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A Neglected Chronicler 

I read Michael Quinn’s “LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890–1904” when it appeared (Dialogue 18, no. 1, [Spring 1985]: 9–105). I also found interesting Julie Hemming Savage’s “Hannah Grocer Hegsted and Post-Manifesto Plural Marriage” (Dialogue 26, no. 3 [Fall 1993]: 101–18). 

In a day when the world press is expounding on the polygamous ancestry of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, I thought Dialogue readers might be interested in the following thoughts penned twenty years ago after reading Quinn’s and Savage’s only partially informed articles on the subject of post-Manifesto plural marriages. 

I am constantly amazed how the current generation is rediscovering matters that never were a mystery. Frank J. Cannon, son of George Q. Cannon (first counselor to Brigham Young, John Tay lor, and Wilford Woodruff), and half-brother of Apostle Abraham H. Cannon, wrote all anyone ever needed to know about the Church’s continued practice of plural marriage, not only in Canada and Mexico, but here in the United States. And Samuel W. Taylor, a frequent Dialogue contributor also told the story of his own apostle-father’s (John W. Taylor) several plural marriages well after the 1890 Manifesto. 

Cannon, an attorney, attended to Church business in Washington, D.C., for many years, being instrumental in mediating between the U.S. Senate and Church authorities to obtain statehood. Here is an interesting sidebar for political scientists and historians. Cannon had all but achieved his objective when Grover Cleveland was defeated for a second term. As some may remember, Cleveland became the only U.S. president reelected after an interval of four years out of office. He needed no further convincing that Utah should become a state when he resumed office and saw Utah’s admission to the union as one of his administration’s first items of business. Cleveland was a Democrat; and for many years, Utah voted Democratic in gratitude for Cleveland’s understanding and in retaliation against the Republican Party which, with the exception of the two Cleveland administrations, had ruled the United States since the Civil War and had deliberately kept Utah out of the union, lumping Mormonism’s polygamy with the slavery of the South as one of “the twin relics of barbarism.” 

Frank Cannon was thereupon named by the new state legislature as Utah’s first senator to Washington. (This was before the Constitutional amendment providing for direct election of senators.) 

Neither Cannon nor his book, Un der the Prophet in Utah (1909; rpt., Boston: C. M. Clark Co., 1911), are cited in either Quinn’s or Savage’s articles, leaving the impression that it remained for contemporary scholars to reveal the fascinating story of polygamy’s having continued (with the approval of high Church authorities) for another thirty years following the Manifesto. For goodness sake, I remember that, when I was a child, men in good standing visited plural wives up and down the street where I was reared. And these weren’t “Fundamentalist” types, either. I daresay many others can remember similar events. 

In Under the Prophet in Utah, ex-Sena tor Cannon, by then publisher of a newspaper in Boulder, Colorado (he had been a newspaper publisher in Ogden until life in Utah became too uncomfortable) tells the intriguing secular side of the Woodruff Manifesto story (now canonized as Official Declaration 1 in the Doctrine and Covenants). 

It has often been stated by enemies of the Church (and super-sophisticated scholar members) that the Manifesto was drafted by outside lawyers with no inspiration whatever and foisted on an elderly President Woodruff as an act of desperation to save the properties and temples of the Church. (Some have charged Cannon himself with having drafted the Manifesto as a sop to Congress). Cannon assures us in his book that this just wasn’t so. He says that he talked with President Woodruff personally shortly after the Manifesto was read in October 1890 general conference. He had been close to the president since childhood and characterizes him as a sweet, if naive soul, of towering integrity. As history has it, the Lord said, in effect, “Enough, my good and faithful servant. What has been done will be counted as righteousness, and my Church will continue on a slightly different track.” 

According to Cannon, the entire original redaction, which he was shown, was in President Woodruff’s own handwriting, with which Can non was familiar. This is the best ammunition I have ever seen against Fundamentalist pretensions that the Manifesto is nothing more than a political document conjured up by lawyers and foisted on a senile Church leader. 

The sad part is Cannon’s assertion that it was Joseph F. Smith and his Smith kin who insisted on reinterpreting the Woodruff Manifesto as not affecting continued, underground plural marriages during the next fourteen years (until the Second Manifesto of 1904) in defiance of the U.S. government and the pledged word of previous Church leaders. (Today, most interpreters curiously place the blame on John Taylor, who was dead before the Manifesto was received.) This is sad because the successors of these leaders were eventually compelled to return to the original pledge of giving up the practice absolutely, an eventuality which Cannon asserts President Woodruff originally intended. 

He also tells in passing the fascinating, and eventually tragic, tale of how his brother Abraham, while an apostle, was among the first to be called to take a plural wife following the death of Presidents Woodruff and Snow, only to die of typhoid fever at age thirty-seven, in 1896. 

Frank Cannon maintains, and it isn’t difficult to accept, that if we had acted in good faith as originally agreed, we wouldn’t be plagued by Fundamentalism today. Indeed, it has been argued that Fundamentalism came into being during the next few decades of equivocation. Straightforward post-Woodruff acceptance of the Manifesto might also have saved the careers and reputations of Apostles Matthias F. Cowley and John W. Taylor, each of whom, he asserts, had married with the Church president’s approval but were dropped from the Quorum when sacrificial lambs were required. That the Church recognized they had done nothing contrary to Church order is sustained by the fact that at least Matthias Cowley was accorded a posthumous “restoration of blessings.”

It must be acknowledged that Frank Cannon has come down in LDS history as an apostate, a scalawag, and an enemy of the Church and that he was repudiated as senator because he had become venal and self-seeking. And his book, whenever it is infrequently referred to, is counted as “anti-Mormon” literature. I’ve reviewed the book carefully and cannot agree with either characterization. Cannon himself insists that he always felt close to the Church, its rich history, its leaders, and his heritage, though he himself never received a personal testimony of, nor practiced, plural marriage.

As a result, in a day when accepting “the Principle” was a test of faith, he never held high priesthood office (though, as noted, he served the Church well for many years, carrying out sensitive and often secret legal and political commissions for top Church officials). It was when a new generation of Church leaders insisted on repudiating the Church’s (and his) pledged word to national political leaders that he felt he could no longer represent the Church, even in a secular capacity, and absented himself to Colorado.

Of course, one always tells a story to put the best face on one’s own behavior. And perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Anyway, I bring the book to the attention of Dialogue readers because there’s nothing in it to impair anyone’s testimony and because it provides a close look at the travails of the Church at a telling moment in its history. Again, it is a shame that scholars who have written on the subject appear to have missed this important original source—and have also overlooked an important cause for the residual “Fundamentalist” movement 120 years after it should have disappeared.

David Timmins
Salt Lake City

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Science/Religion Complement

I would like to thank David O. Tolman for his letter “Natural vs. Supernatural,” Dialogue 40, no. 1 (Spring 2007) commenting on my article, “Eternal Progression in a Multiverse: An Explorative Mormon Cosmology,” 39, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 1–45.

Tolman is correct in saying that articles on the science-religion interface are rare in Dialogue, but I do not share his opinion that our study of science and religion should be disconnected. On the contrary, I submit that science and religion are connected because both are legitimate “disciplines” by which we seek truth. Our inability, at this point in our progression, to find connections is not a valid reason to abandon the attempt. We ought to seek truth wherever and however it may be found—in a strand of DNA, the core of a star, the equations of a patent clerk, or the writings of a prophet.

A fertile dialogue between scientists and theologians is taking place. Indeed, the John Templeton Foundation makes awards to cutting-edge research in science and spirituality, encouraging progress in the marriage of the two. Tolman states, “Trying to understand one by means of the other does harm to both.” In his acceptance speech of the 2007 Templeton Prize, Charles Taylor, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, states, “The divorce of natural science and religion has been damaging to both.” These diametrical statements reflect the end points of the science-religion spectrum. As the science-religion dialogue progresses, I believe that our understanding of both will be enriched.

Finally, I am uncomfortable with Tolman’s demarcation of science as “natural” and religion as “supernatural,” and I would not consider likening, even loosely, the magical world of Harry Potter with the workings of God. I wonder . . . to God, are the workings of God “supernatural?”

Kirk D. Hagen
Ogden, Utah

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Praise from Afar

Note: The following letter was sent to Dialogue’s managing director, Lori Levinson, who oversees subscriptions and mailing.

Thanks for your email. I received the Dialogue Spring 2007 issue (40, no. 1) some time ago without problems, thank you very much.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the whole staff of Dialogue for the wonderful work you do. To read the journal is always a great pleasure. It gives me new insights and the feeling that there are other Mormons in this world who think and feel the way I do. It supports me in my spiritual journey and helps me to stay active in the Church. Thank you very much for all your work.

Susanne Müller-Schröter
Bremen, Germany

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Celestial Sex?

I do not know where to begin with Cetti Cherniak’s exhilarating essay “The Theology of Desire, Part I” (Dialogue 40, no.1 [Spring 2007]: 1–42.) I have underlined and annotated passage after passage after passage. It is insightful, ambitious, courageous, expansive, and oh so necessary. I find the prose bold, poetic, and, in parts, downright seductive.

That said, there are several tenuous assumptions that hinder the central argument. I do not have space to address all of them in this brief letter; however, the most outstanding is the assumption that there are, in fact, sexual relations in heaven (or, more apropos, in the celestial kingdom).

Before going any further, I need to clarify: I am not suggesting that the erotic in the proper context (as defined by the author) is sinful, evil, perverse, dirty, etc. Nor am I saying that there are not sexual relations in heaven. However, this assertion (sex in heaven) is such a radical departure from most Christian conceptions of the hereafter that it needs to be established with unambiguous evidence (from the scriptures, authoritative quotes from those who would truly know or who are truly in the know) at the outset.

I remember as a young teenager who used to routinely doze off in the back row of my early morning seminary class suddenly perking up one day when the teacher said, “And remember, in the next life you can only have sex in the celestial kingdom.” I also remember at least one BYU religion professor telling the students in a Book of Mormon class the same thing. In retrospect, I suppose this was a way of enticing or motivating us to keep our hands and body parts to ourselves until we were legally married. However, I have found this to be a fairly common belief among the rank and file of the church—a given, if you will.

The reasoning goes something like this: Celestial marriage will unite husband and wife forever. Marriage is God’s authorized institution for procreation on Earth (for procreating children). Celestial couples can become as the gods, creating and populating worlds. Sexual intercourse is the vehicle for procreating children. Therefore, there must needs be sexual relations in the celestial kingdom.

This is a nice, tidy argument—at least from a mortal perspective. However, as the author has argued most persuasively, God’s mind and ways are not the ways of mortal men and women. If it is impossible for humans in their mortal state to fully comprehend the machinations of the Almighty, then is it not possible that sexual relations (including the way of procreating here on Earth) is strictly a mortal construct designed for this world?

In a stake priesthood leadership training a few years ago, I heard Neal A. Maxwell state that time is a uniquely mortal phenomenon. Elder Boyd K. Packer once suggested that God created libido because He knew that humans would not mate and stay together unless there was an exceptionally powerful force motivating them to do so. In the celestial kingdom, where the inhabitants are living a much higher law, perhaps no such motivation is necessary?

As I mentioned earlier, it is not that sexual relations are dirty or sinful or bad within the proper context. However, sexual intercourse may be the way we procreate in mortality but not in other realms. If we extend human logic to the celestial kingdom, factoring in a gestation period of nine months, it would take eons for a celestial couple to populate a planet (unless, of course, the husband had millions of wives, but that is another letter for another day, and it would really throw the male-female ratio out of balance, I think).

Then there is the whole issue of “spirit” children. Celestial couples are not procreating flesh and blood children but spirit offspring. So perhaps the entire process is different. Maybe the celestial process allows a couple to procreate thousands or millions or an entire planet’s worth of spirit children in the twinkling of an eye?

If this were true, then the next question would be: Does that mean there is no sexual pleasure in heaven? Again, we do not know at this time. However, it could be that there are sensations and experiences in heaven that are far more intense, pleasurable, and satisfying than what we on Earth in our mortal state call sex, experiences that out-orgasm orgasms. Perhaps on the scale of pleasure sex as we know it here on Earth is like riding a tricycle and on the other side awaiting us are BMW experiences?

Because our thoughts and feelings are not God’s, we should be cautious when applying and extending mortal logic to the hereafter. For example, the author says that God defecates and urinates. Does he eat food? Does he need to? If he doesn’t eat or drink, then no need to urinate or defecate. Are those activities uniquely human as well? What does it mean to have a celestial body? Is there celestial junk food? If so, if we indulge, will we compromise our perfected celestial bodies?

The author says that only those who reach the highest level of the celestial kingdom will enjoy sexual relations. The others will be “spayed or neutered” (17). Literally or figuratively? And if the body is literally neutered or spayed, how can it be perfect? Does it mean those people would be incapable of having sexual relations?

Logical extension is one reason we may incorrectly assume there is sex in heaven. Other reasons are faulty metaphorical application and ambiguous evidence. For example, the author states that Jesus was conceived via a sexual encounter. Where in the scriptures does it unequivocally say that? I am not saying that it did not or could not have happened that way; I am saying that we do not know. The scripture (Luke 1:35) says that “the Holy Ghost shall come upon” her.

With recent advancements in technology, the idea of a virgin birth is hardly a miracle in our day. And if we as humans can create a virgin birth, surely God, the all-knowing and all-powerful, has countless ways to bring this to pass without sexual intercourse. An impregnation sans intercourse would be more consistent with the definition of “virgin” (and, correspondingly, virgin birth). Also, the virgin Mary was not married to God the Father (so far as we know). So it would have been a suspension of the eternal law of chastity if God had had sexual relations with someone to whom he was not legally and lawfully married.

When Talmage states: “[T]hat child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof ” (Jesus the Christ, 81), this does not necessarily equate with sexual relations. Natural law could refer to the fact that the child was conceived as a result of a sperm uniting with an egg (a natural process), the result grew within Mary’s womb (a natural process), and Mary delivered the child in the natural manner of women on Earth. Likewise, when Brigham Young alludes to “the marriage relation,” he is not necessarily referring to a sexual relation. Indeed, the marriage relation is so broad and expansive that he could be referring to something as basic as “men are from Mars and women are from Venus.”

Part of the ambiguity is due to language. In the days of Brigham Young and in ancient times, writers did not use language as explicitly and, in some cases, crudely as we do today. They did not write, “The Holy Spirit had sex with Mary” but instead used metaphor and euphemism, i.e., the Holy Ghost “c[a]me upon her,” which shows more decorum but also leaves open more territory for interpretation.

In short, I think the author has taken a bold stand in writing this essay, and I am anxiously awaiting the second installment. However, I think the central premise needs to be established more convincingly before we can rally wholeheartedly behind the subsequent arguments. Then again, our post-mortal bodies must be good for something more than celestial surfing or pick-up basketball, so maybe Cherniak and my former seminary teacher are right after all. If we believe all things and hope all things, why not add celestial sex to the mix? Until we have more compelling evidence, it’s pure (and wishful) speculation.

Michael Fillerup
Flagstaff, Arizona