Episode 244 (Transcript): What About the Word of Wisdom? | A Conversation with Linda Hamilton
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Kim Kershaw for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:
LH: My thought is that,
CW: Go for it, Linda.
LH: This is, this is baked into Mormon doctrine 101,
SH: Okay.
LH: The idea that we can control our salvation and that we can control God and demand that he save us because we have done.
SH: Ding, ding, ding, ding
LH: X, Y, and Z. Because we have to have that tangible thing, that temple recommend in our hand that says God approves of me, I am worthy, I am going to heaven. But where’s Jesus? Where’s grace? Where’s the belief that we can grow and try and learn and actually use agency to make decisions for ourselves?
CW: Hello, I’m Cynthia Winward.
SH: And I’m Susan Hinckley,
CW: And this is At last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is, What About the Word of Wisdom, A Conversation with Linda Hamilton. Hello, Linda.
SH:Hi Linda.
LH: Wooh! Hi.
SH: We are so thrilled to have you.
CW: Totally thrilled to have Linda back.
She’s back in the house. Some of you might remember, Linda. She did an Embracing Your Journey episode that was 219. So to get Linda’s full story, you can go back and listen to that episode. But for the purposes of today, Linda, can you just give us a quick, like two minute bio of who you are and what actually brings you to this topic.
LH: Sure. So I am a historical fiction author. My debut book comes out in March, 2026. It is about Mormonism and polygamy.
CW: Woo.
LH: And I am also a grad student in history working on my master’s at Sam Houston State University. I am a mom to four kids. I have a wonderful husband who is a software engineer, tech guy, and we live in Southern California.
CW: Wonderful. Welcome back. So, we’ll be honest, people have asked us for five years to talk about the Word of Wisdom, and Susan and I are always like, what can we possibly say about this? ‘Cause it’s a hot mess, really. But Susan is going to attempt to at least intro our topic today. So take it away, Susan.
SH: I’ve been watching as the whole Latter Saint world has been watching the release of the new garments for women this week. That’s been happening the week that we’re recording this. And I can’t even really believe not just the lines around the block, but all of the hoopla around it that I’ve seen online and people talking about it. And I put garments in the same kind of category with the Word of Wisdom in some ways for this sort of unique external identifier of being a Mormon, right? If people don’t know that much about Mormons, they probably know polygamy, but they probably also know Mormons don’t drink or smoke, and Mormons wear this underwear. So these are the things that people tend to know about us. And, you know, it seems like for every general conference of about the past 10 years, I’ve seen this rampant speculation running around online that this is the time that they’re finally going to make it so that we can drink coffee.
And of course it never happens, but this seems to be so top of mind for some members. And even in my lifetime, I’ve seen some changes in this stuff. Growing up as a kid, lots of members in my extended family drank coffee.
CW: Same
SH: Some of my grandparents just drank coffee. They just did. And they still were in the pews every Sunday. They certainly considered themselves to be active Latter day Saints. And the ones who didn’t drink coffee, drank Postum. Because you know, they were so immersed in that coffee culture of their time but Postum was something that, you know, was the grain-based alternative.
CW: Right, right.
SH: I also remember like, when two piece garments came on, it was this huge seismic shift for people that, that reminds me kind of, of the hoopla that I’ve seen around this. Some members were like, only one piece garments are ever gonna really be righteous.
CW: Really?
SH: You know, it was the same kind of thing. Yeah. So, I guess when I think about these kinds of things, when you’ve given up your social customs or you’ve given up fashion or, you know, what, whatever requires sacrifice of you, then it’s gonna keep it pretty prominent in your feelings about your engagement in the church.
CW: Yeah.
SH: And so, of course you’re gonna wanna talk about it with other members because it’s validating, right?
It’s great to see that other people have made the same choices that you have. And so it feels really helpful. But so all of this brings up questions for me, and this is why I think people want us to talk about it. Like people want to understand better [00:05:00] how and why did this rule originate? Does it make logical sense? Because I think in 2025, a lot of people would argue that the word of wisdom does not really make logical sense, right?
CW: Mhmm, mhmm
SH: And I remember when we had our conversation about garments with Afton Southam Parker she asked the question that had a huge impact on lots of our listeners. If this is where we started right now, would we have come up with underwear as a marker? If we were starting in 2025, would we have come up with the Word of Wisdom, you know, as we have it now.
CW: Right
SH: And I think that’s a good question that bears discussion. And so I guess we wanna talk about do these rules feel relevant in the context of history and where we are living now, the world that we’re living in right now, and should they continue to be important to us going forward?
All of these are the kinds of questions that I feel like our listeners have wanted us to discuss for five years. And so of course, you’re the right woman to give us some context in which we can base those kinds of conversations, I feel like just because of your background and history and your interest in this topic.
So I want you to just lay the whole thing out for us, Linda, answer all the questions and make it so we never have to talk about the word of wisdom again. Can you do that?
[Laughter]
LH: We’ll see. I won’t pretend to be like the biggest expert on the Word of Wisdom or the history of it, but it is a topic that kind of caught my interest like six months ago or so, of I really want to know more about this aside from my own feelings and my own interpretations. I I always go back to the history because that is where my passion is. That is where I find the greatest context and understanding to practices today. So I did research into the history using documents and a lot of really great work from Dialogue and from other books and scholars trying to see what actually happened in the formation of the Word of Wisdom and how has that changed over the ensuing, you know, decades.
CW: Perfect. That’s exactly what we need. And I’ll admit to our listeners that I got a sneak peek at Linda’s notes and I thought I was prepared,, I thought I pretty well understood this topic. But what I love is that Linda’s going to bring to our topic today is the historical context, like what was going on at the time that all these changes with the Word of Wisdom were even happening. So that’s what I’m really excited to hear about and I feel like only a historian could do that. So thanks in advance, Linda.
LH: So my approach to today and my notes and the things that I was studying about the Word of Wisdom center around two main questions.
One is where do we find narratives of women in the Word of Wisdom’s, history and practice? And the other is, what parts of the Word of Wisdom lore, so to speak, hold up to historical scrutiny? I think a lot about my own, you know, growing up being taught the Word of Wisdom there was being taught the scripture and then there was being taught, you know, the gospel according to Brother or Sister So-and-So, and realizing now that as I’ve kind of looked at this question, there’s a lot more of this kind of lore and assumptions and stories around it that maybe actually don’t speak to the actual Word of Wisdom.
CW: I believe that.
LH: I think the best place to start is with the original story. If you’re familiar with Latter Day Saint scripture you probably know this story very well. If you grew up LDS you probably heard it a ton of times that Joseph Smith and a group of men were meeting for the School of the Prophets above the Newell K Whitney store in Kirtland, Ohio. And these men were meeting together to discuss deeper topics of the gospel and also learning Hebrew and just general learning and things that they felt were important..
As the story goes, while these men were up there, they were chewing tobacco and spitting their tobacco all over the ground, making this huge mess that then Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, had to go and clean up. And if you go to the Newell K Whitney store today, you can take a tour of it. I just went like a year or so ago, and it’s interesting ‘cause they take you up into that room, they tell you that story and they point out on the floorboards.
Some of the floorboards have not been replaced since the 1830s. So you can see these are the original, they’re like, these are the original floorboards that Emma would’ve scrubbed. And I’m like, great. She’s scrubbed these floors like,
SH: Wow.
LH: I feel so empowered. What a tie to history. But you know,
CW: That’s great.
LH: But basically Emma according to her biographers basically went up to Joseph and said it would be a [00:10:00] good thing if a revelation could be had declaring the use of tobacco a sin commanding its suppression, right? The story that we were told in primary. She’s so sick and tired of having to clean up this tobacco off the floor so she says to her husband, we need a revelation on this. And it’s interesting. So Brigham Young and David Whitmer, who are both there confirm this. They confirm this story that this is what happened. And David Whitmer says that when the men were discussing this, they joked that quote “ The revelation should also provide for total abstinence from tea and coffee drinking.” intending this as a counter dig at the sisters.
CW: Wow.
LH: So there is a possibility that one of the strong influences on the Word of Wisdom was, how can we get back at the sisters for taking away our tobacco?
SH: Right, right
CW: Of course. Of course.
SH: You know, it occurs to me as you tell this story, and I don’t know why I’ve never thought of this before, but another solution could have been just make the men clean up their own mess.
LH: Yeah,
CW: That’s what I was thinking.
LH: Right?
SH: How about the men just scrub the floor after they’re done spitting all over it? That could have been a solution.
CW: That’s what I was thinking too. I thought if Emma didn’t have to clean the floor according to gender roles, ‘cause I’m sure that’s why she was cleaning the floors and not the men would we have ever had the Word of Wisdom? That’s where my brain is already going, you know, two seconds into this conversation.
LH: Yeah, I think that’s a great question and a great point. This is, I think the first place where we’re gonna see gender is directly showing up in the story of the Word of Wisdom and those gender roles. And I think it plays in a lot to how we talk about the Word of Wisdom today in our Sunday school lessons with our children in talks and over the pulpit. We kind of just say, oh, Emma was so tired of cleaning these floors. It’s just a given. It’s just part of the story. But I would,
CW: yeah,
LH: challenge people to take a step back and be like, what does that actually mean? These gender roles that were, that she was performing, and what does that say about the gender roles that women today are performing?
LH: Emma Smith, no women, Emma or no one was invited to the School of the Prophets. There were no women.
CW: Exactly.
LH: sitting in that room. And while I could see some people arguing like oh, this was an important priesthood building thing, where they were exploring topics of the gospel. If you actually read for instance, John Turner’s new book on Joseph Smith, most of what they were doing was things like learning. They were learning Hebrew, they were learning how to write better, how to read better, because they felt it was important for them to expand their knowledge. And so, while there may have been important spiritual experiences that happened for those men in that room, I just can’t help but think what spiritual experiences could women have had in that room? Why weren’t women ever considered
SH: Right
LH: to be worthy of gaining this knowledge about whatever it is they were learning about? Joseph Smith and these men were using their quote unquote free time to
CW: Yes.
LH: try to improve themselves. And in this school where they were spitting tobacco, where Emma Smith literally had no free time because she was doing all the labor and then had to come and clean up from the men’s free time.
CW: Yes. My mind is exploding right now thinking about the Word of Wisdom strictly from a gender roles perspective. And I’m sitting here thinking that’s how strict the gender roles were, that they actually said, could you please go get a revelation that this is against God’s law? Like it’s easier to get a revelation
SH: Right,
CW: than it is for men to mop a damn floor.
SH: That’s the thing that occurred to me as I’m hearing this.
LH:Yes.
SH: I’m just like, there was an easier option and yet
this just tells you how deeply ingrained it was.
CW: Yes.
SH: that it, you know, it just wouldn’t have occurred.
CW: Yeah, a revelation was easier to obtain than breaking gender roles and having men clean up floors or spit in a spittoon or something. I don’t know. Fascinating!
LH: Yeah, and I think it’s fair to not necessarily say that’s why we should question the Word of Wisdom. That’s not what I’m saying. But I think that it’s fair for us to put that into the context of the Word of Wisdom and have a personal exploration of that cognitive dissonance. And what does that bring up for us? What does infusing gender roles and that reality into this revelation make us feel about? About it.
CW: A lot. I feel a lot about it.
SH: That’s what I was just gonna say. I was gonna say, I don’t think it really makes it easier
LK: Yeah.
SH: to consider it from that perspective. Right? I mean, I feel like this background story, [00:15:00] and especially when you offered that little part that I’d never really heard before, that perhaps let’s get back at the women for this by taking coffee and tea out of it also, like you, you put those kinds of details in and when you put it in that kind of context, it doesn’t make it feel more inspired to me. I’m just gonna say that.
LH: Yeah. I think if the men feel insecure enough or power trippy enough that they’re like, if you’re gonna take something important from us, we have to take something important from you. I think that puts the whole foundation in, in, in a very weird spot.
CW: Yeah. It’s just hard not to feel like this could be something that matters more to people than it mattered to God at the time,
CW: Ding, ding, ding, ding
SH: which does raise questions for now. I dunno.
You know, and I wanna say right here that I’m not a person who has a lot of feelings about the Word of Wisdom. I know a lot of people do. I don’t really, I don’t really care about it that much, if that makes sense.
It’s no longer anything that I feel like I’m making an active sacrifice on a daily basis. So it’s not like I’m one of the people who’s sitting around with popcorn, really hoping that they’re gonna repeal the ban on coffee. It wouldn’t matter to me necessarily whether they did or didn’t, but I just feel like looking at it with a little context and a little bit of distance on it that you just provided for us makes me really have questions about it in bigger ways maybe than I normally think about it. I have some big questions.
CW: And of course, even as you’re saying that, Susan, I’m thinking the same thing. There really isn’t much that would change in my life if the Word of Wisdom were repealed or whatever we call it, or adjusted. But. Of course that’s because we’ve lived our entire lives this way.
SH: Right?
CW: And I would love to see it changed just because, I mean, I’ve heard from, I don’t know how many people like you realize you guys would baptize more people. ‘cause that whole coffee thing is stupid,
SH: Right, right
CW: 90% of the world drinks coffee and tea. So it really is a hindrance to, I mean, if this is the one true church and the only way to get back to God.
Anyway, Linda, can you go ahead and just give us some context then for the word of wisdom? It was in the 1830s, so let’s go way, way back.
LH: Absolutely. I think one of the important lessons from understanding the context of the 1830s and the Word of Wisdom is that revelation doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
I think that is something that is surprisingly hard in our culture for us to understand. You know, Joseph wasn’t just walking around one day and then boom, I should ban tea and coffee.There’s a context to it, and I think that supports both a faith promoting or a secular narrative.
I think that either way that is fine to have context to revelations. I think that it would be better if more leaders talked about the context of revelations. I just think it would help members understand that we’re actually part of, we’re part of history, we’re part of the moment.
SH: Right, right.
LH: We aren’t just this amorphous, we’re doing our thing and then God’s like “Guess what? Show me your shoulders.” You know?
SH: Right.
CW: Well said, my friend.Well said.
LH: So in the 1830s, there were actually a lot of health codes and trends that were very similar to the Word of Wisdom. It wasn’t just, you know, Joseph like doing something completely different.
According to the scholar, Lester Bush, Jr. most mainstream doctors during this time period believed that, you know, overstimulation led to disease. So using anything that was considered stimulating would lead to symptoms. So this, and this was like, not like a fringe belief. This was actually a pretty mainstream belief amongst doctors.
CW: Really.
LH: At the time.
CW: I didn’t know that.
LH: So by 1833, most physicians agreed that strong drinks, as they’re listed in the Word of Wisdom were pretty bad for you. This was not necessarily Joseph being super forward thinking as we kind of often like to paint him, you know, like Joseph Smith came up with this hundreds of years before the tobacco industry or whatever, right?
SH: Right, right
LH: all these things he’s saying might be reflected and funneled through his unique theological vision, but they’re not outta nowhere. There were physicians who warned against fermented drinks. The American Temperance Society had over a million members by 1834. This was a huge,
CW: Wow!
LH: huge thing. And I think it’s important to put into context that one of the biggest tenets of the temperance society, it wasn’t just health and the idea that, you know, to be a better, healthy individual, you should not drink. It was, this was one of the few ways that women could combat domestic violence.
SH: Hmm
CW: Oh yes.
LH: That drinking led to more violent husbands. [00:20:00] Husbands who would abandon them, husbands who would hurt them, who would, you know, hurt their children. And so a big part of the push for temperance and the temperance movement was done by women who were saying, stop drinking so much. And we will be safer in society. So there were more extreme individuals at the same time who advocated against all stimulants, right? No coffee, no tea, no sex outside of procreative sex. You know, even spicy food. Maybe that’s why American food is so bland.
SH: Wow.
LH: Why us white people don’t like spicy food? Some trickle down puritanism, I don’t know.
CW: Fascinating.
SH: Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah.
LH: Meat was also considered to be a stimulating food. Especially red meat.
CW; Really?
SH: Oh wow! Okay..
LH: So I think that given the context, that’s why it’s in the Word of Wisdom. He’s speaking against these different stimulants
CW: Yeah.
LH: that exist in his world. And meat was a stimulant. And we’ll talk more about, you know, the context of meat in there. But it’s pretty interesting.
CW: Can you give me a little context, Linda, for what was the agreed upon definition of a stimulant then? Because that totally makes sense to me. Coffee and alcohol, because they do do something to brain chemistry. But meat? Do you know anything about that?
LH: I think stimulant was just kind of more general of anything that makes you maybe just more aroused. Not like sexually, but as a human. Like you’re healthier, you’re heartier. You’re more excited. That would be my guess, but that would be something that I would need to look up specifically.
CW: Okay. Okay.
LH: I think the other really interesting thing that Lester Bush brings up in this in an article that we can link to in the comments, is that we have to take into account the definition of good health in the 19th century versus the 21st century.
CW: Right.
SH: Right.
LH: In the 19th century, they were just trying not to die of dysentery. Basically not having consumption meant you were in good health.
SH: Right.
LH: Whereas here, you know, in the modern day, we think about being in good health as being like, you know, you’re exercising regularly. You’re looking at your complex carbohydrates, like we have a whole different definition of what good health is versus the 19th century.
And I think that’s gonna, when you, if you take that into account when you read the Word of Wisdom and some of its promises, especially that might make a lot more sense because Joseph might just be saying simple, as you know, you might not get malaria as much if you do this.
SH: Right.
LH: Whereas most of us in the modern world are not so concerned about contracting these kinds of diseases.
We talked about temperance societies. I think it’s also important to note that Kirtland had a Temperance Society. It was not predominantly Mormon. It was mostly the people who already had lived there. But there were Mormon members and they did influence Mormon culture around them. The Mormons are kind of moving into Kirtland and like fusing themselves into the local traditions there.
And so I think it’s very fair to say that the idea of condemning spirits, alcohol, tobacco, eating too much meat, these are all things that would’ve been in the world around them. It wasn’t something foreign that was happening in let’s say New York City. It was something happening in their small town. A Temperance Society existed. And I think it’s very interesting speaking of gender roles in the Word of Wisdom, that if temperance societies were traditionally led by women and typically women were kind of at the forefront of most temperance movements that Joseph is using patriarchal power to enforce what a woman would probably normally be searching for.
SH: Mhmm
CW: That’s a good point.
LH: And I think it says a lot about women’s voices in the church that if let’s say the Relief Society, you know, maybe this is in the future, in the 1840s, the Relief Society sets up like some temperance society and they want men to stop drinking, things like that, and they’re doing their thing like most temperance societies, I would bet that the vast majority of the men would do nothing. But the second Joseph Smith steps in and says, actually God wants us to do this
SH: Right
CW; Wow
LH: now, that’s a whole different playbook. The women can do all the groundwork, all the invisible labor. The women can do all the pushing and the desire for change, but in the end it means nothing if the man in charge doesn’t put his stamp of approval on it.
SH: The men had the authority [00:25:00] culturally and absolutely in the church.
CW: Yeah. Hierarchically, theologically. For sure.
SH: Even though it sounds to me like women at the time maybe would’ve been likely to come up with the same kind of rule that Joseph came up with
CW: Yeah.
SH: I don’t necessarily know that gender roles, I can’t say how much gender roles may have figured into actually what the revelation he recorded was. So a woman might have come up with the same idea, but she would definitely not have had the power to enforce it. But we saw Joseph do that with other principles also, right?
LH: Right.
SH: That by putting the stamp of your eternal salvation on something, then, you know, it completely changes the dynamic of how all members engage with it.
But certainly how wWomen engage with it
LH: And how women engage with it today. I mean, I’m just thinking about the garments that we talked about at the beginning, right?
SH: Oh yeah.
LH: The women have been working behind the scenes for decades to try to get a tank top garment
SH: RIght
LH: to try to get a more breathable garment, like the slip. They’ve been working forever to do this. And it wasn’t until finally the men were on board and were like, God is okay with this, that it actually happens.
CW: And now we’ve reached the lying down portion of the episode because that all just makes me need to take a nap. Not that I haven’t known it, but in the context of this conversation, realizing it. Wow!
So, Linda, I have a lot of questions arising just from what you’ve already talked about in these few minutes, but I’m gonna save them because I know you’re gonna break down parts of actual, you know, Doctrine and Covenants Section 89. So let’s go there. Can you break down some of the actual Word of Wisdom revelation and maybe it will answer some of my questions?
LH: Sure. Let’s see. I’m gonna try to give context where I know it to the specific verses. And some of them are just more open-ended questions I think for listeners to ponder on.
SH: Okay.
LH: Because it starts right in 89, you know, verse two saying that this is not meant to be, you know, not by commandment or constraint that, you know, and
SH: That’s the big question right there!
CW: Go ahead, Linda. Solve that one. Yeah, solve it.
LH: And so it is very interesting that we have it sort of set up as Joseph Smith’s giving it, I think probably as a way to give an out to himself, because it’s very clear from the rest of his life that he is not following the Word of Wisdom. He’s saying oh, this is like a great health idea and now, if you don’t follow this health idea. You don’t get to go to the temple and you don’t get to have a family forever. It is a commandment! And I know the church tries to,
SH: But I think the temple rule came in later. Am I wrong about that?
LH: Yeah. Okay. Yes. We’re gonna talk about that. That’s not until Hebrew J Grant that it becomes an actual part
SH: Okay. Okay. We’ll get there
LH: But it’s just an interesting thing I think to ponder because the church frames it now as a promise. Have you ever heard that?
CW: Yes. Oh yes
LH: It’s a commandment. It’s a gift. It’s a principle with a promise is, I think the one I hear a lot lately.
SH: A principle with a promise. Yeah.
LH: And I’m like, that’s an interesting way to frame it. And I can see that interpretation. I just feel that, for me personally and for many other people I know, it’s really hard to deal with that cognitive dissonance of Joseph Smith saying, this is not a commandment and it shouldn’t be, you know, used by constraint. But also if you drink just one cup of coffee according to Julie B. Beck, you and all of your children are never getting into heaven.
SH: Right. Right. Yeah. That’s such a hard talk. And I, you know, I like the idea of a principle with a promise. Like I’m good with that idea because I like the idea of principles. We teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves. But the minute that you make it a requirement for the temple, then you’ve crossed over into rule. That’s no longer a principle and a rule is a very different thing from a principle. So somehow the Word of Wisdom got kicked into the rule column.
LH: Yes.
SH: But I’d love to have a conversation with Joseph about it because I have a feeling that he would have described it as a principle.
CW: Totally.
SH: I mean, I can only make that judgment based on how he described it in the actual verses.
LH: I think that’s very fair. In verse three, it says that the Word of Wisdom is adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints. I think this is a very interesting verse. I have heard this verse is the justification for why we don’t have alcohol, tea, tobacco. Because you know, more modern day studies are showing that things like a glass of wine or you know, a cup of coffee actually have health benefits and they’re not something that’s necessarily bad for you.
SH: Right.
LH: And so one of the big justifications I’ve heard my whole life is “Well, it may not be bad [00:30:00] for you, but the weakest saints won’t be able to resist the temptation to become addicted.” And so therefore, we all have to go down to what the weakest level is. And I’m not saying that’s right or wrong necessarily. I’m saying that is the justification that I have heard my whole life.
CW: Interesting. That makes sense.
SH: That might explain why it crossed over to becoming a rule. I don’t know. Like we don’t trust people to be able to govern themselves on this.
CW: [Laughter]
LH: Yeah. I think there is a level of, I think that that’s a big thing. There is a level of control that the church feels they need to exercise in order to force everyone into heaven. I think it ties into, you know, temple rights and how can we force as many people as possible to be on God’s plan, which is so funny considering the whole War in Heaven agency, and all of these things. But
SH: I’ve heard that plan somewhere before. It sounds familiar to me. I don’t know.
CW: [Laughter]
LH: [Laughter]
CW: Keep going, Linda. Keep going.
LH: Okay. The other interesting verse that always sticks out to me is in verse four, when it says the evils and designs, which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men, I have warned you and forewarn you, and again, this is another one of those things that, Mormon lore stories that I always heard growing up, people were always like, this is the tobacco industry.
This is those evil guys trying to sell you vodka, right?
CW: Yeah
SH: Yes
LH: It’s the idea that, oh, Joseph Smith knew that there were going to be evil men in the future trying to sell you, you know, drugs and alcohol. And so
CW: I was taught that. Uhhuh. Uhhuh.
LH: he made this rule way back when, which I again, I think it’s interesting. I’m like, I can see how you are connecting A to B.
CW: Totally.
LH: I would also wonder though, if you could argue the same way for people who try to sell you untested supplements. People in the growing health and wellness industry who might be promoting some very dangerous things in order to get their own personal gain of you to buy their supplements over, say, getting vaccinated.
CW: So such a good point,
SH: Right.
LH: The pendulum goes both ways. If you’re gonna say that, oh, it’s all about these evil, you know, tobacco guys in the 1950s. We also have to acknowledge that there are grifters today trying to grift their health banks.
CW: There are grifters always. Yes. Good point.
LH: All right, so the next few verses get really into the, you know, the actual do’s and don’ts, right?
So it’s interesting that verse five says that you can have wine for the sacrament as long as you make it yourself. But we use water. So. Interesting, fun fact. This is according to historian Lindsay Hansen Park. So we know that one of the reasons that St. George was settled was to grow wine. The wine Dixie mission. People were sent down there by Brigham Young to grow wine.
CW: Right.
LH: To make a wine industry. And according to Lindsay Hanson Park and some, you know, her research so originally when you had sacrament, you just passed around a big like goblet. If you didn’t know that.
SH: Right.
LH: That was the way it was. You didn’t have a tray with individual cups. Everyone’s just taking a sip from the cup. Apparently people in St. George, down in southern Utah living in wine country really like their wine and they would drink too much of the sacramental wine.
SH: They’re taking too much.
LH: and get a little too tipsy during sacrament meeting. And that is one of the reasons why we switched to individual cups. Now, that might just be…
SH: Who hasn’t wanted to anesthetize themselves during sacrament meetings? I’ve wanted to get drunk before,
CW: Make this hour go faster please.
LH: I have no idea how much of that is really documented. You know, we also know that the influence of the Spanish influenza and the health concerns around that also.
SH: Sure. Sure.
LH: also kind of shut down the idea of passing a goblet around for sacrament. But I think it’s interesting and a good point to show that yeah, we were growing win iIn St. George on Brigham Young’s instruction.
SH: So interesting.
LH: The saints down there were drinking wine and maybe they were drinking a little too much sacramental wine.
SH: [Laughter]
CW: Question, though. I’m guessing they weren’t growing wine there specifically just for the sacrament. It was for all purposes. Alll areas of life, right?
LH: Yes. Kind of Brigham Young’s idea was like people are gonna wanna buy wine, so I might as [00:35:00] well make money off of it.
SH: Make money off it. Sure. That rings very true to me.
CW: What was that about grifting?
CW: [Laughter]
LH: [Laughter]
LH: I think the idea officially was that the church should control the wine and the alcohol.
CW: Got it.
LH: ‘cause then we can control the people who come through it, how much they get. When they’re traveling to California, how much wine and stuff are they gonna get? And we know they’re gonna buy wine and they’re gonna bring alcohol with them and things. And so we might as well get a piece of that action. And so there you go. That’s right there. The Word of Wisdom, Brigham Young directly saying, go grow wine. I am literally calling you on a mission to go grow wine.
SH: Yeah. It was a way of controlling it. I mean, I think we still see that, like in Utah, I think that Utah has pretty stringent liquor laws.
CW: Yes.
SH: Much more so than some other states. And it’s because I think the church probably wanted to get out in front of that and control it from the get go.
LH: Oh yeah.
LH: If it’s anything that ever involves Brigham Young, he wanted to be in control of it. He was the ultimate mob boss.
SH: Right.
CW: Safe to assume.
LH: So it’s very interesting from verse five that we’re told we can have wine for sacrament, specifically told we can do it, but we use water.
CW: Interesting.
LH: And I think that kind of, maybe just the influence of this is what Mormons do over the 20th century, that it’s just become water. And people, when I tell people that, they always think it’s so interesting. As far as I know, we’re one of the only, there’s maybe a few others that use water as part of the sacrament.
LH: So in verse eight we talk about strong drinks. Strong drinks are not for the belly, but they’re okay for the body, which sounds like a pretty 19th century thing. Like it’s okay to use alcohol to wash your body or take care of your animals. And we know that in early temple rites, kind of like the precursor to the initiatory they were bathing in cinnamon whiskey.
SH: Oh, interesting.
CW: Cinnamon whiskey.
SH: I don’t think I’ve ever heard that. Okay.
LH: That’s in line with the Word of Wisdom. You’re not drinking it, I guess, but you can totally take a bath in it with your dude friends up in the attic of the temple I guess. I don’t know?
CW: Okay, okay.
LH: And in verse nine is when we get to the hot drinks, and this is a big one that I think a lot of people, when they actually read it, get some hangups on including, my son recently, we were talking about this and I was like, pull up D&C 89, actually read it. And he was like “What?” He was so confused ‘cause what he’s been told his whole life versus what’s actually in the scripture is very different.
CW: It’s a hot mess. It’s a hot mess.
SH: Yeah. Looking at you Postum because seriously, what’s the deal? The whole point of it was it’s coffee without being coffee, so…
LH: Right?
SH: I don’t know.
LH: It’s interesting ‘cause the strong implication is that hot drinks equals coffee and tea, but it never directly states that. The words coffee and tea are not used in it.
And also why if it’s hot drinks, why are we allowed to have hot chocolate? Why are we allowed to have herbal tea? Why are we allowed to have Postum? Why? I mean, some people have even said what about soups? Is a soup too hot to consume? It’s a very narrowly defined - it’s tea and coffee - but apparently herbal tea is okay, but also it’s not about caffeine. So try to make all of that make sense.
SH: No, there’s no sense in it.
LH: It’s very clear they decided this is how we’re going to interpret it at one point. And that is it. Even though it actually makes no sense.
SH: Yeah. And I have a hunch, my hunch about that is that these were the personal rules of the people who made that interpretation at the time.
LH: 100 percent.
CW: Ding, ding, ding.
SH: I didn’t grow up drinking tea and coffee. I think it means tea and coffee. That’s what my mom told me.
CW: That’s right.
SH: So let’s make an interpretation. It will be tea and coffee. It’s sort of like how women talk about getting different instructions from the temple matron, depending on who gave them the garment talk when they took out their endowment, right?
CW: Yep.
LH: Yes.
SH: You get the instructions of the person who gave it to you that day. And there are women that I hear wacky things from sometimes who heard different instructions than I did. But so yeah, I think you have to look at the men who were in charge at the time that we tried to better define precisely what this means if we’re gonna make it a rule. I think we’re just getting their, my, my hunch is it’s, it was their personal understanding of it.
LH: Yeah.
CW: I think that’s a good parallel.
LH: Yeah. Well in the early 20th century when this really gets solidified, it has a lot to do with personalities.
SH: Okay. Yeah.
LH: That’s kind of a theme of 20th century Mormon politics, for lack of a better way to put it. It really is.
SH: Okay.
LH: Who’s in charge at what time and what do they [00:40:00] think? And how their influence influences the church. Tale as old as time, right?.
SH: I think it still is.
CW: Spoiler alert
[Laughter]
CW: The spoiler to the episode is it’s whoever is in charge and what they think.
SH: Fascinating.
LH: I just think it’s so wild that I grew up like hot chocolate bars at young women’s activities.
SH:Sure.
LH: How is that not a hot drink and,it’s so confusing the whole, it’s about caffeine, it’’s not about caffeine. It’s tea and coffee which are hot. But also, you can’t have iced coffee, but you can have herbal tea and you can have soda. It’s all a mess.
CW: It’s all a mess.
LH: And I think it’s important to note that in the actual scripture, Joseph Smith doesn’t even say the words tea and coffee. He, I, I don’t know if that was, because that might have just been because in 19th century lingo, that’s the only thing hot drinks meant. That could be it.
CW: yeah.
LH: Or it could be that he was purposely giving wiggle room for things that maybe he or Emma or anyone might not wanna do.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Right.
CW: That’s such a good point that hot drinks in context of New England in the 1830s is probably quite different than, you know, the Aztecs drinking hot chocolate. Fascinating!
LH: Yeah. You gotta put it all into context. Okay. I feel like that’s the section that we always talk about in the Word of Wisdom. We talk about the hot drinks, we talk about the tobacco, we talk about strong drinks and
CW:Sure.
SH: Right
CW: And that’s it.
LH: Nobody ever talks about the majority of the Word of Wisdom, which we completely ignore.
SH: Right. Right.
LH:So verses 10 through 11, talk about only eating herbs in their season andI think this is a sign of an agrarian society.
SH: Sure.
LH: You know, you eat what you can grow. If you cannot grow that food during winter, you are not going to eat it. I don’t think this is bad advice, you know, just like personally speaking, like I know that there’s a difference between a watermelon grown in season and a watermelon grown outta season. But at the same time, it brings up, I think, a question of we are not generally this society anymore, at least in America. And where the headquarters of the church is and the strongest members of the church are. Right In Utah, we can get food year round. We’re all breaking the Word of Wisdom right here. If you’re eating those strawberries out of season, maybe you shouldn’t have a temple recommend. I don’t know.
CW: Good thing Linda’s not in charge. She would take away our strawberries.
[Laughter]
CW: Kidding.
SH: There go your pineapples, Cynthia.
LH: Yeah,
CW: I know. No pineapple for me,
LH: What really I think is crazy about the Word of Wisdom is in verses 12 to 13, it talks about eating meat only in times of famine or winter.
SH: Right. Right.
LH: It’s not just because I’ve heard sometimes people say, oh, we should eat meat sparingly, and that’s good advice because you know, too much red meat is bad for you. And I think that’s good advice. But what we don’t actually talk about is the fact that it directly says you shouldn’t be eating meat at all unless we’re in a famine or it’s winter.
SH Winter. Mhmm.
LH: So the idea that if you’re going to say eating meat is bad for you because it’s a stimulant in the same category as alcohol and coffee, well you have to eat meat to survive in times of famine and in the winter. So that’s when it’s okay for you to eat it. So the next time your bishop is like “We’re having a summer barbecue.” , you should be like, “Way to violate the Word of Wisdom, man.”
CW: I dare you, Linda. I dare you to do that.
CW: We’re having a chili cookoff tonight. We’re recording this right before Halloween, so just saying that there’s gonna be ground beef chili, I guarantee you, at the word potluck tonight.
SH: [Laughter]
LH: It’s kind of wild to me that we are not vegetarians. Like when you actually read the Word of Wisdom it would make total logical sense for all of us to be vegetarians or even vegans.
CW: Yeah.
LH: The other part that gets really ignored is in verses 14 to 17. It’s actually about the hierarchy of grains. And this was a belief in the 19th century that specific grains should only be eaten by specific classes of people and animals
CW: Really?
LH: Which obviously is something we don’t follow at all.
But the idea that it’s pretty much what it sounds like. Refined wheat, rice, you know, the nicer grains are for the upper class. Darker wheat mixed grains, that’s for the middle class. Rye, barley, oats, legumes, those are for the lower class and for enslaved people.
SH: Okay.
LH: And so that’s why it says in these verses that everyone gets what’s theirs, right? And the animals need to have these kinds and humans get to have these kinds. It’s based in this [00:45:00] agrarian belief that there is a hierarchy of grains and that it’s a class indicator of your wealth, right? Because you can afford more refined grains than other people. And this weird folk health belief that certain people who are maybe less civilized than other people can’t have the more refined things. If you wanna hear more about that Taylor Petri, the historian and scholar, does an interesting dive. He talks about that on Dialogue in a recent podcast that people could listen to as well. But I think that’s just very interesting. We’re eating oatmeal. We’re eating barley, we’re eating legumes. We’re eating all of our oats out of order. Yeah, out
CW: Out of order. Pandemonium.
SH: It’s pandemonium!
[Laughter}
CW: Linda, I’d love you to touch on the early church and, I mean, we already talked about wine and how, you know, we had wineries in St. George long after the Word of Wisdom was received. But give us a little bit more information about the strictness per se, of did we follow the Word of Wisdom in years past? I’d love to hear more about the history of that.
LH: Kind of the short answer is no.
CW: Okay?
LH: The majority of 19th century leaders, and probably members were not very strictly following the Word of Wisdom. We know that Emma Smith drank tea and coffee in Mormon Enigma, her awesome biography.
There’s a story about her offering strong tea to a woman who had just come into town and was really weary, and that this woman was greatly offended that the prophet’s wife was offering her tea and she ended up leaving the church.
CW: Interesting.
LH: And that apparently rumors swirled around this, the idea that like, people then recognized it, that Emma, Joseph, and many other leaders were not following this council. But they also weren’t really strictly enforcing it on the people either. So, but I think it was definitely probably one of those just like weird things where huh, do we actually believe this or do we not believe this?
CW:Fascinating.
LH: Joseph sold alcohol at his hotel in Navoou. He had a bar there. We know, he, we know they drank wine right, before he was killed in Carthage jail, you know, to lift their spirits. They had wine and we know that coffee and tea were listed on the required list of supplies to bring on the trip West.
CW: Really?
LH: Here’s the list of all the things you need to take, you know, across the plains and tea and coffee are on that list.
CW: Wow!
LH: And I, I think, you know, if you look up, like for instance at Fair Mormon, they have answers to these questions and I think their answers are okay.
CW: Of course they do.
LH: Right? I think their answers are, you know, for apologetics they make sense, right? You have to think about what it was like in that time and period. This was more cultural and what’s gonna store well on on a journey. And, you know, technically Joseph moved the bar out of his house and across the street. So if you would like to find the reason why that might’ve been acceptable? I think you could find the reason. Sure. I think that a lot of members also are gonna feel a little betrayed, and I don’t think it’s fair.
SH: Right.
LH:I think the main thing is whether or not you agree that was right or wrong for Joseph and others to do that is that it’s not fair to tell other members who feel betrayed or hurt by that that they are wrong in those feelings.
CW: Such a good point.
SH: Mhhm
LH: No, that’s fair. We grew up being told that Joseph Smith refused to have alcohol when he got leg surgery as a child.
SH: Correc!
LH: And that that was because of the Word of Wisdom. Even though we know it now, it has absolutely nothing to do with that.
SH: Right.
LH:But I think it’s very fair to say I grew up believing this so much and now you’re telling me Joseph was selling alcohol out of his hotel in Navoou..
SH: It goes back to the “Did it ever really matter?”.
LH: Yeah. I think that’s totally fair.
CW:I was just thinking that, Susan! I was just thinking that. I just think there are so many parallels. Like you started out this conversation talking about sleeves on garments. Did it ever matter? And you’re right, Linda. We have to honor a person’s feelings of feeling betrayed. People gave up a lot to, or people are giving up a lot to to continue to live the Word of Wisdom and wear garments or, you know, all these shibboleths that we have.
LH: And I think that’s one of the hardest things about the Word of Wisdom is that we’ve become really good at coming up with narratives for why this or that is okay.
Like why is it okay that Jesus drank wine in the Bible? You know, stuff like that. And I think it’s totally fair for people to be like, there is cognitive [00:50:00] dissonance around that and for us to honor that in other people.
CW: Yeah.
SH. Mhmm
SH: Can you sort of trace for us how this has gone through with more modern prophets? Like we’ve heard about Joseph, we’ve heard about Brigham. Get us from there to where we are now.
LH: So Wilfred Woodruff was a prophet who was much bigger on abstaining from meat. So he was kind of more into this eat meat sparingly, and he didn’t care as much about drink.
SH: Interesting.
LH: We do know that drinking was still happening amongst the 12. And that at this point in time, there were varying interpretations, right? Because you had some people who were like, no, I’m not gonna give this up. This is not a big deal. And there were other ones who were like, it is a big deal. They were not unified about what the interpretation should be of
SH: Okay.
LH: the Word of Wisdom. Lorenzo Snow actually opposed having sanctions against alcohol. So even if he wasn’t gonna drink it, he was like I don’t wanna make it a rule for everyone else. It wasn’t until Joseph F. Smith after polygamy that he instructed local leaders to start enforcing the Word of Wisdom stronger and
CW: Interesting.
SH: Interesting.
LH: he dropped the two earlier prophets’ emphasis on meat. So Lorenzo Snow and Wilford Woodruff were all about the meat. And now he’s like, we’re gonna stop talking about meat and we’re gonna start talking about alcohol. And this coincides with the prohibition movement, which is building in the progressive movement.
CW: Yes!
SH: Right. Right.
LH: So temperance. Temperance is seeing another huge resurgence at the turn of the 20th century, and there are people pushing for prohibition, which eventually passes in 1920 and so, It’s, again, it’s the water they’re swimming in. He’s seeing that there’s all sorts of politics, you know, going on in this decision between we have the Word of Wisdom. We also have, you know, kind of the pressure of these politicians and the people that we wanna align the church with in Utah. And so these are all kind of swirling around together.
CW: I have a quick question. So Susan and I both just said, “Interesting!” when you talked about Joseph F. Smith, like double downing on the Word of Wisdom after the end of polygamy. I’m guessing Susan and I are both thinking the same thing. It’s like okay, you took away something really, really hard - polygamy - that forced us to live a certain way. And they had to replace that with something else.
LH: Yeah, I have absolutely heard that. That has been a strong theme that I have seen of people proposing that we got rid of this polygamy. See, the thing about polygamy, it was, it became more than just, here’s our doctrine and here’s our practice of marriage. It became, this is our way of life. This is the symbol of who we are as Mormons, right?
SH: Right.
CW: A signifier.
LH: By the time Joseph F. Smith is prophet, that practice is really dying out. And so what is gonna be our next unifier? I could not find any specific document that stated Joseph F. Smith saying this for instance. If anyone knows if that exists, I would love to see it. But this has been a common thing that I’ve seen different historians talk about is that you need something else to rally and make people come around to. Why don’t we try the Word of Wisdom?
CW: I think this also happens with garments in a little bit.
CW: Mhmm
SH: Because garments didn’t used to be quite the same,
CW: Like a day and night kind of thing.
SH: level of enforcement. Yeah. Wearing it all the time. All of those kinds of things. I think this starts to ramp up also.
LH: I definitely think there’s a part of it that’s if we get people to buy into this idea and they’re dedicating their life to this becomes like their symbol. There’s a little bit of like a sunk cost policy in there, right? This is a
CW: Hundred percent
SH: Sure.
LH: This is everything and this is the symbol of who I am, and so I’m gonna hold on even stronger to the church. I’m going to read those stories in the Ensign about people who refuse to have alcohol and might have offended the King of Japan or whatever that story was
SH: Right. Right.
LH: by not taking the alcohol. And this is this amazing faith promoting story that people hold onto and cling to and come around of this is us as a people, this is our peculiar people. And we wear it as like a, it’s a badge of honor.
CW: It kind of makes me think of Joseph Smith saying, A religion that doesn’t require the sacrifice of all things has not the power to save.
SH: Right.
CW: And so I think embedded in that idea is that this should be really hard. This should hurt.
LH: Oh yeah.
CW: And the more, the harder it is, the more likely you are to be saved.
I mean, This is just my interpretation here, but that just kind of keeps coming up, Linda, as you’re talking about Well, this leader thought it was this [00:55:00] way and this leader thought it was this way. It’s okay. That was their idea of this is hard. My brain is spinning now, my brain is spinning
LH: A hundred percent. And you’re gonna love hearing about Hebert J Grant, so
CW: Let’s do it.
LH: Okay. So Heber J. Grant had personal issues with alcohol and coffee young in his life. By his own admission, he felt that he was addicted to these substances.
CW: Okay.
LH: I can’t, you know, as a modern person define whether or not he actually had an addiction. But he relied on these substances and used them a lot. And so a big part of his battle with the Word of Wisdom and him like kind of, he’s really the guy who places it up on the pedestal. And I think a lot of that comes from his own personal demons. He felt that he overcame his demons by following the Word of Wisdom, and now he wants the rest of the church to join in with him in that
CW: Aha
LH: abstinence. So he was the one who made the Word of Wisdom a part of the temple recommend in 1921.
SH: Okay.
LH: He was also the leader of the state. So,
CW: I was just gonna say 1921. So now we’re just at the 100 year anniversary, and change, of this being part of who we. Like the Word of Wisdom is now a commandment and you can’t go to the temple without it.
So we’re at the hundred year anniversary of that. Fascinating!
LH: Yeah. And he was also the leader of the state prohibition movement. So again, he’s swimming. 1920 is when prohibition starts with no alcohol in the US. So he’s a huge part of this movement. There’s also, the First Presidency really during this time period, interjected itself into local politics in order to try to get local leaders elected who strictly followed prohibition. So it’s all kind of mixed up.
CW: Politically neutral, Linda! We’re politically neutral.
[Laughter]
LH: All the Utahans listening.
SH: This is shocking!
CW: Oh goodness.
LH: I mean all the Utahans listening know exactly this is how church does politics in Utah,
CW: Right. Right.
LH: We could, we, I could go on about all the different experiences but yeah.Right there. The First Presidency is actively working to make prohibition and the word of wisdom go hand in hand because
SH: Okay.
LH: according to the Dialogue article that we can link where I got this information from, like at the beginning towards the early part of prohibition, not many Utahans were actually on board with it.
CW: Interesting.
LH: Especially in Salt Lake City, where you had like non-Mormons who were
SH: Right. Right.
LH: benefiting from alcohol. But I think it’s an interesting thing that Mormons weren’t really on board necessarily with prohibition until it became, you know, the temple recommend question. Until the tops started cracking down on it. Then it became, oh, we all support prohibition now
LH: Also, I found out that the 1920s is kind of where the beginning of that don’t drink soda thing comes from.
SH: Okay.
LH: Because again, it was a popular belief during the time period outside of Mormonism. There was a growing belief that Coca-Cola specifically and other sodas were bad for you. And kind of following along the same ideas of it’s a stimulant. I mean, early Coca-Cola was literally a stimulant, but
CW: It was literally cocaine.
[Laughter]
SH: Right.
[Laughter]
CW: Oh boy.
LH: But I think this is the root of why we, you know, don’t drink soda because people like Heber J. Grant, were. Into this idea that you should be against Coca-Cola and soda. And so I think it we’re starting to see how more and more of these folk beliefs in Mormonism are tying in together.
SH: Sure.
LH: And so from there, it just sort of, it just builds, right? It’s enshrined in the temple, recommend, which means it’s an important commandment and you start to see all those things you grew up with and I grew up with about beliefs around the Word of Wisdom and its enforcement. And we can talk some, you know, kind of about some of those if you would like.
CW: Oh my gosh. I’m thinking I see in your notes here the sugary palette of Mormon culture. And I just think, I mean, I’ve never once in my life thought I want to drink alcohol. And that’s just kind of going back to what Susan was saying earlier, that, you know, it’s not a big deal to her at this point. But I do think, yeah our sugary palette, I mean the giant soda industry that’s here in Utah. You know, soda shops on every corner, and they sell you the giant sugar cookie to go with the sugar soda.
I know that has kind of spread, at least throughout the western United States, but I don’t know if that’s a thing in every state because they have different vices. Ours just happens to be sugar.
LH: I think there is a cultural connection of sugar, right? [01:00:00] Like the idea that you get around with your friends and you drink alcohol or whatever together is sort of just like a normal American thing. And so
CW: Mhmm
LH: Mormons are gonna gather what we’re gonna gather around a giant plate of brownies. Like it just,
SH: Right.
LH: I don’t know. It just sort of became ingrained into it, and I think there’s a connection there because if the moms were all together in a wine group or a coffee drinking group we probably wouldn’t have Crumbl cookies. I don’t know
CW: I don’t know. It’s really interesting to think about.
LH: Growing up, one of the strongest things I always heard about the Word of Wisdom was that it’s against habit forming things. That we believe that you should never give your body and your agency over to something that’s going to control you.
SH: Right. Right.
LH: Like alcohol,
SH: It takes away your agency.
LH: Yes. Alcohol, drugs. I could totally see that. I was recently sitting in the Word of Wisdom lesson at Sunday School. And I remember just having this sort of, almost like out of body experience, listening to people talk about it, because it was always the same. It was like, oh, if you don’t drink alcohol, you won’t become an alcoholic and have problems. And I just remember this lady saying we all know that places that if you’re going to places where you can, you know, get alcohol or anything like that, you’re automatically going into bad places where the Spirit cannot be and like this idea, right?
CW: We’ve all heard that.
LH: And I just started being like, do you people seriously have no idea about alcohol and coffee and tobacco consumption? That your beliefs go from cup of coffee to a drug addict on the street? There is literally no difference between those things in the average Mormon mind. And that was, that kind of was blowing me, like making me go crazy. I was like, oh my gosh, you guys really do think that the second you take a sip of alcohol, you’re gonna become an alcoholic. That the places where people are having coffee or engaging in anti Word of Wisdom behavior is also one step away from being an orgy at all times. It’s just wild.
CW: I just think here’s where fear comes into it. Like the stakes are so high. Like you said, you go from sipping, you know, alcohol or whatever to, to being a drug addict on the street and homeless or something. But I distinctly remember, I can picture the sacrament meeting I was in. I can picture the member of the bishopric who said this and he was telling a whole story about, you know, a woman saying to her bishop about, I love my coffee and come on, do you really think God will keep me out of the celestial kingdom for drinking coffee? And he said, no, sister, the coffee will not keep you out of the celestial kingdom. It’s the disobedience that will. And so we’ve really ramped this up ‘cause I think we all know at this point, like we started out this conversation, like we know the whole no coffee, no tea thing. It makes absolutely no sense. Like you say, we make up for it in sugar, and it’s is that really that much healthier? But so we’ve amped it up now to, we know it’s not about health now, but now it’s about obedience.
SH: Okay. But they’ve absolutely then completely shifted the whole idea behind this.
CW: Correct.
SH: as a principle.
CW: Yes!
LH: Yes!
SH: It really, it’s a perversion of the whole way that this came down to make it a principle of obedience.
CW: That’s a good point.
SH: In my opinion. That is a perversion
CW: No, yeah.
SH: of an understanding of this principle. Like you’ve taken all of the - for one thing, you’ve taken all of the benefit out of it because a principle implies that you’re actually making a choice for well thought out and felt out reasons, right?But obedience to a rule like this, that’s a whole different thing. Like it has required, like I just said, like I said at the beginning, it has required nothing of me to keep the Word of Wisdom. I was raised this way from the time I was a child, and it really just it’s not that there’s not a moral question there for me, you know what I mean? It doesn’t require,
CW: Yeah, good point.
SH: a moral choice. And to me, like a principle is something that requires you to wrestle and engage on a spiritual level with a thing. Whereas obedience to a rule is a totally different thing that doesn’t serve the same kind of higher purpose.
CW: Yes!
SH: It’s like the lowest level of meaning.
CW: Yes!
SH: So as we’ve said before, Latter Day Saints for some reason, seem to be drawn to the lowest level of meaning on things.
CW: [Laughter]
LH: Adapted to the weakest saints.
SH: Yes! That’s where I was gonna go next. It is! It is! And so what makes us so prone to that? I really don’t know, but I feel like we walked straight into the trap with the Word of Wisdom. We just went straight into it.
CW: Gosh
LH: I mean, I would argue - my thought is that,
CW: Go for it Linda
LH: This is baked into Mormon doctrine 101.
SH: Okay. [01:05:00]
LH: The idea that we can control our salvation and that we can control God and demand that he save us because we have done
SH: Ding, ding, ding, ding.
LH: X, Y and Z. It’s directly
SH: 100%!
LH: in the temple. Joseph Smith lost his brother Alvin, that he loved so much and he was so scared. What is gonna happen to Alvin? What is going to happen to my family that lives in this abject poverty? What is going to happen to my friends and this circle of people that I love and want to be with? How can I make sure? When I went into that grove and God told me my sins were forgiven, that I was good. How can I make sure that is always with me? How can I make sure that I know that I am saved and I think the result is temple rituals. I think the result of that is so many of our doctrines and this underlying cultural belief that we never directly state, but is absolutely there as you just pointed out, that we want to save ourselves. We have no faith in God. We do not have the faith that we don’t believe in grace
CW: 100%.
LH: We do not have the faith that grace can save us. Grace doesn’t save us despite all we can do. It saves us after all we can do after, because we have to have that tangible thing that temple recommend in our hand that says, God approves of me. I am worthy. I am going to celestial kingdom. I am going to heaven. Because I know the handshakes, I have the temple recommend. I keep the Word of Wisdom, I wear the garments. But where’s Jesus? Where’s grace? Where’s the belief that we can grow and try and learn and actually use agency to make decisions for ourselves?
CW: She just said it.
SH: That’s it.
LH: That was my rant. Sorry. [Laughter]
SH: That was a good rant. And I would love to believe that Latter Day Saints could engage with the Word of Wisdom on a principle level, but I believe it can never happen as long as it is a question in the temple recommend
CW: correct.
LH: Yeah.
SH: interview. It can never happen.
CW: Well, Ms. Linda Hamilton, thank you, thank you for showing up today. Thank you for doing all the homework.
SH: Yes!
CW: Susan and I just had to show up to this conversation and engage with you. Thank you for your historical lens and your own personal lens as well. We can’t thank you enough.
LH: I am so glad that I was able to be here and hopefully the things I said are helpful and spark people’s interest in maybe learning more or just sitting in those gray areas.
SH: Can’t thank you enough.
Voicemail 1: Hey, it’s Jody. Several years ago, I had an intense feeling that I needed to start gathering women together in my home where honest conversations could happen and a community could be built. That thought stayed simmering in the back of my mind until two years ago when I was feeling very alone in my nuanced thoughts and knew I needed to find my real people.
I started my sleuthing by bringing up books or podcasts. I was listening to, like this one during conversations, and soon realized there were many wise women in my neighborhood that could come, and thus Women Talking began. We’ve been meeting now once a month for two years and continue to meet like-minded goddesses wherever we go, who are then invited to come because we all need to find our people.
Where I try to have a theme in our get togethers, it’s mainly women gathering and having real and deep discussions with one another, saying words that have been stuck in their throats for decades, and knowing they are in a safe space to finally let those words free. A place for stories with raw emotions to tumble out and to be met with empathy, sympathy, soft words, and even softer eyes because that’s what’s provided in our space when we remember we are stronger and better when we gather, and when we allow honesty and authenticity to strip away our veneers is when we can become more whole. So ladies, it is time to start gathering again.
Voicemail 2: Hi, Cynthia and Susan. I’ve put this off because I didn’t know where to start. My transition began long ago with questions about polygamy. Questions no one, including my fiance, wanted to face. My fears unsettled him, raising issues of church authority and revelation. Later I had temple experiences where men were critical when I made mistakes, whether as a patron or temple worker. Still I pressed on raising children, working, serving in callings, and going back to school. The biggest challenge, however, came when my husband became bishop. He’d served in leadership before, but this was different. I felt [01:10:00] invisible, isolated, and unwanted, especially because it was during COVID. At the same time, I was being told I was too old for young women’s leadership, and this deepened my loss of belonging. All of this collided and forced me to step back. I began to see the weight of patriarchy, the obsession with certainty and the idea of a transactional God. That crash, painful as it was, opened space for choice and for redefining my relationship with God.
I now see God as both She and He, as unconditional love, inviting me to grow, learn, and choose freely. I’m still discovering what that looks like, but I know this much. It will also always include a lot of Jesus.
CW: And the title of today’s episode is, oh shoot, Susan, we don’t, we didn’t make a title.
SH: I know I wrote a couple in there when I put the intro in.
CW: Yeah you did
SH: But I meant to discuss it when we got here, and then I didn’t.
CW: And the title of today’s episode is, What About the Word of Wisdom?
SH: A Conversation with Linda Hamilton.
CW: Oh, see, again
[Laughter]
SH: I was gonna type that, but you started and I didn’t wanna be making typing noises.
CW: Okay, ladies, third time’s a charm. Here we go.
LH: Sorry. I just was like, did I say Kirtland or Kirkland? [Laughter]
CW: No, you said Kirtland.
SH: You did.
CW: We love Costco.
[Laughter]
LH: Okay. Okay. All right, so.
CW: Don’t forget, we have a website, atlastshesaidit.org. That’s where you can find all of our content. You can contact our team, send us a voicemail, find transcripts, buy our book, subscribe to our substack, or make a tax deductible donation. Paid subscribers get extra stuff including access to our community chats, and also Zoom events with us.
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