The final “Come Follow Me” lesson for the D & C study this year covers Official Declarations 1 and 2, and the Proclamation on the Family. My husband mentioned the theme seems to be spiritual trauma.

A few weeks ago, during Gospel Doctrine class, section 132 and the subject of polygamy was not mentioned until the last few minutes of class. The pain in the room was palpable. There was an acknowledgement by the teacher that Section 132 and polygamy was very difficult, even painful for many. There was also an attempt to fix that problem by showing part of a talk by a general authority. The speaker said that if you can answer the big questions such as “Is there a God?”, “Was Joseph Smith a Prophet?”, etc. then all the questions about polygamy, the priesthood ban, gay marriage, women’s ordination became secondary to that, and no longer an issue. 

It didn’t help. Any attempt to dismiss pain and trauma with a quick fix never does.

For the final lesson next month, polygamy will come up again because of The Manifesto, or Official Declaration 1, which declared an end to the practice of polygamy (even though it didn’t actually end). I hope anyone who teaches or attends understands the importance of sitting with pain and trauma, and acknowledging that it is real. If that is the only thing that happens, people will feel they are not alone in their pain. That brings comfort and lightens burdens. There is nothing to fix, and there is nothing wrong with feeling pain about polygamy, or section 132, or the priesthood ban, or exclusion policies impacting women and LGBTQ+ persons. It is okay to not be okay about this. It is important to get why this is especially traumatic.

The lesson before section 132 included section 121. I think this is one of the most inspiring scriptures we have. One view of it is this – Joseph is feeling hopeless and hurting. He turns to God and asks for revenge and destruction of his enemies. He is asking God to be vengeful, and wipe out people who make Joseph’s life harder, because Joseph is sure he is right, and God would be on his side and against anyone who doesn’t support him. In other words, Joseph is asking God to set aside Their love for all, sever oneness with all, use Their power to deny agency and use force in order to fix Joseph’s problem. 

God says We don’t work that way. We can’t work that way. If We tried, We would not be God. There is a warning about how susceptible “almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose” are prone to abusing that authority and exercising unrighteous dominion. The rights and powers of the priesthood are inseparable from powers of God. The moment they are used to cover sin, feed pride, or ambition, or exercise control or dominion or compulsion on anyone in any degree, in that moment there is no authority, no priesthood, no spirit of heaven, no God. And then They give a very concise, challenging, clear description of the qualities that apply to God and godlike power, referred to as priesthood power. This is the greater eternal priesthood because none of the qualities or actions are gender specific. God, and any person exercising any degree of any authority to act in any way in connection with God can only do so with “persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile…Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish they thoughts unceasingly.”

This is one of the clearest, most challenging and confronting litmus tests for how to recognize when words or actions of anyone, including spiritual promptings, and especially people in all levels of leadership and authority, are in line with the God of love, the God emulated by Christ and his teachings, the God of At-One-ment, the God that sits with me in woundedness and sorrow as well as joy, the God that inspires me to follow that example.

In summary, section 121 reveals that God is Love, God will never impede agency, God is not a jerk, and the moment anyone is not following this example, no matter what authority they claim, they have no power or authority from God.

This requires us to pay attention, and not automatically connect God to anything said or done by leaders, even if they claim prophetic authority, if it is not in line with qualities outlined in section 121.

Compare this to section 132. This section has a messy history and controversial provenance. Several recent Dialogue Sunday School lessons by Benjamin Park and Maxine Hanks offer some of the complex issues of this section. Countless writings, blogs, podcasts, and discussions wrestle with the issue of polygamy in connection with this section.

I have also wrestled with this issue in different ways. Learning of the history as a student and helping research primary sources when working at the Church History Department was confronting, and I owe a great deal to the historians there who understood and honored that experience. I spoke with my grandmother about her lived experience with polygamy. She shared journals which enabled me to learn how devastating it was for her parents when they felt required to practice polygamy. It was heartbreaking reading about how women taught each other ways to survive the heartbreak of sharing their husbands by never allowing themselves to completely love him, withholding complete loyalty to all except their children. I experienced it myself when men I dated suggested that if I were righteous enough, I would learn to be fine with it, and that a man could learn to love multiple wives enough just as they could learn to love multiple children (and they couldn’t understand why this would be horrible for a woman to hear). I experienced the terrible ongoing presence of so-called spiritual polygamy when a man I was dating told me he planned on being sealed to his deceased girlfriend who had died in an accident before they were engaged. He intended her for his first wife. He expected me to be his second wife, and wanted me to be aware of and agree to that lesser station in this polygamous marriage. That was when I made it clear we were no longer dating, and that I had no belief in polygamy being from God. From then on I would ask anyone I dated more than once what their thoughts on polygamy were, and it became a deal breaker depending on the answer. 

But none of these experiences compare to the appalling language in section 132 which describes a god that imposes a different law upon his daughters than that of his sons. The worst examples of Old Testament prophet figures using women as property and breeding machines are used as justification, contradictory to the warnings and teachings from the Book of Mormon, and the former section 101 which condemn this very behavior. The actions and words of this god directly contradict the qualities outlined in section 121. Women become figures that promote the abuse of power and authority that section 121 warns us about, making it clear that God who is love, who honors agency, who is not a jerk, would never sanction any of this. And yet, the overwhelming demand for people in 19th century Mormonism to accept and practice this as coming from god was often linked to being able to survive in community, at great cost. And also the pressure on 20th century Mormons to accept this as coming from god, and to allow it to exist as a possible condition of living in the presence of god in the next life, kind of like horrible greenish storm clouds hovering over the distant horizon. Not to mention the trauma of hearing rhetoric that minimizes any Divine Feminine figure to one of countless polygamous wives in constant pregnant state supplying eternal increase to one heavenly father.

There is nothing about that god that inspires me, or calls on me to worship or follow. I want no part of that eternity. That god, and those he justifies, have no love, do not honor agency. That god is a jerk. 

The same process is what guides me concerning the racist justification of the priesthood ban. It guides me when policies are imposed that exclude entire groups of people because of their gender or non-binary existence. The God of love did not inspire those.

Since the Doctrine & Covenants is our most recent scriptural text in our very young religion, and since we now have access to the extraordinary work of the historians with the Joseph Smith Papers Project, we can be aware of the very human lives of those who created this scripture. 

We can learn when they were trying to cover their sins, or claiming authority for authority’s sake, or gratifying pride and ambition, or aspiring to the honors of men (including church callings), or exercising control or dominion. We can look for ways they blame god for their failures.

We can be aware of when they owned their mistakes, and acknowledged their humanity. We can see when they were sharing their experiences of seeking and listening for the God who is love, who honors agency, who inspires compassion and transformation. And we can look for when God answered with love, encouraging agency, inspiring transformative connection that leads us to Them.

It is interesting that the final lesson for the year covers declarations that overturned policies and temporary doctrine that was and continues to be incredibly harmful. Without the 1890 Manifesto, and the 1978 lifting of the priesthood ban, I don’t think the church would exist as any kind of worldwide organization. Both came about because enough people realized something about the organization did not align with God, or the Gospel of Christ. Something about the organization required repentance on an institutional level, which had to begin with individuals.

A large part of the study of the Doctrine & Covenants is a study of history. I hope that study it will lead to more than an automatic acceptance that all sections came directly from God. I hope the more valuable lesson will be taking on the practice of looking for the different ways the leaders and members of the church struggled with their own trauma, and humanity, and questions. When did they seek to justify the worst qualities of Old Testament figures with the language of an Old Testament deity? When did they earnestly ask questions that invited expansive possibility and listen for the God of Love?

For me, the most important lesson of this study is learning that I can practice recognizing when a prophet is speaking as a prophet, and when they are not. I can acknowledge the danger of idolizing leaders, because that is as dehumanizing as is demonizing them. I can learn to recognize God’s voice when it honors agency and inspires love and connection. 

And I don’t ever have to believe that God is a jerk.