So how does that work...
And he was a polygamist. . . .
So how does that work...
If someone can actually believe anything that Joseph Smith did is "gospel", they can certainly believe any or all the fiction regarding his life and "works". Quakers on the Moon, Kolob, animals are equal to man, work yourself to death and you can become a god....Emma's bunch desired the property and doubtful honor associated with him, so they cherry-picked doctrine and turned their back on their biggest competitor, Brigham.
At least, the COC has thru the years been leaning more and more towards Christianity, but until they toss out the garbage like the BOM, DOC, etc. they have a long, long way to go.
I am a member of the Community of Christ, which prior to 2001 was the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The RLDS had a lonely struggle over many decades trying to educate the general public as to how the Utah Mormon church had departed from the original beliefs of the church founded by Joseph Smith Jr.
Beginning in 1860, Joseph Smith III was the president of the RLDS. There is high drama in his memoirs, such as his first visit to Utah, when Brigham Young tried to keep his followers from listening to the son of the founding prophet.
Joseph Smith III and other RLDS ministers had to spend major portions of their preaching trying to expose Mormon apostacy, such as the then current doctrine of plural wives. Meanwhile, the RLDS made use of the doctrine of common consent to clarify which communications had scriptural status and which did not. Unless a general conference had officially confirmed a writing as scriptural, it was not accepted to be so. Thus, the RLDS never accepted "The Book of Abraham" as scripture, never practised baptism for the dead (finally stripping its documents of any scriptural authority in 1970), and has never allowed secret temple rites to be practised in its two temples, the Kirtland, Ohio Temple (gaining property rights to it due to a civil court ruling that the Utah Mormon church had departed from the original doctrines of the church), and The Temple in Independence, Missouri. Unlike Mormon temples, both Community of Christ temples are open to the general public.
Joseph Smith III was critical of many of his father's activities during the Nauvoo, Illinois period of church history, when Joseph Smith Jr. was producing "The Book of Abraham" and the false doctrine of baptism for the dead.
Concerning the rise of polygamy, Joseph Smith III wanted to know the truth no matter how ugly it might be. In a key interview with his mother, the former Emma Smith, it was established for the RLDS church that Joseph Smith, Jr. did not have plural wives, not physically nor spiritually.
The motives for branding the founding prophet with that practise were obvious. Enemies of the church jumped at anything that would suggest it, and even recruited persons to testify of it. Polygamists in the Mormon church made up things about the Joseph Smith Jr. to protect their own polygamy, even faking a "revelation" from Joseph Smith, Jr. supporting their practise, removing the 1835 statement on monogamous marriage from their Doctrine and Covenants, and recruiting persons to lie about Joseph Smith Jr.
Elsie, Colofornia, and other Mormon-haters love to quote "dcumentation" of Joseph Smith Jr.'s plural marriages, which are of course taken from statements recruited by enemies of the church and by polygamists in the church seeking to justify their scarlet sins. Thus, Elsie and Colofornia merely dredge up lies of the past and present them as if they were true.
When Utah became a Territory of the United States and was moving towards statehood, polygamy had to be outlawed, several Mormon church leaders were arrested, and the Mormon church president had to issue an official statement that the church would no longer practise polygamy.
In the Book of Mormon, in the Book of Jacob, is a vigorous denunciation of polygamy, which had begun to creep into Nephite life. The polygamous Mormons got around this denunciation by claiming that the Book of Mormon, though containing the fullness of the gospel, was a "lower law". The "higher law" was the polygamy that they would later be forced to abandon.
Something amazing happened when Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, moved to polgamous Utah. In his final years on Earth he testified of the truth of the Book of Mormon with such sincerity and enthusiam that this one man began to convert the Mormon church to the Book of Mormon. The result of that conversion was that while the RLDS was rather weak in promoting the Book of Mormon, the Mormon church began publishing it with vigor, translating it into many languages for worldwide influence. So the rather small and publicly embarrassed Mormon church began to prosper and became the major denomination of Latter Day Saints.
Although the Mormon church continued with some of its false teachings, baptism for the dead, secret temple rites, etc., its promotion of the Book of Mormon helped that church become readily understandable and popular. Although the Community of Christ has been more doctrinally sound, its leaders cozied up to scholarship highly critical of the Book of Mormon, while its remaining Book of Mormon enthusiasts were given no official church support.
One of these enthusiasts, Neil Steede, while doing archaeological research in Mesoamerica, met one of the three immortal Nephites on the original Hill Cumorah in Mexico. Steede has remained a member of the Community of Christ, while continuing to lead The Hill Cumorah Expedition Team in anticipation of the Nephite records being discovered (which would be a major shock to Community of Christ leaders, who regard the Book of Mormon as a source of stories to refer to only, not as the historical document that it is).
There is much drama concerning the Book of Mormon yet to unfold. The progress of Mesoamaerican archaeology, at first way off from what is presented in the Book of Mormon, has steadily been moving in the direction of the pattern of civilations described in the Book of Mormon. The high population and advanced cultures required by the Book of Mormon are now being confirmed by archaeological discoveries.
The Mayan glyphs are gradually becoming accessible to translation. One shocker came when a stele giving the name of Palenque was at first translated "Bountiful", the name in the Book of Mormon of the city where Jesus Christ appeared to His "other sheep" in America. Perhaps that prompted someone to retranslate it as "Abundant", lest it give support to the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
Most of the non-SLC restoration groups either believe that ‘the Church’ was pure until the battle of succession and that Young ‘stole’ the ‘church’ from the rightful successor (6 were vying for it IIRC), that Smith was a prophet but became a ‘fallen’ prophet about the time of polygamy or that Smith was only called to translated the Book of Mormon and nothing else.
Since there are over 100 ‘restoration’ groups that trace back to Smith, various ones have their own view of it, depending on the circumstances of their formation.
John, you are COC (RLDS) right? Or are you part of one of the smaller groups?