Plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy or polygy to be technical is one of the most controversial and faith challenging

aspects of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It was difficult when it was first introduced in the early church, and, although it was discontinued over 130 years ago,

it is still a difficult issue to reckon with for many, both within and outside of the church. So why was it introduced

into the church in the first place? When did Joseph Smith first learn that this

practice would be restored? Why did he delay practicing it?

How did he and others who were asked to live it initially respond?

And what were the four theological reasons given by the Lord in the doctrine and covenants to justify the practice of

plural marriage. On today's episode of Church History Matters, we explore the best

sources to answer these and related questions. And while we realize that learning

the answers to these questions may not fully remove ones wrestle with this issue, we believe

it can sure help. I'm Scott Woodward, a managing director at

scripture central and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at

scripture central. And today Casey and I dive into our first episode in this

series dealing with plural marriage. Now let's get into it. Well, welcome everybody. I'm Casey Griffiths.

And I'm Scott Woodward.

This is a series of discussions we're having about some special issues in church history.

And today we're starting one of the most controversial issues in the history of the church that is

plural marriage yeah and so Scott why don't you start us off a little bit about

plural marriage and why this seems to be something that comes up a lot why it can be difficult for some people.

Yeah, well, you know, I found that it's kind of a hard topic to discuss because I feel like we're

kind of uncomfortable with our polygamous past, you know what I mean?

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