Let's talk about polygamy with Brittany Chapman Nash, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132.

So before we jump into Section 132, the revelation on eternal and plural marriage, I want everyone to understand that we do not need to leave this section feeling that we must have a testimony of plural marriage,

that it's a requirement to believe in it in order to be a faithful member of the church.

That is not the case.

It is no longer practiced by Latter-day Saints.

We admire the faith of those who practiced plural marriage as it was commanded in their time.

We engage in this section coming to understand eternal marriage as a concept,

coming to understand why plural marriage was asked of early Latter-day Saints,

why Joseph Smith felt it needed to be restored. So we gain all of those

things through Section 132. It's very problematic in many ways. I think if we look at it without being

dismissive, in some ways it is a historical text and includes things we no longer need to live. That can affect the way that we

read the text. It may not be as simple as discarding it all as, oh, that doesn't apply to me,

but we can read it to understand the past and how it affected church members in the 19th century,

how it affected the choices they made. We can also

look to it in its promised blessings for those who make the eternal marriage covenant and what it can

mean for those both monogamous and polygamous unions. That's really helpful. I do something

similar in an Old Testament class. We look at some of the commandments given to Joshua

and Saul and think, I don't like that at all. Go to that city and destroy it. That's not to you.

You're not commanded to live that. So we glean what we can and we are grateful that it's not us.

We do get some of the most beautiful and inspiring stories of faith through people who chose to live polygamously and it's such a rich history to build on.

I'm just so grateful for those early saints who loved the Lord, who loved Latter-day prophets, and with faith stepped into very

difficult circumstances because they believed it was a commandment of God.

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