case of blacks) rescinded it:

After receiving a revelation commanding him to practice plural marriage, Joseph Smith married multiple wives and introduced the practice to close associates. This principle was among the most challenging aspects of the Restoration—for Joseph personally and for other Church members. Plural marriage tested faith and provoked controversy and opposition. Few Latter-day Saints initially welcomed the restoration of a biblical practice entirely foreign to their sensibilities. But many later testified of powerful spiritual experiences that helped them overcome their hesitation and gave them courage to accept this practice.

Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment.

And oy, God was insistent that Smith have lots of wives! The Church essay explains:

. . . When God commands a difficult task, He sometimes sends additional messengers to encourage His people to obey. Consistent with this pattern, Joseph told associates that an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage when he hesitated to move forward. During the third and final appearance, the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully.

Does anybody believe this malarkey? What happened, of course, is that Smith was randy and fabricated a vision of God (and a divine threat!) that he’d better take some more wives. The threats were fabrications, designed to make people think that Smith’s evacuation of his seminal vesicles was done only under duress:

The conclusion of the Church in the essay is this:

The challenge of introducing a principle as controversial as plural marriage is almost impossible to overstate. A spiritual witness of its truthfulness allowed Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints to accept this principle. Difficult as it was, the introduction of plural marriage in Nauvoo did indeed “raise up seed” unto God. A substantial number of today’s members descend through faithful Latter-day Saints who practiced plural marriage.

Church members no longer practice plural marriage. Consistent with Joseph Smith’s teachings, the Church permits a man whose wife has died to be sealed to another woman when he remarries. Moreover, members are permitted to perform ordinances on behalf of deceased men and women who married more than once on earth, sealing them to all of the spouses to whom they were legally married. The precise nature of these relationships in the next life is not known, and many family relationships will be sorted out in the life to come. Latter-day Saints are encouraged to trust in our wise Heavenly Father, who loves His children and does all things for their growth and salvation.

But of course the real reason the Mormons renounced polygamy was not that God had second thoughts, but that the U.S. government pressured the Church to stop the practice. Polygamy became a Federal felony, and it became clear that unless Mormons abandoned the practice, Utah would not achieve statehood.  The U.S. government started proceedings to disband the church, and went after some of its leaders with criminal charges. This would not do, of course, and so, in 1890, a church leader had a convenient revelation from God that Mormon’s should obey U.S. law after all.  Render unto Caesar and so on. . . But of course some Mormon sects are still polygamous, with very young girls becoming betrothed and sexually violated, so the Times isn’t quite correct about that.

Finally, the Church, though vowing now to be open about its history, continues to keep it low key. As the Times notes,

The church has not publicly announced the posting of the essays, and many Mormons said in interviews that they were not even aware of them. They are not visible on the church’s home page; finding them requires a search or a link.

How anybody with brains can be a Mormon eludes me. But of course early brainwashing can overcome rationality.

There’s another interesting tidbit from the Times article:

The church recently released an informational video about the distinctive Mormon underwear called “temple garments” — and it received far more attention among Mormons and in the news media than the essays on polygamy.

Now how can you not want to watch a Church video about the famous Sacred Underwear (formal name: “Temple Garment”)? Well, I’m here to help you. The Church’s website on the garments is here, and here’s the video, right from YouTube, released in October:

It’s clear from the video that Mormons get really ticked off when people call the garments “Magic Underwear.”

Of course, Sacred Underwear (my compromise term) is in principle no more ludicrous than the shawl (tallit) and beanie (yarmulke) worn by Jews, or than other religious garments, but somehow it seems more ludicrous because it’s underwear. As the video says, “Not all such religious vestments are on public display.”