On the eve of All Saint’s Day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted the ninety-five theses, which he had composed in Latin, on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg. It was originally entitled “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” but over the years has become known as the “ninety-five theses”. The original title demonstrates that the principle issue inspiring Luther to commit this bold act of conscience was the marketing and sale of indulgences by the catholic church.

On Indulgences

Luther saw the abuse of indulgences as the purchase and sale of salvation – something which he condemned. “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs” was a trite marketing phrase circulating at the time which summed up the bottom line about indulgences – people could guarantee for themselves salvation by giving money to the leaders of the Catholic church. Luther saw this as he denounced the idea that the Pope has the right to grant pardons on God’s behalf in the first place. This single act of defiance allowed other people to realize that they could speak out what they know in their heart to be true in defiance of an overwhelming religious authority. The protestant reformation saw its genesis with this idea.

What is it about the sale of Indulgences that is so particularly worthy of condemnation? Is it the presumption of power by an earthly man to be able to grant eternal salvation and remove the penalty of sin? This is something only God may claim. Is it the abuse of authority that a powerful man commits when preying upon the devotion and sincerity of his followers? The power and deference that come with the rank of religious leadership predisposes to such abuses. Is it the greed that is exposed in the hearts of men offering such deception for sale? Sequere pecuniam – Follow the money. Perhaps it is the distortion and manipulation of scripture and God’s ways that must accompany such a deception. All of these things point to the undeniable ecclesiastical abuse of authority and perversion of God that the sale of indulgences represents. Any religious authority claiming such privilege is fraudulent and deplorable.

Snapshot of LDS history – Helen Mar Kimball

On 30 March 1881, Helen Mar Whitney (Kimball) wrote a frank autobiographical letter to her children relating her parents’ conversion to Mormonism and also her own baptism. (The letter resides in the LDS Church History Archives, but a transcription of the letter is available on an official LDS website here) Those familiar with the life of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, may know that Helen Mar was the daughter of early church apostle Heber C. Kimball and was a polygamist wife of Joseph Smith prior to his death in 1844.

In her letter to her children she also recounted the struggle and conflict that she and her mother confronted when Joseph Smith asked Helen Mar to marry him as a plural wife. The events described offer a rare insight into how Joseph Smith was able to persuade girls (and their parents) to be a part of a practice which they would otherwise be averse to. She begins her account of the request by relating how it was her father Heber C. Kimball who first introduced the principal of plural marriage to her:

“… he taught me the principle of Celestial marriage, & having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him; this I afterwards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth. My father had but one Ewe Lamb, but willingly laid her upon the alter”

She goes on to describe the anguish of her mother who had already had to bear the indignity of accepting a second wife (Sarah Noon) to her father Heber:

“how cruel this seamed to the mother whose heartstrings were already stretched untill they were ready to snap asunder, for he had taken Sarah Noon to wife & she thought she had made sufficient sacrafise, but the Lord required more”

She relates that she struggled with the request by her father that she be given to Joseph Smith for the next 24 hours – when Joseph himself came to their home and taught and explained the principle of celestial marriage to her and her parents. She then relates what the Prophet told her would be the result of her giving herself to him in this manner:

he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation & that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.”

Joseph Smith had already obtained the consent of her father and he needed only to finalize the transaction by persuading Helen Mar herself. Being sincere in her belief and showing remarkable willingness to sacrifice herself on behalf of her family for the hope of salvation and exaltation – she consented:

“This promise was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.”

Keep in mind that Helen was born August 20, 1828 and this conversation took place in May 1843 – making Helen Mar 14 years, 9 months old at the time of the request. If you have a 14 year old daughter – imagine what she would say to such a request. She had been taught since the age of 3 years old to revere Joseph as a Prophet of God who had all the authority and privilege to act in His name on the Earth. The foundational motivation for the entire religious existence of her and her family was to obtain salvation and exaltation and this revered Prophet was telling her that if she would consent to be his wife, she would purchase that security for herself and her entire family and kindred.

Restored Indulgences

If the details of this exchange are starting to sound familiar, there is a reason. What Helen relates is no less than a man claiming authority of God and offering eternal salvation at a price. If the practice of such a falsehood was evil in the hands of Catholic clergy in the 1500’s when the exchange was bartered in money, how much more deplorable is it when the clergy asks for young girls in exchange for the promise of eternal splendor? If the Catholic sale of indulgences based on money revealed the greed within the hearts of clerics – what does the sale of salvation based on young girls expose in the heart of Joseph Smith?

Conclusion

Religious authority claimed by any man sets the stage for the abuse of the faithful and sincere. When men say that God has granted them special status between the common people and their sovereign Lord the inevitable result is predation. Those mystic men who claim such privilege will quickly work to turn the devotion of their prey from God to themselves. Once they have intermingled themselves with God in the minds of their devotees, they are primed to commit all manner of abuse couched in piety and godliness. The victims of this deception become unable to distinguish between devotion to God and devotion to these men – because their lies create a false connection between the two.

Just as Luther was able to expose a chink in the armor of the Catholic Church allowing people to break free from the ecclesiastical chains they were bound under, there are more and more Mormons becoming aware of the deceptions that saturate that foundation of the LDS religion. While the ability to see the deception for what it is has become difficult due to the ceaseless efforts of the church to clean up it’s image and rhetoric, the internet has made more information widely available and is becoming the liberating force in the modern age that the Printing Press and Gutenberg Bible was centuries ago.

Post-Script

In anticipation of the common argument that many of Josephs sealings and marriages were ceremonial only and did not involve sexual consummation, the church has made a statement regarding this question. In the introduction to Volume 2 of the Joseph Smith Nauvoo Journals published on the official LDS Joseph Smith Papers Website it states the following:

“William Clayton provides the best contemporaneous evidence that at least some plural marriages in Nauvoo during Joseph Smith’s lifetime involved conjugal relations—just as they did later in Utah—and nothing in the 12 July 1843 revelation on plural marriage provides any doctrinal reason for why any authorized plural marriage could not have included such relations.” (JosephSmithPapers.org)

While there is not positive proof that each marriage involved sex, the church is stating that it wouldn’t matter if there was sex involved because it is clearly permitted.

Post-Post-Script

Helen Mar included a poem she had written to express her feelings about her union to Joseph Smith and it’s effect on her life. It is heart breaking.

I thought through this life my time will be my own

The step I now am taking’s for eternity alone,

No one need be the wiser, through time I shall be free,

And as the past hath been the future still will be.

To my guileless heart all free from worldly care

And full of blissful hopes—and youthful visions rare

The world seamed bright the thret’ning clouds were kept

From sight, and all looked fair but pitying angels wept.

They saw my youthful friends grow shy and cold.

And poisonous darts from sland’rous tongues were hurled,

Untutor’d heart in thy gen’rous sacrafise,

Thou dids’t not weigh the cost nor know the bitter price;

Thy happy dreems all o’er thou’rt doom’d alas to be

Bar’d out from social scenes by this thy destiny,

And o’er thy sad’nd mem’ries of sweet departed joys

Thy sicken’d heart will brood and imagine future woes,

And like a fetter’d bird with wild and longing heart,

Thou’lt dayly pine for freedom and murmor at thy lot;

But could’st thou see the future & view that glorious crown,

Awaiting you in Heaven you would not weep nor mourn, [p. 2]

Pure and exalted was thy father’s aim, he saw

A glory in obeying this high celestial law,

For to thousands who’ve died without the light

I will bring eternal joy & make thy crown more bright.

I’d been taught to receive the Prophet of God

And receive every word as the word of the Lord.

But had this not come through my dear father’s mouth,

I should ne’r have received it as God’s sacred truth.

Addendum

Some have pointed out that according to Catholicism indulgences are simply the removal of the temporal penalty for sin, the guilt of which has already been forgiven. They point to Pope Paul VI who offered an apostolic constitution on indulgences, saying: “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church’s help when, as a minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions won by Christ and the saints” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina 1).

This is a good explanation and clarifies the issue of indulgences as they are portrayed in the 20th century. The issue, however is not how indulgences are portrayed today, but how they were being portrayed and abused at the time that Martin Luther spoke out. I have previously discussed how an organization will clean up its image when necessary to survive. The fact of the matter is that the sale of indulgences was abused and the marketing, even if misguided, extended to the promise that the “damned would be released from hell” (catholicculture.org). Many non-catholics would argue that the concept of indulgences, even in it’s 20th century form, is still an overreach of power. I agree.

References

1. “Helen Mar Kimball Whitney 1881 Autobiography” byu.edu