Is Doctrine and Covenants 25 a beautiful revelation from God for a woman struggling after the loss of her baby? Or is it an example of spiritual abuse from a spouse? Or is it a little bit of both? These are the questions swirling in my mind today.
In October 2024 General Conference, Emily Belle Freeman gave a talk where she explains how reading this scriptural passage changed her life. She describes imagining Emma Smith, a 26 year old worried about finances and her husband’s persecution and the loss of their first baby, trying to feel God’s love. She imagines that the revelation that came through the prophet to Emma (what is now Doctrine and Covenants 25) likely brought comfort to her during this hard time. Emily Belle Freeman describes it this way:
But when I opened up the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants and read the words myself, I didn’t have the same glowing feeling that Emily Belle Freeman clearly had. Instead, I worried. I imagined myself mourning and then having my husband receive guidance from God on my behalf. It just feels like it would be so sad to not receive my own personal revelation. Complicating that more is that some of the revelation that came in those verses sound like a husband’s way of making his wife obey. Here are the passages that were hardest for me to read and my thoughts to go along with them:
Verse 3: Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called. I wonder why it had to come out of her husband’s mouth that her sins were forgiven. Isn’t that between her and God and only mediated through Christ?
Verse 4: Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come. This feels like a husband and wife have been in disagreement on an issue for a while and the husband now says, “God said you need to stop complaining.” But if that’s the case, why couldn’t God tell Emma that directly? Why did God have to go through the husband that the disagreement was with?
Verse 5: And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness. Though Emily Belle Freeman noted that it would have provided great comfort to Emma to be given a special assignment that was just for her, I wonder if it might have felt awkward to be told to do something for the sake of comforting your husband (while noting the need for meekness). This is especially complicated by the fact that it’s coming through that husband.
Verse 14: Continue in the spirit of meekness, and beware of pride. Let thy soul delight in thy husband, and the glory which shall come upon him. If I had a friend who came to me and said, “I’ve been struggling in my marriage, but I recently felt God telling me to let myself find more delight in my marriage,” I’d support that friend. But if I had a friend who came to me and said, “I’ve been struggling in my marriage, but my husband says God needs me to delight in my husband, so I guess I’m going to do that,” I’d worry about the safety of my friend.
I guess if Emma truly believed that every word of Doctrine and Covenants 25 came directly from God, then I bet she agreed with Emily Belle Freeman’s take on it – this is a beautiful revelation. But if Emma was uncertain, this revelation may have been hard to hear. It may have felt manipulative and exploitative.
And I guess that’s the question for me too: Do I believe that every word of that revelation was from God? If I do, I can get behind Emily Belle Freeman’s talk. But if I think there might have been any interpretation from Joseph Smith while he was receiving the revelation, then it suddenly becomes a problematic scripture passage.
What do you think? Is Doctrine and Covenants 25:
A) A beautiful revelation from God for a woman struggling after the loss of her baby?
B) An example of spiritual abuse from a spouse?
C) A little bit of both?
15 Responses
Oh my goodness, I have always felt similarly! I remember high school seminary teachers telling us girls what a special thing it was that there was an entire section just for Emma because God loved her so much – but I raised an eyebrow and thought “How is that so special when men have a zillion revelations for them? Also why is this so obsessed with telling Emma how to make everyone else happy rather than herself? And I think getting to pick out the songs for the hymnbook is fine but not nearly as big a deal as they’re trying to tell me it is.”
The hymns felt like the job you give a little kid to make them feel like they’re important when it’s obvious they aren’t.
I agree! I always have felt the hymn thing was super lame. And thd promise/ prophecy she’d write a lot never happened. Her life was so stressful I don’t thunk she had much time to study.
I agree. It’s so strange that Emma didn’t receive her own revelation from God. I remember many years ago in Young Women’s, we were discussing D&C 25, and a YW leader asked if any of us were bothered by the verse “delight in thy husband.” Me and other YW said yes. One YW leader gave her thoughts, saying that the verse probably had to do with supporting Joseph Smith, since his calling was a big deal.
If God truly speaks to all of us through personal revelation, which we preach and teach often, why then do any of us need another to communicate with him? This perspective has me questioning all religions and the control they have on people.
.These are the messages I have perceived in the church. 1. You can receive your own revelations. 2. A man with the priesthood can always trump your own revelation.
So much of the early D&C is JS telling other men to basically take a back seat, establishing his own power., his own ideas, and the excommunications of potential threats.. It all seemed to be a big power trip and ego boost. Becoming a religious leader so as to not have to work physically for his sustenance. To get paid for the “magical gift” which then morphed into “spiritual gift”, which seemed more legitimate. The more and more I reconsider everything about JS the more red flags appear.. D&C 25 is just another way to control, and this time, it was used to control/appease/rebuke his wife. He makes me sick. I can’t believe that I ever thought otherwise.
One of the problems I have with the D&C this time around is that I keep hearing the “revelations” read with Warren Jeffs voice.
I have hope that Joseph’s revelations were from God. But some of the revelations – especially when they are to specific people -seem manipulative.
So yeah, this revelation to Emma does feel a little abusive. Where’s the actual comfort for Emma? Having sins forgiven is great and all, but I’d rather hear some concrete answers about how I’m valued as more than the wife of someone.
Also any nice stuff in section 25 feels like it gets voided out when section 132 has threats of destroying Emma if she doesn’t accept polygamy..
Yeah, I’d say it sounds spiritually abusive. Maybe Emma was cool with it, but from my perspective it seems sus.
This revelation is pretty focused on Joseph and his needs and desired blessings./importance rather than on Emma’s. There are a couple nice thoughts abt music and abt setting aside this world, but it’s not actually a clearly loving, comforting or inspiring blessing. I’ve seen blessings like this happen in real life–ones that are duty, expectations, and priesthood-focused, and I’ve seen ones that are much more loving, transcendent and attuned to the heart of the recipient.
If you carefully read Joseph’s revelations for the church they almost always come down to his bossing other people around using God’s name instead of his own. In other words, he was on a power trip. Isn’t this a form of blasphemy?
I wonder if to some degree this was the only approach he knew and could use to form the community he envisioned. He certainly had no education in adult’s psychological needs, etc. like many of us are versed in today so it’s a little unfair to jusge him by our idesls today. Personally, I like much of DC and I think there are a lot of beautiful passages. I am leery of dismissing it all because there are some approaches I don’t like sometimes.
Twenty years ago I read this section while sitting in the Provo Temple chapel, desperate to feel some kind of connection with God. I’d been taught just what President Freeman had said — that this was a beautiful section full of God’s love, specifically to a woman (a precious section of scripture, then, because that’s certainly rare!). So I read it and tried to glean my own lesson from it, hoping I could find some kind of happiness in my life. I’d graduated from college but couldn’t find a job; I probably could have used some empowering advice right then. But the only messages I got out of it was to stop being so needy — I shouldn’t need attention or accolades — and just support my husband.. (He had four more years of school ahead of him.)
I tried really hard to make myself believe that this was a beautiful answer to my depression, but looking back, D&C 25 just feels like patriarchy. I spent some prime years of my life making myself small since God didn’t seem to want women to aspire to anything independent from her husband or children.
I appreciate your personal experience that you shared here. And I have come to the same conclusion that this response doesn’t seem to be from a loving God who understands grief and depression but more from a patriarchal system that responded with “repent and serve” which is not what grieving mothers need to hear.
When Joseph Smith was leaving to Carthage right before his martyrdom, Emma requested that Joseph give her a blessing. Pressed for time he told Emma that, if she would write out the blessings she desired he would sign it and ratify it when he came back. Even though he never came back, we still have the requested blessings in her own handwriting.
It seems to me that we can learn several things from this document. (1) Emma was convinced that Joseph Smith was all he said he was. She trusted him – even at that late stage of her life and after all she had been through – that whatever he said would be would, in fact, be. As tough as life was for her, she believed in him until the end and beyond. (2) She believed in all the doctrines he taught. She believed in his teaching of Exaltation in the next world. She believed in the coming rising up of the Kingdom of God on Earth. She believed that she (and, presumably, all the rest of us) covenanted in the spirit world before we were born to come here and carry out a prescribed course of life. These unique doctrines came specifically from Joseph Smith and it is clear she subscribed to them wholeheartedly. She truly believed. (3) She was convinced even as he rode away that Joseph had sufficient influence with God to advocate for her requested blessings. (4) That Emma was quite eloquent in her ability to express herself in writing. She was obviously very intelligent and would not easily have had the wool pulled over her eyes, especially considering the challenges she faced on a daily basis. (5) I might finally add the obvious. Reading this requested blessing on her part reveals a woman with a virtuous heart and righteous desires – as a woman “whose price is far above rubies.”
Many others on here obviously believe Joseph Smith was a fraud, but she did not. She was there and she was in the best position to judge. Some on here are bitter and would like to project their own rejection of the Prophet’s divine calling to her., but that is a mistake. She may not have liked what life dished out to her at times, but who among us does not feel that way from time to time? Here’s the blessing she hoped to have Joseph sign for her upon his hoped-for return:
“First of all that I would crave as the richest of heaven’s blessings would be wisdom from my Heavenly Father bestowed daily, so that whatever I might do or say, I would not look back at the close of the day with regret, nor neglect the performance of any act that would bring a blessing. I desire the spirit of God to know and understand myself that I might be able to overcome whatever Tradition or nature that would not tend to my exaltation in the eternal worlds. I desire a fruitful, active mind, that I may be able to comprehend the designs of God, when revealed through His Servants without doubting. I desire the spirit of discernment, which is one of the blessings of the Holy Ghost.
I particularly desire wisdom to bring up all the children that are, or may be committed to my charge, in such a manner that they will be useful ornaments in the Kingdom of God, and in the coming day rise up and call me blessed.
I desire prudence that I may not through ambition abuse my body and cause it to be prematurely old and care-worn, but that I may wear a cheerful countenance, live to perform all the work I covenanted to perform in the spirit-world and be a blessing to all who may in any wise need aught at my hands.
I desire with all my heart to honor and respect my husband as my head, to ever live in his confidence and by acting in unison with him to retain the place which God has given me by his side. I desire to see my kindred and friend embrace the principles of Eternal Truth, that I may rejoice with them in the blessings which God has in store for all who are willing to be obedient to His requirements.
Finally, I desire that whatever may be my lot through life I may be enabled to acknowledge the hand of God in all things.”
I’ve never seen anyone on Exponent criticize Emma or call her a fraud. But I agree whole heartedly with you that Emma’s perspective that bear a lot more weight when it comes to contemporary perspectives of Joseph. She did believe he had the experiences he said he did to the end of her life. There is one thing she ultimately rejected as a dud revelation, plural marriage.
I’m fully on board with being very cautious abt any black and white or embittered thinking about Joseph and Emma. We should bring grace to Joseph’s patriarchal tendencies, he didn’t have tools to really see this. We should be humble about all we can’t know for certain. And it can help to recpgnize that mystical experiences with God like those he had have been part of the human experience throughout history. These things really do seem to happen, and it’s complicated, not something as easily explained away or dismissed as we often think.
I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to be grieving the loss of a child, then to be told that my sins were forgiven of me as a response. What did Emma need to repent of at this time that it was an appropriate response to her grief that she be told she was forgiven and then to serve and comfort others? This feels like a response from someone who doesn’t fully understand grief and not a response from an all loving, all powerful God. What about mourn with those that mourn? Not tell them they are forgiven and how they can serve to feel better. I have dealt with depression in my life and the rhetoric of “serve others” is not the thing that helped me. I get so tired of hearing of women being told to repent and serve as the way to happiness or to overcome challenges. It just isn’t the right “prescription” for many.