Joseph Smith was a polygamist. Over the course of his life he married multiple women; many, if not most or all, of these relationships were sexually consummated, though a handful of these marriages may have been only sealings without a physical relationship. However it went, Joseph’s polygamy is a fact and, to be admitted, a difficult one to accept for many members of the Church who have grown up not knowing about it. However, the LDS Church is now quite public about it (you can even see some of the marriages at the LDS genealogy site, FamilySearch.org) and it is mentioned in manuals and CES courses. It’s even discussed quite bluntly and openly in the popular historical fictions series The Work and the Glory. The youth of the Church are exposed to it from high school and onward. Give it a few more years and it will be common knowledge for most members of the church if it isn’t already.

However, there is another aspect of Joseph’s polygamy that is even more disturbing to people that I find intriguing: polyandry (meaning “many men”). While polygamy in the church is usually understood to mean one man married to multiple women (technically “polygyny”, or “many women”), polyandry means one woman married to multiple men, and this actually occurred in Nauvoo. Basically put, it has been clearly evidenced that some of the women whom Joseph married were already married to other men; three of these are on FamilySearch.org: Zina Huntington Jacobs, Prescendia Huntington Buell (Zina’s sister), and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner (famous for saving, along with her sister, pages of the Book of Commandments as a young girl from a violent mob in the early 1830s; I’m sure you’ve heard the story multiple times in Church – she was an amazing woman). There were possibly as many as nine in total who were married to the Prophet Joseph Smith (and, after his death remarried to Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and other church leaders) as well as being simultaneously married (not sealed, however) to other men.

Many people find this fact to be insurmountable. I’ve heard of many people who have had their rock-solid faith dashed upon this information. Heck, it was seriously disturbing to myself when I first read about it in Dr. Richard Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling (partially because it was too difficult to mentally reject Dr. Bushman’s book because I had obtained a copy of it at Deseret Book). However, there are two things that I now find very interesting and intriguing about people’s responses to this information. First, I find it interesting that it bothers people more than regular polygamy does, and second, I find it interesting that there is intense debate among historians as to whether Joseph had sexual relations with these polyandrous wives. Why are these such overwhelming issues? I’d argue that it is because the culture that is looking at the issue of polyandry is limited by a non-feminist viewpoint; or, to put it another way, a powerful tool available to Mormons (but not used by most of them) for studying this issue is a feminist and egalitarian perspective.

Basically put, simply ask yourself (if you’re having or have had trouble with this issue) WHY is this issue affecting me so strongly? While most modern Mormons have trouble with the idea of polygamy they’ve developed ways to either put it on the shelf or understand it as a doctrine of the Church’s past. Finding out that Joseph practiced polygamy can be difficult, but chances are that you’ve already encountered it and have dealt with it in some way. Why would finding out about polyandry be any different? Well, I can’t really argue for you (dear reader) because I don’t know you, but I can explain it for myself: the problem was how the issue framed itself in my own mind. I was used to Joseph marrying multiple women, but it was troubling when I found out that some of those women belonged to other men. I’m embarrassed to say it, but that was how I looked at the issue deep inside my own head. Joseph was taking what already had been promised to someone else; he was stealing! But then I stopped and turned the situation around in my head. What about women in a regular polygynous relationship? They were married to a man who already belonged to another woman, right? To be fair I should have been thinking that they were taking what had already been promised to someone else; they were stealing? But that was not how I looked at polygyny. Why?

Probably because I was used to the patriarchal system; the man is to preside over the household. The man is in charge. While the best marriage is an equal one, the line of authority in the family still flows subtly from the woman to the man. In my mind, the families in old Utah were large families that centered upon the single father. It was okay (kinda) in my mind for two women to belong to one man (and that the women could share that ownership of their husband). For some reason in my head women could share a man, and a man could share his love towards multiple women.

But polyandry turns all of this on its head: a woman who is already married already belongs to someone else. Men can share their relationship, but I had difficulty imagining women doing the same. I could imagine a man at the center of a multiple partner scenario; I had difficulty imaging a woman doing the same.

Another issue that often pops up, especially from apologists, is whether or not Joseph had a sexual relationship with these married women. The data isn’t exactly conclusive, but it seems that for at least some of them he did. This bothers people. A lot. There’s quite a bit of effort from some people to try and prove that these particular relationships were only spiritual relationships in nature, that there was no sexual contact between Joseph and these women.

Well, why is this a problem? Brigham Young had a number of wives and dozens of children with many of them. This is common knowledge to everyone both within and outside of the Church. Both Mormons and non-Mormons make jokes about it (the Mormon ones tend to be much cleaner). Brigham Young had many wives and these were real marriages. Most Mormons have no problems with it because sex is a good thing as long as it is within a marriage structure. And these women were married to Brigham, so it’s no problem to most Mormons.

So why is there all of the effort to distance Joseph and his polyandrous wives? Nobody seems to be assuming that these women weren’t having sex with their first husbands: merely that they possibly didn’t have sex with their second husband. Why the difference? Nobody questions whether or not Brigham had sex with his wives? Why is there a difference? Again, because we place more of the importance in these relationships on the men than the women. The emphasis is on Joseph Smith, not on Mary Rollins Lightner. Why is that? Again: because these women belong to someone else. It’s difficult to look at the situation as though the men involved belong to the women.

Besides, in term of the historical record, after the death of Joseph Smith most of Joseph’s wives were remarried to Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and other church leaders (including the Huntington sisters) and some had children with these third husbands (again including the Huntington sisters). So even if we can show that Joseph never had sexual relation with these wives, they had sexual relationship with their later husbands.

So what is the solution? Well, I can’t speak for everyone and I don’t want to be a Mormon apologist, but I think that feminism gives Mormons a powerful tool to look at this. If we are limited by our vision of the father “presiding” and the mother “nurturing” we continue to limit ourselves to a view of marriage where the wife is inferior (even if only a slight bit) to the husband. However, if we adopt an egalitarian view of marriage where the two (or even more) people involved in the marriage are truly equal to each other with no authority of one over the other in any sphere then suddenly the role of “wife” and “husband” simply equate to “partner” (or, for those who dislike that term as too “liberal” or “gay”, to “spouse”). At that point the terms “polygyny” (“many women”) and “polyandry” (“many men”) become the same thing: a relationship where there is one person married to multiple spouses. It becomes truly just “polygamy”. And while most Mormons (myself included) still have a lot of trouble dealing with the idea of polygamy, adopting an egalitarian view of marriage forces us to look at polyandry and say to ourselves “What is the problem with this historical practice? Is this really any worse, or really any different, from the practice of polygyny? Even if sex was involved in these relationships?” Answer: not really. And so we see yet another benefit to the Church and its members from a wider acceptance of feminism and egalitarianism instead of patriarchy and complementarianism. However, I worry because it seems that, in general, the Church refuses to be more than complementarian in their approach to equality in marriage and that Church culture (in Utah especially) still rejects feminism as a movement with suspicion and distrust.

I am a little hesitant to share specifics with why I was disappointed with a particular talk from General Conference. Over the next six months, many LDS (myself included) will study from the transcripts as published in next month’s “Ensign”; it’s expected that each talk can provide spiritual comfort and counsel. I don’t want my personal opinion about a particular talk to somehow be seen as invalidating or belittling another person’s enjoyment of the same discourse; my expectations are different and my concerns are different. I don’t think that anyone in Church leadership is somehow dishonest, hypocritical, or evil. I believe that they are all honest women and men who say the things they say because they believe in the doctrines of the LDS Church. However, a leadership position in the Church doesn’t somehow disqualify someone from making a poor choice of words, or even from endorsing a particular point of view that may later be seen as uninspired (much of the pre-1978 folklore would qualify for this; much of it was publicly taught as truth and is now seen as nothing more than misguided opinion). As someone listening to my leaders, I can only argue from a position that I believe in, and if that doesn’t match up completely with what I hear, then I need to look carefully at both what I believe and what was said. Sometimes my beliefs change, and other times I reject the wild fruits in someone’s message and only prize the good fruits. I’ve never found a talk given by a Church leader that didn’t have something in it that was worthy of study and implementation, but I’ve found a few that had some ideas that I had to leave behind because my beliefs simply could not agree with some of what was said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a small movement compared to many Protestant Christian denominations. Its relative youth compared to the other three Abrahamic religions tends to mean it is easily mocked for its particular historical and faith claims which have occurred within the past two centuries; in spite of this the Church has grown considerably during that time (not nearly as much as the Pentecostal movement, for instance, but for a tightly organized movement, it is an impressive growth). If it is to continue to be a force for good it must continue to grow; however, while the Church currently claims nearly 14 million members it is a guessing game as to how many of those are active in their practice, let alone how many have achieved the highest levels of activity expected for the general membership by attending the Temple or being ordained in the Priesthood. The answer is certainly much lower than the pure membership numbers. From other statistical sources, such as Gallup or Pew, we know that women form a clear majority of active Church membership. As such, it might be expected that Church leadership would speak out more on issues relating to what is expected of all human beings, not just men, within the Church, with perhaps an occasional focus on women’s issues and their strength (by virtue of their numbers at the very least). Such an emphasis was occasionally seen and heard during some of the past weekend, but it is interesting to me how that emphasis was expressed, especially in comparing and contrasting the first two discourses delivered.

President Boyd K. Packer spoke at length about how the Power of the Priesthood is not yet being expressed among the Priesthood holders of the Church. However, (without a transcript to compare against) he didn’t directly define the Power of the Priesthood, as opposed to the Authority of the Priesthood which I’ve continually read from Church sources to mean “the authority to act in God’s name” or, in other words, the authority to perform efficacious rituals and ordinances. In the Church, women have not, as yet, been given such authority apart from their limited authority to perform some of the Temple rituals. However, it appeared to me that the general gist of the “Power” being described was not simply the miraculous ability to enjoy gifts from God such as healing (a power that is equally available to women through the prayer of faith, as expressed by Elder Dallin H. Oaks during his Priesthood Session remarks, and as attested by much of Latter-day Saint Church history where administration and blessings on the sick by women are commonplace), but was also power in the sense of authority and responsibility in relation to other human beings. I love that the Church has a structure that allows for people, both female and male, to hold positions of authority not because they have any particular skill for such positions but rather because the initial “calling” to that position was supposed to be the result of revelatory impressions. I accept that it can on rare occasion be useful to have an individual who has a sort of “final say” regarding difficult decisions, but I also believe that the most successful and most efficient individuals in the positions never use that “final say” (many others, of course, fall victim to the temptation to use it often which usually in my experience quickly devolves to what Joseph Smith referred to as “unrighteous dominion”). The best decisions are mutual decisions where all involved are respected equally. This seems to be how the highest councils of the LDS Church usually are run.

Thus, to me, statements like “The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be” are troubling to me. What “power” of the priesthood is to be expressed within a family? The first answer that comes to mind is the ability of the father to directly request blessings and miracles of God for his family, to perform rituals involving members of his family like baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, or to pass on this authority to his sons. That’s always a nice thing, in my mind, for a father to offer because at our present point in history, he is the only one with the authority to do so in the home. To me, while the authority is divine, it’s no different than if the mother of the home had a bank account of her own with large amounts of funds that she could give to members of her family, including her husband, whenever it was requested (and that, for some unknown reason she was not allow to jointly co-own and operate with her husband). If done in a spirit of generosity and love, without the mother feeling somehow important or entitled due to her ownership of such an account, the sharing of such funds as gifts could help the family to grow together. Of course, if she were concerned about keeping an egalitarian relationship between herself and her husband or children she might not want to make too much use of her bank account. In a similar fashion, I know of many men, myself included, who don’t actually enjoy giving blessings or other priesthood rituals in the home too often because it can be difficult to preserve the particular level of equality that the spousal partnership has currently achieved. However, since such gifts and rituals can be used to strengthen family relationships when done with the right spirit, I would agree that men in the Church, myself included, need to do more of them for the families to which we belong.

However, this idea of the father stepping up in regards to what he has to offer to the family does not seem to be simply what President Packer has in mind. Later statements about how it is a father’s right and duty to preside in the home are certainly much more than an offering of generosity and love. “The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be.” Again, what does this phrase “power of the priesthood” mean? From a note made during the talk (there is no transcript yet, so this may be flavored by thoughts I was having while watching) “The father presides at the table, in family prayer, and in general instruction to the family. When he is present, he is presiding.” It seems to me that President Packer is calling on men to lead and run their families in all settings , even informal things Family Home Evening and other events.

He shared a story where a young man had requested to be ordained to a higher level of the priesthood by an individual that was not his father. We as an audience were given no context for that decision, and were even told later that the young man’s brothers had also previously requested to not have their father involved in their ordinations. The moral of the story was clear, however: it didn’t matter why the father’s sons did not want him involved, he deserved to be involved because he was the father. He had the right because he had contributed his Y chromosomes to their genetic makeup (my words, obviously). It was later related that the forced ordination by the father had indeed resulted in a better relationship between father and son; it can’t be denied, this was a touching end to the story, but for all we know it could have ended just as easily that the young man felt that his reasons for not choosing his father were seen as pointless and, upon feeling that his input was completely ignored, descended into apathy in regards to his place within the Church. In the end, the decision was not forced because of love. The moral of the story was all about respect for authority, and respect for maleness specifically. It wasn’t even about respect for the priesthood, since the story implied that the father should be involved in the ordination even if he didn’t have the authority to be involved (it was jokingly implied that, in such a case, he would be given such authority on the spot as a sort of “military commission”).

And what is the responsibility of women in regards to Pres. Packer’s plea for men to step it up in using the “power” of the priesthood in the home? “Unless we enlist the attention of the mothers and daughters and sisters, who have influence on their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, we cannot progress. The priesthood will lose great power if the sisters are neglected.” Personally, I think that the female members of my own family have far more to give to our family than “attention” and “influence”. Certainly, Heidi can (and does) request blessings using the priesthood in her home, but that is not all that she can do in terms of creating a home that can be shielded from harm. “You [Fathers] have the power of the priesthood directly from the Lord to protect your home. There will be times when all that stands as a shield between your family and the adversary’s mischief will be that power.” I cannot agree with this prediction; the shield is that we, as parents (plural, not gendered), can raise our children to be moral agents that can choose, as we can choose individually and unitedly, to resist immorality and “mischief”. If the use of priesthood in the home can be a bonding agent to help increase trust, love, and respect among all of us, so much the better. But it is only one ingredient among many for a strong home and family. The better ingredients have been what is available to all families, both within and without the LDS Church: love, respect, and kindness.

In total, President Packer’s call for men to step up in employing their authority in both the Church and the home, was severely limiting for members of the Church who do not have the priesthood. Which, if you’ll recall again, is the vast majority of Church members. It was a call for the minority to assert their authority and a call for the majority to assist and aid them in doing so. I felt that the entire talk was a missed opportunity to not simply empower those few men within the Church who have the priesthood, but instead call for all members of the Church to step it up in striving to obtain miracles and blessings from God. While the priesthood is authority that is currently limited to men, a call to live up to the power available to us as children of God is a call that anyone can answer.

All of this is why I appreciated so much the next talk by President Julie Beck, personally applying it somewhat as a corollary to the previous talk. My issue with President Packer’s talk came from my trying to apply generally the principles he was discussing to members of the Church as a whole; much of what he said simply cannot apply to the majority of church members. However, all of what President Beck spoke about is applicable to all members of the Church. She spoke of women in the church increasing faith, strengthening families, and providing relief. And she spoke of the power that can help women in accomplishing these goals: personal revelation. In discussing this, she was appealing to the personal and individual communication available to all individuals. To President Beck, the divine power available to women (and men, I would add) is a power that comes to them directly from God. Women are not dependent upon men to provide them with power: they have it by virtue of their personal relationship with God and their ability to listen to the revelatory promptings of God’s Spirit. Women don’t need men to tell them when they are doing well; she proclaimed that women should be women, not babies to be petted and corrected all the time. “We know we are successful if we live so that we qualify for, receive, and know how to follow the Spirit”.

President Beck was also exhorting the women of the Church to step it up: “In my visits with the sisters, I have felt that there has never been a greater need for increased faith and personal righteousness. There has never been a greater need for strong families and homes. There has never been more that could be done to help others who are in need… When Relief Society functions in an inspired way, it lifts women up and out of a troubled world and into a way of living that prepares them for the blessings of eternal life… Through Relief Society, sisters can receive answers to their questions and be blessed by the combined spiritual power of all the sisters.” Now, I’m not sure what was meant by “through Relief Society” in that statement, but the combined efforts of many people can be a powerful force indeed. In calling upon the sisters to do better, she told them that “We are doing well when we increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes, and seek out and help others who are in need.” There was little from her remarks that was not equally applicable to any member of the Church, or, indeed, any member of another faith entirely. Her talk was not limiting at all, even though it was addressed only to the women of the Church. It was empowering and ennobling counsel that applied to everyone who was listening.

Indeed, these two points of view were present throughout the Conference to varying degrees. At times the exhortations to rely upon divine power was limited to those of the Priesthood, while at other times the same exhortation was given to everyone. Since the majority of Church membership is composed of individuals without Priesthood authority, I felt it was far better to speak to the Church as a whole. Especially since the Priesthood have their own semi-private session of General Conference (semi because I can’t imagine that anyone would ask a sister in attendance to leave). Why give a talk addressed to the Priesthood to the general membership in the first place? Especially one that seemed to be about so much more than wives requesting that their husbands offer and be involved in more blessings and ordinances to members of the family? I don’t have much of an answer.

TL;DR;
President Packer’s talk, while not saying anything negative in particular, was limiting in its aspect, target audience, and application. It was empowering to the few. President Beck’s talk, while also not a paragon of egalitarian thought, was unlimited in aspect, audience, and application. It was empowering to all.

Feel free to checkout or browse the code at:
https://svn.xp-dev.com/svn/tpdFauxWPPlugin/trunk/

As I said, I’m still working on this, so be careful: the code might not actually be working all the time. Feel free to read the logs for more info, I try to at least type something when I commit.

For those who are interested in how to convert your project into a plugin, it’s actually quite simple. A plugin is like a little mini-application: it holds a lib directory for filters, forms, and models; it holds a modules directory for modules (these have to be explicitly activated in each application); and it can hold other directories like web and config. Each of these directories functions the same as in a full application. One nice thing a lot of plugin developers will do is to add a third layer of inheritance above the plugin model classes so that future developers can extend the plugin without having to muck about inside of the plugin code (You might have seen this if you’ve played around with sfGuard: the normal model classes are all empty and extend the Plugin classes which extend the base classes).

Anyways, gather all of that together, and you have the directory structure of a plugin, ready to be used in Symfony. As for the actually business of packaging I’ll have to leave that for later. It can be very simple, but to pull off some really cool things requires a bit of work.

I really want to finish this plugin. I’m getting a little tired of using two solutions for my website and I want to get back to working on other things I’ve planned. So instead of giving everyone the play-by-play for the application (which has been taking FOREVER), I’m going to give status updates on the project, open up a subversion repository, and just start building the applicaiton. At certain points along the way I’ll give posts about certain aspects of the development process that you should keep in mind for application development.

I’ve been swaped the past month with work and school so development on this plugin was somewhat slow. I have finished up my plans for spam checking, however. Considering that this is, basically, version 1 I’ve not written it very well in terms of adding additional spam solutions, but for now there is a Spam class that contains some abstracted functions for spam checking. These functions basically run other functions within the class based upon config variables. Currently there are functions to handle either Akismet or TypePad AntiSPam; I cheated because technically TypePad uses the same API calls as Akismet. Two for the price of one! If no spam solution is specified in the app.yml config file, then all comments are automatically approved. I have still not added Mollum spam checking because it doesn’t return a straight-up boolean response but will, if unsure of the comment’s status after an initial check, present the user with a CAPTCHA field. This sort of two-step process will be a little more involved and I’ll need to see about implementing it later. For now, however, spam collection with two different checking solutions is finished.

Next to work on is the Show View for posts. I want, as stated before, to allow the displaying and listing of posts (basically the entire post module for the frontend) to use any sort of WordPress theme. I will be continuing to push for this goal after cleaning up the subversion repository.

Which brings me to my final bit of news. I suck at subversion; I may use the CLI for it, but it you were to ask me to merge two branches to the trunk or something standard like that, I’d say get someone else. I’m good at checking code out and checking code in. Producing branches and trunks? Not so good at that, but I need to learn. To do so, I’ll be spending a bit of time today cleaning up my project repository and working copy in case anybody wants to check anything out. Currently I’m still developing a full-blown application and not a plugin; converting from a project to a plugin isn’t that hard, so I’ll probably spend some time converting it and continue development as a plugin. The benefit is that if anyone wants to try out this unfinished plugin, or offer any suggestions, they’ll be able to checkout code themselves. I’ll post the URL of the repository as soon as I get it all figured out.

I am expirementing with using a full-fledged IDE for web development at work. Until recently I used gEdit; most people don’t know that gEdit can be extended via plugins to become a fantastic development environment. However, one thing I could never get to work was auto-completion based upon functions and classes in PHP. However, the speed of using gEdit, as opposed to Eclipse, was amazing and I never could quite get the hang of editors like Aptana and Eclipse. Recently, I found that Sun’s Java-based IDE, NetBeans, had added symfony support and I wondered how useful that might be. I tried it and loved it. Using NetBeans is not without issues, however. It’s still a bit buggy (that might be because I’m using the development code) and memory usage is about what you’d expect from a Java-based editor (ie, sometimes really, really high). Still, it’s worked out quite well and I’d recommend giving it a try.

Here’s how I set up my installation of NetBeans. I am running Ubuntu Karmic Koala (9.10).

1. Download Netbeans 6.8 for PHP from netbeans.org
2. Install to /opt/NetBeans
Run the following code to prep the installation directory:

sudo mkdir /opt/NetBeans;
sudo chmod 777 /opt/NetBeans;

Then run the following from a terminal wherever you saved the NetBeans installation file:

chmod +x <netbeans_file>.download;
./<netbeans_file>.download;

This will begin the installation.

Be certain to change the installation from your home directory to /opt/NetBeans!

NetBeans should install itself to the desktop as an icon and to the menu under “Programming”. To uninstall it at any later time simply run:

sh /opt/NetBeans/uninstall.sh;

This will remove the program. To fully remove it, also remove the configuration directories at: ~/.netbeans, ~/.netbeans-registration, and ~/NetBeansProjects.

3.Configure NetBeans.
symfony functionality was included in NetBeans 6.8 so it doesn’t require a plugin in this or later versions. However, it does require some setup to work correctly. Run Netbeans, and go to the Options dialogue (Tools > Options). In the PHP section, go to the Symfony tab. In the Symfony script field, find or enter the path for the symfony script in your local framework installation; don’t refrence the batch file, but rather the one without an extension. Mine is installed at: /usr/share/php/symfony/symfony12/data/bin/symfony

Since we’re likely to be in the middle of a project we’ll set up NetBeans to use this project. In the future, you can set up a symfony project from NetBeans (which will run commands such as “symfony generate:project” and “symfony generate:app” for you).

Start a new project (File > New Project). Choose to create a “PHP Application with Existing Sources”. Click “Next”. Set the source folder to the project’s root folder. It’s best to place the NetBeans metadata in a seperate folder outside of the project. The default for this is within your home directory and will work fine. Click “Next”. If you wish you can set up the accesible URL for your project here (or you can do so as part of the full project configuration later).

NetBeans will, upon analyzing the project, determine that it is a symfony project. However, to have full symfony help, you’ll need to add the framework to the Project Include Path for the project and the project cache. (Yes, this is kinda stupid at first, but it will be a lifesaver!) To add to the Include Path, right-click on the Include Path in the Project Display Pane (should be, by default, the pane in the upper-left; the Include Path should be at the bottom of the list.) I add the cache directory of the project and the lib directory of the framework (for me, this is: /usr/share/php/symfony/symfony12/lib). Once these are added and scanned, their functions should be available in the on-screen tooltips as you type. The reason to add these directories (especially the framework) are because it is expected that we might be editing non-Symfony files with the editor and we don’t want functions and classes that are not accessible to the script to be displayed.

Once you have the project up, to finish your configuration, right click on the project name in the Project Display Pane and select “Properties”. On “Sources” make sure that the Source Folder is the root of the symfony project. You can change the “Test Folder” to the test folder within the project. Set the web root to the web folder within the project. Go to the “Run Configuration” bullet point. Ensure that the Project URL is correct for accessing the application. Once the URL path is set, choose one of the application_dev.php files within the web directory of the project for the “Index File”.

Some of the fun aspects of the new IDE: besides having accurate tooltips about variables and functions, you have the ability to jump (via a right-click) between actions and views. This can be very useful at times when you are trying to track down a particular bug. Another fun trick is to Ctrl-click on a function or a class name: you will jump to that item’s declaration.

That should do it for you! If you have xdebug installed, you should also be able to use the build-in debugger (I haven’t really used it yet, but can already tell just how useful it will be).

Whew, that was a LOT of writing. I wasn’t really expecting that when I decided to do this short series. Still, I think I got into the hang of keeping a regular blog. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it up daily like I have been, but we’ll see. I have a few idea for other interesting posts but for the next while things will get a lot more mundane around here.

I hope everyone enjoyed this series. Perhaps later I’ll go back and source material and such, but until then I’ll leave the comments open on all of them so that people can continue to add (or fix) material.

My hope in regards to Mormon history is that the publishing of Rough Stone Rolling and Massacre at Mountain Meadows heralds a new era of Mormon history: one where the average member of the Church is more exposed to better history than ever before. It’s time to stamp out the myths and legends: the real way that things happened is much cooler! I won’t deny that occasionally it is messier, but, to me, it is far more real that way. I find that, while I can’t possibly begin to feel what the mythic Joseph Smith is like, the human Joseph Smith is someone that I can relate to, kinda understand, and ultimately respect far more. I hope that any of the possibly troubling aspects of anything that I’ve written will not be troubling to future Latter-day Saints! I also hope they weren’t troubling to anyone here reading them.

Thanks again. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

If you found yourself, through some fluke of a time machine or something, walking the streets of 1870s Salt Lake and said to someone, “This is the right place!” it might be that they would have no idea what you were talking about.

“Um, yeah, it is; what are you talking about?” they might respond. Why? Because we don’t know whether Brigham Young actually said these famous words or not.

There are two quotes by later Apostles who remembered what Brigham Young had said. Just before their arrival Brigham had fallen sick with the “Rocky Mountain Fever”, now known as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a disease carried by ticks which can be fatal if not treated. He was very lucky to emerge unscathed by the disease: symptoms include fever, chills, headache, and vomiting. Complications can include diarrhea, nausea, muscle aches, gangrene, arrhythmia, renal failure, and death (yeah, death’s a complication I’d say). Anyways, he was confined to a wagon possibly driven by one of the three slaves in the company, Green Flake (Flake would later be freed in 1854). As they approached the valley, Brigham obviously felt impressed that they had arrived at their new home.

Thirty-three years later, Wilford Woodruff published his recollections of the arrival in the valley. In 1847, his renowned journals were not yet assembled, and his not-so-daily journals (from which he would build his later journals) at this time were very sparse and do not contain the famous phrase. In a publication in 1888 he remembered Brigham had sat up enough to see valley below them and said, “It is the right place. Drive on.”

Erastus Snow, another apostle, recorded later that he had also heard Brigham Young say, “This is the place whereon we will plant our feet and where the Lord’s people will dwell.” The cry went through the wagon train quickly and they descended into the valley floor. We don’t find the statement in anyone’s journals for decades, however. If it was kept alive by word of mouth is uncertain, but it’s only after 1880 that the phrase “This is the place” enters the historical record and stays there. (I think it’s silly to say that one quote or the other is “the correct quote”, personally. I don’t have a problem when people say “This is the place” versus “This is the right place.”)

It is popular to speak of the Salt Lake Valley as being a barren desert without even a tree. This is actually quite false. There were small rivers crossing the valley floor where large green trees grew and the rest of the valley was wet enough to grow brush. In the canyons small green woods grew around the abundant mountain streams. The pioneers had enough water and good soil to immediately begin planting. They built a small dam, usually thought of as an aid in irrigation, but its main purpose was to hold water for livestock, plants, and humans if the rains failed (which they occasionally would in the future). The valley was a good location and the Saints were blessed that nobody else had thought to live there.

Sometimes people will point to a statement by Jim Bridger made to the advance company of pioneers before they reached the Salt Lake Valley; he supposedly said that he would pay 1000 dollars for a bushel of corn raised in the valley; someone has visibly altered the Journal History kept on the plains from the previous statement to “Bridger would give $1,000 if he only knew if we could raise an ear of corn.” (Was this more correct or more dramatic? We don’t know.) Either way, Bridger encouraged the Saints to continue to California. Why? Bridger himself was working on establishing his trading post near the valley; since the valley itself was already a good land for growing food many historians now feel that Bridger was attempting to keep Mormon competition away from his trading post. It didn’t work and eventually the Mormons because so populous that they eventually took over the trading post (and burned it to the ground during the Utah War).

Finally, another myth about the trek west involves the Mormon Battalion. Usually we think of the Mormon Battalion being mustered up using volunteers (like the previous “Zion’s Camp” of years before). However, Brigham Young simply promised the United States government the men it requested. Men were called to go out to the Mormons at Winter Quarters and on the plains. When these men arrived at a Mormon encampment they made a list of all of the men who would be called to serve in the Battalion and it was simply expected that these men would go. Some switches were made and the majority weren’t too happy to be serving in the United States army. They were promised that if they kept their covenants and the commandments they would not be hurt in battle and this promise was kept. They performed well and only fought one battle during their desert trek to California against a herd of wild bulls. Later, after earning money in California, many of the Battalion traveled to the Salt Lake Basin to find the fledgling community and either find or wait for their families.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

I’ve been writing so much in the blog for the past few days that I really have no idea what to say here. I hope everyone is enjoying the Fourth!

Nothing is more American than Fireworks and hot dogs and hamburgers! (Except that, of course, fireworks are Chinese, and hot dogs and hamburgers are of European descent.) Still, I guess we decided to put them together first, so go and enjoy some of those!

Let’s hear it for those things that helped us to win our freedom: ideological upper-class patriots; a continental army that was always poorly fed, poorly paid, and (at first) poorly mustered; the French(who enjoyed using us to slap the British Empire in the face); the Dutch (for allowing us to get into a ton of debt as they and the French helped finance our rebellion); and finally the most important factor of all: the British people who didn’t care much about the war which led British diplomats and politicians to decide it was in Britain’s favor to just sever the insurgent little colonies. (I’d also say God, but hopefully by listing these you can see that I shouldn’t even need to mention Him: God must have been involved to have this list of reasons align into an independent nation!) But, severed though we were, we thrived and pulled ourselves into a good nation.

It’s probably no secret that Brigham Young and Emma Smith never much cared for each other after Joseph’s death. Their personal distaste for each other eventually transformed into a quiet cold war between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that only really died out in the 1960s and 70s. Brigham Young possibly dissolved the Nauvoo General Relief Society, of which Emma was the elected President, because of this battle of wills between two very stubborn people, and didn’t bother re-forming the society for nearly twenty years, at which point he chose Eliza R. Snow to be President (and the RS Presidents have been called by the President of the Church ever since).

However, just because their organization was at this time absent did not mean that the women crossing the plains were content to simply let that be. Early Mormon women were strong characters and have always continued to be. The founding of the Nauvoo Relief Society corresponded with the fledgling Women’s Suffrage movement (which died during the Civil War only to rise again a generation later but that’s another topic entirely), nowadays viewed as the first wave of American feminism. This feminist strength continued throughout the history of Utah, a territory and state which saw women involved in many levels of organization and politics nearly since the beginning of the territory.

Some interesting tidbits from the journal of Louisa Barnes Pratt, wife of Apostle Addison Pratt (Louisa led her family herself across the plains because he was on a mission in the South Seas at the time). On June 7, 1846 while on the trek through Iowa she records:

“Last evening the ladies met to organize. Mrs. Isaac Chase [Pheobe Chase] was called to the chair! She was also appointed President by unanimous vote. Mrs. L. B. Pratt [Lousia Barnes Pratt] Counsellor and scribe. Several resolutions were adopted. 1st Resolved, that when the brethren call on us to attend prayers, get engaged in conversation and forget what they called us for, that the sisters retire to some convenient place, pray by themselves and go about their business. 2nd if the men wish to hold control over the women let them be on the alert. We believe in equal rights. Meeting adjourned sin ni die [sine die - meeting adjourned with no resumption date set].” (Louisa Barnes Pratt, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, pg. 82)

Taken from a post at ByCommonConsent.com.

This might be a little rushed and odd – this post was requested and I don’t have much free time to write it in. As such I really don’t have many sources. Feel free to call me out on anything wrong. I’ll try to either find sources or edit the post with the correct information.

Adam-ondi-Ahman (usually called simply Di-Ahman by the Mormon settlers) is located in Northern Missouri and was a sizable settlement during 1838. As one of the Mormon headquarters during the Mormon War of 1838 it held Mormon militia prepared to defend themselves and to take, by force occasionally, property from the enemy in recompense for property taken from them earlier by mobs of Missourians (the 1838 conflict is a messy affair and while the Mormons were, by far, not the most violent they did participate in fighting, plundering, and property burning of their own; this is the heyday of the Danites, a band of supporters of Joseph Smith whom he used sparingly but they often got out of control in following the prophet’s counsel).

The word had first appeared in a revelation given in 1832 (D&C 78). In this revelation the word was not defined, although the reference is quickly followed by “Michael”, who was identified by Mormons as the name Adam was known by before and after his mortal life. In 1835 another revelation related an event in the early religious history of humanity where Adam blessed his righteous posterity in a valley called Adam-ondi-Ahman.

A site settled in 1838, called Wright’s Ferry, was renamed by God through Joseph as Adam-ondi-Ahman (see D&C 116); Joseph prophesied that in a future day Adam shall come and visit his people and in this place the Ancient of Days, a title variously interpreted by Mormons as either Adam or God (as for Adam-God, nope, not going there!), will sit. Another revelation a few months later castigated the Saints for covetousness and poetically referred to Adam-ondi-Ahman as the “place where Adam dwelt”. These are the only canonical references.

The Early Saints felt that Wright’s Ferry/Spring Hill/Adam-ondi-Ahman/Cravensville (all of the names by which the area has been called) was either the site of the Garden of Eden mentioned in Genesis itself, or it is the location of a place near Eden where the human race began to grow. Spring Hill was also identified as a Nephite fortification. A temple was supposed to have been built here, but due to the Mormon War of 1838, the plans for the temple were indefinitely abandoned and have not yet been taken up again (it has been suggested, however, that no temple site was ever dedicated, but rather a public square for a new settlement was instead dedicated and this dedication transformed over time into a temple dedication – I will look into this more fully).

Since Adam-ondi-Ahman is identified so closely with Adam it has become a source of curiosity to many people both within and outside the faith. There are, however, a few possibilities when we examine the authoritative evidence as to why the site was named:

1. Adam-ondi-Ahman is the site outside Eden where humanity spread over a Pangaea-like world continent that was flooded in a global flood and was later broken up during the days of Peleg leaving humanity in the new Old World.
2. Adam-ondi-Ahman is the site outside Eden where humanity spread over North America until a limited or global flood washed Noah out to sea where he landed in the Old World (kinda like a reverse Nephi).
3. Adam-ondi-Ahman is a name applied to places where Adam blesses his people and is not tied to any particular location on the earth (like the word Zion which can refer to both specific places and also to the location of the Lord’s people wherever they are). There may be multiple Adam-ondi-Ahmans, at least one in the Old World where Adam blessed his people before he died and one in the New World where Adam will bless his people again in a future day.
4. Adam-ondi-Ahman was named as an attempt at Old-Testamentizing the world view of the early Latter Day Saints: to make them feel as though they were directly taking part in the religious drama of the history of the world. In this view there really is nothing in the past to distinguish the area at all, but the arrival of God’s people gave the land new status and God gave it a new name and promise to reflect that.

My personal view is #4, but there may be better reasons to pick a different view. I view the creation story as a ritualized myth (although I should state categorically that I believe in Eve and Adam as real historical people): the landscape described in Genesis is an idealized view of the entire world known to the ancient Jews. The four main rives of Mesopotamia each flow out of Eden to represent that Eden was the center of the world, the source of humanity, life, and knowledge. As such, I am extremely cautious in approaching the Fall story as real history; I don’t know what happened to Eve and Adam but I know something did. Since early human civilization first arises in Mesopotamia, I suppose Adam and Eve lived near there, although I imagine it was dozens of thousands of years ago, rather than just 6,000 years ago, to give time for their posterity to cover the globe. As such, I view Adam-ondi-Ahman to be so named because it represents exactly what D&C 116 says it represents: an important site in some unknown future date where Adam will visit his people. I view the name as being given to the site in an attempt to involve the American Church in the events of the Old World and the Old Testament and to help them to feel that they are truly related to the events in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Just as these ancient people were God’s people, so too are the Latter Day Saints God’s people as well. The naming of the site as Adam-ondi-Ahman represents God’s involvement with his people both past, present, and future.