Should we Take Polygamy Skeptics More Seriously? (Cheryl Bruno)

Cheryl Bruno is making both mainstream Mormon historian & polygamy skeptics upset. On the one hand, she says polygamy skeptics are making good points about original documents questioning the traditional narrative about Joseph Smith's polygamy. On the other hand, she upsets skeptics because she believes Joseph practiced polygamy. Should we be more careful about claims Joseph practiced polygamy? Check out our conversation...



https://youtu.be/_pxfcZaMHbg



Don't miss our other conversations with Chery!  https://gospeltangents.com/people/cheryl-bruno/



Copyright © 2024



Gospel Tangents



All Rights Reserved



Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

Giving Polygamy Deniers Credibility?

GT  00:35   I know a lot of people, especially in the RLDS Church, and some in the maybe the polygamy skeptics community, they look at Joseph and Emma, especially their public denials about Joseph's involvement in polygamy. So, I'd like to dive into those, because you have a really unique perspective on that. Where do you want to start?



Cheryl  1:10   Let me just say that we do sometimes call the RLDS, which is now Community of Christ. But back in the time we're talking about they were RLDS. So that's why we switch back and forth on saying sometimes RLDS, and when we're speaking of it today, it is Community of Christ.



GT  1:27  Right.



Cheryl  1:28   But I just want to make that clear. When we first started writing this book over two years ago, there was not this big controversy over whether Joseph Smith practiced polygamy or not. That has grown out of the past two years. So, the book doesn't directly speak to that controversy, but many of the things, especially Mark Tensmeyer’s chapter, have to do with the controversy. And so you can read this book if you're interested in that controversy, and it will give you some information on it. But it wasn't written specifically for that.



GT  2:06  Right.



Cheryl  2:07   Over the past two years, I have become acquainted with some of the people that do that try to do more scholarly work, going back to the original documents and saying that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy. But he, in fact, spoke against it, and that Brigham Young and others of the Twelve and polygamy insiders were working behind Joseph Smith's back to develop this principle of polygamy. Then after Joseph Smith died, is when it actually came to the forefront. I personally do not believe that scenario. I believe there's enough evidence to show that Joseph did practice polygamy, but I feel that we should take these polygamy skeptics very seriously, because they are bringing up great points. They're looking at some of the old research that we've done and calling our attention to holes that we have in that and sometimes missteps that we've made.



GT  3:09  You even had an arm wrestle with Chris Blythe?



Cheryl  3:12  I did. Apparently, we settle our differences by arm wrestling now.



GT  3:20  Have you been working out? Is that why you beat Chris?



Cheryl  3:23  Yeah. But I think, well, some of the names, I'm not going to call out names or anything here in this interview, but some people who are Mormon historians in the scholarly community, just want to ignore the polygamy skeptics and not give them a platform.



GT  3:45  Yeah, they base a lot of the dismissals on old RLDS arguments and say that they haven't changed. But some of them have.



Cheryl  3:55  Right, right exactly, and originally, when they first started, there were many different factions in this polygamy skeptics group,