Why LDS members can't believe Apostates

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This is an actual lesson from a Church History Gospel Doctrine Class in Mormonism

"Be Not Deceived but Continue in Steadfastness".

The instructor wrote on the board:

A pint of cream.
A misspelled name.
A lack of seating.

And then had us guess what these all had in common. Someone who'd read ahead answered, "They're all causes over which someone left the Church." (The "apostates" in question were Thomas B. Marsh, Simonds Ryder, and Frazier Eaton.)

Now, logic tells me that people have left the Church for far more legitimate concerns. But the manual has zip to say about anyone with a real gripe leaving the Church! C'mon Salt Lake! There are some of us out here who resent being treated like imbeciles!!

There is far more to the Rider and Marsh incidents than trivial issues like a misspelled name or "milk strippings." LDS writers provide only the portion of historical incidents that endeavor to show that the person who "apostasized" was the party in the wrong. They fail to provide the "rest of the story" that reveals the "real gripes" that people such as Rider and Marsh had.

Most Mormons believe that Joseph Smith's and Sidney Rigdon's tarring in February 1832 was done by an "anti-Mormon mob". To the contrary, they were tarred not by "anti-Mormon mobs," but by their own followers, for two primary reasons. First was their plan to have all of their church members sign over all of their assets and properties to the "United Order" communal experiment.

Some members saw this as Smith and Rigdon's scheme to fleece them, and rightly so; the financial disaster that was the United Order, which culminated in the Kirtland Bank scandal, caused many Mormons to lose their life savings, and about half of all church members abandoned the faith over the incident, including most of the original twelve apostles. The proof that it was his own church members who did the tarring was Smith's own statement that he recognized the perpetrators in church the morning after the incident, primarily one Symonds Rider and the sons of John Johnson. Smith, Emma, and Rigdon had been boarding with the Johnson clan 35 miles from Kirtland at Hiram, Ohio. They weren't subjecting themselves to the communal lifestyle that they demanded of their followers at Kirtland. It was alleged that Smith made a pass at Johnson's teenage daughter, Nancy Marinda, and that that was her brothers' motivation for attacking Smith. "Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith" supports this idea, but in his "In Sacred Loneliness" Todd Compton doubts it for lack of convincing evidence. I personally believe that it's likely true that Smith made the pass at Marinda for four reasons:

First, Smith had already hinted at his "plural marriage" concept in his 1831 "revelation" commanding his men to "take ye wives from among the Lamanites" in 1831 (the tarring occurred in February 1832). This indicates that he had extra-marital relations on his mind during that period.

Second, Marinda later married Orson Hyde; Smith sent Hyde on a mission, and secretly "plural married" Marinda in Hyde's absence, in April of 1842. Thus, it's likely that Smith had had his eye on Marinda since he had met the 15-year-old at Hiram in 1831, and that his 1842 "plural marriage" to her was his formalization of a long-existing desire for her (as it was also in the
cases of Mary Rollins and Sarah Ann Whitney). The essence of Smith's "spiritual wifery" concept was that people knew each other in the "pre-existence," and that part of their earthly mission was to find their "soul mates" (Remember "Saturday's Warrior?") Once Smith had designated a female as one of his "soul mates," or "spiritual wives," they were to be "his" for eternity, even if they were already married to someone else; in this case, Orson Hyde.

Third, Smith's "plural" relationship with the 16-year-old Fanny Alger began in 1833, according to various bits of evidence. Since the 1832 tarring incident was sandwiched in between the 1831 "Lamanite revelation" and the 1833 beginning of his affair with Fanny, it's entirely likely that the tarring was at least partly because of Smith's budding unorthodox sexual concepts, which he tried out on Marinda.

Fourth, it seems more likely that the Johnson brothers would want to castrate a man because of a sexual advance on their teenage sister, rather than over an issue of money.

Here's a little of Todd Compton's views on the subject, from his book:
"In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith," (pp.231-232)

"According to Luke Johnson, Smith was stretched on a board, then 'they tore off the night clothes that he had on, for the purpose of emasculating him, and had Dr. Dennison there to perform the operation. But when the Dr. saw the prophet stripped and stretched on the plank, his heart failed him, and he refused to operate.'

"The motivation for this mobbing has been debated. Clark Braden, a late, antagonistic, secondhand witness, alleged in a polemic public debate that Marinda's brother Eli led a mob against Smith because the prophet had been too intimate with Marinda. This tradition suggests that Smith may have married Marinda at this early time, and some circumstantial factors support such a possibility. The castration attempt might be taken as evidence that the mob felt that Joseph had committed a sexual impropriety; since the attempt is reported by Luke Johnson, there is no reason to doubt it. Also, they had planned the operation in advance, as they brought along a doctor to perform it.

The first revelations on polygamy had been received in 1831, by historian Daniel Bachman's dating. Also, Joseph Smith did tend to marry women who had stayed at his house or in whose house he had stayed.

"Many other factors, however, argue against this theory. First, Marinda had no brother named Eli, which suggests that Braden's accusation, late as it is, is garbled and unreliable. In addition, two antagonistic accounts by Hayden and S. F. Whitney give an entirely different reason for the mobbing, with an entirely different leader, Simonds Ryder, an ex-Mormon, though the Johnson brothers are still participants. In these accounts the reason for the violence is economic: the Johnson boys were in the mob because of 'the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it in the control of Smith.' The castration, in this scenario, may have only been a threat, meant to intimidate Smith and cause him to leave Hiram.....While it is not impossible that Marinda became Smith's first plural wife in 1831, the evidence for such a marriage, resting chiefly on the late, unreliable Braden, is not compelling.
Unless more credible evidence is found, it is best to proceed under the assumption that Joseph and Marinda did not marry or have a relationship in1831."
("In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith," 231-232.)

Of course, Braden's recollection of an "Eli" could possibly have referred to a nickname for one of Marinda's brothers.

From “Mormon Enigma”:

"Evidence suggests that although Joseph believed he was commanded by God through revelation to establish plural marriage as part of the 'restoration of all things,' questions undoubtedly arose. For example, who would perform the marriages? Could Joseph officiate in his own behalf? Who should be told of the doctrine? How would Emma and others react to such an unorthodox practice?

There is no record that Joseph received immediate instructions in these matters, making his early attempts to instigate plural marriage most difficult for Emma when she encountered them.
Mary Elizabeth Rollins claimed that Joseph had a private conversation with her in 1831; she was then twelve years old. She said Joseph 'told me about his great vision concerning me. He said I was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife.' (Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner to Emmeline B. Wells, summer 1905, LDS Archives)

Within six months of Joseph's conversation with Mary Elizabeth Rollins, he and Emma had moved into the John Johnson home. Orson Pratt later quoted Lyman Johnson as saying that 'Joseph had made known to him\ \as early as 1831 that plural marriage was a correct principle,' but remarked also that 'the time had not yet come to teach and practice it.' (Orson Pratt, "Latter-day Saints Millennial Star (Liverpool England), 40 (16 Dec. 1878):788) Perhaps Joseph was not discreet in his discussions about plural marriage, because rumor and insinuation fed the fury of the mob that tarred and feathered him. When the Johnson boys joined the mob that entered their own home, they clearly suspected an improper association between Joseph and their sixteen-year-old sister, Nancy Marinda." (as quoted from Donna Hill, "Joseph Smith: the First Mormon", p.146).

The point being that there is much more to Symonds Rider's case than a simple misspelled name; but LDS authors don't want you to know the full facts, because the true facts expose Joseph Smith's deviousness more than they do any failings of Rider.

More tomorrow…