Journal of Mormon Polygamy: A Conversation with Michelle Brady Stone and Cheryl Bruno

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett, and I am here as always with the mighty Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am feeling mighty well.

That's good because we have some mighty fine guests here. This is really exciting. We welcome back Michelle Brady Stone, uh, who has been a guest on Inside Out before, but we also have her partner in crime, Cheryl Bruno. And Ian, you've said they're sort of a mirror image of Inside Out, but we being the only true and living podcast, uh, it's all right. No, they're absolutely wonderful. They are the co-founders of the Journal of Mormon Polygamy that have a conference coming up, and I don't know what possessed these folks, but I have been invited to be a panelist on that conference. Michelle, what is the date of that? That is on the 20th, is that right, of March?

Yes, the conference is coming up on the 20th and 21st of March. Jim Bennett has very generously agreed to appear on our panel on the 18th Revelation of John Taylor, and that will be next Friday, um, Friday evening and all day Saturday, the 20th and the 21st, at— well, near UVU. We'll have to get into that a little bit, but it's in Orem, Utah, very near Utah Valley University.

Well, that's going to be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to that, and I'm really excited to see, uh, both of you here and, and your passion on this issue. Uh, can you give us just a little bit of background about how you two kind of met each other and why it is you felt like it was important to create the Journal of Mormon Polygamy?

Yeah, Cheryl, it might be fun. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself? I'll tell them a little bit about myself, then we can kind of tell how we met, why our paths crossed.

Okay. Um, I'm Cheryl Bruno and I, um, am retired. I am in senior living. And I've retired from that, and I have put my whole efforts into being a Mormon historian. That's what I've done as a hobby for 20 years, and it's grown into really more than a hobby. I've written 3 books and many articles, and, um, I'm— I feel like I'm, uh, quite well-versed in, in Mormon history until I met Michelle, which we'll tell you about a little bit later.

And so I am Michelle Stone. Yes, I'm thrilled to be back with you, Ian and Jim Bennett. I think you do wonderful work. And, um, I'm unfortunately in some circles have become a little infamous, which was never my intention. But, um, I am a mother of 13 children, lived my whole life in the church. I'm a BYU dropout because I had my, um, my— I'm— I was a presidential scholarship scholar recipient at BYU on full scholarship and dropped out my last year to have my first baby and raise and homeschooled all of my children until I felt— and always, always studied immensely during those years. But then I started my podcast, um, 132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy, in, um, the beginning of 2022. Um, not quite a year ago, about 8 months ago, I believe, I, um, I removed that podcast, and I've been going, um, doing new things. But I'm just about to graduate from college, and, um, the degree I started all that time ago, doing other things. And I guess that's pretty much what you need to know about me.

Well, it's very— so are you going to get in trouble for actually appearing on our podcast or for doing— well, I don't want to ask you any question that might make you uncomfortable. So, and I'm happy to edit out anything if I'm, if I'm out of line here. But you, you are to some degree infamous in that Many people saw that podcast getting pulled down and recognized that that was something that was not necessarily happening by your own choice. And so I am, I'm curious as to where you stand on that. And I mean, here you are on our podcast. And if this is— are you worried that this is going to cause you some trouble with your ecclesiastical leaders?

So in general, the direction I'm going is I'm talking about my research more than myself. I want my research to be the story, not myself. I will just quickly say that I am thankful that we are, um, we are in a church that values academic pursuits and scholarships. I know that there often it's really challenging to, um, try to keep an institution together, try to keep things going. Things can make there's always— it's a big ship, right? We're trying to keep everybody on board as the best we can, and at the same time, there are things that have to be discussed. So I understand that there can be discomfort, um, and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's a fine line to try to walk, and I think we're all trying to figure it out together. I, um, I am thankful that at this point there seems to be an acknowledged awareness of the difference between, um, a public-facing podcast based on just my own personal research and a peer-reviewed academic scholarly endeavor that is, um, trying to bring, um, different focuses together. So I just— I want to make it from the outset extremely clear because this has been such an interesting origin story that we're going to talk about. But the Journal of Mormon Polygamy is not, um, a 132 Problems journal. It's not a Michelle Stone journal. It's not a polygamy denier journal. It's none of those things. I happen to have done that work, and now I am involved in the journal with Cheryl Bruno. And so I just want to make a very clear dividing line that my work was my work, and the conference that is coming up and the journal itself is a different— it's a different focus, a different job, and a different thing that we are doing.

So the fact that this is an academic sort of journal, rather than a, I don't know what the word is, but this isn't you—

I'm not doing independent research that I'm sharing on YouTube, right? I am helping to facilitate a scholarly discussion through scholarly methods.

Okay. Cheryl, how did you get involved in this?

Oh, we're going to tell you that through our stories of how we met. Because it really is fascinating, and I think your audience will be really interested in how the two of us, who are so different, met and, and started this enterprise together. But I think, let me just add to what Michelle was saying about her podcast and the direction she's going now, is it's been really inspiring to watch her as she was the kind of the later, um, podcasts she was doing before she took it down, she was kind of going more in a scholarly direction, um, looking carefully at the documents and, um, and, um, really bringing some academic, um, rigor to what she was doing. But then when her podcast went down, she really pivoted into that and started being more involved in academia and more involved in looking at things in a more scholarly direction. And it's been really inspiring to see how she's so, so good at what she does with the, with the podcast, and yet now she's going into another field and also just honing her skills there. That's been so wonderful to see. It's amazing. She's an amazing person.

She is indeed. And it sounds like you are also an amazing person. Is your— so is your background sort of an academic background? Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yes, I'm sort of an independent scholar though. You know, I got into it— well, I have a similar story to Michelle. I have 8 children. And so I got into it while I was still a mom and still homeschooling. Homeschooling my kids, um, but I got really into Mormon history and I have, um, always done it. Well, actually, I was, I was in the Bloggernacle back then when, when, um, blogs were popular.

So I did—

I think I know your name. Uh, do you know Nate?

I do, yes.

Nate Everly, my brother-in-law, he's a big Bloggernacle guy back in the day.

Yes, yes. I don't know if you, um, remember Borden Vernal.

That was me.

Um, oh, that was all right. Handle back then. So anyway, um, yeah, my pen name. All right. Back then I was very scared to, um, you know, to let my views be known, um, because I have kind of a nuanced view of Mormonism. I'm, I'm very active and I brought all my kids up, my 8 kids. Some of them went on missions, but I did get into Mormon history and I've written books on Mormonism and Freemasonry. I've written a biography on, um, William Marks and also done a, a series, um, on polygamy, a collection of, um, writers including like Don Bradley, Todd Compton, um, and others, Susan Staker, many others who wrote on polygamy. And we brought that together into a book called Secret Covenants.

Okay, so Susan Staker is Nate Ohman's mother.

So, yes, that's why I mentioned her. Yes, there's all these connections here.

All these connections. The church is a very small world, I think.

I'm pretty sure.

I have to laugh. If I were a little bit closer to Cheryl's age instead of my age, I probably would have started a blog instead of a YouTube channel, right? These Except me. That's what you do back then. Well, that's similar.

And if you're closer to my age, I remember CB radio when I had a handle. So that's, yeah, that's going, I think I predate everybody on this conversation.

Well, so, um, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I just, go ahead. I, I'm, I just, I'm just trying to get the whole story.

So I'll— we, we can go ahead and let's, let's just move on with this. So I, when I started my podcast, as I probably mentioned to you both before, I actually did not consider myself a historian. I was much more a theologian. My arguments came from the scriptures, and I, um, had studied polygamy actually for decades, and I'd actually engaged with the best defenders of the traditional model, both of the theological defenses of polygamy that were used in the early church, and they're still used and built on by, um, current fundamentalists And then I also started to look into the question of Joseph Smith, but I was definitely not settled on that when I started my podcast. And I started my podcast to try to help our people understand that our scriptures are actually the strongest arguments against polygamy. That was my perspective, is that polygamy is not of God. That was my core perspective, and that's where I would say my strong, um, belief, if we want to say that, is, right? And that, that's where I started. And then it was in the course of the podcast that this big awful mess of documents that would tell us about Joseph Smith, I felt like I finally got to the point where I did have to dive into it. But I felt overwhelmed by just what a, what a mess it is and how much there is. But yes, I started to dive into that, and it was in that process that I was trying to figure out, you know, my strong views were about polygamy is not of God, which, well, I guess we'll get to that. I started to, to work on that, and when I was starting to try to figure out this whole historical document thing is when I first came across Cheryl So should I tell it from my perspective, Cheryl? Yes. So, um, so there were all of these, you know, they're just all these online communities and discussions, and I was asking questions and trying to answer questions, and there was a debate or a discussion going on, and I shared— it was about, um, Fanny Alger in the barn, right? And the dirty, nasty, rotten affair, and, um, that, that Warren and Oliver Cowdery wrote about. And I I quoted an argument that I had heard Brian Hales and Don Bradley make, that affair was written over scrape. Scrape was scratched out and affair was written over it. And I also said an affair didn't have the same connotations then. It didn't imply sexuality in that time period that it does now. So I was making that argument. And Cheryl Bruno jumped in into this conversation, and I had not engaged with her before, and she shared a document from the High Council records at that time period when they were discussing Oliver Cowdery's excommunication, where they just explicitly call it an adultery scrape. And that was so helpful to me because I still— I see that argument being made all the time, and it was documentary evidence that, that just solved— and I immediately was like, thank you so much, I will never make that argument again. I was thrilled that she just came and very, um, kindly and respectfully said, well, how do you, do you, how do you interpret this document? And I was like, oh, I interpret it by reading it and saying that I will never make that argument again. So that was my first introduction to Sheryl.

Yes. So, oh, go ahead.

No, I'm just trying to get—

I'm going to just riffle off Michelle because, um, right about that time I was becoming interested in Michelle's podcast. What's the big deal? What's happening? Why is this becoming so popular? And why are my community of historians were, um, saying that don't listen to this, just don't give them any air, don't give them any— they'll go away soon. And, um, I thought, well, Michelle had the— at that point she'd had her podcast going for quite some time, and she had the view that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy. And I was like, well, of course we have tons of documents. And I think because somebody made the comment that there weren't very many contemporary documents on Joseph Smith's polygamy. And I felt, well, now there's so many, we just have so much evidence. And so I thought I'd dig in and get them some evidence because obviously they needed some help here. So I started looking at the evidence for early polygamy, for Joseph Smith's polygamy, and I realized, you know what, we do not have the kind of evidence that I was always just thought was there. And it's very difficult to find, and when you do find it, it's Sometimes can be read two ways. So if you're, if you have your bias going, you can say, um, oh, this is my bias and I can see this document this way. Um, but if you really look at it openly, you realize, oh, okay, a reasonable person could look at this document and make a different conclusion. And so this is when I, because I actually knew Michelle's mother, who is Janine Brady. And I don't know if you've heard of her, but she— when my kids were little, they listened to her songs all the time. She wrote "I'm a Mormon," and she wrote "Safe Kids." Um, and my kids love those songs. And I thought, well, who is Michelle? She's this safety kid that is got a podcast, and she needs to just know what I know. And then realized, as I listened to her, No, she's actually dug into this more than many people I know have. She knows a lot about polygamy. She's amazing. And this isn't my area of expertise, even though I had this book coming out. So I thought, well, I want to know as much as she does about polygamy from both perspectives, from many different perspectives. And, um, so that's kind of how we, we became friends and we started discussing these different documents. I'd call her up and say, hey, you know, here's this document.

We should back up and go back just a little bit before we get to that, because Cheryl contacted me. Do you want to talk about that when you first came on my podcast? And then we can go—

the Masonry? Was it the Masonry?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so, um, yes, so I saw some some discrepancy between people who were talking, um, I guess you would say like Michelle's community, um, and some people were, um, had some perspectives about Freemasonry and others were saying, well, Joseph Smith was never a Freemason. And since I'd written this book on Freemasonry, I did know that topic quite well, in and out. So I thought, well, Michelle, you guys are, um, you're, you're Their audience is, um, they're, um, what was my wording there? That they're, they're not doing any good for their argument to make, to bring in the Masonry. You know, they need to know, they know the polygamy really well, and so they're telling us things about polygamy we didn't know. But when they say, well, Joseph Smith was never a Mason, there goes their argument. So let me just come on and tell them a little bit about the documents we have on Masonry what evidence we have that Joseph Smith was a Mason and these kind of things, what he was doing with Freemasonry. And we had this wonderful podcast that I thought was going to be like 45 minutes long, and I think we were 3 hours, weren't we, Michelle? Because we just hit it off. We really just had such a fun discussion on Freemasonry. And I guess that's when we started sharing.

Yeah, that really also kind of planted the seeds of what we would go on to do together, because what Cheryl was trying to do by coming on that podcast past, where she was trying to send a strong signal to both communities. Cheryl, correct me if I'm saying anything that, you know, but how she started that discussion, she wanted both the historical community to understand what were the valid, important, credible arguments and that they needed to pay attention to and respond to. And then she wanted the community of people who were questioning historical narratives to also understand what were the valid arguments that, that, that had, that had some merit to them and what just made them look uninformed. And so from her perspective, with the work that she had done on Freemasonry, she wanted to use that and say, look, I'm going to give you the evidence on Freemasonry so you can see why this is not a good argument that Joseph was involved in Freemasonry. But in doing that, I'm going to acknowledge that I can't do the same kind of presentation about polygamy. Um, there's a fascinating letter, maybe I can use that as an example. Um, I think it was Don Bradley that found this, correct me Cheryl, but Joseph F. Smith— so for your audience that maybe isn't up on all of this, Hyrum Smith's— what was— Hyrum and Joseph were both killed, and Hyrum Smith's little boy Joseph F. Smith later became an apostle in the LDS Church, and then he became the church president. While he was an apostle, he was trying to gather evidence of Joseph's and, um, his father's polygamy because it had become a debate. He was debating with Joseph Smith III, his cousin, and Joseph F. Smith were on different sides of this RLDS versus LDS divide and this polygamy divide. So Joseph F. Smith started to try to compile evidence of Joseph and Hyrum's— well, specifically Joseph's polygamy. They kind of forgot about Hyrum. They didn't do a very good job compiling evidence for him, but they did for Joseph. And, um, and he's the one that put together all of the affidavits, the affidavits from the wives and others that we have. Cheryl and I are actually working on a project on those affidavits. But, um, he wrote a letter to Orson Pratt that was telling him what he was trying to do, that he's trying to gather all of the evidence of Joseph Smith's polygamy. He's asking Orson Pratt to send him his affidavit or his information that he has about Joseph's polygamy And he says in that letter that he was shocked when he started looking into it by the complete lack of evidence that we have of Joseph Smith practicing polygamy. He acknowledges that, and that really tells us why he set about to create the evidence that he did go on to create. And interestingly, Orson Pratt responded to that letter and answered all of the other questions but didn't say anything about his relationship with Joseph Smith in, in in regard to polygamy. Cheryl, feel free to—

I'm gonna jump in really quick here to establish some boundaries that, um, that I do not believe there is no evidence, um, contemporary evidence. I do believe there is enough to keep me, um, in my belief, my firm belief that Joseph did practice and teach polygamy. I feel like there's enough contemporary evidence to show me that and to show historians that, but I am surprised that there's not so many people are like, oh, we have tons. We have so much. We don't have so much. We have a few things. And when it all boils down to like one person's journal, we have William Clayton's journal, you know, and even the church when they're defending polygamy, they say, well, we have the Expositor, which was actually an anti-Mormon paper, you know, at the time. And so it's, it's hot and John C. Bennett. Who was, um, quite against Joseph at the time. So, um, we, we have very little—

They don't really listen to me, just so you know.

Now I'm gonna look into that, Jim. Now I'm curious.

None whatsoever. But go ahead.

Yeah, so when we have these sources that are some somewhat questionable sources at the, you know, at the time, um, are they just saying these things because they're trying to make Joseph look bad, or do they actually have insider information? So, you know, it's, it's difficult. We do have a few things, but we don't have a lot. Most of our evidence comes from later, much later, and then there's the battle between what, what does the later evidence mean and how motivated it was. So anyway, but I do want to say that, you know, like, I think that there is enough evidence to show And then Michelle would have the opposite viewpoint, correct, Michelle?

Yeah, this, this is what's been so fun is I think that Cheryl and I pretty much know the same documents. And this is where, this is where our relationship became so valuable because we run things past each other because it's really, really difficult to see through your own bias because I'll read something and think I know what it says. And I will be so surprised to hear Cheryl's reading of it sometimes. And most of the time I can go, okay, I see where you're coming from. Yep. Okay. And again and again and again, we will just start laughing when we're like, oh my gosh, nothing can lay this to rest. There are very few documents that just are so clear that we can say definitively one side or the other. And that's why I think this, you know, because it really has It's been such a polemical discussion where it's like, do you believe Joseph Smith or do you not believe Joseph Smith? Or do you— because even the, um, contemporary evidence we have, that we have Jim Bennett and the Expositor and other, um, you know, other, um, people who really were actually motivated to try to get rid of Joseph Smith. And then we have the denials at the same time, and, and we have very many, many strong statements. We can't even call them denials. The public, the public record looks like a, a very strong campaign to try to fight against polygamy. And then we have Emma Smith, who throughout her entire life was very consistent on her testimony. And we can't say that about many of the polygamist testimonies because they kind of go back and forth and move around. And so, um, there was a reason I was saying all of that. I can't remember exactly what it was, but what I wanted to say is that the hard work that needs to be done—

instead of—

and that's where it was— instead of saying, who do you believe, We need to very honestly go and say, we have contradictory evidence. We have evidence that says one thing and evidence that says another thing. And I don't think it's good enough to just say, well, I believe this and I don't believe this. And that's kind of where it's been. I think it's much better to dig in and try to add more careful research to the evidence. So when Cheryl and I have the benefit, we kind of are almost a quick peer review where we can talk to each other about how we interpret documents.

Yes, so when, um, I think that this kind of leads into why we started the journal in the first place, because we do have, um, we have such a— with the advent of YouTube channels, we have a lot of information going out there, and many people think that, you know, they've, they've watched 3 or 4 YouTube channels and now they know what the document is, or what they know, they have a view. And so, so what we wanted to do was we were seeing a lot of different here and there happening, and historians were saying, well, you know, your argument isn't based on a scholarly approach. Your argument is just based on, you know, and, and some people, their argument isn't based strongly on the documents, but then others like Michelle and others who've worked on this I think their arguments are based on a scholarly approach. So what we wanted to do was we wanted to separate this out, like, who are the ones doing scholarly work on this? And how can we reach that point where we're not just arguing, arguing, arguing, let's have a big debate on whether Joseph practiced or whether he didn't. But Michelle and I wanted to say, well, let's look at this one document, the letter to Bishop Whitney, and we'll talk about that certain thing, and we'll get really into it in a scholarly way. And so we decided to start this journal, and along with the journal, the conference, and we thought that it would be an academic, scholarly, peer-reviewed organ that can help us make the difference between good historical research and just kind of what you're hearing out in the middle of nowhere as you're scrolling along. So, um, we've been really, I think, so successful in having people just stop what they're doing, they're fighting, they're arguing, and say, oh, well, you know what, I'm interested in such and such, and I will write and submit an article to the journal. And then what we do is we subject it to peer review. We get people who can edit, who can, um, look at what they're doing and point out, well, you have problems here, you need to look at more at these documents. And every one of our people who have submitted articles to the journal have said the peer review process has helped them really look more carefully at their argument and make a so much better, uh, paper. Come out of it. And so we're really excited about where it's going and what we've been able to accomplish, even in the short time that we've had it going.

Oh, that's fascinating. And I did not realize that you two were actually on opposite sides of the question as to whether or not Joseph practiced polygamy.

Absolutely.

I, I, I, I'm very interested also in the peer review process. When you start talking about peer review, Who are these peers that are reviewing it? And, and, you know, if you were to take this to, you know, an academic setting that is completely removed from the church, would, would those academic— what's the word? Well, those academics, I could say that academicians, would they, would they acknowledge that as a legitimate peer review process?

Absolutely, absolutely, because see, we know what we're doing with this. We like to look at each paper and decide what is the paper, you know, where is the paper coming from and who has expertise in this. Like if you're talking about a certain figure, I'm gonna say Orson Pratt because no one's done Orson Pratt before, but well, let's say someone submits a paper on Orson Pratt, we would say, okay, who has now done work on Orson Pratt? Scholarly, good scholarly work on Orson Pratt, who's written maybe his biography, who's collected all his journals, or, you know, and we look at those people and we like to have people who have advanced degrees, like master's degrees and PhDs as well, because they are familiar with the scholarly process, they're familiar with peer review, and so we like to get them involved. But then we find these people that have And that's why they're the peer. They are the peer because they know Orson Pratt or the figure or the topic that is being discussed. And they can also bring in, well, you missed this, you know, piece of literature, or here's an insight that I had, or something like that. And we also, in the best of worlds, we like to get people from different points of view on this, not everyone with the same exact bias. So that's been a little difficult to do, but we are so pleased with the peer reviewers that we've had so far. It's been really— I— there's one paper in particular I'm thinking of that came in, and I thought the two best people in the whole entire world to peer review this paper would be number one and number two. And I reached out to both of them, and both agreed. And I thought, you know, we— no one could find a better peer reviewer for this paper than these two people. And so sometimes we get a little bit of flack on that we are not really a peer-reviewed journal. And when I hear that, I just have to laugh because we have had amazing peer reviewers. And, you know, we can't tell you exactly who they are, um, because some of them would like to remain, you know, they wouldn't want to have their name out there.

It's intentionally an anonymous process. That's part of the—

the malice. Yes, it's double-blind.

It's supposed to be a double-blind peer review. And can I just add that anybody can go to our website and see our peer review guidelines and our standards, and I'm very pleased with those. We have, of course, gotten a lot of consultation as we've been doing this every step of the way. And I also will say that while there have been a few very vocal detractors of our journal, people who have really done their damnedest to get our conference stopped, get our journal shut down, they've really tried. What that has actually resulted in is behind the scenes, we have a lot of academic support from people who may or may not agree with any particular journal that, I mean, article that the journal brings out, but they really believe that this should be allowed to proceed. They see the great effort we're being— that's being put into this. They see the value of the discussion and they see the quality of some of the papers. And they— we have had a lot of people reach out behind the scenes voicing their support. We have had a lot of highly respected scholars be very willing to peer review for us, which we find thrilling. And if any of a scholar ever turns us down, That's okay, because there are lots of others. We have, so far, every article we've been able to get very high-quality peer reviewers for. And they've given us really valuable feedback. It has made the articles better.

Yeah.

Can I, can I, I've listened intently to you both, and this is fascinating. On my master's degree, I specialized in soft system methodology. This was, um, a new problem-solving, uh, system and tool that was invented by Peter Checkland in the UK. And Peter was my, um, lecturer, and this has become a very big, uh, problem-solving, uh, tool and system that I use, that I, I, I use in my everyday life. So as I'm listening intently to all these parts and intricate parts, you know, both sides, you were talking, historical, uh, data and theological, et cetera. I am applying this modern methodology to, uh, understanding and trying to, uh, make sense of it and connect the dots. There's all these intricate parts and all these dots, and you both are doing extraordinary work and have probably arguably, uh, the closest view in direct line of sight into how all these dots are connected. Notwithstanding the evidence on one side versus the evidence of the other. Um, the dots that I'm, my mind works like in a soft system. It's my mind works, uh, I have ADD. I think it's a gift. Sometimes it's a curse.

I hear all this stuff.

My brain works at lightning speed to connect the dots. As I'm listening, I'm trying to connect the dots, right? And so the dots are, you know, you've got diaries, you've got letters, you've got notes, you've got historical records, you've got the theological, you've got the scripture, you've got the position on polygamy. On, on the scripture. And by the way, it's not just polygamy. There's, you know, we could pick up other major themes and subjects where you could have a similar debate. But I think the polygamy is probably the most interesting and fascinating because it's probably the biggest issue, historical issue. And even today, it's the biggest issue facing the church because when you go out as a missionary today and you ask people about Mormons, well, chances are, uh, they'll, they'll mention polygamy. Oh, you guys have more than one wife, right? We got that all the time, Jim Bennett and I, on a on emissions. So you've got all these very important dots, uh, and connections, but some of them, you know, are quite wide apart. Again, if I look at my mind map graph, you know, the dot graph, how my brain works, I'm thinking of all the arguments that support the, the, you know, the evidence that supports that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, and that polygamy was practiced by him and other senior leaders, and there's a lot of compelling evidence from what I understand. And, and the— if we did this graph as well, um, this is something I think you should do, by the way, should kind of illustrate this to connect the dots, just, just an idea. And then the dots supporting the, the— with the evidence saying that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy. Um, also throwing into the mix the historical position of the church on polygamy, also all the political and other motivations that people had to do with polygamy, people that supported Smith and and, and denied polygamy and people that was opposing him and, and said, yeah, he practiced polygamy. You got all these personal, private, public, and political motivations of people writing these notes. You've got the current church position today, which is trying to move away from even, they don't want to have a conversation about polygamy. It keeps coming up. They're not happy when it's talked about. They've got this, you know, they practiced it and then they went through this transition of saying we didn't practice it, but they did privately, secretly, you know, the manifesto, et cetera. And now the church has spent millions of dollars trying to convince the world that, hey, we're done with polygamy. You know, Gordon B. Hinckley went on TV, said we did it in the past, we don't, et cetera, et cetera.

Right.

And now we have, uh, you know, you both at the forefront of this conversation with Michelle saying, actually, Joe Smith did practice polygamy, which is against the current narrative of the church. And I can see why they would be unhappy about that. I also, at the very beginning, you talked about, again, connecting the dots, a fine line. That was a word that you used, Michelle. I think it was a, I think that was the word that you used, fine line. And I was thinking, well, what is that fine line? And you kind of talked about peer review academic literature based on reliable, you know, historical, theological evidence and peer reviewed. And, and that seems to be okay with the church. You know, if it's all these people involved and having a balanced perspective, but what they're not okay with, this is what Jim Bennett was talking about in terms of risks or dangers here, is talking about it on a podcast. So all these dots, if I had to kind of summarize them all with all those, I've just mentioned a few points, there's many more. Taking your both perspective and insight, which is quite extraordinary. It's just wonderful. He's so intelligent on this subject, probably more than anyone out there. Where is your, taking all the data. If you were to put it on a set of weighing scales and all those dots and connect to them, where would you weigh up in regards to whether Joe Smith actually did indeed practice polygamy? So, and just to finalize, in this system that I use, I take the data and I quantify it numerically and I weigh it. I have a scorecard ranking, right? And I weigh, I quantify it numerically and I weigh the data. If you were to weigh it numerically, you know, as a percentage or on a weighing scale, taking a balanced perspective, converging your views, if you can, of the data, where would that sit on that, uh, on that technical weighing scale using this kind of thinking process and problem-solving process?

Oh, what an interesting question. Sheryl, can I jump in on this one? Is that all right? I, I wanted to first specify something that I think is really important. I really want people to understand. The journal, actually, it's the Journal of Mormon Polygamy. It is not the journal of, did Joseph Smith start polygamy? We actually do not accept articles on that topic one way or the other because it is a premature conclusion at this point for someone to say definitively. I like the way you asked it, Dean, and I will go ahead and answer, but I just wanted to say we just, we, we don't feel that we can accept and publish articles even when we've received them saying this is why It's stupid to say Joseph Smith didn't practice polygamy, even if they say it in more scholarly language than that. Or, this is why everyone should know that Joseph Smith did practice polygamy, right? We really just are like, that's not the discussion. Let's look at the specific individual questions. Like, the work that I've been doing for the past many, many months that I'll be presenting at the conference is actually on Helen Mar Kimball. And I am fascinated by what I have found. It has been so It's been a really fun journey for me. And, um, you know, and Cheryl and I have like spent many nights in heated discussions about these documents. Cheryl also will be presenting on a new document that has been— her article is titled Hidden in Plain Sight— that has been hidden in the Church History Library but mislabeled, and nobody recognized it as of one of the earliest known Utah-era polygamy documents that is— that has been found. And Cheryl was able to find that because of the work that she's doing. So that the idea that the work is done, or that have a definitive conclusion that everyone should agree on is very preliminary. We're not there yet. The other point I want to say really quickly, Ian, you talked about the fine line, as if there is a line. And I just want to say, you know, we are subject to bishop roulette in the church, whatever we want to call it, individual leadership. I know that there are different views on this. I know that a lot of people have very strong views. Church members have very strong views one way or the other. Like, I know that Jim Bennett, when we talked before, said, I disagree with you, but I absolutely defend your You're right as a member of the church to talk about this. And we have other people doing these letter-writing campaigns insisting that my leaders take action, which is so ironic because that is not the way the church works. But anyway, so I guess I wanted to say there, this line, we are working it out as we go individually, right? Like each individual needs to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. I think that also each individual needs to work out their relationship with the church with fear and trembling and just hope that we can make that work. So I'll answer that, and then I'll answer your other question. Okay, yeah, and then I'll come back to my answer about your last question, my percentage.

Okay, because I wanted to, I, I wanted to talk about your dots, because, um, yes, we have a lot of people that say, I'm connecting the dots, and, um, that is what we have in polygamy. We have these dots, we have these documents, and they're just little dots and a lot of them don't make sense. And so someone with maybe circular reasoning will say, okay, here's how I'm going to connect all these dots, and I'm going to go around in this big circle, and actually polygamy is a tornado. And then you have someone else who has very linear, you know, I'm going to connect the dots like this, and polygamy is a, um, you know, a door or a building or something like that. So, you know, that's That's where we are right now is we are just still connecting dots. We're spitballing. We're, you know, kind of just figuring it out even though it's been around for 200 years and people have been talking about it for that long. But we still are. It was secret for so long. It was kept under wraps. The documents that we have are not clear. So right now we still are kind of connecting the dots and we're hoping that we can find something that will be a little bit more definitive. But we're never going to have the kind of document that we can just— I don't know that anyone can answer the question you just asked because in fact when I look at someone online and they are 100% sure one way or the other, I feel like, "No, you haven't studied the documents." If you are 100% sure you don't know about this document, or you don't know, you know, what this problem is. So, um, right now, I don't feel anyone can be 100% sure, um, and know what the issues are.

Just to jump in there before Michelle comments. So there are systems and tools out there. I deal with complex engineering and environmental projects, very complex, regulatory, very, very complex. And there are systems out there that can take very complex problems like this, even complex than this actually. And actually quantify the data numerically and kind of through weighted criteria systems kind of weigh it all up. It's not a perfect science, but it does go quite a long way to take very complex historical, you know, we deal with historical project complexity on billion-dollar projects, right? These are very complex, but there are tools and systems out there that can take these kind of problems, take the data, especially with the AI now, big AI, big data systems and quantify. Again, you'll never get a perfect, you know, 100%,. But, but in terms of weightage, which is what we'll get to, I think, with Michelle here, putting it on the, on the, on the weighing scales and taking reliable, consistent, trusted, you know, the data, just take that kind of data, um, that you can say, yep, that happened, or that's reliable. Uh, the other stuff we're not sure about, we're still making sense of it, the dots. But let's put the reliable stuff, the stuff that we know, we know, put it onto the weighing scales. And, and if you were to do that, How does that weigh up in terms of, you know, in the context of what we're talking about, connecting the dots and you kind of weighing it all up? Michelle, what I think you were thinking of or trying to respond to that.

Yes, I have a couple of thoughts that I want to add. I think it's really important for everybody on both sides to really, like, really pay attention to what Cheryl just said, that if you are absolutely sure that you know, then the likelihood that you really have seen sufficient evidence on both sides is in question because there are so many things that are still being studied. Like, um, um, we had an article come out in our first issue that we're going to have a follow-up in, I believe, our third or our fourth issue, that is on the England mission that the apostles were on during 1839-1840. And that has not really been researched in this context. Looking at the development of what appears to be some sort of embryonic spiritual wifery stuff happening at that point that maybe missionaries brought back with them. So I'm just using that as an example of work that is still ongoing and still being done that is increasing the complexity of people's certainty, or at least hopefully will. So what I can say, I have had a lot of fun seeing people using AI to say, you know, what is more likely to be the outcome. I think it's really difficult, like, as we talk about the dots, to me, I hear about people connecting the dots, and to me, as Cheryl said, dots are documents, and we don't have dots, we have documents, and we interpret them, right? So, we don't really connect the dots, we interpret the documents, and that's what we're trying to do, and that is very intricate work, and making sure that, you know, and things can be seen in different ways. So I can't answer your question in terms of what is the percentage because, because I don't even think we have all of the dots to connect, right? But when I just say—

oh, go ahead, go ahead.

Well, oh, I was, I was just going to sum up really quickly that what I can say is that what has been interesting to me is that I started out in one camp and it has been seeing documents that has moved me to a new camp. And I was very reticent to step out on that limb because I didn't feel at all like I had sufficient mastery of the documents to, to stake out a position. I did not want to do that. But as I have gained much, much greater mastery of the documents, as I have increasingly studied, it's been interesting to me to see that my confidence has grown because increasingly what I find looks to me to be to be evidence that supports my growing and my growing position. Well, so I—

go ahead, Cheryl.

I do want to just really quickly. Yeah, I just really quickly want to respond to Ian's because I don't know that we can look at it quite the same way as, you know, you're kind of weighing things and deciding, you know, where the balance, where the scale balanced But to me, we don't have that kind of evidence that you can weigh because we have like a document might— Michelle might look at a document and say, why would they even say this unless blah, blah, blah? And then I can say, well, they could have been doing this. And she'll say, oh yeah, you know. And so we, because we have documents that are written by people and things that are journals and things that are written by people and we don't always know what they were thinking and So it's just very hard to just say this document goes on this side because maybe someone will take it and say, no, it goes on this side. Do you understand? And so we can't really then just say we have the preponderance of evidence coming down on this side.

And I think that's the big challenge is the phenomenological component to it. You've got the positivistic, which is the hard data, the stuff that say, hey, look, this is reliable. Warigrew. Sorry, go ahead. Uh, I could— you, you—

I was gonna say we don't have hard data. That's the problem.

And it is challenging. It's doubly challenging because there were so many biases while the data was being created through that entire period. And so the things that look to me like hard data are sort of negative evidence, which is harder to make a definitive case from. Like, to me, it's pretty— if we had a child from Joseph Smith and a polygamist wife, that would be hard evidence.

Hard data.

The fact that we don't have a child from Joseph Smith and any other wife looks to some people like hard evidence. I think it's really important and it should be taken more seriously, but it can't necessarily put, lay it to rest like a child could.

Yeah.

But I would add this, notwithstanding all of that and the phenomenological and the positivick and, you know, the hard data, you know, and the argument over whether something's hard or not in terms of data, whether it can be measured or quantified. Is it possible on the probability of what we know, you know, from the data we've got, the different sources, and notwithstanding the complexity around interpretation, you know, because that and the current church position, etc., are we able to make some kind of broad judgment of where the data kind of balances, or is that completely beyond us at this stage?

I would say the data is in the eye of the beholder at this point. But I will also say, and Cheryl, maybe you should answer. Well, I'll just, I'll just say I feel increasingly confident in this becoming a more and more heavily contested area. And I feel confident of us being— what we really need to do is become more precise and say, is there evidence to say that this thing happened? Is there evidence for the— this wife? Is that really solid evidence, or we just built putting her on the piggyback of all of the biases we currently have. That's the kind of careful work I want to do, is, you know, go bit by bit, piece by piece, and look at it very specifically.

Well, just jumping in here quickly, one of the things, on a sort of unrelated subject, but whenever you get into Book of Abraham discussions, the church will trot out John, John Gee and Kerry Moulstein and say, look, we have these two Egyptologists and therefore these Egyptologists seem to think that the Book of Abraham is a plausible ancient Egyptian document. And so, but the, but the academic consensus looks at those guys and says, oh, these guys are hopelessly biased. And Kerry Mohlstein has said, you know, I begin with the premise that the church is true, and if everything I do feeds that premise, well, that's a wonderful faithful position, but it's a terrible academic position.

It's apologetics, not scholarship.

Yeah, it's apologetics over scholarship. Exactly. I'm wondering if you bump into that same sort of of hostility? I mean, when you— because I'm very impressed with how you have presented your current efforts here, uh, particularly as academic efforts and non-apologetic efforts, or not really sort of faith-based but rather scholarly. But, um, how do you respond to the criticism that Michelle, particularly since Cheryl, you, you are still of the of the opinion that Joseph practiced polygamy. Michelle, how do you respond to a critic who comes to you and says you've already made up your mind and you're just feeding the data into your preordained conclusion?

Isn't projection funny? It's just everywhere, isn't it? Cheryl, do you want to go first on this one or do you want me to?

Well, I would say that, you know, I consider the Church of having a, um, a standard narrative, and I don't think that the standard narrative is necessarily based on real, um, firm bedrock. And what I would like to see is— I would like to— yes, I'm on the side that just affects polygamy, but, um, I would like to see our standard narrative change a little bit, right? And so I think we're both— Michelle and I are both kind of kicking against the pricks here because I, um, I want historians to look more carefully at what they've, what they've done in the past and to look more carefully at the standard narrative and work on that. And so I think that that is being done by the journal and the conference.

I agree. And I will, I guess what I was trying to say with projection, it's so amusing to me because my whole my whole focus has been, you know, even when I started my podcast and before I made up my mind, I was asking any historians to come on and talk to me about these topics. And some would, and I've really appreciated that, and some wouldn't. And then so often, and I think I've said this before, I, I've had this experience so many times I can't even tell you, where I start talking to a historian and they start out being just kind of nice, a little condescending, you know, like, okay. And then about 10, 15 minutes into the conversation, because I'm wanting to talk about the documents. And, and so we just— and they, and they immediately will say, well, actually, this isn't my area of expertise, this isn't my field. So meaning, I'm not equipped. I know for sure the conclusion, but I'm not yet to discuss the documents or defend it. And so then I will say, oh, so who is— who is the academic expert on this topic? There, blank stare. I have never been told who it is I should talk to who can engage with me about the documents. Which, which I had posted that one day, which is why Cheryl like picked up the baton, even though she did not want to study polygamy. She was like, I guess it's going to have to be me. And so, so I guess what I'm wanting to say, and Cheryl, I know you'll have something to add to that, but I just want to say that this idea that I'm starting out with my conclusion is actually the opposite. I started out with a very firm opposite conclusion. The documents have changed my mind and I'm trying to get other people to open their minds enough to discuss the documents with me, but they're so embedded in their conclusion that all they can do is say, "All the experts agree," which, by the way, is a logical fallacy, appeal to authority, and, "You're just this, you're just this, you're just an apostate, you're a wolf in sheep's clothing, you just can't handle your cognitive dissonance," whatever it is, which is just ad hominem. So I think that actually is the opposite of how it's presented.

Right. So that is why I was talking about the standard narratives. I didn't quite make my point very well, but people are really embedded in the standard narrative. And, you know, we have that, we have that perception. And so instead of it going the other way, where we're saying Michelle, Michelle has it in mind and she's just trying to fit to what she— it's actually the other way around. It's very difficult to get our minds out of the standard narrative. I know this because this is happening with me all the time because my head is in the standard narrative. This is what we've been taught. This is how we see the documents now. As historians, I see the Whitney documents a certain way because that's how I've been taught, and that's how things have been presented to me, and it's just in my head so strongly that I see exactly— that's why this projection, Michelle's talking about projection, because often they'll accuse polygamy skeptics of this certain perception, and really it's coming from the other direction.

Well, so Cheryl, very interesting to hear you talk about the challenging the standard, the narrative, the traditional narrative, because if you believe Joseph practiced polygamy, it suggests then that your understanding of what that means is very different from, or at least somewhat different from, what the church would say that means. Can you kind of give an overview of how you would like to see the traditional narrative change? What it is you think we ought to be saying?

Yes, I mean, I guess it comes down to what we've talked about with the journal, is we want to see more of, let's talk about specifics. Let's just not talk about the whole, um, view of what Joseph was trying to do or what he, you know, what he actually— whether he actually had 33 wives. Let's just drill down and see what does this one document mean. Like, the one that I found in the Church History Library, um, is a document that was written in 1850— started in 1854, where the church historians were starting to write down these names of wives. And they all seem to be the ones that they suspected were polygamous wives of Joseph Smith. And so let's look at that document and say, what does this mean that we have now an earlier document? What were they doing in the Church History Library there? And what, you know, why were certain wives on there and certain wives weren't on there? Why do we have, you know, Jane Law or Emmeline White who are not members of the church on there? You know, like what, you know, why? So just looking at these documents closely, I think, changes the standard narrative. Just automatically, the standard narrative will start to change as you see, you know, what these documents mean.

Could I contribute to that a little? Can I build on that? Because what I think, what I think actually is what our situation is, is that it is You know, historians, we geek out on documents, so we get in and we discuss them, and like Cheryl is saying, what does this document mean? And the general public is not interested in the hundreds or thousands of documents that we spend hours exploring, right? And so what happens is that we need to simplify. And so the church has come up with a narrative that then has simplified in something like Saints or the Essays, right? And they, and they have presented it as a, as like a simple idea. And as we were just saying, that it's actually premature to come up with firm conclusions on a lot of these questions at this point because the work is ongoing. Whatever my perspective is, you know, I can't go just change the entire perception based on one document. We have to just do this hard, difficult, careful work. And the challenge is the church has created these simplified narratives that don't hold up. They don't stand up to scrutiny. They do not— the documents do not support. And when you get in and start looking, even in things like Saints, you can see where, oh my gosh, they totally fudged that account by an entire year to make it fit. Like, specifically, one example that comes to mind is when Brigham Young had his conversation to convince Hyrum about polygamy. They've had to change the years that are listed in the actual documents to try to make that work in their simple narrative. And there are many, many instances of that. So people maybe in my community come to those documents and see those problems and go, this is all not working. And so I think what Cheryl is saying is we need to not have these oversimplified narratives presented in this way because then they make people question everything instead of just the things that don't fit well.

Just quickly, are you saying that the church has changed primary source documents to match the narrative?

Let me, let me— they have presented them in a way— go ahead, Cheryl.

Yeah, for example, for example, we have the introduction to Doctrine and Covenants 132, and just recently, um, the church just softened that language to say— I think before they were saying that Joseph Smith learned about, um, polygamy as early as— what was it, Michelle?

1830, 1831, or something. 1831.

Right, right. And so they softened that to say he may have known about it earlier, you know what I'm saying? And so, and that is because the reason that was changed is because we are looking more closely into those 1831 documents and people are making conclusions. And now the church has to just kind of back up a little bit, or, you know, just change their perspective a little bit. And that's what I mean about organically, um, the church narrative will change as these things become more known and as they become investigated a little bit more clearly.

Well, changing introductions has a long and storied history, uh, and the church has come under fire to some degree, particularly when they changed the introduction to the Book of Mormon to change it from that these are the principal ancestors of the American Indians to these are among the ancestors of the Native Americans. And So Michelle, I may have misunderstood you, but when you were talking about the dates as to when Hiram and Joseph, or when Joseph told Hiram about polygamy, you said they've changed the dates on that. I mean, so are these, these are not dates in a primary source document?

Let me specify. So this is, and I did a big episode on this someday, I'll put my research all available again, but I'm not, I'm not, okay, there are, different questions at play. The way that that story is presented in Saints muddies the documentary record.

I don't mean to interrupt you, but just to clarify, so you're talking about the church— I mean, the church isn't going into historical documents and forging and changing them?

No, no, I'm not making that claim. However, I do want to say that that is a lot of the research that's being done because we know that the The compilation of the church history was a very interesting process where those kinds of things were happening. They were presenting things in Joseph's own words. They were very much choosing which documents to include, and they were editing them. So, so that is a complicated process that did happen. And then I'm not saying that church historians are doing that now, but I am saying that the desire to create a simple, cohesive narrative leads to things being adjusted. Interested sometimes, right? And then also, um, we can look at that kind of middle ground, like say, what was it, 1933, when the First Presidency statement came out that said that basically the John Taylor 1886 revelation didn't exist while they had it in their archives, which has just been released last year, which by the way is the panel that Jim Bennett will be presenting on discussing what that means. So, so to claim that it's a simple a simple historical record, or that church is always just straightforward with their history, is not a very defensible claim.

Well, the history of the church, I think, is a great example, because I bumped into so many people who are really upset about Joseph talking about translating the Kinderhook plates, when Joseph didn't say a word about translating the Kinderhook plates. They took a passage out of William Clayton's journal, rewrote it, rewrote it in the first person as if Joseph had said it, and then we sit here trying to defend something that Joseph didn't actually say. So I— that helps very much to put this in perspective, because you're absolutely right. There have been all kinds of problematic approaches to these documents in the past, but I just wanted to make sure— I think your conclusion here is a sound one, and I appreciate you clarifying buy it.

So, 3 thoughts come to mind. I know we coming up to the end, probably the next 5, 10 minutes of our conversation here. Um, I could go on longer. We could do this all day, couldn't we? 3 thoughts. Uh, just to remind you that there are modern tools and systems and processes that deal with these actually more complex problems than this, uh, through rated criteria modeling and other systems and tools that can take data like this, check it, quantify it for reliability, assess it, you know, what's reliable, what's not. Quantify it numerically and kind of do, kind of weigh up. The second thing I want to say is that the church, what's coming through very strongly, a big dot in the mind map thinking that I've got here is the church's absolute unwavering intelligent commitment, dedication to protecting the institution. So any data that compromises its integrity historically, religiously, um, financially, anything, it's going to apply and deploy resources to counter that. I know that personally from firsthand experience, and, and that's coming through very strongly in this conversation, that the church carefully, strategically, intelligently tries to influence and control the narrative. We're not saying it's forging documents, but at the same time, it sometimes misses information out, or maybe, I can say this, I'm not in the church anymore, maybe misdirects and frankly doesn't want to have this conversation. And that leads me to my third point is that this, by continually talking about it, number one, and two, the second part, by challenging the current narrative and position of the church, which is that Joe Smith did practice polygamy. And then with you, Michelle, being in project management in these big projects, there's this thing called at-risk modeling. And they use these risk management tools and they look at something and determine whether there's a project, like a go/no-go type decision process, to determine what the at-risk quantification is of a particular project, which we're pursuing with eDeliverer, you know, a very large complex project. And I look at what you're doing, Michelle, as being in the at-risk project management kind of structure where you're going against the tides. I mean, you started off with the belief that Joe Smith, you know, I think you said earlier, did practice bullying. The data led you in a different direction. So you're pathing your lane. And it goes against the grain or the flow of the church where the church has come out and said, yep. Joe Smith, and there's an essay in this that practiced polygamy and, and then tries to explain, you know, the rationale, you know, behind that. So I think as, as an looking at this from a, uh, the processes that I use in my daily life or my work, et cetera, I see your situation as being riskier by, you know, you keep, you don't want to talk about it. You want to get into the detail. Um, while you were talking, I pulled up some of the comments from Boyd K. Packer, who must be turning in his grave on stuff like this because he said, things that are true are not very useful. And he also said that he cautioned historians not to be too focused on objective truth, which might inadvertently destroy, you know, the faith of someone. So the church, when you get into the fine detail using the process I explained, is where it gets really tricky because the church will find it difficult to control and influence the narrative at the detail level, at the micro level. The bigger picture, I think it can is more, is having more success, I think. But as you are getting into the details and doing more research and all these other, uh, intricate parts of, of, of being revealed, the church, uh, is struggling with that and doesn't know how to control that. And the only way to do that is to threaten people or, or, or warn people, look, you're going too far, it's affecting people's faith. Uh, shut the conversation down. Uh, and this is our official narrative. Get behind the narrative or else kind of thing. But it sounds like you want to continue your research for good reasons. It's academic. You've got the theological component mixed into the, into it as well. You talked about interpretation, but do you see any risks, uh, towards you, your membership, uh, by continuing to one, have this conversation, which the church doesn't want to have. He wants it to go away, right? Hates having the conversation about polygamy. 200 years later, we're still talking about it, right? The church doesn't— the church will look crazy. But then you've got someone like you who's very, um, focused and driven, getting into the details, and, and, and, you know, probably saying to you, look, Michelle, you're going too far, and you kind of need to step back and get behind the narrative. Can you speak to that, uh, a little bit? You know, I know we've got maybe a few minutes left here.

What are Cheryl, do you want to go first, or should I go ahead? And then, um, no, go ahead.

But I just want to tell Ian, we really need you to submit an article to the Journal of Mormon Polygamy on quantifying meaning polygamy documents.

That was my first note that I wrote. That was— so Cheryl and I, see, this is why we're doing this together, because I think both of us were like, Ian, will you please submit an article to us on that topic? That would be fascinating because that sounds like that's your area of expertise. So I think that's great.

We take very big complex problems, frankly, with respect, even bigger than this, right? We've got these, I mean, it's very, it is a lot of history to do with these big projects, right? And it's, there's so millions of parts, millions. And we take a certain approach methodology to breaking it all down into small bite sizes. And then there are systems and tools that connect it and quantify it and check it for reliability. There's all, I won't go into it right now, but yeah, there is a way of at least kind of taking this to the next level. To the point we said earlier, you'll never get a perfect, you know, outcome, right? You know, interpretation of, you know, one person could read this and get any different interpretation. Someone could read the same thing, get a completely different interpretation. And that's that, what they call the phenomenological component. However, the tool breaks down the phonological stuff and quantifies it numerically. So there is a— you can go further, I think, with all this data to even quantify even further, even though it won't be a perfect kind of outcome in the end or a perfect number at the end. But go ahead to my 3 points, and particularly your at-risk, what I would describe as an at-risk project, if you like. In engineering terms, how do you respond to something like that?

Sure. So I will say, we want to come back and just talk briefly about the conference, the upcoming conference. And I will just add, we have a fabulous presentation, a paper that we just published online and that will be coming out in our print copy. People will be able to get our first 3 copies, our first 3 issues, I'm sorry, at the conference. We're calling it our Triple Combination. And we have one paper that is on a stylometric analysis responding to the interpreter's recent stylometric analysis of 132. And so, so it is interesting to see mathematical principles applied to something like literary construction. And Ian, I, I just am planning that you're going to come and present at our third conference because we— you have fascinated me with the possibility of using this tool in this way. That would be an amazing, an amazingly interesting study to see done. So in Response to— oh, go ahead, were you gonna say something? Okay. And in response to the question about this, um, at-risk, like, you are, you are correct that, um, it is a dis— an uncomfortable subject for, for the church. I am going to say what I always say: polygamy is an uncomfortable subject for the church. Polygamy is the problem. And the idea that going back to 1890 and beyond, the idea that if we don't talk about it, it will go away is insane, right? We have had 150 years to show that that is not the case and it's never— well, that is never going to be the case. Right. And so I, I, I, we could have an entire discussion on this. So maybe we should have another discussion in the future. My perspective I do not believe that this issue hurts the church or needs to hurt the church. And I know people debate on that, but the idea that we as a church are going to defend Joseph Smith manipulating 14-year-olds, marrying them, and, and that helps the church. But the idea that leaders who were committed to this idea really believed it, thought that for the sake of the church and their beliefs, they needed to manufacture um, or, you know, adjust historical documents, which we know they were doing anyway. The idea that it— that we would rather have the problem of our founding prophet being this, um, polygamist with all of these teenage girls and going behind his, his wife's back, that we're fine with that. Our church, we're totally good. That is not a problem for us. But if, you know, if William Clayton forged a journal, or if, you know, the church is not true And I just cannot get behind that at all. So we can talk about that. My hope, I just think that God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We do not make our best responses out of fear. And if we are afraid of where this might go, then we are going to react badly if we act because of that. And also defensiveness, you know, like when you're defensive, you're not going to be your best self. Self. And so I'm really hoping that the church really is just the individual members and leaders. So it really just comes down to individual members and leaders being able to go, okay, do you know what? Oh, say what is truth, 'tis the rarest gem, right? Joseph Smith built— we all built an institution based on truth. Do we care about truth? And if we have the truth, we have nothing to fear. If we have not truth, then maybe we need to get the truth so we can have nothing to fear again. And so I really think that responding out of this fearful place is just backward. And let's discuss, okay, if we are, if we're really concerned about what does this mean for Keys, let's have that discussion. That's a great discussion to have. I'm happy to engage in it. If we're worried about whatever the— like, truth is not decided based on the implications, right? The implications follow the investigation. So we have to be free to do the investigation. And I know that, you know, that quote from Packer. You know, I really love Boyd K. Packer, but that quote has not ended very— has not aged very well, that there are things that are not true that are very useful. I would say the truth is always more useful than a lie. The truth is always more useful than a mistake or an error. And if we think that it is useful to have our entire, um, religious community need to believe we have a treats women the way that the god of many wives and concubines of 132 treats and talks about women, we have a lot bigger problems than how— than the integrity of historical documents, right?

We—

and, and that is where I see faith being destroyed. So I am engaging at this point as a historian, separating out my— doing my best to separate my bias and my belief and my views. But how I got started and where You know, a part of my heart probably always will be is I am tired of the damage and the harm. I am tired of people losing their entire testimony of God because the God they have been taught, they found out this is who the God it is. I am tired of fundamentalists defending putting young teenage girls into these marriages because our founding prophet did it. I am so tired of this. And if there is harm being done because we're too afraid to get into the documents and to see if we have the truth. I do not have patience for that. We have to, we have to care about truth, and we have to engage in good scholarship. And it's way beyond— like, the Journal of Mormon is a— I mean, like, the fact that that has not happened until Cheryl and I, two mothers of cumulative 21 children who have served in every church calling— like, you know, what do we say? If you want something done, leave it to the Relief Society presidents. Families, right? And that's what Cheryl and I are coming through and, and working our tails off to try to make this happen. And I desperately hope that church members and anti— I mean, not anti, I hate that term, I'm sorry— and post people who, you know, what am I, um, ex-members, you know, past members, from whatever perspective, can just open our minds and say, what do the documents say? This is fascinating. Let's dig in and find out.

Michelle, for me, you've summarized it absolutely perfectly. I know we're out of time, and I'll be real quick and make a final comment. You summarized it for me absolutely perfectly. And I'm going to— this message is for the church. I'm going to save you millions of dollars, Mormon Church, by listening to what's been said here on this podcast. You're not going to change the narrative. Polygamy will never go away, ever. It will never ever disappear. So trying to cover it up and misdirect and change this or change that or control the narrative is never ever going to happen. If we take the advice from Michelle, the only way to deal with this is to have an open, constructive, professional, academic, intellectual, and spiritual conversation about the issue. And if—

That you never— The word we really want to emphasize is respectful. If we can have a respectful conversation about it, it can go from all areas. It can go from academic to grassroots to everything. But if we can just have a respectful conversation about it, that's where it will move forward.

I agree. That's an important dot. And my last dot, I agree with that. And my last dot, because we've talked about dots here, again, the way my brain works, lightning speed, and without sounding arrogant, I already had a solution about half an hour ago to fix all of this. Okay. Again, I'm not being so arrogant. I'm trying to tell them again, remember, inside out. We've got all the answers. Got all the answers.

The answer to polygamy.

Finally.

I know.

Here it comes.

And that sounds, that sounds so arrogant. I apologize. But the answer is what Imam Michelle, by having respectful, open, constructive, professional, intellectual, spiritual conversations, which, because you can't change the narrative. It's not going away. So embrace it. Let people do the thing. Don't threaten them. And basically by, and then the thing, here's the dot, the final dot. And actually it's Jim Bennett's fault because it goes back to what Jim Bennett talks about passionately about fallibility, that leaders in the past made mistakes. Sometimes they got it right. Sometimes they didn't get it right. And this fear that the church is that, hey, If we admit that we make mistakes, then the church isn't true and it's going to affect people's faith. Surely the integrity, the respect is to say, look guys, the church is being restored. This doctrine, this revelation was coming in. They struggled with it. They had revelation. They made some good decisions. Let's talk about them. Absolutely. But they also made mistakes. You know, the history is complex and it's, it's not black and black and white, and there's all these colors. So let's embrace the conversation. Let's say we made mistakes. Let's admit it. Let's be grown up. Let's spend— stop spending millions of dollars trying to control the narrative on the big major issue of polygamy that you cannot control. You can't control. You can't stop Michelle. You can't stop anyone, uh, in, in this space who wants to research, etc., etc. You try to shut them down, you can excommunicate them. But the answer, the solution right here is to embrace it and by actually supporting it. But coming to the point that Jim Bennett talks about often, often that, and how I would respect the church and the people would respect you church so much if you just admitted that mistakes were made. Open it up, don't change anything. And surely there is faith and enrichment in learning about people's mistakes? The scriptures are replete with examples of people who made mistakes. In the Book of Mormon, they got things wrong. They talked about it. Did this, you know, the interviews between Alma and his sons where, you know, they're having those personal preaching interviews and saying, you know, like Shiblon, and you did this, did that, and Corianton. The Bible is replete with examples of where, you know, people made mistakes, right? And they often talk about them. Doesn't the Book of Mormon have a disclaimer that, you know, if there are mistakes in the Book of Mormon, that these are the mistakes of men, right? So, you know, the evidence to suggest that humans make mistakes is there. It's written in not just in the small print, it's right there. Well, a lot of it's written in the small print, but it, you know, the key message there, if the church moves its position towards what Jim Bennett talks about, about accepting the fallibility of past leaders, Then we can have this respectful, constructive conversation and let's all learn together constructively, respectfully on the journey of learning. And if we find a difficult issue, a letter or note that proves he, you know, did this, that it was a mistake, then we've got that new narrative, that reframing of the narrative where we can have the conversation and we're not playing mental gymnastics trying to cover it up or hide it or Oh, well, he did it because of this and he was thinking like this, et cetera. So, you know, it, of course, this is not my, the solution is not mine. We've known the solution for a long time. This is the only way to do it. And, and the church needs to grow up and mature itself, frankly, and get to this position where we can have these conversations and admit things, you know, mistakes were made and we got things wrong. So. Anyway, nothing else to add. I know we're up to time. Jim Bennett, over to you because you're conducting this. Go ahead.

I'm conducting it, but I think Michelle and Cheryl are presiding.

They're presiding. Yes.

I think they've offered some really fascinating and wonderful insights here. And Michelle, I am really, really struck by what you— your last comment. Particularly in citing Elder Packer, and I don't want to dogpile on Elder Packer. He did a lot of wonderful, marvelous things. But the idea that faith can be destroyed by truth means that your faith is not in the truth. And that just does not work. I, you know, whether or not you said that comment has aged terribly, I think that comment landed with a thud when it was first made. I don't think there's anything of value. I prefer to go with President Eyring, who says, in this church, you don't have to believe anything that isn't true. And the fact that we are so afraid of pursuing the truth wherever it leads, it's just startling to me. I mean, I look at President Oaks's devotional, which was essentially his first address to the church as the president of the church, where he outlines all of the problems. And I thought, oh, good for you, President Oaks. You understand that there's a problem, that active members are having problems with historical and doctrinal and social issues. You understand it's a problem that returned missionaries are leaving the church. You know, he went through this and I went, okay, this guy gets it. He understands what the problems are, but then his solution was bury your head in the sand, you know, don't talk to people who don't believe, you know, surround yourself with believers, uh, just put it on the shelf, don't worry about it, be patient, etc., etc., etc., etc., rather than let's pursue it and see where it leads. The fact that we are afraid of what the truth might be, uh, uh, is it's just not sustainable. This is the thing is that we keep acting like we have a choice. We keep acting like, oh, well, we can talk about this or we cannot talk about this. And Michelle, and you're absolutely right on that. Uh, you know, we're, this isn't going to go away. We're going to continue to talk about this and, uh, we ought to be doing it with confidence and with curiosity and with a willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads. Because if our faith is in anything but the truth, then what kind of faith is that? What kind of value does that have? So I am just so grateful for the work that both of you are doing. I, again, Michelle, in our first conversation on your old podcast, You know, people, I remember reading the comments and they're like, he wasn't defending his position. He came unarmed. He didn't defend polygamy. And it's like, I have no interest in defending polygamy. I mean, that, that, but I do have an interest in defending the idea that we should be pursuing truth and that people that have different ideas in this church should be welcome. Found in this church. The idea that anybody should be drummed out of the church or face discipline because they disagree about polygamy, to me, that's bonkers. That doesn't make any sense. I don't see, I don't, I don't see any way that builds the kingdom of God on the earth, but that's a whole other discussion. So I just, I, my final comments here, I'm just so grateful for both of you. Grateful for the work that you're doing. And I would love to just give both of you the final word. I don't know, should we start with you, Cheryl? Do you have—

okay, because I'm a little teeny bit uncomfortable with, um, the way this whole ending has been going, because I want to say that there is also the perspective that, um, that Joseph received this from God, you know, and that is the church perspective, and it is very possible that the reason Joseph Smith did this whole— started this whole thing is because he was directed, um, by God. And many of the later testimonies from these women are, say, are backing that up. So I just want to say that we can— we don't have to necessarily, um, say that Joseph Smith made a big mistake, you know. That's— but, but still, all the rest of your points are are very good, that, you know, we need to be able to discuss it, we need to be able to talk about it, we need to be able to show everyone's perspective needs to have, um, validity. And we should— and we can't solve it by kicking people out of the church that don't believe it. That's the only thing we can do is open up the discussion and have this great discussion.

Amen.

Yes. And I, I'm Cheryl, thank you for chiming in, because I think it's really fun the fact that Cheryl and I agree on both aspects of polygamy. I do not believe that polygamy is of God. Cheryl holds a lot of space for the possibility that God was trying to do something through Joseph Smith that was good, and however it might have turned out, she sees a lot of good in the possibilities, if, if I got that correct. And then we also disagree on the origin, so it makes us a really good team because come at this from both different directions on both fronts. But I do just want to let people know about our conference coming up because it's a great opportunity to dive in. If anyone was interested in any of the conversation that they had here, we have a whole slate Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, March 20th and 21st. It's at now Lake Ridge Junior High School. We outgrew our UVU venue. We actually are putting this conference in, in conjunction with Utah Valley University History Department and Greg Koford Books. We are in conjunction with them as well because they are the publisher of the print issues of our journal. We are thrilled about both of those associations, but because of the security requirements at UVU in the wake of the high— of a high-profile shooting this year, they capped our attendance and we have just exceeded that. So instead of not— instead of shutting down reservations or registration, We have moved to another venue, and so now we have seats available for any— we have a much bigger venue if anybody else would like to attend. We would love to see you there. As I said, Jim Bennett, um, will be on the panel on Friday night along with two other wonderful speakers. It's— one of our speakers is not talking about Nauvoo polygamy, she's actually talking about Utah polygamy and women's voices in Utah polygamy on Friday night. And then all day Saturday, we have— Cheryl and I are tickled about the presenters we have coming. And, um, she'll be speaking Saturday morning, I'm speaking Saturday evening, and then we have many other presenters in the meantime. So, and it's such a good opportunity to come. We are doing exactly what we're trying to talk about, creating a space where respectful, congenial dialogue can happen between people who disagree. And that is one of the things that we are just so pleased about, is seeing current fundamentalists along with polygamy revisionists along with active members of the church who believe the standard narrative and people who have left the church and don't believe any of it anymore. And so it's been, it's been really great to create that space, and we hope that people will see the value in it. They can go to the website journalofmormonpolygamy.org and register to attend the conference. They can see all of the articles up that have been published so far, and they can come back and see future articles coming up. And, and we're just, we're so thankful you guys are— I, I hope you guys are fantastic. Can I just say that? I love what you're doing. It's, you know, obviously we love what you're doing because Cheryl and I are doing the same thing. How you are engaging in these conversations across ideological divides, it is so needed in this world that has forgotten how to do this. And so I appreciate how you guys are trying to heal the world one conversation at a time. We're trying in our way to heal the world one conversation about polygamy at a time.

Well, so grateful for you doing that. Right back at you. Really love what you guys are doing. I think your integrity shines through, and I just think it's wonderful that people like you are willing to be able to address the difficult issues. And Cheryl, I think you're absolutely right. You know, leaving space for the possibility that this is of God is an entirely appropriate thing to do. So I Very much appreciate that correction there. So thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Cheryl. Very much appreciate you being here. Ian, as always, thank you for your insights. I look forward to you solving all of the polygamy problems, uh, quantitatively. Uh, I think that's going to be a lot of fun. And thank you everybody who has been listening. We very much appreciate it. You know, this, this, we're recording this episode on a Saturday and the conference is next Friday and we usually release the episodes on Saturdays. So we're going to have to release this episode either Thursday or maybe Friday. I think Thursday. I think I'm going to put this episode out on Thursday so that people can, can hear it before the conference. And if they haven't, if you are listening to this and you haven't gotten tickets to the conference, and, uh, please avail yourselves of the opportunity. To watch me come fall flat on my face as I talk about a subject that I know very little about. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So thank you all. And thank you all for listening. And we will see you next time on the next episode of Inside Out.