We’re continuing our conversation with Joe Jessop, LDS grandson of AUB leader Rulon Allred. This time we’re going to get into sticky Mormon Fundamentalists topics. How many wives do you need to get into the Celestial Kingdom? Do they still believe in the race ban in the AUB? We’ll get into more history & doctrine for the Apostlic United Brethren. Check out our conversation…

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Interview

GT  00:43  I feel like we need to talk about Adam-God.

Joe  00:48  I told you I’m an open book. Don’t ask me questions you don’t want me to spew forth on.

GT  00:55  Well, I had, and I don’t know how familiar you are with Christ’s Church, the Peterson group, essentially. I was like, “I don’t understand Adam-God at all. And they actually, I thought, give me a really good explanation. I feel like I have a much better handle on it. But is that one of those things where the AUB kind of views the LDS as like, oh you…

Joe  01:19  They don’t understand the doctrine. They’re not living the fullness of a doctrine.

GT  01:23  Right.

Joe  01:23  Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, it wouldn’t, it certainly wouldn’t negate their priesthood. But it’s just something that the Church just doesn’t understand. It’s one of the many things that the Church has given up, the precious truths of the gospel that the Church has given up over the years. And there’s a handful of them that the AUB group feels that the Church has given up, for sure.

GT  01:52  Okay.

Joe  01:52  The Adam-God doctrine being one of them.

GT  01:55  Because two things that I want to talk about with that. Lindsay Hansen Park, I don’t know if you know her. She has a podcast.

Joe  02:01  It sounds familiar. I recognize the name, but I don’t know.

GT  02:04  She has a podcast called Year of Polygamy, and she’s also the Sunstone Director.

Joe  02:08  Okay.

GT  02:10  But one of the things that she said on my podcast was the reason why the LDS church de-emphasizes Adam-God is because if you believe Adam-God, you have to believe polygamy. Now, I mentioned that to David Patrick, who’s the President of the Quorum of the Twelve in Christ’s Church, as well as Benjamin Shaffer, who’s a Seventy. And they said, “You can believe in Adam-God, but you don’t have to be a polygamist.”

Joe  02:41  Yeah, so what I personally think and what I understand of the Adam-God doctrine are two different things. Because I have my own personal philosophy on what I think it is. But, as far as what the fundamentalists believe, and again, everything will go back to Brigham Young on this one. You’ll find little slivers of it in Joseph Smith. But if you’re going on a mining expedition for Adam-God doctrine, the nuggets are in Brigham Young. You might find a flake or two with Joseph Smith, but, really…

GT  03:21  Do you think it went back to Joseph Smith? Did Joseph Smith teach Adam-God?

Joe  03:24  I don’t think he did. If he did, I’m not saying that he didn’t, maybe, allude to it, but it was not something…

GT  03:32  It was in King Follett, right?

Joe  03:32  Yes. Because, he talked about it at the King Follett sermon at his funeral and things like that. So, you certainly have things that if you want to read between the lines, you could say, “Yeah, okay, this certainly would encompass, and could fit within that.” But it’s Brigham Young, who really codifies it, and really starts teaching it that Adam is the literal, physical and spiritual father of Jesus Christ. And that Mary is one of God’s wives. So, it’s Adam, and Mary who get together that end up having Jesus Christ in the Immaculate Conception, or if you put it that way, the not-so- immaculate conception.

GT  04:33  Oh this is a can of worms. I was just talking about, I’m trying to remember, I just talked to Todd Compton about this, because we were talking a little bit about polyandry. Would Mary be polyandrous, since she was married to Joseph and Adam?

Joe  04:53  Sure. Yeah, in that regard, you could say that. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. You’re opening up a can of worms there. How do you describe who Mary is?

GT  05:04  Right.

Joe  05:04  So yeah, so that’s the essence or the basics of what the Adam-God doctrine is. I remember having a discussion with my dad, once, because I never, just on a personal level, I’ve read all about it, and it just doesn’t fit. To me, personally, it doesn’t make sense.

GT  05:27  Adam-God doesn’t make sense.

Joe  05:29  To me, it doesn’t. But I can sit down with my brother, and we can debate for three hours. And to him it makes perfect sense. Absolutely perfect sense. To me, it doesn’t. I can’t make it add up. One time, I got into a bit of an argument with my dad. I said, “Why are we, why do we care so much, like, who God is?”

Joe  05:55  And he told me. He said, “Well, it’s your it’s your duty. It’s your priesthood duty to know the very nature of God. And once you understand the very nature of God, then you can understand what our true potential is.” So, the Adam-God doctrine, to me, the way I understand it is not so much about polygamy, as it is about the potential of who God is. That’s what you can become, that you’re going to eventually become an Adam. That those Godhead, the gods…

GT  06:48  Are going to need all these extra wives to populate the planet, right?

Joe  06:50  Well, you need you need wives to populate the planet, but more, polygamy is not just about population. This is one of the misnomers that people have about polygamy. They think that it’s about having [kids.] The two big ones: they think it’s all about having kids. That’s important. I’m not saying that it’s not, and that it’s about the sexual desires of a man. I’m not saying those two things aren’t present, but they’re certainly not the absolute reasons. The reasons for polygamy is not just to go and have more children, although that is part of it. Because the more children they have, the bigger your kingdom becomes. And that’s what it’s–we’re required to replenish the earth.

GT  07:35  Right.

Joe  07:36  Okay, so that’s part of it. But the other part of it, Rick, that a lot of people don’t understand, the real reason, or the biggest reason for living polygamy is that you learn to govern. You learn to become God.

GT  07:54  You learn to deal with all the dysfunctional family members, right?

Joe  07:57  That’s exactly, well, yeah, you have to, you’re going to learn things you never learned. You and I aren’t going to have the beauties of trying to have a second wife get along with a first wife.

GT  08:10  That’s the thing, when you look at the Bible, I mean, I know so many people have problems with polygamy. Especially, like Protestants, and I have some Protestant listeners.

Joe  08:21  Sure.

GT  08:22  But I sit there, and I look and I just want to say look, “It’s in the Bible. Moses was a polygamist. Abraham was a polygamist, like, David, Solomon.” And every single one of them, every single one of them had dysfunctional families.

Joe  08:38  Every single one of them, yes. And so, this is where I’m going with this. This is a little bit nuanced. I get it.  And I may get some people in the AUB group, if they listen, I don’t know if they do or not, that may disagree with me. They’ll say oh, he kind of got part of it.

GT  08:54  Well, if they disagree, come on here and I’d love to have you talk about it.

Joe  08:57  (Chuckling) But really, so polygamy encompasses the ability of a man to become a god. They’re building their kingdom and they’re learning how to rule, how to rule justly and fairly, how to love, how to create and get along, and how to build this kingdom, so that they can advance to become gods. That that’s the essence of not only Adam-God doctrine, but it’s the essence of polygamy.

GT  09:38  As a god, you need to learn to deal with dysfunction, right?

Joe  09:41  Well, yeah, you better. I mean, because we know from the pre-existence that even Lucifer was in the very existence. He was right there. So, we don’t ever get away from it. We don’t ever get away from dysfunction.

GT  09:55  Do we have a wrong idea of the Celestial Kingdom?  (Chuckling)

Joe  09:58  Maybe, so, but when you start talking about, now, we’re talking really deep doctrine and nuances here.  And this is where I will get in some trouble with some of my friends and family where they’ll say, “Oh, you’re just way off your rocker here, Joe.” But one of the things that happens in polygamy is, remember, we talked about this already. You don’t live polygamy outside priesthood authority. Otherwise, it’s adultery. It’s my personal belief. I’m not saying this is doctrine. I’m not saying I’m 100% right. But, from what I’ve seen, one of the problems with polygamy is priesthood authority. Because what happens is when you’re taught that you can only go to the Celestial Kingdom if you live the laws that the gods live. If you want the blessings of Brigham, you got to live the way Brigham lived. Well, if you teach that, you now suddenly put a huge weight on that doctrine. It’s a big, heavy weight. And it creates us a tremendous amount of pressure. to not only do it, but to do it right. So, these families are under insane pressure.

GT  11:21  It seems impossible to me to “Do It Right.”

Interview

Joe  11:26  Yeah, well, it is. Life is impossible to do right. And let alone, you add all of that on top of it. But you start putting into your family life and your family structure, the weight of eternity. And now people are entering polygamous relationships, because it’s the only way to get to eternity, to get there. Otherwise, they’re damned souls. And it’s a problem. Personally, I see that as a problem, because within the polygamous groups, this is what’s happening. Oddly enough, polygamy might actually work out a little bit better, if it didn’t have the big heavy thumb of the priesthood over the top of it, saying, “This is an eternal doctrine, and you better live it or be damned.” I’m almost heresy here in saying this. The Muslim countries, it’s kind of a cultural thing. And yeah, if you want more than one wife, and she consents, and you guys consent, and you’re all good, fine. But it’s put underneath the thumb of priesthood authority, as a have to. I know people. I’m personal friends with people who view living polygamy as every bit as important, if not way more important, than paying tithing. It’s a doctrine. You live it. You do it. And if you don’t, you cannot be with your wife for eternity. I know people that have gone out and married people that they don’t love, specifically, so that they can be with their wife for eternity.

GT  13:20  Oh, really?

Joe  13:21  One hundred percent. I know women who have coerced their husbands to marry again, so that they can have an eternal family. Because otherwise we can’t. That kind of pressure, it’s not livable. Things have to burst. And so, I believe that you’re seeing some of those problems. Polygamy is not being lived the way it was, even when I was younger, even in the AUB groups. So many people are just aren’t doing it. It’s like, it’s too much. It’s too much pressure. There’s still enough doing that it’s still happening, obviously. I don’t want to give the wrong direction that it’s not happening. It is, but…

GT  14:17  Is there a doctrine that a man has to have at least three wives to inherit [the Celestial Kingdom?] It seems like, well, the Celestial Kingdom is also divided into three levels, right?

Joe  14:28  Oh, yeah. And remember, each one of those levels has levels, too.

GT  14:33  Oh, okay. It’s multi-levels. (Chuckling)

Joe  14:35  Yeah. It’s multi-level marketing. (Chuckling) No, Yeah. But each one of those [levels], I grew up thinking and believing that if you didn’t reach the very, very tippy top of the top, that anything less than that would be pure hell, because you knew that you should be here. And if you draw the shape of a pyramid, this is just me. I’m going a little bit facetious here and allegorical, but if you draw a pyramid on the whiteboard, how many people can fit at the top of that thing? One of you can. And that’s one of the problems with what’s happening in the fundamentalist groups. They’re so fundamentalist, the fundamentalist groups, the very nature of fundamentalism, is not to reach out and include, and gather. The very nature of fundamentalism is to shed. So, every time the skin is shed, or every time, there’s a winnowing, you’re separating the wheat from the chaff. So, you will get people inside the AUB group that look at the 2014 split, that look at the 1951 split as 100% God-inspired, directed by God, himself. Because it purified, and that’s what we need to do is we need to purify. So, what happens is, from an outside perspective, I know they don’t see it this way. I’m going to have problems with my own family members who, if they end up seeing this, will be like, “Oh my gosh. Here goes Joe again.” [The problem] is that they end up building these walls around themselves. [They build] these huge, massive, spiritual and doctrinal walls and nobody can get in and oftentimes they forget to build a door in so that they can get out, if needed. You are all in. You are all in or you are all out. The kingdom of God or nothing, or nothing! There is no such thing as a little bit. You get all the way in.

GT  16:52  Very interesting. So, going back to that question, the three wives is that required…

Joe  17:00  Oh, sorry.

GT  17:01  …for a certain level?

Joe  17:02  Yeah, I didn’t mean to throw off that question. Yeah, there’s different levels of quorums, if you will, that a man can achieve. This is not talked about. People aren’t going to be happy that I’m even saying it. This isn’t something that’s talked about over the pulpit. You’ll find it in “priesthood circles.” I keep doing this a lot, [air quotes.] My dad used to always say that when I’d have a question for him. I would have these deep, philosophical questions. And he’d say, “Well, that’s not the way that it’s taught in priesthood circles,” or “the way that it’s taught in priesthood circles…”

Joe  17:36  I always want to say, “Well, where are these priesthood circles? Where are these teachings?” And one of the problems with fundamentalism, is fundamentalism is very much an oral history and living of the gospel doctrines they espouse.

GT  17:53  Because they don’t want to write it down, or they’ll end up in jail?

Joe  17:55  That’s part of it, true. But I grew up thinking that fundamentalists don’t change. We don’t change. We take what Joseph Smith taught, and we do what Joseph Smith taught. And that’s what we do. And then I realized, like, “Whoa, whoa. We change a lot.” The fundamentalist groups are constantly changing. One of the reasons that they’re changing is there’s nothing [that] can ever be written down and pinned down.

Joe  18:18  You get 10 polygamists in a room and ask them what Rulon Allred said at his last sermon, and you’ll get 10 different people going, “Well, here’s what he said.” And because none of the doctrines are, written down, like, “This is what we’re going to do, and this is what policy is.” Fundamentalism, which is supposed to be a rock, really ends up being more like a feather that gets blown around and changing constantly. I mean, constantly. Because there’s nothing ever that can get pinned down to, “Oh, this guy did this. And here’s the way that it’s supposed to be done.” And so, you won’t hear this doctrine of number of wives. You’ll hear it in certain circles or in certain settings. You’d never hear it across the pulpit. But you first have to live polygamy. That’s the first step is you’ve got to live polygamy.

GT  19:09  So, you’ve got to get two.

Joe  19:10  So, you’ve got to get two. You’ve got to get your second. If you don’t get your second, you don’t even get to knock on the door of the Celestial Kingdom.

GT  19:18  Really? There are no single people in the Celestial Kingdom.

Joe  19:21  No, no. Oh, Rick.

GT  19:24  Sorry, I thought they could get there.

Joe  19:26  How so very elementary of you to think that there would be…

GT  19:30  What about, like…

Joe  19:31  A man and a wife.

GT  19:32  A six-year-old that dies before the baptism?

Joe  19:36  Oh, well, he’s got wives.

GT  19:38  He’s got wives?

Joe  19:39  Yeah. Oh, sure. If he’s in the Celestial Kingdom, you betcha. There’s nobody in the Celestial Kingdom that’s not a polygamist.

GT  19:47  Okay.

Joe  19:50  You can’t get there without being a polygamist.

GT  19:52  A six-year-old boy dies from leukemia and marries the six-year-old girl who died from leukemia and gets another one or something? Is that how it works?

Joe  20:00  Well, we don’t understand exactly how those work. But what we do know is that you won’t be in the Celestial Kingdom without living the highest laws of celestial plural marriage. That’s the pinnacle doctrine.

GT  20:13  So, the LDS are all going to Terrestrial Kingdom?

Joe  20:15  Yeah, they won’t be in the Celestial. President Nelson probably could because…

GT  20:21  Well, he’s a serial monogamist.

Joe  20:23  His first wife died and now he’s married again. So, he might be able to get in.

GT  20:28  Okay, so people who marry multiple times because of death of wives, or what about divorce? In the LDS, you’re still sealed [even after a divorce.]

Joe  20:38  Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you’re just not going to get in without the blessings of polygamy. You’re just not. I mean, I’m actually not trying to be funny about it. That is legitimately the way that the fundamentalists believe. You are not getting in. There’s nobody in the Celestial Kingdom, that is not living [polygamy.]

GT  20:59  Two is a bare minimum.

Joe  21:00  Two at a bare minimum. That’ll get you a knock on the door, and maybe somebody will open up the door and say, “Hey, you can come in and visit. Leave your shoes on.” But three is kind of, they have names for it. I’m getting them mixed up in my head right now. So rather than getting them wrong, I’m not even going to say them. But three, and then five, and then seven and then 12. Those are different quorums.

GT  21:29  Is anybody going to top of Solomon with 700 [wives] and 300 [concubines]?

Joe  21:32  Oh, heavens, Solomon is the man.

GT  21:34  He’s the top of the pyramid.

Joe  21:36  He’s the top of the pyramid.

GT  21:37  Nobody’s going to catch Solomon.

Joe  21:39  But yeah, so you will have like in order in order to serve on the council, you are, you supposedly have to have three wives. However, that has changed, because there have been men that have served on the council without three wives. In order to be able to be the head of the priesthood, you have to have at least five wives. Seven wives, there’s a saying that Joseph Musser or Lorin Wooley said any man that could govern seven wives had his calling and election made sure.[1]

GT  22:17  So, no matter the dysfunction, or does it have to be–I mean, I just look at poor Jacob. He had four wives and complete, dysfunctional children.

Joe  22:35  Oh, yeah. There’s dysfunction all over the place. Yeah.

GT  22:39  I don’t know.

Joe  22:40  So yeah, the number of wives is certainly a hot topic. As far as it’s kind of one of the back [burner topics.] It’s a hot topic, but it’s also one of the things. Even polygamists [say], “Let’s not talk about that. Because that kind of makes us a little bit uncomfortable.” I remember having an argument with my dad one time. He said, “Well, in order to get the blessings that Brigham Young is going to get, then you got to live the way Brigham Young’s got to live.”

Joe  23:10  I said, “Well, Dad, you got, like, 20 more wives to go, then.”

GT  23:12  Didn’t he have like, 60, or close to that?[2]

Joe  23:15  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Joseph Smith had 29 or something like that. Brigham Young had however many.

GT  23:20  I think he was close to 60, yeah.

Joe  23:22  Whatever it was, when I told dad, I said, “Well, you got a lot more wives to go in order to get the blessings of Brigham.”

Joe  23:29  He didn’t [respond] It’s one of those awkward moments. I love my dad, but it’s one of those awkward moments that I had with my dad where he’s like, kind of caught in his own stew. Like, “Oh, that doesn’t make sense.” (Chuckling)

GT  23:41  Yeah.

Joe  23:43  So yeah. So that’s a big one.

Interview

Joe  23:45  And, of course, the black issue is another big issue within the fundamentalist movements, as well. But that might have to be, I don’t know what you have for timewise, but that’s a whole ‘nother…

GT  23:58  Is there more to go? I thought we covered it, but is there more?

Joe  24:01  Oh, well, I’m here your request, so you can–however you want to ask. Whatever you want to do.

GT  24:08  Well, what else can you tell us about the black issue?

Joe  24:11  Well, the black issue is – the reason I bring it up is because of how it really separates the fundamentalists from the mainstream Church.

GT  24:22  This is one question that I have. I don’t know how much people, like, in the AUB have studied, like Lester Bush’s stuff?

Joe  24:37  Very little.

GT  24:37  Very little.

Joe  24:38  Some have.

GT  24:39  Because, I look at Lester Bush, Newell Bringhurst, Paul Reeve. I mean, Matt Harris, especially, is going to come out with an amazing book.  I cannot wait to have Matt Harris back on, because priesthood ban is one of my favorite issues. And I feel like I’ve documented pretty well five or six black men that were ordained before Joseph Smith died. And then there’s a guy named Warren McCary, who Brigham Young, in 1846 said, “There’s a fine African elder in Lowell, Massachusetts,” and he was referring to Walker Lewis. So, Brigham Young was favorably disposed to blacks having the priesthood. My theory, I need to write a book and make sure that I–because Paul Reeve disagrees with me, but Paul’s wrong. (Chuckling) Love you, Paul. Because it seems to me 1847-ish. I have to go back to my paper that I wrote. It seems to me that there were two issues. One was with a guy named Warner McCary, who tried to start doing some interracial polygamy, which did not go well. And then Walker Lewis, his son, Enoch, had an interracial marriage, as well, and there was a mixed-race child. And a mission president named William Appleby told Brigham Young about this. So, you’ve got these two interracial relationships. One was monogamous, but Warner McCary was definitely polygamous and Brigham Young, concerning the Enoch Lewis case, said they ought to be killed, because he was so strongly against interracial marriage.

Joe  24:39  It’s a sad situation. It even goes deeper, sadder than that, because now that that poor interracial child can’t even have children. He’s like a mule.

GT  26:20  Oh, yeah. That’s why they come up with Mulatto. Yeah, Russell Stevenson talked about that.

Joe  26:48  He can’t even bear fruit.

GT  26:51  Yeah.

Joe  26:52  I mean, that was the belief.

GT  26:53  That was the belief, yeah. So, it’s my opinion that Brigham Young was going to put a stop to interracial marriages, because of Warner McCary and Enoch Lewis, and that’s when the ban came. Because you can’t identify– I know, Paul has done some amazing work with, I’m trying to remember what his website is, Century of Black Mormons, I think, is what it’s called. There have been people. Elijah Able was a little bit of an exception, but there have been people that pass for white, that were ordained, or were married in the temple, in the case of a woman. But those were “mistakes,” or “we didn’t know.” And so, with the exception of Elijah Able’s son and grandson, I think his grandson was ordained in 1934. There haven’t been any openly ordained black men, since 1846, that I’ve seen. Paul is an expert on it. Maybe he’s found some. I want to put the ban at 1847, and then 1852, with the legislature: “Blacks will not rule over me.”  I mean, Paul has done some fantastic work. Paul says that it really wasn’t well-defined, until after Elijah Able died, which is 1880 or something like that.[3] And then Elijah Able, “We just want don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

Joe  28:36  Yeah.

GT  28:36  We’ll just put him in the memory hole.

Joe  28:38  Yeah, that’s interesting, because…

GT  28:40  But my point is, do the AUB even know about these six men? Probably not.

Joe  28:47  Oh, very little. They know very little about the actual history of blacks in the priesthood, any pre-Brigham Young.

GT  28:55  I guess I need to write a book and then you can deliver it up to them.

Joe  28:58  (Chuckling) So here’s kind of the funny thing. First of all, I joke with my polygamist friends. We joke quite openly and especially with my family members, probably a little bit too loosely about things like that especially in this woke world that we live in. But I always joke with them that, “You know what the church didn’t 1978,” I always say, “They out-fundamental-ed the fundamentalists.” Because the idea of a fundamentalist is you go back to Joseph Smith. You do what Joseph did. And I’m like, “Isn’t that kind of what 1978 did?” All the way back, they went back over the top. Spencer W. Kimball went back to Joseph Smith. He didn’t go back to Brigham Young.

GT  29:48  Exactly.

Joe  29:49  He went back to Joseph Smith. Now, you could get probably 100 more people on here that know way more than me about blacks in the priesthood and blacks in the church, pre-1847, and post 1852 and pre-1978 and all that kind of stuff. What I find, when I think of blacks and the priesthood, I tend to look at it through a polygamist lens. Because it is a defining, I can’t even tell you how importantly, defining it is that blacks do not hold the priesthood, cannot hold the priesthood in the fundamentalist groups. It is, literally, the very thing, even as much, if not more so, than giving up polygamy.

GT  30:46  Moreso than polygamy?

Joe  30:47  It’s on the same [level.] If you want you want to talk about the pillars of polygamy,  the pillars of polygamy are polygamy, blacks in the priesthood, and Adam-God doctrine. Those are the pillars. Blacks in the priesthood is something [important.] I mean, the Church lost their priesthood when they gave the black men the priesthood in 1978. They lost it, according to the polygamists, 100% lost it. You cannot hold the priesthood if you’re a black man. As a black man, if you have any, any amount of African blood in you, you are the seed of Cain. And therefore [you] carry the Curse of Cain. And the Curse of Cain is you cannot have the priesthood until all the sons of Abel have had the priesthood. And the reason that you are a black man is because you are cursed from the preexistence, where you refused to fight. You didn’t follow the devil. You didn’t follow Satan, but you refused to fight with the forces of righteousness in Christ. And therefore, you were destined to come through the seed of Cain. You cannot hold the priesthood.

GT  32:15  So, because, to me that flies in the face of Article of Faith 2. Is that still a big deal with AUB?

Joe  32:25  Oh, sure, Articles of Faith are there, yes.

GT  32:29  “Men are punished for their own sins, but not for Adam’s transgression.” But Cain is different. Cain is not Adam, right? Is that the idea?

Joe  32:37  Cain is not Adam. He’s post Adam.

GT  32:39  So, you can be punished for Cain’s transgression?

Joe  32:41  Yes.

GT  32:41  But not for Adam.

Joe  32:43  You could easily be, yes, you can be punished for Cain’s transgression. But more importantly than that, in polygamy, Rick, the doctrine has jumped over the top of Adam and gone to the preexistence. So, it doesn’t have anything to do with Adam. They’ve gone to the preexistence and in the preexistence…

GT  33:03  So, they sinned in the preexistence by not fighting.

Joe  33:05  In the preexistence, based on their lack of valiancy, their lack of willing[ness] to fight. That is what destines them to come through the seed of Cain.

GT  33:16  And so, curses are multi-generational curses.

Joe  33:19  Yeah, absolutely. And even one drop. So, yeah, amen to the priesthood of that man. Even one drop of African blood. And, the funny thing is, is that is that in a weird way, the polygamists, I know that sounds so racist for me to say that. That’s blatantly raw. It’s really raw. There might be people that watch this and go, “Oh, geez, what’s he saying? And what’s Rick letting Him say?” But weirdly enough, the polygamists don’t really view themselves as racist.

GT  33:55  Oh, I’m not surprised at all.

Joe  33:56  They don’t think that that’s racist. They actually think, differently than that. They think that they’re actually showing charity towards the black [people]. Because you don’t want to give the priesthood to somebody who can’t handle it.

GT  34:13  It’s like a 3-year-old driving a car, right? It sounds like Randy Bott.

Joe  34:16  Yeah, that’s exactly right. So, I grew up with that. Rick, this is one of the big issues that I had when I joined the Church. Not very many people know this. I share this. Now lots of people are going know. But I struggled with that. I had a very difficult time when I was joining the Church. I mean, I spent a lot of time…

GT  34:30  That was tougher than polygamy for you?

Joe  34:40  Way tougher.

GT  34:40  Tougher than monogamy, I guess I should say.

Joe  34:42  Way tougher.

GT  34:43  Wow.

Joe  34:44  Way tougher for me, because I quickly and easily–I don’t want to use the wrong word here, but I quickly and easily discarded polygamy because it’s like, “I don’t want anything to do that.” But then, when it came to actually being able to hold the priesthood, it’s like, “Oh my gosh. I’m going to be joining an organization that maybe doesn’t have the priesthood, and then they have a black person, what happens?” Rick, what happens if a black person is going to hand me the sacrament? What do I do? That scared me,

GT  35:16 Really?

Joe  35:17  That legitimately scared me. I remember my wedding day. I’m already a member of the Church. But my wedding day, my best man, my best friend my whole life growing up, comes to me and he starts talking to me about the temple. And he’s a member of the AUB group. And he’s been married in their endowment house and gone through the endowment ceremony and what they think is or what they claim is the original endowment, which isn’t, but that’s a thing for a whole ‘nother…

GT  35:45  But, you haven’t participated in any of that, right?

Joe  35:46  I have not participated in that. But I know all about it, because I dig around and I have–you know how it is when you’re a historical researcher, you find things. That’s just the way that it is. And then people come and share things with you, that sometimes you wish that they hadn’t shared. But, on my wedding day, my best man, my best friend comes to me, and he says, “Joe, when you get ready to go through the temple, make sure that you never take the hand of a black man in the temple.”

Joe  36:20  My own father warned me of the same thing. “Just make sure.”

Joe  36:26  Rick, and this is some vulnerability for you here. The first couple of years that I was in the LDS Church–my wife and I got married civilly first, and then we were sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple about a year after I was baptized. But when we started going to the temple, every time we’d go to the temple, I would pray, “Lord, please, please don’t let there be a black man in the temple.” I would seriously pray that. I honestly would. And it was a real, sincere prayer. I was scared to death, scared I was going to lose my priesthood. It just terrified me. Because that is ingrained in you, as a fundamentalist. You do not go there. Because now you’re talking son of Perdition-type of stuff. You’re talking about blatantly just disregarding your own priesthood, when you know better. You’ve been taught, Joe. You know better. It was hard.

Joe  37:42  It was something. It really, honestly, it’s that issue that probably, more than any other issue, led me into historical research and religious studies on my own, just as an independent researcher. [I was] just doing deep dive after deep dive into that issue. And it took me several years to become comfortable with it. It really did. It took me several years. And one of the things that’s hard right now is this is probably one of the biggest hang-ups that people in the fundamentalist groups [have] when they leave the fundamentalist groups and come to the Church. It is one of the biggest hang-ups they have. It’s hard for them. And as Church members, we want to roll our eyes at them and say, “Oh, just, that’s so crazy.” And it is. But you’re trying to rearrange 20 years or 40 years or a lifetime of wiring. That doesn’t happen overnight. That just doesn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen overnight for me. I had some experiences that helped me get through that in a really unique way, that I’ve never looked back on, including meeting a black man in the temple and having to take his hand. It just, it’s a very difficult topic. It’s a raw, it’s a raw topic. It still is somewhat raw, even just in the LDS Church, when people find out. Some people will find out, “Oh, my gosh, they used to not let blacks hold the priesthood. And well, I’m out of here.” Some people in the Church related that. I’ve had good friends who have left the Church over that very issue. It’s still a lightning rod topic, and it certainly is inside fundamentalism as well.

GT  38:13  All right, well, is there anything else we need to talk about that, as far as race is concerned?

Joe  39:53  You know, not necessarily as far as race is concerned. Those historians that you mentioned, I think, are really important for people to go and read, including members of the LDS Church, but, particularly fundamentalists.

Interview

Joe  40:12  Fundamentalists are very good in their own history. I grew up knowing know more about polygamist Mormon history than–I could have run circles around my LDS friends. They’d be like, “What?”

GT  40:25  Well, you grew up in Pinesdale, Montana. You were in elementary school. It was a private polygamist school, right?

Joe  40:37  Correct.

GT  40:38  Because I know, I don’t know, there was that Keep Sweet on Netflix. I don’t know if you saw that.

Joe  40:43  Yeah, I’ve seen little bits and pieces of it. It doesn’t exactly depict what’s going on in the AUB group. But there’s enough of it that strikes fairly close to home, that it can make you uncomfortable.

GT  40:58  Because one of the things that they did was, they would have a priesthood history class in the FLDS.

Joe  41:07  Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah.

GT  41:07  You had those as well?

Joe  41:09  Yeah.

GT  41:10  And it was all about the Mussers and Allreds.

Joe  41:14  One of the things that every polygamist will know is they will know their priesthood lineage.

GT  41:18  And so, they would know about this eight hour meeting and everything we talked about earlier.

Joe  41:20  Oh, yeah, one hundred percent, they would, one hundred percent, yeah, absolutely.

GT  41:24  And that was just a school class.

Joe  41:26  Oh, yeah. That’s going to be taught in your school classes, in your Sunday school classes, in your primary classes, across the pulpit, absolutely. Yeah. When you when you go to a polygamist church, you’re going to get, really, sermons about three or four things. And really, that’s primarily what you’re going to get. And I still, like, I’ll go with my mom, sometimes, Mother’s Day or something like that, or, she’s not feeling well, I’ll take her to church. I’ll go to church with her. But you’re going to hear sermons primarily about the history of polygamy. You’re going to hear sermons about the United Order and consecration. You’re going to hear sermons about blacks in the priesthood.

GT  42:18  Really?

Joe  42:18  Oh, yeah.

GT  42:19  Wow.

Joe  42:22  And especially in priesthood lessons, you’re going to hear priesthood lessons about blacks in the priesthood. You’re really going to get into that and the reasons why blacks can’t hold the priesthood. You’re going to hear lessons about, I already said United Order. You’re going to hear lessons about the Adam-God doctrine. And you’re going to hear lessons about the importance of polygamy, obviously, and becoming a celestial being. That’s really the focus are those things.

GT  42:55  And so you only use– well, do they ever address the thing in Jacob where it says that a man should only have one wife? (Chuckling)

Joe  43:03  Well, yeah. Again, the way they address that, is that, unless you’re commanded to.

GT  43:10  And they’re commanded to.

Joe  43:11  And they’re commanded to. Yeah, absolutely. So, there’s a whole ‘nother line of–currently what’s going on, of course, honestly, we probably really don’t have time for this, of the leadership and what’s going on within the leadership of the AUB currently, and things like that. But it’s a unique history. I jokingly said. I was talking to my son today, on the way down here, and he said, “You’re going on a podcast,” and he goes, he says, “Well, you probably know quite a bit about that.”

Joe  43:45  And I said, “Well, I know quite a bit about a really narrow topic. I’m pretty good inside this little really narrow topic.” But it fascinates me, and it encompasses so much, everywhere from the temple–you’re digging into deep doctrine of temple endowments and blacks in the priesthood and Adam-God doctrine and the theology of the Celestial Kingdom.  What is the Celestial Kingdom? And becoming gods and things like that. That’s what the fundamentalist groups are. They’re living the pinnacle. They’re living the top doctrines. That’s what their focus is.

GT  44:31  I’ve heard that they’re not as strict on the Word of Wisdom as LDS are.

Joe  44:35  No, they’re not. That’s an interesting conundrum. That’s a pretty astute observation, actually. Because they’re, not. In fact, that’s one of the things they think that the Church is a little bit snooty about.

GT  44:50  So, you don’t have Word of Wisdom lessons like we do.

Joe  44:54  Yeah, no, that’s exactly right.

GT  44:55  When I say you, you’re LDS like me, but the AUB…

Joe  44:57  When it comes to the Word of Wisdom, it’s not, at least in the AUB group, it’s not about, like, they’re still very strict about alcohol and tobacco, but pretty lenient on coffee.

GT  45:12  Oh, really?

Joe  45:13  Oh yeah. If you’re drinking coffee, they could care less.

GT  45:16  Because in your chapter…

Joe  45:17  For the most part.

GT  45:19  I don’t want to give away too much from your chapter, because you were you were kind of wild in college right?

Joe  45:24  Yes.

GT  45:24  But you didn’t partake alcohol?

Joe  45:27  Yes. That was a no-no, very little participation in alcohol. I sniffed around the edges of it. I was a basketball player. So, I was trying to keep my body in tip top, shape and form. But, yeah, the alcohol wasn’t my problem.

GT  45:49   You were just at too many parties and didn’t study enough.

Joe  45:53  Yeah.

GT  45:53  Okay.

Joe  45:54  There’s this other species out there called girls. (Chuckling)

GT  46:03  Well, I don’t want to give away too much because you need to read that book. Well, it’s a long book. But, anyway, I just had Newell Bringhurst and Craig Foster on.

Joe  46:14  Great guys.

Interview

GT  46:15  They’re awesome. So, I’m trying to think of what else is there that we should know about the AUB?

Joe  46:23  I am admittedly, an apologist, both an LDS apologist, and somewhat of a polygamist apologist.

GT  46:37  But, you’re also a little bit of a heretic, aren’t you?

Joe  46:40  Yes. Well, I’m a little bit of a lot of things. I one hundred percent disagree, doctrinally and theologically and all that kind of stuff with so much of my good friends in the fundamentalist movement, in the AUB. I disagree with the way that my–I love my dad and love my mom, and my dad’s wives. I had an incredible family. We really did have an incredible family and a unique way of growing up. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But I disagree. I didn’t want to live my life that way. But I also don’t want to tell them that they can’t live their life that way. And I think that there’s too much of that. We want to tell them the way that they can’t– you’re not supposed to live your life that way. So, I’m a bit of an apologist that way, religious libertarian, maybe. The thing about the AUB is the AUB, and I’m trying to thread the needle here a little bit. The AUB traditionally has not been a group that has been out there and in the headlines. And, you know, they’ve really…

GT  48:08  Until Kody Brown.

Joe  48:08  Yeah, until Kody Brown. Yeah. They’ve really, honestly, tried to stay to themselves, stick to themselves, live their life, live their doctrine, leave us alone. We’ll leave you alone. We’ll just be fine. They’re not trying to say they, for the most part, their history is full of live and let live, even though they have, inside themselves, have winnowed in and separated wheat from chaff. But as far as the outside world is concerned, they haven’t really tried to go against the grain too much. They’ve tried to integrate, might be a good word. They’ve tried to integrate into the world and be not of the world, but,are part of the world but not of the world, I think is how you say that. But that is changing. It is, unfortunately, changing, even in the AUB group.

GT  49:01  What do you mean, unfortunately.

Joe  49:02  There’s less and less of that openness. And I see, these are the things I started talking to my dad about before he died. As far back as 2005, I said, “You know, there’s something that starting to happen in the AUB group. They’re starting to close in. They’re starting to solidify. They’re starting to close in. They’re starting to shut out the outside world.” That’s starting with this jumping in this appointing of who the next successor is. That’s going to cause big problems for them. It may not cause big problems right now. It has caused big problems for them, but it may not cause big problems with Dave Watson. Dave Watson’s a really good guy. I know him. He’s a good guy. It may not cause problems with him, but eventually, that policy, it’s a hand grenade with the pin already pulled. And it will explode and lead to more splits and more fracturing. It just will. That’s what happens. So, that’s one thing that is happening.

GT  50:05  So you think the LDS succession based on seniority provides a lot of stability?

Joe  50:10  Oh, it provides a tremendous amount of stability. Now we don’t know the inner workings of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And I’m sure that there’s some inner workings that we would be like, “Whoa! That’s crazy. That’s wild.” They probably get into some pretty good arguments and some open debate and things like that. But what we also know is that Brother so-and-so, or Elder so-and-so, who might have really strong opinions about something. Maybe he does, and maybe he’s loud, and out there about it. But he might not ever be the president.

GT  50:53  I mean, I’ve heard rumors, when David O. McKay died, Joseph Fielding Smith was next in line. And he was 92, I believe, and suffering from age.

Joe  51:05   Sure.

GT  51:06  There was talk about jumping over him and a deal was struck.

Joe  51:11  And President Hunter, the same way. He was very, very old, with President Hinckley, who seemed to be having abundant energy forever.

GT  51:20  So, are you saying that the fact that we kept with that, kept the stability?

Joe  51:27  Oh, I one hundred percent believe that, that that is one of the things that has led to the stability of the LDS Church, is that there is not that vying for political position, the politics that can be played, that could be played at the highest levels.

GT  51:44  I mean, the question comes, what happens if somebody is senile? It’s bound to happen. Right? The next in line is going to be senile.

Joe  51:54  It may have already happened. I don’t know. But, yeah, you’re right. It’s probably bound to happen. But that has been one of the stabilizing forces. I honestly believe that that is one of the rudders that has helped guide the LDS Church and allowed them to grow and to keep themselves, for the most part, on a safe track. Inside the fundamentalist communities, it leads to these one-man rules. And, the head of the priesthood, he’s just almost like an oligarch in so many ways, and starts ruling with an iron fist. Because that’s the nature of man. What does Joseph Smith’s say about the nature of man is, unfortunately, as soon as they get a little bit of authority, right?

GT  52:46  Well, I mean, that’s exactly what happened in the FLDS, right?

Joe  52:49  Oh, yeah.

GT  52:49  With Rulon and Warren. Because Rulon, his big thing was one-man rule. I mean, I’m so glad you brought up that because one of my big questions, and I hope you can answer this. I know Anne Wilde is an independent fundamentalist. And one of the things that she said was, “You need to find somebody with priesthood authority.” But if you’re an independent, do you go to an AUB member and say, “Hey, will you marry us?” or whatever.

Joe  53:22  Sometimes they do.

GT  53:23  And so, they will marry people “outside the faith?”

Joe  53:28  That has that has happened, yes. But generally speaking, they would say, “No, you need to join our group. You need to join our organization in order to do that.”

GT  53:38  So do they a join for a month and then [leave?]

Joe  53:40  Oh, yeah. We grew up with, we were constantly warned that the independent young man from independent families who had no priesthood head, who had no priesthood lineage, priesthood authority, they would constantly be coming to our dances and looking to pilfer off and take these young women out of the AUB group. And sometimes, you’d get somebody, one of the Barlows or on of the, somebody like that, that would come in and hang around the group for a little bit and marry a girl and then they’d be gone. Stuff like that would happen. And so, you’re constantly on edge about that type of thing. Yeah. You learn to keep an eye out for that. They don’t like that to happen.

GT  54:30  I guess sealings, they don’t have to happen in temple and probably haven’t happened in the temple in the AUB very much.

Joe  54:37  No, but they do have an endowment house, now. They started building that in the 1980s, mid-80s. So, in order to be sealed, you need to go through the endowment house.

GT  54:50  Well, because I know there are stories…

Joe  54:52  Or the temple in Mexico. They do have a temple in Mexico.

GT  54:55  The AUB has a temple in Mexico.

Joe  54:56  Yes.

GT  54:56  Is that the only temple?

Joe  54:57  Yes, that’s their only temple.

GT  54:58  Because I’ve heard stories about, especially when, between 1860 and 1890, they would just seal people on the train. They would just have a sealing ceremony, or whatever. So, I remember Anne said, “It doesn’t have to be a temple. It’d be nice if it could.”

Joe  55:18  It’s be nice if it could. That’s much of an independent line of thinking, where somebody like Anne would say something–I’m not trying to accuse her of that. But, yeah, that would be an independent who’s thinking that way, like, “Well, yeah, a temple would be nice. But since there isn’t, we have a history of–we can still seal.”

Joe  55:42  Whereas somebody in the AUB would say, “Well, there might be some circumstances where that might be okay. But it really should be done in the endowment house.”

GT  55:51  And that’s here in Draper?

Joe  55:52  Bluffdale.

GT  55:53  Bluffdale.

Joe  55:54  Yeah. But what I was saying there, Rick, is that the AUB group, for so long has really, as far as fundamentalists are concerned, has been somewhat of a steady group. Yeah, it’s had its problems. And trust me, it’s had problems. But because it hasn’t been ruled by one man, it’s able to shift and move just a little bit and allowed to stay somewhat the same. Doctrines and things like that will change, but they don’t go off on these wild hare tangents with one man saying, “You’ve got to do this,” and all of a sudden, they’re appointing brides and weird stuff like that. But that has been introduced. We call it, among the AUB people and friends, we’ll say that’s the path, we call it the path to Short Creek.

GT  56:50  Oh.

Joe  56:51  And you can see the markings, the trail markings are in the AUB now that lead to Short Creek. And if you pay attention to what’s going on, you’ll see some of those things cropping up. Women can’t pray in public anymore.

GT  57:11  They used to be able to pray? {Joe nods} Oh, do they bless the sick? Do women bless the sick?

Joe  57:17  That has happened. It’s not something that is regularly done.

GT  57:22  But more like in an emergency or something?

Joe  57:24  Yeah, but that type of thing has happened.

GT  57:26  With oil?

Joe  57:28  Probably, I wouldn’t be surprised. I don’t know of a specific incident. But you hear stories of, like, there wasn’t a priesthood holder around, so, Sister so-and-so, or two women got together and took care of it. Those are older stories. I don’t know of any recent. Those are like early polygamy day stories.

GT  57:48  They kind of follow the LDS and say, “Call the elders, if you can.”

Joe  57:51  Yeah. So, the all the markings are there, unfortunately, in the AUB group right now. It’s one of the things that really concerns me. I’m not part of the AUB group. I have family, obviously, that is. And I get a lot of people that say, “Well, why are you even concerned about this?  You shouldn’t even be concerned about?” Well, I’m concerned about for a couple of reasons. One is, I’m a history nerd, and I like to dig into history. But I’m also concerned that families can get torn apart. And they do, and they have, and you’re seeing some of that same stuff right now. There’s a lot more “Follow the leader.” The council members are now being referred to more and more as apostles. And the head of the Council is more and more referred to as a prophet. And they are the living oracles. And they are the deciding factor on any decision. And so, you’re seeing some of this stuff crop up. You’re seeing cover-ups of child abuse and sexual allegations among some of the leading people in the group, that were just washed under the rug like, “Oooh, let’s not talk about that.” All of the markings are there, in the AUB group of the same markings that were there if you study the Short Creek group and what happened there and where they’re at with Warren Jeffs and all of the mayhem that has happened. I’m not saying that history will repeat itself, but we often hear that maybe it’s not repeating itself, but it does rhyme. And so when you start to look at that, you’re seeing those same things happen in the AUB group.

GT  59:41  Is there anything else we should talk about?

Joe  59:43  I can’t think of anything, Rick.  You and I could probably sit and talk all night long. I certainly don’t want that to happen to you. You’ve got a family to get to and I have things to do, too. But, we can certainly stay in touch and it’s fun to have another contact.

GT  59:58  Yeah, definitely. Well, Joe Jessop, I really appreciate you being here on Gospel Tangents.

Joe  1:00:06  Yeah, good to meet you and I wish you well and wish you luck and I’ll be paying attention. I’ve loved watching you in the past, too. It was neat to get the out-of-the-blue call.

GT  1:00:20  (Chuckling)  I was glad Eric set that up and I will just tell everybody, Persistence of Polygamy, volume three. Do you know what chapter it is?

Joe  1:00:28  I don’t know.

GT  1:00:28  Just look up Joe Jessop.

Joe  1:00:28  I can’t remember which chapter it is.  You know what, that book is really cool. And there’s some really cool stuff. Eric Rogers is in there, too. His chapter on Rulon Allred, that’s the chapter about Rulon Allred’s first marriage and his journey out of the church and into polygamy. It’s a fasc