For over a century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints denied the existence of an 1886 prophetic revelation that doubled down on polygamy. Then, on June 14, 2025, it was quietly published in the church’s historical digital library.
“It raises both theological and historical and ethical questions that might be difficult for at least some in the faith to reconcile,” said Benjamin Park, an American history professor at Sam Houston University and author of “American Zion: A New History of Mormonism.”
In the 1880s, the practice of polygamy was under fire from national women's groups and a target of the federal government. LDS President John Taylor, however, refused to give it up.
“Church authorities instead went on the underground as fugitives to the law because they chose to follow God's law rather than man's law.”
While in hiding, Taylor was pressured from inside and outside the church to give in, Park said. That’s when he received a revelation that the “new and everlasting covenant” would never go away. From textual and contextual clues, Park explained it’s a clear reference to polygamy.
Since John Taylor and other church authorities were in hiding, this revelation was never publicly presented. After Taylor died, the church’s next president, Wilford Woodruff, issued an official declaration that ended polygamy in the church. Taylor’s 1886 revelation then became a basis for those who believed in continuing polygamy.
“The LDS Church has long had a complicated and layered approach to history,” Park said. “Its truth claims are embedded with actual historical events that are just a few generations old. That means when you're talking about the faith's past, you're talking about core principles.”
So for a long time, history was viewed as an “us-versus-them dogmatic battle” between historians and the church. More recently, the church has taken what Park calls a more open and progressive approach. He cited examples like the Joseph Smith Papers Project and the church digging into the Mountain Meadows massacre.
“The fact that they are now making this document available shows a commitment to transparency that I think is quite admirable.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ciara Hulet: What did this revelation mean to the Fundamentalist LDS Church? They still practice polygamy today.
Benjamin Park: The first person who you might identify as making these fundamentalist claims was John Taylor's own son, John W. Taylor, who was an apostle and was dropped from the Quorum of the Twelve and then eventually excommunicated because he refused to follow the church's new teachings to give up polygamy.
And at his excommunication hearing, he talked about his father's revelation, saying, we will never give up this practice, and that these were the words of God that we need to follow. Those who followed that idea soon became known as fundamentalists. They would talk about this revelation, and the text and even a photograph of [it] were widely circulated, which prompted the LDS Church to start denying its existence because it directly undercut their own authority and their forfeiture of the practice.
CH: How did what was happening in the 1880s affect how the church talked about this revelation?
BP: I think it is a lot more difficult to understand these texts that are produced in moments of crisis when you're no longer in a moment of crisis, or maybe when you're in a different crisis. Because for the LDS Church to directly dig into that text, acknowledge its validity, would mean asking difficult questions about prophetic fallibility. What does it mean that a later prophet then contradicted what John Taylor said here? What would it mean to vindicate these narratives that fundamentalists had been presenting for years?
LDS authorities are often careful and worried that any actions they take regarding decisions and prophecies and actions of their prophetic predecessors would directly affect how they are seen by followers today. Because it might raise questions of, well, what are they wrong about now? What might change in the future? And so that opens up a can of worms that the church would rather leave closed.
CH: What issues does the existence of this document raise for church leaders and members today?
BP: On its surface, the revelation doesn't appear that ominous to people because it refers specifically to “the new and everlasting covenant,” rather than directly referring to polygamy. Now this is a relic of a past age in the 1880s when the new and everlasting covenant was often, though not always, synonymous with plural unions. But maybe Latter-day Saints today will view this revelation and say, well, maybe John Taylor understood that to mean polygamy, but it might actually mean this broader corpus of Temple rituals and priesthood authority.
The other thing that's going to raise awkward questions for the church is the fact that they had denied its validity for over a century. I mean, the LDS Church authorities took possession of this document in 1933 after they had put out a public statement saying that it was a pretended revelation. But instead of correcting the record, they sequestered it, and they did not make it available. And there were still some church authorities afterwards that denied its existence. So now that it's available for scholars and researchers and faithful alike, it's going to raise questions of what does it mean that the church was not forthright and telling the truth when it comes to their relationship to this document.
CH: KUER asked the church for comment but didn't hear back in time for this interview. In a YouTube video, one church apologist says this document was never presented to and accepted by church leaders, so it does not contradict the disavowal of polygamy. What have you found in your historical research?
BP: I think that the apologist’s point is actually fair in this case because there's a process of prophets receiving revelation, and then there's a process of those revelations becoming canonized, whether they are sustained by church leaders, presented to the church body and then added to a book of scripture. This revelation did not go through that process because, again, church leaders were in hiding.
However, it should be noted that other John Taylor revelations from the 1880s that touched on the topic of polygamy did go through that process. In fact, one revelation from 1882 was added to the church's Doctrine and Covenants that were published in Europe during the 1880s and then quietly removed later. So I think it's going to force some church members to determine what does it mean for a prophet to receive a revelation that is then not canonized? What does that tell us about prophecy and revelation and authority, and can we distinguish that from canonization?
