1794: Did Joseph Smith engage in Human Trafficking?
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2023
⏱️ 195 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the past several years faithful Mormon Tim Ballard has brought much attention to the topic of human trafficking via his work with Operation Underground Railroad and the new movie "Sound of Freedom." During Ballard's fundraisers he often invokes his LDS faith as the foundation for his anti-trafficking. One possible problem with Ballard's Mormon-based anti-trafficking advocacy is that the founder of his religion - Joseph Smith - would very possibly qualify by today's standards as a human trafficker. In today's episode we use The Nauvoo Expositor - published by LDS Church 1st Presidency Member William Law - as the jumping off point to explore the question: was Joseph Smith involved in human trafficking? Joining us will be Julia Sanders, Nemo, and Samantha Shelley.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. |
| 0:03.3 | I am your host, John Delin. |
| 0:05.8 | It is August 2nd, 2023. |
| 0:08.6 | We are live today here to answer the very important question. |
| 0:14.2 | Was Joseph Smith a human trafficker and or was he involved in human sex trafficking to |
| 0:20.0 | provide a tiny bit of context today? |
| 0:23.0 | There has been a lot of conversation in the United States and in Mormonism about human |
| 0:29.6 | trafficking and I think I can say up front that everyone involved in today's episode |
| 0:34.8 | is against human trafficking, is against child trafficking, is against anything that's |
| 0:40.6 | coercive and abusive and that harms any human and especially that harms children. |
| 0:45.2 | I think that's one of the main reasons we're doing this episode. |
| 0:48.4 | But while we're at it, there are so many faithful, letter-day saints or Mormons who |
| 0:54.3 | particularly seem outraged at the idea of child sex trafficking in the world, which |
| 1:01.1 | is great. |
| 1:02.9 | But what that does is it reminds me of the time that I read the novel Expositor, which |
| 1:08.4 | was the newspaper article published by William Law, a member of the first presidency where |
| 1:13.5 | he, back in novel in 1844, where he talked about basically Joseph and other missionaries |
| 1:20.3 | going to Europe and bringing young women over to Na'avu to then be kind of brought into |
| 1:26.9 | polygamous marriages. |
| 1:28.5 | And for years and years and years, that's been on my mind. |
| 1:32.9 | Does that qualify as sex trafficking? |
| 1:35.3 | And so while we have, I don't think any of us on today's panel have any interest in |
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