Unpacking Polygamy: The Complete Series
Listen to our full five-part series, plus find even more resources for engaging with this complicated and important topic.
Every four years, Latter-day Saints are challenged to wrestle with our history and theology around plural marriage. So this year, we decided to lean in and do a deep dive.
This week, we released 5 podcast episodes that each wrestle with a different aspect of this challenging topic. We’ve also included selected written pieces below to supplement and expand on the recorded conversations. We hope this deep dive will stimulate fresh conversations and new ways to look at our history, practice and theology of plural marriage.
Part 1. Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, with Patrick Mason and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of A House Full of Females.
Part 2. Our Evolving Sealing Practices with Nate Oman, professor of law and author of Law and the Restoration
Part 3. Polygamy from Nauvoo to Utah with Brittany Chapman Nash, author of Let’s Talk About Polygamy
Part 4. The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy with Latter-day Saint author, poet and playwright Carol Lynn Pearson
Part 5. Wrestling with 132 with Bethany Brady Spalding, Patrick Mason and Bill Turnbull
MORE ON THIS TOPIC:
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What is heaven like? (And what do we do with polygamy?)
What will heaven be like? How might I think about "obedience" in a way that isn't so transactional? What is "sealing" and what is the sealing ordinance? What does it mean for families to be eternal? What does it mean to focus on eternal things? Why does it matter that God has a body? And what on earth do we do with polygamy?
What does it mean to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ? Is the project of the restoration Zion, or exaltation? Can it be both?
What does it mean to "reject Babylon and come to Zion"? How do we prepare for the Second Coming? Is the project of the restoration to find and shepherd the elect of God to exaltation in the next life? Or is it to create a Zion community here that strives to include those on the margins, the way Jesus ministered? Should it be one or the other? Who is Jesus, and what is his character? How should we relate to governments?
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This was an insightful and powerful set of conversations. A reading list would be a good addition.