Church previously denied a John Taylor revelation on polygamy now admits it
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2025 10:47 pm
Another example of the church obfuscating information that casts a bad light on one of the worst doctrines in Mormonism. Decades of claiming it wasn't Taylors handwriting while fundamentalists insisted it was. This is probably why Oaks introduced the "temporary commandments" which is a sly way of covering a prophets radical revelation. https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org ... U_TRKmsx4g
Lindsay Hansen Park commented on why this transparency is important today.
Lindsay Hansen Park commented on why this transparency is important today.
The 1886 Revelation has long been a cornerstone for Mormon fundamentalist groups, who have cited it to justify their continued practice of polygamy after the LDS Church’s 1890 Manifesto officially renounced new plural marriages. The revelation declares that God’s everlasting covenants including plural marriage, “cannot be abrogated,” and insists that those who wish to enter into divine glory “must do the works of Abraham.”
By quietly validating the document’s historical existence, the Church is not re-endorsing polygamy, but it is conceding a critical point: that one of its own prophets did, in fact, receive and write a revelation contradicting the eventual policy reversal. For generations, this tension has been dismissed, minimized, or discredited. Today, it is simply… catalogued. And reaffirms something those of us in this space already know. John Taylor believed and taught and revelated that the practice was never to leave the earth.
This matters because it reshapes the narrative. It exposes the messiness of prophetic authority and institutional adaptation. It confirms what historians and fundamentalist communities have long asserted: that early Mormon leadership faced an unresolvable theological crisis between divine command and legal survival, and not everyone agreed on how to proceed.