I am Ryan McKnight.

I'm Kara Santa Maria.

I am Christopher Smith.

Hi, I'm Andrew Torres.

This is Naked Mormonism.

The Serial Mormon History Podcast.

Joseph Smith's morality and theology had an interesting ability to evolve and adapt as the times and his personal

circumstances changed. While reading through the Vogel edition of the History of the Church,

I happened upon a passage that struck me as interesting, and I did some digging only to find out

that basically nothing has been written about the subject to any extent.

So I decided to write today's episode about it.

This is an essay, as usual.

The passage in question has to do with something that's a hot button issue, even today.

Socialism.

But before we get into that passage and discuss what was said in the context around it,

please allow the first portion of this essay to discuss Joe's evolved. But before we get into that passage and discuss what was said in the context around it,

please allow the first portion of this essay to discuss Joe's evolving morality, points that we can plot through his timeline where his morality and his theology changed or altered or

fundamentally flipped from one perspective to a different.

Now, some of these issues we consider settled moral issues today.

Others are still controversial and don't really have a solid moral grounding.

Let's begin with the least controversial moral issue from today's standards,

but one of the most controversial moral issues of the early to mid-19th century in America,

...