J. Spencer Fluhman

Historian whose work examines early Mormon religious experience, including Helen Mar Kimball’s plural marriage.

history · religious studies

Degree: Doctoral degree, History, University of Wisconsin–Madison
1
earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he studied history.
J. Spencer Fluhman — speaker biography
Brigham Young University · as of 2026-10-02
Original · Archived
Affiliation: Executive Director, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University
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Dr. Fluhman is currently the executive director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.
J. Spencer Fluhman — speaker biography
Brigham Young University · as of 2026-10-02
Original · Archived

Positions

How did Joseph Smith practice plural marriage, and how should it be understood?

Kinship and sealing theology

Fluhman interprets Helen Mar Kimball’s sealing as a link between the Kimball and Smith families within Nauvoo’s vision of an extended eternal family. He discusses the pressure Helen recalled and her later religious interpretation of the marriage, while holding that the surviving record does not settle whether it was consummated.

J. Spencer Fluhman, “‘A Subject That Can Bear Investigation’: Anguish, Faith, and Joseph Smith’s Youngest Plural Wife,” No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues (2011): 105–119.

Corrections