Have you wondered what’s behind the energy in the polygamy revisionist movement? Are these the same as RLDS polygamy arguments? Back in 2010, Newell Bringhurst wrote a chapter in “Persistence of Polygamy” on the evolution of RLDS thinking on Joseph Smith’s polygamy, how it got forgotten, and recycled among a new generation of LDS members who weren’t aware of the previous history.
Are the modern arguments that Joseph Smith was a strict monogamist actually new? In this deep dive, we explore the “layered archive” of historical claims surrounding Joseph Smith’s polygamy, revealing that many of today’s “polygamy revisionist” arguments are actually recycled 19th-century RLDS positions.
The presentation breaks down the 150-year evolution of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) through four distinct phases:
The Early Concessions (1852–1860): Contrary to popular belief, early leaders like William Marks and Isaac Sheen did not initially deny Joseph Smith’s involvement. Instead, they claimed he had been involved in “spiritual wifery” but recognized his error and repented shortly before his death in Carthage.
The Era of Absolute Denial (1860–1960): Under the leadership of Joseph Smith III, the strategy shifted toward establishing the absolute innocence of the founding prophet. This century-long “institutional mandate” framed D&C 132 as a “Brighamite forgery” and placed the blame for polygamy entirely on Brigham Young.
The Academic Shockwave (1960s–1980s): The “dam broke” when mid-century historians like Robert Flanders and Lawrence Foster published research that eroded the bedrock of the church’s denial. This led to a painful institutional reckoning, eventually forcing the church to acknowledge Joseph Smith’s foundational role in plural marriage.
The Modern Revisionist Resurgence: Today, a new wave of LDS members—facing their own faith crises—are adopting these older RLDS arguments to resolve cognitive dissonance regarding the prophet’s moral legacy.
Drawing on works like Newell Bringhurst’s The Persistence of Polygamy and Robert Flanders’ Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, this presentation weighs revisionist claims against the preponderance of contemporaneous evidence. We also discuss the psychological toll of these shifting narratives and the ongoing battle to control the legacy of Joseph Smith.
What are your thoughts about these rejuvenated arguments?
Wheat & Tares 
If a person belongs to the Brighamite branch of Mormonism, then polygamy is still a problem. That belief would leave a person searching for a group that did not go apostate. If Brigham Young was so bad as to bring in polygamy against God’s will, then what else did he invent. And because sealings and the whole temple ceremony was invented to help with polygamy, and were added into the church by Brigham Young then the polygamy deniers have to also say those are wrong. I mean, do they realize that the first time the endowment was written was done by their corrupt apostate Brigham Young.
So, if they are going to throw Brigham Young under the bus to save their idealized image of Joseph Smith, then they really need to be somewhat consistent and throw out everything Brigham Young added to the church.
Me, I solved the polygamy problem by saying the whole thing from the first vision on was a scam. My position in opposition to polygamy is at least consistent that I do not accept any of what Young or Smith claim came from God was really from God.
The other way to solve it is the fallen prophet idea. Accept the Joseph was prophetic until he could keep his hands off Fanny.
See, there were witnesses to that. Emma never claimed she did not catch Joseph in the Barn with his pants down. So, if one is going to believe Emma that Joseph never practiced polygamy, then one has to accept that he committed adultery. Then there is the time before that when Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered for messing with the Johnson girl. The church kind of covers up that the tarring and feathering was because he got caught trying to seduce a teen aged girl and pretends that was religious persecution, but the group of angry men were going to castrate him because he was caught in a compromising situation as a married guy mucking around with a teen aged girl.
And what about all the women who signed a sworn statement that they were married to Joseph? Are you calling them guilty of perjury?
No, sorry, there is just too much evidence against Joseph. And it still leaves you stuck following a corrupt religious leader if you are still in Brigham’s church. And I am not willing to stay in a church that treats women like breeding cattle and that was the group that settled Utah under Brigham Young.
The further you get from the event, the more likely that non-historians will become more ignorant about it. It is ironic that most of the polygamy deniers are now Utah Mormons, not Community of Christ.
Anna, I appreciate you taking the time to engage with the post. One thing that stood out to me, though, is that your response feels more polemical than analytical. I don’t mean that as a criticism of your conclusions—reasonable people can disagree about Joseph Smith and polygamy—but I think the discussion benefits from a bit more nuance.
It also seems to lean fairly heavily on Fawn Brodie’s work, which was groundbreaking in its day but has been supplemented and, in some respects, revised by later scholarship. Even historians who are critical of Joseph Smith, such as John Turner and Dan Vogel, and more sympathetic scholars like Richard Bushman, tend to offer more nuanced treatments than the older “for or against” framing.
I think this is a broader pattern we see across many communities. Polemical arguments are common among polygamy skeptics, faithful Latter-day Saints, and anti-Mormon writers alike. They often generate more heat than light. I’d be interested in seeing the discussion engage more with the strongest and most current scholarship, regardless of where it ultimately leads.
Rick, you asked for discussion on what our *thoughts* were on the new direction the people going back to trying to say Joseph never practiced polygamy. Sorry, but I trusted that you wanted our *thoughts*. Which means conclusions and possible disagreement. To me it sounded like an invitation to give our *thoughts,* not provide a bunch of new research. If you want new proof of a supper old argument, ask that, because, no I am not a researcher and wouldn’t have commented. I need to remember that you do not like discussion even when you invite discussion, and just not comment. Your OP, your posting rules.
Anna, I certainly wasn’t trying to suggest that people shouldn’t share their thoughts. In fact, I appreciate that you did.
My point was a narrower one. The question I was hoping to explore wasn’t whether Joseph Smith or Brigham Young were good or bad, or whether Mormonism is true or false. Rather, I was interested in why some older RLDS arguments denying Joseph Smith’s polygamy are reappearing today, despite several decades of additional historical research.
That’s really a historiographical question. We now have a much larger body of evidence than was available to Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, or the RLDS historians of the mid-twentieth century. Historians who reach very different conclusions about Joseph Smith—Richard Bushman, Dan Vogel, John Turner, Newell Bringhurst, and others—generally agree on much of the documentary record, even if they interpret it differently.
So I wasn’t objecting to you expressing your conclusions. I was simply encouraging us to engage the strongest and most current historical scholarship, whatever conclusions we ultimately draw from it. I think that’s a more productive discussion than simply restating the older apologetic or polemical positions on either side.
Your first comment isn’t really responding to the thesis. It’s shifting the discussion from “What is the historical evidence regarding Joseph Smith’s plural marriages?” to “If Joseph practiced polygamy, Mormonism is false; if he didn’t, Brigham Young is false.” That’s a theological consistency argument, not a historical one. It’s simply a different conversation than I was expecting.
I’m-a guessin’ that it’s ignorance. Youngsters(relative speakin’) are timewise so far removed from the 19th century that the only experience with Mormon polygamy is true crime specials on those “weirdo’s. And those people ain’t them. And they’re also subject to years of repetitive romanticization of Joseph Smith.
What do I think of their arguments, not much.
My mom (back when polygamy was still mentioned) use to quote Joseph Smith denial and then say–are you calling Joseph Smith a liar. My Mom who who believed in looking stylish, said she didn’t like polygamy because of those stern dumpy old women in ugly black dresses sitting in the pews. My mom was a Emma fan, back when Emma was still villanized. And she knew Jospeh had done her wrong. But if you control the narrative, it becomes the truth. And she was pleased with the triumph of monogamous heterosexuality, especially if done with fashionable flair.
Rick B: This is also not going to satisfy your call for scholarly responses, but to piggyback on Anna, there’s something unsavory when the “scholars” being cited are all men having some esoteric pipe-smoking discussion about history and theology that really boils down to the sexual exploitation of women that girls brought up in the church were raised to defend as God’s will–and still are to this day. It’s not really a neutral topic for women in the way it is for men. But I know you know all that.
For those interested in this topic, John Hamer and John-Charles Duffy will be doing a panel at the Sunstone Symposium titled “A Plurality of Denials: The Rhetorical History of Polygamy Trutherism in Mormonism.”
Hawkgrrrl, it’s not a neutral topic for a lot of women, but that emotion is being used to silence women’s voices. As distasteful as polygamy can be, a portion of those women legit believed that what they were doing was God’s will. The polygamy revisionists dismiss the affidavits of many of these ladies by suggesting they were wholly under the influence of Brigham Young and his posse, or even worse (in my opinion), that they were seeking popularity by falsely claiming to be wives of Joseph Smith. It reeks of people dismissing #metoo movement speakers as either attention-seekers or straight-up liars.
It is not supporting women by claiming that Emma’s opinion is the only one that matters. It is also not supporting women when people assume based on scanty evidence that scores of British convert women were sleeping with Brigham Young, HCK, William Clayton, and others in their zeal to claim polygamy started separately from Joseph Smith.
In the debates over whether Joseph did or did not practice polygamy, women are consistently treated as little more than two-dimensional accessories, just pawns moved around at will.
My preferred solution is to research the lives of these women. Yes, we can talk about the power differentials and coercion, but we can also investigate their backgrounds and beliefs. They deserve to have whatever involvement they may or may not have with polygamy put in proper context with the rest of their lives.
You’re right Hawkgrrrl. Maybe I should be referencing Anne Wilde, Kathryn Daines, Kathleen Flake, Michelle Stone, Karen Hyatt, Gwendolyn Wyne, Laura Hales, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, Ann Hatch, Sarah Gordon, and yes, our own Mary Ann Clements, and many other women who have written and podcasted with divergent opinions on the topic of polygamy. I know it is an emotional topic for many, and many get offended when scholars try to talk about polygamy dispassionately. I just get tired of all the polemics from ALL sides and wish we could discuss the topic without getting bent out of shape every. single. time.
I understand the emotion, but we can’t have productive conversations if that is the first knee jerk reaction, and considered the only legit perspective, as I’ve been lectured at sooooo. many. times, as if I somehow like and support polygamy. (I don’t.) I simply want to understand it without the good/bad dichotomy that haunts sooo many conversations.
I’d like to know more about the impetus behind recent LDS efforts to sanitize Joseph’s legacy. For much of RLDS history it related directly to the fact that Joseph’s family members (who filled top leadership roles in the church) wanted to protect his, and therefore, their image. The standard line of thinking usually was something along the lines of this: Joseph was an honorable man; honorable men couldn’t be involved in something as deplorable as polygamy; therefore, Joseph could not have been involved. The logic is flawed, but who among us in both branches of the church, haven’t seen it time and again? There was no more active defender of Joseph than his grandson, Israel Smith, who served as RLDS president from the mid-1940s to his untimely death in a car accident in 1958. His successor and half-brother, W. Wallace Smith, was much more open to allow honest historical study of this and other matters. Interestingly, it was a time of great theological interpretation and expanding international mission work. Once you turn those corners, there’s really no going back. And so, it makes me wonder if this current LDS reinterpretation is part of a much wider retrenchment. Being an outsider, of course, I have no way of knowing.
Rick, if only polygamy were a historical anomaly that no longer affected women today, then maybe we could have that discussion free of emotion. Given its persistence in unequal sealing practices and temple ordinances, I’m with Anna and Hawkgrrrl. This is much more than a dry academic exercise. Sorry Mary Ann.
But yes, I have wondered where all this resurgence of the idea Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy is coming from, to answer your question. I mean the earliest evidence of this current resurgence seemed to be blog posts by Meg Stout on Times & Seasons. She seemed to be quite the outlier at the time, and was apparently writing a book. But she seems to have vanished. Do you know what happened to her or what became of the book she was writing?
The key sentence in the OP is: “Today, a new wave of LDS members—facing their own faith crises—are adopting these older RLDS arguments to resolve cognitive dissonance regarding the prophet’s moral legacy.”
So the problem to be addressed is why LDS members (not RLDS or CoC members and not *scholars* in either camp) are affirming JS polygamy denial. Members aren’t scholars. They don’t review the literature, marshal evidence on a narrow historical question, and draw evidence-based conclusions. Members, layfolk, form an opinion based on their own knowledge and experience (generally rather limited compared to a scholar in the field) and then formulate talking point to justify their opinion.
What contributes to this happening in the LDS membership? Several generations of correlated LDS curriculum has dumbed down the historical knowledge base of the average LDS member. That correlated LDS curriculum has also painted Joseph in heroic terms while, at the same time (at least until recently) suppressing discussion of Joseph’s polygamy and related practices. So as Joseph’s polygamy and related practices become, once again, part of the public discussion, befuddled average members can either acknowledge the polygamy and downgrade Joseph’s moral character; or defend his moral character and push back at the revived polygamy discussion and claims. I guess there is a third option, sort of the fundamentalist option: acknowledge Joseph’s polygamy but defend it and celebrate it — something the Church carefully avoided doing for a century.
Just rolling your eyes at the new wave of LDS JS polygamy deniers is too simple a response. The LDS Church’s curriculum and teaching decisions on polygamy put them and other members in a tough position. Blame the Church first. Talk about how to reform the leadership’s approach to its history and its curriculum, not about where LDS JS polygamy deniers are missing the boat.
“Joseph was an honorable man; honorable men couldn’t be involved in something as deplorable as polygamy; therefore, Joseph could not have been involved. The logic is flawed, but who among us in both branches of the church, haven’t seen it time and again?”
Rich, thank you so much for that comment. I love the insight. Yes I have heard that logic among LDS polygamy skeptics. I didn’t realize it was Connected as an old rlds argument but you’ve identified another one it keeps popping up time and again
Hedgehog, thanks for your comment. I do think the last decade under Russell Nelson and Dallin Oaks has tried to make the sealing ceremonies more egalitarian than they were, but clearly there is a long way to go to make them truly equal.
I see Meg Stout around occasionally. To be clear she is not a polygamy skeptic, she believes Joseph did practice polygamy and I tried to point that out in the presentation that she didn’t really belong with the rest of the polygamy skeptics. The funny thing is, last night at the Book of Mormon perspectives forum that I attend on Monday nights, Brian Hales announced that he was speaking at the new fair conference in August with part of the title ” the reluctant polygamist. I joked with him and said are you stealing that title from Meg stout? He said he hadn’t thought of that but maybe it was a subconscious thing. I do see Meg occasionally at some of the history conferences but with millennial star basically shutting down, yes her online presence has definitely diminished. I haven’t talked to her much so I don’t know her current stance but I don’t believe it has changed.
Ah. Millenial Star, not Times & Seasons. Thanks Rick. I don’t thinks it’s too big a step from reluctant to didn’t happen. An intermediary stage perhaps in the Joseph Smith and polygamy Zeitgeist.
I don’t think everyone would agree the temple has become more egalitarian, so much as the inequity is better hidden. But this isn’t the place for that discussion.
Why does the polygamy question never go away? Why are old arguments for and against polygamy recycled? Simple explanation is that for those connected to the LDS religion, polygamy is the most controversial and defining characteristic of the religion. And yet the development of the practice and doctrine is shrouded in mystery. As members explore the polygamy question they run into a fog and this invites them to inquire if the history is incomplete.
LDS leadership seems to be trying to clear the fog with the release of journal transcripts, but I’m not sure they can be successful. Have the Joseph Smith Papers clarified the polygamy question? Not that I know of.
The reality is that the LDS church under Brigham Young institutionalized polygamy and made it integral to the doctrine and practices of the church. And while we have teachings of Joseph Smith touting the “sealing power”, we must accept that what Brigham Young and the Utah leaders taught and defended was distinct from what Joseph Smith taught and defended.
The paradox is that given the doctrine of “continual revelation” emphasized by current church leadership, it should be a simple thing for the current leadership to acknowledge the changes Brigham Young made. Why can’t they acknowledge that Joseph Smith introduced spiritual concepts that Brigham Young then instituted as the polygamy practice? I suppose the reason they can’t is because in the Temple Lot case the church argued Joseph Smith had multiple wives in consummated marriages and they need the theological principle of polygamy to defend how that could be. Thus, for the modern LDS church, the thread of polygamous marriage must start with Joseph Smith and that is how it will always be.
It may help to consider that a lot of history resides in a fog of controversy. For Americans the JFK assassination is perpetually argued. The Epstein files is a recent example of disputed claims. There is also the attack on the USS Liberty, a 1967 event which popped up recently as a topic of debate.
Rick, if your first response to me had said what you said it your second response, then I get it. And OK, you take Fawn Brodie as too angry to consider valid. You’re one of those who think that being angry about something makes your opinion invalid. 🙄 So, let’s stick with Todd Compton and his well researched information.
I was not trying to hate on Joseph Smith and really, until I got your first response, I was not at all emotional about the topic. I was just saying there is too much evidence that Joseph did not know how to keep his britches buttoned up. Sorry for not being academic enough about which examples I used. There are SO many examples to choose from. So, sticking to more modern scholars and recent books, there is STILL just TOO much evidence of Joseph’s adultery, polygamy, predatory sexual behavior to ignore and the “new” polygamy deniers are just trying to ignore that evidence.
That was my point. Too much evidence. Whether we take it from his friends like B. f. Johnson or Brigham Young, Brodie, that newspaper that Joseph busted up their printing press, or sworn statements by the women who were married to him or family folk lore (yup, I have ancestors whose sisters were his “wives”)
As to why there is a renewal of interest, I wrote out an angry response to your first comment explaining denial and cognitive dissonance. And calling this “new” movement delusional and you an idiot if you think they have a valid point. But deleted it thinking you didn’t want any of that either.
But it is kind of like the MAGA who currently just refuse to believe the very valid voices of the women who say Trump was involved in Epstein’s crimes. MAGA, like our mainline LDS polygamy deniers, made a decision somewhere that Joseph/Donald was chosen by God. Someone righteous enough to be chosen by God cannot possibly be scum. Therefore all the “evidence” is just people who hate him because he was chosen by God. It is called denial. Their cognitive dissonance will not let them accept that their belief that Joseph/Donald was so wonderful could be wrong and therefore they refuse to accept what is in front of them. Just denial of evidence. Refusing to believe the women because they are just women (and some of them were angry, so we can dismiss them 😉) and HE was chosen by God.
I understand the problem because I went through a stage where I wanted to believe that maybe Joseph was not scum. I even had a conversation where I brought up the idea that Joseph didn’t practice polygamy and kind of got laughed at because I was exhibiting cognitive dissonance to the very psychology professor and relative who taught me about it. I still wanted to believe and was trying desperately to figure out how to believe the Book of Mormon could exist and Joseph Smith not be a liar, con man, and sexual predator. I was a college student, so young and stupid. I didn’t succeed in saving my testimony. But I DO understand the people who are going through that same internal argument.
Rick, I have relatives and casual friends who have bought into the self-titled “monogamy affirmers” movement. The reasons they have given me for why they argue Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy stem from the following starting points:
1. They love or really like the Church, the temple, the Book of Mormon, the idea of living prophets, eternal families, and the rest of it. They feel these are inspired by God and are heaven-sent good things with which they want to be associated.
2. They find the Church’s history with polygamy to be hugely problematic to put it lightly. They feel that God never would have inspired His prophet to introduce something that seems so evil, unfair, unjust, unseemly, and so cruelly awful to His beloved daughters.
3. Brigham Young undeniably and publicly practiced polygamy. He’s also on record for having done some pretty despicable things (the racially based priesthood and temple ban being tops on the list). He looks like a (conveniently) bad guy.
With the above starting points, my friends and family then came into contact with the monogamy affirmers movement and were provided with what appeared to be a rational and faithful way to allow them to embrace the good things they see in the gospel and be able to, they felt, faithfully reject the ugliness and wickedness that is polygamy (e.g., lack of children born to Joseph’s plural wives, public denials, alleged problems and inconsistencies in contemporaneous records, etc.).
Of course, when you push them on what the ramifications are of Brigham Young going rogue and introducing polygamy without direction from God, they tend to get quiet because that line of argument ends with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being in apostasy for the vast majority of its existence, and its prophets, seers, and revelators for being unable for well over 150 years now to recognize the false doctrine that, according to the monogamy affirmers, crept in even while Joseph was still alive. They want to have their Church cake and eat it (reject Joseph as the originator of LDS polygamy) too.
Although late to this discussion, it is important to note there exists more than ample evidence that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy and polyandry. It is very frustrating to read the biased and shortsighted articles by the likes of Gwendolyn Wyne and Laura Hales that dismiss the actual historical record.
The landmark book “In Sacred Loneliness” by Todd Compton argues there is extensive historical evidence that JS practiced both polygamy and polyandry. Compton bases his conclusions on a wide range of credible, primary sources, including affidavits, journals, letters, family records, and later testimonies from the women themselves and their contemporaries. Rather than relying on a single source, he compares independent accounts to identify consistent patterns and corroborating details.
According to the book, the evidence includes documented sealings to approximately 33–35 women, several of whom were already legally married to other men. Multiple women later testified that these marriages were performed by JS and, in many cases, described them as genuine marital relationships rather than merely symbolic or dynastic sealings. Compton acknowledges the limitations and occasional contradictions in the historical record but concludes that the convergence of numerous independent sources provides strong historical support that JS engaged in both plural marriage and polyandrous marriages. While historians continue to debate the nature and purpose of some individual relationships, “In Sacred Loneliness” is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive source-based studies supporting the conclusion that JS practiced both polygamy and polyandry.
Unfortunately, there are many current Mormon apologists who deny JS’ polygamy and conveniently ignore Compton’s credible evidence. This practice destroys the credibility and truth of their conclusions.
Great insights Dave B, Not a Cougar, and Disciple.
As to the point, “you take Fawn Brodie as too angry to consider valid,” I never said that (nor thought it) and that is a mischaractization of my point. I said Fawn Brodie’s work is dated and there are more accurate/modern biographies out there.
I STRONGLY disagree with the polygamy skeptic movement, just as I strongly disagree with the fundamentalist movement. I’m trying to be kind to both groups and that is why I try to be dispassionate about the topic because it is easy to unintentionally offend, which happens quite frequently. Most don’t care about offending those with whom they disagree, but I try to disagree tactfully. I don’t always succeed and I’m sorry for any offense caused. I wanted to gently push back on some of your assertions in your first comment that there is better & newer scholarship out there and just be careful with older stuff. But as demonstrated with these old RLDS arguments (and the Spalding Theory, and myths about Joseph Smith’s attempted castraction), some old theories just keep getting recycled as new and improved.
I think Not a Cougar hit the nail on the head. The church’s gospel topics essays and other information being released by the church itself fails to adequately explain, let alone address, the discrepancy between the wholesome modern church and historical polygamy.
Before the church was forced to provide its own historical narrative about these thorny topics, members could easily dismiss negative history as anti-Mormon. Since the gospel topics essays, members can’t do that anymore. Many of them are likely very disturbed or dissatisfied with the church’s flimsy information and arguments about polygamy in the essays. The statement about Helen Kimball, where she married Joseph “several months before her 15th birthday” is so absurd, it hardly instills confidence about the credibility of the essay in general.
Rather than face the pain and trauma of concluding that the church was founded by a pathological adulterer and conman, they need a different scapegoat, hence Brigham Young. While the church has placed Joseph Smith second to Jesus Christ in what he has done for God’s children (a truly lofty position indeed), it has a more nuanced relationship with Brigham Young. While Brigham Young is revered, he is not held up as quite the shining beacon that Joseph is. The church now blames him for the race and priesthood ban where before it claimed the origins were unknown.
Members likely see it as ok to throw Brigham under the bus for other unsavory policies and doctrine too, like polygamy. I think this is why these polygamy denial arguments are gaining such traction. The church’s increased transparency has given members permission to delve into these topics, which were previously taboo. Polygamy and a loving fair God are irreconcilable. The members don’t know how to cope, and so they are desperately grasping at straws because the alternative is too painful.
https://denversnuffer.com/2026/07/transcript-of-holy-order-part-3-is-up/
If you can answer why in 2026 there is a resurgence of people believing in a flat earth, or people wanting Polio, or people drinking raw milk, then maybe we can answer why in 2026 there is a resurgence of people denying polygamy. In other words, the internet has allowed all types of people to find their village. Once they feel validated, they become loud.
Otherwise what Rich Brown said.
I’ve wondered why these people care. It’s like if JS was still a good guy then the church remains pure and true because only God’s first prophet has to be good, the second one can be a ding dong without consequence. It doesn’t make sense to me; if one leader take the church down a dark path, you are where you are. But they seem to think it’s a distinction with a difference.