THE LAW OF
GOD: BLOOD ATONEMENT
"It was
proposed what to do with those who were in our midst whose bodies were
tabernacles for devils, that is, rebellious, wicked, ungovernable men who are
breeding disturbance and exciting others to discontent etceteras. It was
unanimously decided to have the "Law of God" put in force on them
etceteras. There was much said but one feeling on the subject." -Hosea
Stout (1)
Joseph Smith, who abhorred disloyalty of any
kind, taught that Apostates were worthy of death by citing
Biblical examples. In 1838 the Mormon prophet stated that he had a
revelation in which the Apostle Peter told him that he had killed
fellow Apostle Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus Christ. Early
Mormon convert Reed Peck wrote:
"He [Joseph Smith] talked of dissenters
and cited us the case of Judas, saying that Peter told him in a
conversation a few days ago that [he] himself hung Judas for betraying
Christ..." (2)
This revelation came after Joseph Smith,
having fled Ohio to avoid a possible jail sentence for fiduciary
mismanagement, found himself in Far West, Missouri, surrounded by prominent
dissidents who claimed that Smith was a fallen prophet. Smith's dis-tractors had been his closest associates, many having been the same
men who supported his claim of a divine origin for the Book of
Mormon. In Smith's mind, these traitors were indeed like Judas, and he
informed the crowd of loyal Latter-day Saints gathered at Far West
what should be done with the Judases in their midst by citing the
example of Saint Peter.
Prior to his lynching, Joseph Smith set up a
quasi-political entity known as the Council of Fifty. This council
was a precursor to establishing his supreme authority over the
Kingdom of God on Earth. The members of this ruling council duly
proclaimed Smith the "king" of his Mormon Kingdom of God; bequeathing to
him the authority to decree in matters of capital offenses.(3)
After Joseph Smith's death in 1844, his
disciples followed Brigham Young's vision and became religious refugees
in the deserts of the Great Basin, a thousand miles from American
civilization. These Mormon refugees hoped to recreate Joseph
Smith's theocratic state in the West. Utah's uniqueness in American
history is that it was founded as a Mormon "Zion", or the
Kingdom of God. Isolated along the western slopes of the Wasatch Range of
the Rocky Mountains, this theocratic commonwealth, originally called
the State of Deseret, was continuously fed neophytes from the nations
of Europe. These foreign emigrants to Utah had no loyalty or affection
towards the United States, having emigrated directly from their
native lands to "Zion. Consequently, they trusted completely in
their priesthood leaders for their physical and spiritual survival in
the New World. Once in Zion however, the tribulations of the
Latter-day Saints were rehearsed upon the new arrivals by the old
pioneers who felt that as national outcasts their allegiance was owed
first and foremost to their priesthood leaders. Church leaders
instilled into the recently arrived converts a repugnance for the
government of America and a mistrust of all non-Mormons, and thus
creating a malignant and virulent atmosphere towards the republican
idealism of the rest of the United States.
"Shortly after the Mormons established
the government of God in Utah on what they believed to be a permanent
basis, they attempted to enforce the doctrine [of Blood
Atonement]." (4)
Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young,
sustained his power over his people by declaring that he held authority to
rule from Smith; and by implementing the Law of God. Young threatened
dissidents in Utah warning them to remain quiet or perish;
especially those who were oppose to the practice of polygamy. In a
sermon given at the Salt Lake Tabernacle Young warned:
"I say, rather than that apostates
should flourish here, I will unsheathe my bowie knife and conquer or die.
Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put
to the line, and righteousness to the plummet If you say it is
right, raise your hands. Let us call upon the Lord to assist us
in this, and every good work" (5)
Numerous nineteenth century sermons by
Brigham Young taught the precept that to be forgiven of serious
offenses, one had to be willing to forfeit his life in such a manner
whereby blood would spill upon the ground. These transgressions
were considered so dreadful by the authorities that they decreed
that only the blood of the transgressor could "atone" or
restore the transgressor to God's full grace. These capital sins included the
"shedding of innocent blood", "apostasy", and
"sexual immorality" as well as the crimes of theft and counterfeiting.
Brigham Young preached in a sermon given on
September 21, 1856; "There are sins that men commit for
which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or in that which
is to come, and if they had their eyes open to see their true
condition, they would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt
upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an
offering for their sins; and the smoking incense would atone for their
sins, whereas, if such is not the case, they will stick to them and
remain upon them in the spirit world. I know, when you hear my
brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth, that you consider
it is strong doctrine; but it is to save them, not to destroy
them....And further more, I know that there are transgressors, who, if
they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain
forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood, that
the smoke thereof might ascend to God as an offering to appease the
wrath that is kindled against them, and that the law might have its
course. I will say further; I have had men come to me and offer
their lives to atone for their sins. It is true that the blood of the
Son of God was shed for sins through the fall and those committed by
men, yet men can commit sins which it can never remit.... There are
sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon an altar, as in
ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, or a calf, or
of turtle dove, cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood
of the man." (6)
Brigham Young additionally taught that if
these "sinners" were unwilling to have their blood spilt, then
some Saint should "love" them enough to help dispatch them into the
next world for the sake of their eternal well being.
"Now take a person in this congregation
who has knowledge with regard to being saved ... and suppose that he is
overtaken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin that he knows
will deprive him of that exaltation which he desires, and that he
cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows
that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved
and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house
but what would say "shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with
the Gods?" All mankind love them selves, and let these principles be
known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his bloodshed.
That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation.
Will you love your brothers and sisters likewise, when they have
committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of
their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed
their blood? I could refer you to plenty of instances where men have
been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. I have seen
scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a
chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their lives
had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a smoking
incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the devil ... I have
known a great many men who left this Church for whom there is no chance
whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would
have been better for them, the wickedness and ignorance of the
nations forbids this principle's being in full force, but the time
will come when the law of God will be in full force. This is loving
our neighbor as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if
he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the
earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who understand
the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring
the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be
satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain
that salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind. (7)
In these shocking sermons Brigham Young
clearly acknowledge that blood atonement was a practice in the church.
He claimed "I could refer you to plenty of instances where men
have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their
sins."
Through years of church conferences, Brigham
Young and his subordinates managed to instill in the mind
of the Latter-day Saints that Blood Atonement was a legitimate decree
of God. Young's zealous rhetoric on shedding blood achieved, among
his more fanatical followers, a pogrom of terror that peaked
during the Mormon Reformation of the mid 1850s.
It is easy to appreciate that an isolated
people who subscribed that Young was the mouthpiece of the Lord, would
feel it was their duty to help dispatch the wicked if it was the Lord's
will. It is not a stretch to say that the inflammatory sermons
of Brigham Young and other LDS General Authorities of this period
precipitated a rash of religious murders in Utah during what is
known as the Mormon Reformation (1855-1858). Most noticeably of
these was the slaughter of William Rice Parrish and his son for
apostasy in Springville, Utah. The father and son were murdered as
they were trying to flee Utah.
The malignant rhetoric emitted from the
pulpits of Utah during this period may have actually rendered the rank
and file Mormons unaccountable for their actions according to
some historians.
"Under such circumstances the Mormon
hierarchy bore full responsibility for the violent acts of
zealous Mormon[s] who accepted their instructions literally and carried out
various forms of blood atonement. Obviously there were those who
could not easily make a distinction between rhetoric and reality,....
It is unrealistic to assume that faithful Mormons all declined to
act on such repeated instructions in pioneer Utah.... Neither is
it reasonable to assume that the known cases of blood atonement even
approximated the total number that occurred in the first twenty
years after Mormon settlement in Utah.... LDS leaders publicly
and privately encouraged Mormons to consider it their religious right
to kill antagonistic outsiders, common criminals, LDS apostates,
and even faithful Mormons who committed sins 'worthy of death.'"
(8)
Brigham Young's idea of a "helping
love" in dispatching fellow Latter-day Saints unwilling to submit
willingly to his authority was a "more ominous extension" of the
doctrine of Blood Atonement. It opened the way to "ecclesiastically
sanctioned executions" in the Kingdom of God. The notion that if a
transgressor was unable or unwilling to submit to being slain, then his
friends must do it for him was, in reality, a justification for the
use of capital punishment in the Mormon Kingdom of God. (9).
Nineteenth Mormon Apostles Jedidiah M. Grant
and George A. Smith (10) both also preached the doctrine of blood
atonement as well as Brigham Young. Smith's sermons so enflamed the
Southern Utah colonists that in September of 1857, the Latter-day Saints
of the Cotton and Iron Missions felt duty-bound to commit the most
atrocious mass murder of American citizens prior to the Oklahoma City
federal building bombing and the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Towers in New York City which coincidentally was the same date as the massacre in Southern Utah.
As autocrat of the Mormon Kingdom of God,
Brigham Young was not concerned with public opinion. Utah's totalitarianism
was an natural result of the directive to never
question priestly authority. It is possible that this directive also
created in the minds of many pioneer Latter-day Saints the inability to
think for themselves and thereby creating a climate wherein crimes
could be perpetrated that outside of their religious context would be
too horrible for them to even contemplate let alone commit.
But commit them the Latter-day Saints did; as
subordinates in religious chain of command known as the
Melchelzedec Priesthood. Few Latter-day Saints were foolish enough to
contradict a direct order from a priesthood superior. Disobedience was
tantamount to apostasy to which the Law of God could then be
applied.
While the LDS Church, controlling all three branches of the government in the Utah Territory, heedlessly implemented the "Law of God" in the Great Basin a thousand miles from the nearest American restraint, news of crimes committed in the Mormon Kingdom could not be contained. Reports of the atrocities reached the federal government in Washington by means of government officials and LDS Apostates many who had fled Utah out of fear for their lives.
Gentile and Apostate refugees from the Kingdom of God told of traitorous sermons repudiating the authority of the United States in Utah, bigamous marriages among LDS leaders, the censorship of communication with outsiders, interference with the United States mail, and the inciting of Utah Indians against the federal government. Mormon lobbyists in Washington feverishly tried to counter the reports of crimes against apostates and Gentiles in Utah against overwhelming evidence.
Unfortunately for the Mormon Kingdom while the federal government was loath to interfere in the domestic jurisdiction on any state or territory, the rising national abhorrence to the practices of slavery and polygamy in the United States made it politically impossible for President James Buchanan to ignore Utah. President Buchanan, hoping to relieve the pressure of national strife over slavery by directing the nations' attention to a western despot, sent federal troops to Utah in 1857 to remove Brigham Young as Governor. Young was being deposed partially on the grounds of being morally unfit for the office but also he was being removed for the contempt Mormon officials had shown federally appointed territorial officials. Buchanan wanted Young replaced with a federal appointee whose loyalty to the Union was beyond question and who would not engage in a sexual practice which most Americans considered immoral if not illegal. (11)
Brigham Young, feeling that the sovereignty of his kingdom was at stake, called for a rebellion against the United States army. Mormon militants who were poised to keep Brigham Young as the supreme authority in Utah attacked American troops but the numeral superiority of the United States Army won the day. Brigham Young was deposed and federal troops assured that the United States Constitution would supersede the Law of God.
After federal troops sent to secure the loyalty of Mormon theocrats were stationed in Utah, the LDS leaders were placed in a position where they found it impossible to openly the practice of the Law of God without the threat of "prosecution and public scandal." Nevertheless the doctrine was still held as a true principle and practiced in secret as late as 1888.
Mormon Apostle Charles W. Penrose observed: `Because of the laws of the land and the prejudices of the nation and the ignorance of the world, this law [of God] cannot be carried out, but when the time comes that the law of God shall be in full force upon the earth, then this penalty will be inflicted for those crimes committed by persons under covenant not to commit them." (12)
In the twenty-first century it is difficult to understand, in the context of Christian orthodoxy, that such a doctrine as Blood Atonement was believed and practiced in America. The LDS view that Christ's atonement is limited creates within Mormonism a fundamental difference from traditional Catholic and Protestant theologies, which regard the atonement as being universal.
Mormon histories have long tried to disassociate the LDS Church from any doctrine, which advocates that the atonement of Jesus Christ is insufficient for redemption from sin. However mid-nineteenth century Mormon theologians postulated this doctrine to justify Joseph Smith's belief that the "law of mercy" did not cover the sins of murder, apostasy and sexual immorality. While LDS histories today are reluctant to admit that Blood Atonement was ever a doctrine espoused by its early leaders, when they do, they dismiss the practice as a "misunderstanding or misuse of earlier sermons concerning the atonement of Jesus Christ or the civil necessity of capital punishment. " Many Mormon histories simply wave away the perception of wrong doing by saying the Blood Atonement sermons of Brigham Young were simply his use of "rhetoric devices designed to frighten wayward individuals into conformity with Latter-Day Saints principles". Others argue that Blood Atonement was simply an "overly enthusiastic response" to the Mormon Reformation "wherein some unauthorized zealots may have applied the concept in extreme measures." Clearly these views are written myopically through "faith promoting" spectacles.
The late Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, author of the classic text, Mormon Doctrine, while disclaiming that blood atonement was ever actually practiced, felt that it was a true principle because of the teachings of Joseph Smith. McConkie wrote: "... under certain circumstances there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must have their own blood shed to atone for their sins..." (13)
Gustive O. Larson, former Professor of Church History at Brigham Young University, unlike McConkie, was willing to admit that Blood Atonement was indeed practiced in early LDS history. "To whatever extent the preaching on blood atonement may have influenced action, it would have been in relation to Mormon disciplinary action among its own members. In point would be a verbally reported case of a Mr. Johnson in Cedar City who was found guilty of adultery with his stepdaughter by a bishop's court and sentenced to death for atonement of his sin. According to the report of reputable eyewitnesses, judgment was executed with consent of the offender who went to his unconsecrated grave in full confidence of salvation through the shedding of his blood. Such a case, however primitive, is understandable within the meaning of the doctrine and the emotional extremes of the [Mormon] Reformation." " (14)
Because of blood oaths sworn in sacred LDS ordinances, for more than for any other sin, the Law of God was required for apostasy. (15) As late as April 1990, the Latter-day Saints were required to take oaths in their temples that they were willing to submit to having their throats slit, being disemboweled, and other forms of destruction as a penalty for betraying the covenants. This blood oath was a sacred part of the endowment ceremony of which all faithful Latter-day Saints were required to receive in order to learn the mysteries needed to be resurrected as a Celestial being. On April 10, 1990 these ceremonials were quietly and secretly altered.
"The changes were not announced to the membership at large, but temple attendees are being read a statement from the governing First Presidency which says the revisions, following long and prayerful review, were unanimously approved by that three-member body and the advisory Quorum of the Twelve Apostles." (16)
The altering of the temple endowment ceremony was "the most significant change in the church since blacks received the priesthood in 1978, " and was seen as an attempt to distance LDS theology from discarded doctrines. (17) (18)
The Arizona Republic wrote of the deletion of blood oaths saying: "The changes in the Temple Endowment Ceremony are seen as a move to bring the secret ceremony closer to mainstream Christianity. The changes are the most drastic revisions of the century..." (19)
While the LDS Church, controlling all three branches of the government in the Utah Territory, heedlessly implemented the "Law of God" in the Great Basin a thousand miles from the nearest American restraint, news of crimes committed in the Mormon Kingdom could not be contained. Reports of the atrocities reached the federal government in Washington by means of government officials and LDS Apostates many who had fled Utah out of fear for their lives.
Gentile and Apostate refugees from the Kingdom of God told of traitorous sermons repudiating the authority of the United States in Utah, bigamous marriages among LDS leaders, the censorship of communication with outsiders, interference with the United States mail, and the inciting of Utah Indians against the federal government. Mormon lobbyists in Washington feverishly tried to counter the reports of crimes against apostates and Gentiles in Utah against overwhelming evidence.
Unfortunately for the Mormon Kingdom while the federal government was loath to interfere in the domestic jurisdiction on any state or territory, the rising national abhorrence to the practices of slavery and polygamy in the United States made it politically impossible for President James Buchanan to ignore Utah. President Buchanan, hoping to relieve the pressure of national strife over slavery by directing the nations' attention to a western despot, sent federal troops to Utah in 1857 to remove Brigham Young as Governor. Young was being deposed partially on the grounds of being morally unfit for the office but also he was being removed for the contempt Mormon officials had shown federally appointed territorial officials. Buchanan wanted Young replaced with a federal appointee whose loyalty to the Union was beyond question and who would not engage in a sexual practice which most Americans considered immoral if not illegal. (11)
Brigham Young, feeling that the sovereignty of his kingdom was at stake, called for a rebellion against the United States army. Mormon militants who were poised to keep Brigham Young as the supreme authority in Utah attacked American troops but the numeral superiority of the United States Army won the day. Brigham Young was deposed and federal troops assured that the United States Constitution would supersede the Law of God.
After federal troops sent to secure the loyalty of Mormon theocrats were stationed in Utah, the LDS leaders were placed in a position where they found it impossible to openly the practice of the Law of God without the threat of "prosecution and public scandal." Nevertheless the doctrine was still held as a true principle and practiced in secret as late as 1888.
Mormon Apostle Charles W. Penrose observed: `Because of the laws of the land and the prejudices of the nation and the ignorance of the world, this law [of God] cannot be carried out, but when the time comes that the law of God shall be in full force upon the earth, then this penalty will be inflicted for those crimes committed by persons under covenant not to commit them." (12)
In the twenty-first century it is difficult to understand, in the context of Christian orthodoxy, that such a doctrine as Blood Atonement was believed and practiced in America. The LDS view that Christ's atonement is limited creates within Mormonism a fundamental difference from traditional Catholic and Protestant theologies, which regard the atonement as being universal.
Mormon histories have long tried to disassociate the LDS Church from any doctrine, which advocates that the atonement of Jesus Christ is insufficient for redemption from sin. However mid-nineteenth century Mormon theologians postulated this doctrine to justify Joseph Smith's belief that the "law of mercy" did not cover the sins of murder, apostasy and sexual immorality. While LDS histories today are reluctant to admit that Blood Atonement was ever a doctrine espoused by its early leaders, when they do, they dismiss the practice as a "misunderstanding or misuse of earlier sermons concerning the atonement of Jesus Christ or the civil necessity of capital punishment. " Many Mormon histories simply wave away the perception of wrong doing by saying the Blood Atonement sermons of Brigham Young were simply his use of "rhetoric devices designed to frighten wayward individuals into conformity with Latter-Day Saints principles". Others argue that Blood Atonement was simply an "overly enthusiastic response" to the Mormon Reformation "wherein some unauthorized zealots may have applied the concept in extreme measures." Clearly these views are written myopically through "faith promoting" spectacles.
The late Mormon Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie, author of the classic text, Mormon Doctrine, while disclaiming that blood atonement was ever actually practiced, felt that it was a true principle because of the teachings of Joseph Smith. McConkie wrote: "... under certain circumstances there are some serious sins for which the cleansing of Christ does not operate, and the law of God is that men must have their own blood shed to atone for their sins..." (13)
Gustive O. Larson, former Professor of Church History at Brigham Young University, unlike McConkie, was willing to admit that Blood Atonement was indeed practiced in early LDS history. "To whatever extent the preaching on blood atonement may have influenced action, it would have been in relation to Mormon disciplinary action among its own members. In point would be a verbally reported case of a Mr. Johnson in Cedar City who was found guilty of adultery with his stepdaughter by a bishop's court and sentenced to death for atonement of his sin. According to the report of reputable eyewitnesses, judgment was executed with consent of the offender who went to his unconsecrated grave in full confidence of salvation through the shedding of his blood. Such a case, however primitive, is understandable within the meaning of the doctrine and the emotional extremes of the [Mormon] Reformation." " (14)
Because of blood oaths sworn in sacred LDS ordinances, for more than for any other sin, the Law of God was required for apostasy. (15) As late as April 1990, the Latter-day Saints were required to take oaths in their temples that they were willing to submit to having their throats slit, being disemboweled, and other forms of destruction as a penalty for betraying the covenants. This blood oath was a sacred part of the endowment ceremony of which all faithful Latter-day Saints were required to receive in order to learn the mysteries needed to be resurrected as a Celestial being. On April 10, 1990 these ceremonials were quietly and secretly altered.
"The changes were not announced to the membership at large, but temple attendees are being read a statement from the governing First Presidency which says the revisions, following long and prayerful review, were unanimously approved by that three-member body and the advisory Quorum of the Twelve Apostles." (16)
The altering of the temple endowment ceremony was "the most significant change in the church since blacks received the priesthood in 1978, " and was seen as an attempt to distance LDS theology from discarded doctrines. (17) (18)
The Arizona Republic wrote of the deletion of blood oaths saying: "The changes in the Temple Endowment Ceremony are seen as a move to bring the secret ceremony closer to mainstream Christianity. The changes are the most drastic revisions of the century..." (19)
Prior to its elimination, the most ominous feature of this temple blood oath was that LDS Apostates did not have to be willing participants in their destruction. Covenant Breakers according to Mormon doctrine had pledged forfeiture of their lives by these oaths sworn to in the temple ceremonies. Fortunately for the people of Utah the "prejudices of the nation" and the "ignorance of the world" have successfully kept implementation of the "Law of God" upon Apostates for well over a century. The LDS Church has wisely removed the oaths and penalties from the sacred Temple ceremonies so that the Law of God need not be "inflicted for those crimes committed by persons under covenant not to commit them."
While apostasy and murder were grave sins, Brigham Young also taught that infidelity or sexual immorality was a crime punishable by the Law of God. In a speech given in during the Mormon Reformation Young taught the Latter-day Saints: "Let me suppose a case. Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God. I would at once do so in such a case; and under such circumstances, I have no wife whom I love so well that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do it with clean hands.... There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it ... (20)
Brigham Young's councilor Heber C. Kimball, similarly taught: "These are my views, and the Lord knows that I believe in the principles of sanctification; and when I am guilty of seducing any man's wife, or any woman in God's world, I say, sever my head from my body (21)
Although Mormon men could have multiple sexual partners, Brigham Young was adamant that Mormon women must be monogamous. Young preached that adulterous LDS women would be killed in Utah. He boasted of the purity of Latter-day Saint women by warning that who were not would be slain. "[O]ur females...are not unclean, for we wipe all unclean ones from our midst: we not only wipe them from our streets, but we wipe them out of existence...so help me God, while I live, I will lend my hand to wipe such persons out: and I know this people will." (22)
Theft among the Latter-day Saints was also considered a capital offence. Joseph Smith views on this subject was quoted in the LDS newspaper "Times and Seasons": "I want the elders to make honorable proclamation abroad concerning what the feelings of the first presidency is, for stealing has never been tolerated by them. I despise a thief above ground" (23)
The History of the Church recorded that Brigham Young had the same sentiment. He spoke his views on capital punishment for thieves to the LDS Brethren in February of 1846. "I should be perfectly willing to see thieves have their throats cut; some of you may say, if that is your feelings Brigham, we'll lay you aside sometime, well, do it if you can; I would rather die by the hands of the meanest of all men, false brethren, than to live among thieves." (24)
Later that same year, Brigham Young instructed the bishops of the LDS Church saying "when a man is found to be a thief, he will be a thief no longer, cut his throat and throw' him in the river," and Young did not instruct his Bishops to ask his permission first. (25)
So strong were Brigham Young's thoughts on the subject of stealing that in 1848 he swore with solemn up lifted hands, "that a thief should not live in the (Salt Lake) Valley for he would cut off their heads or be the means of having it done as the Lord Liveth."
The following year Brigham Young told a congregation of Mormons "if any one was catched stealing to shoot them dead on the spot and they should not be hurt for it. Brigham Young reiterated his feelings by advocating, "If you want to know what to do with a thief that you may find stealing, I say kill him on the spot, and never suffer him to commit another iniquity... if I caught a man stealing on my premises I should be very apt to send him straight home, and that is what I wish every man to do.... this appears hard, and throws a cold chill over our revered traditions ... but I have trained myself to measure things by the line of justice.... If you will cause all those whom you know to be thieves, to be placed in a line before the mouth of one of our largest cannon, well loaded with chain shot, I will prove by my works whether I can mete out justice to such persons, or not. I would consider it just as much my duty to do that, as to baptize a man for the remission of his sins (26)
This admission by Brigham Young that "I have trained myself to measure things by the line of justice" is clear evidence that he, as the ultimate authority in the Mormon Church, felt justified having miscreants eliminated.
Here it should be noted that the early Latter-day Saints made a clear distinction from stealing from members of the church and robbing Gentiles. According to revelations given to Joseph Smith, the property of Gentiles was to be redistributed among the Latter-day Saints according to their faithfulness and the will of God. Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde, whom according to early Mormon accounts, directed the blood atonement of several undesirables, also said concerning using blood atonement on thieves that: "It would have a tendency to place a terror on those who leave these parts, that may prove their salvation when they see the heads of thieves taken off, or shot down before the public ... I believe it to be pleasing in the sight of heaven to sanctify ourselves and put these things from our midst" (27)
It must be stressed that the modern Mormon Church has firmly distanced itself from many of the "articles of faith" of their predecessors. Celestial Marriage, the Adam-God theory, the Theocratic Council of Fifty, the communal United Order, the Oaths and Penalties of the Temple Endowment, the African American ban from the Mormon priesthood, the Law of Adoption (i.e. the ritualistic sealing of men to men), and Blood Atonement, are some of the more pronounced formerly essential Mormon practices, which have either been altered to the point of non recognition or abandoned all together. While not widely practiced these tenets of nineteenth century Mormonism are still part and parcel of the heritage of the people of Utah, the remnants of the theology of an isolated theocracy.
After years of sermons by Mormon authorities, the concept of Blood Atonement, while never espoused as an official doctrine in the religious cannons of the Mormon Church, nevertheless became ingrained into the minds of the Mormon people into the twentieth century.
In the spring 1902, a man known as Old Man Collins requested from Clyde Felt, the fourteen-year-old grandson of a former Mormon authority, an act of assisted suicide. Collins requested Felt to spill his blood on the earth "in order that he may be saved." Felt cut the old man's throat and did so believing that the act was in the words of Brigham Young "a way to love mankind." Local Salt Lake City authorities considered Collins a "moral degenerate" and although Felt confessed to the murder, he was not prosecuted for the crime. In fact Felt was in 1910 allowed to receive his Temple endowments and marry in the Mormon Temple. (28)
Many Latter-day Saints today continue to believe in blood atonement as first taught by Brigham Young over one hundred and fifty years ago but the practice of it is mainly confined to religious fringe groups of Mormonism. These "off shoots" of Mormonism, known locally in Utah as fundamentalist churches, purport to be the keepers and practitioners of the "fundamental doctrines" of the original teachings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Members of the fundamental churches of Utah practice their religion primarily in secret due to legal restraints.
"It is impossible to understand the mindset of the fundamentalist Mormon without understanding this persecution complex. While almost all Mormons in Utah feel, to some degree, that their ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs, the fundamentalist groups have a double reason for this feeling. Not only were their ancestors persecuted for their beliefs, they are persecuted by mainstream Mormons and gentiles alike for maintaining their stance with the teachings of early church leaders." (29)
These Mormon fundamentalists, who maintain the illegal practice of polygamy have also held on to the doctrine Blood Atonement most rigorously. The LeBaron family and their followers were members of a fundamental Mormon church called the Church of the Lamb of God. "Polygamist cult leader", Ervil LeBaron, claimed to be the true Mormon prophet, and was "linked to more than a dozen deaths and disappearances in the West...." (30)
In August 1972, followers of Ervil LeBaron
murdered his brother, Joel LeBaron as part of a power struggle for control of
their particular polygamist church group. "Ervil LeBaron quickly became
the leader of the Church of the Lamb of God and proceeded to direct his
followers in the murders of more than thirty people, all of them members of
various polygamist groups. These murders included the execution style killing
of prominent Salt Lake City polygamist leader Rulon Allred, as well as several
members who tried to leave the LeBaron sect." (31) LeBaron died in the
Utah State Penitentiary in 1981 but before he died, he authored a book entitled
"The Book of New Covenants," which detailed a list of former
followers who were to die in the name of God. (32) Throughout the 1980's, the
children of Ervil LeBaron murdered several former church members in Dallas,
Houston, Utah, and Mexico. (33)
Blood Atonement resurfaced in 1984 among
polygamous fundamentalists when the religious convictions of two men, calling
themselves Mormon Prophets, Ronald and Dan Lafferty, murdered a woman and her
baby for not accepting their prophetic callings. On 24 July 1984, Ronald and Dan
Lafferty went to the home of their brother and slit the throats of his wife and
fifteen month old child with a ten inch hunting knife. (34) Ron and Dan
Lafferty recorded specific revelations from God instructing them whom to kill,
and Ron Lafferty later asked a reporter, "If God came to you and asked you
to take someone's life, would you?"(35)
Ron and Dan Lafferty also claimed that
besides having received a revelation from God telling them to kill a woman and
her child, they were given additional instructions to flee to Reno, Nevada
where they were "ordered" to gamble and binge on booze, pot, and
whores. (36)
When blood atonement and the oath of
vengeance for the death of Joseph Smith were dropped as part of LDS Church
doctrine, Mormon fundamentalists saw this as yet another instance of the church
caving in to political pressure. (37) The fundamentalist still believe firmly
in these early LDS doctrines.
Ogden Kraut,
an authority of Mormon fundamentalism remarked that within the LDS Church: "Today, the doctrine of blood atonement
is never taught and rarely mentioned.…The Oath of Vengeance is no longer
a part of the temple ceremony."(38) Kraut saw this as a sign that the LDS Church
had apostatized from the restoration faith of Joseph Smith and not the
fundamentalists.
Whether or not taught by the authorities of the predominant church in Utah, Blood Atonement is still believed and practiced in the state. On 14 Jan 2001, an religious assassin walked into a meeting of a polygamous church in Bluffdale and attacked a member of the Apostolic United Brethren Church by slashing the throat of one of its members. The would be killer "grabbed and pulled [Allen] Grover's head back with one hand. With the other, he allegedly used a knife to cut Grover's throat." (39) The Apostolic United Brethren Church is fundamentalist off shoot of the Mormon Church under the leadership of Owen Allred. (40)
Due to the widespread belief in Blood Atonement on the part of Mormon People, capital punishment is firmly entrenched within the legal system of Utah. The first Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, believed strongly in the death penalty and even taught that the Law of God required decapitation as a form of punishment. He wrote of his views on the subject remarking: "In debate, George A. Smith said imprisonment was better than hanging. I replied, I was opposed to hanging, even if a man kill(ed) another. I will shoot him, or cut off his head, spill his blood on the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God; and if ever I have the privilege of making a law on that subject, I will have it so." (41)
Joseph Smith was lynched before he could "have the privilege of making a law" requiring beheading as a form of capital punishment. Nonetheless after setting up a theocratic government along the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, Smith's zealous adherents, following their prophet's counsel, incorporated decapitation as a form of punishment in Utah along with execution by firing squad and hanging.
The hangman's noose was most often reserved however for apostates and Gentiles because Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both taught that execution on the gallows did not satisfy the Law of God, which required blood to fall on the ground.
In the characteristic genre of early Mormon character assassination, Joseph Smith espoused his hatred for Liliburn W. Boggs, (42) for his participation in driving the Latter-day Saints out of Jackson County Missouri. Joseph Smith venomously wrote in 1835: "[I]t was the design and craft of this man [Boggs] to rob an innocent people of their arms by stratagem, and leave more than one thousand defenseless men, women, and children to be driven from their homes among strangers in a strange land to seek shelter form the stormy blast of winter. All earth and hell cannot deny that a baser knave, a greater traitor, and a wholesale butcher, or murderer of mankind ever went untried, unpunished, and unhung-since hanging is the popular method of execution among Gentiles in all countries professing Christianity, instead of blood for blood, according to the law of heaven." (43)
The belief in the noose being a deficient form of punishment was taught again in 1838, when Joseph Smith told his followers of a vision wherein Saint Peter spoke to him confessing that he had killed Judas Iscariot. In this vision, Smith claimed that Peter confessed that Judas did not commit suicide as reported in the New Testament but rather had been executed for his betrayal of Jesus Christ. Peter was reported to have said to Joseph Smith that he hung Judas and then the other Disciples of the Lord kicked Judas to death until his bowels broke open. This gruesome form of execution ensured that Judas' exaltation was forfeited by not having his bloodshed.
Prior to his death, Joseph Smith's organized a quasi shadow government known as the Council of Fifty (44). This council was to act as implementers of Smith's policies once he was crowned king of the Kingdom of God on earth. However Smith's untimely demise in 1844 prevented the enacting of the "Law of God" publicly within the kingdom. Brigham Young, after Smith's death, used the Council of Fifty to secure his tenuous grasp on the Mormon throne as the successor to Joseph Smith. The Council of Fifty was useful in reinforcing Young's claim, over his rivals, of being Smith's rightful heir.
When Young's ecclesiastical coup was successful, he eventually undermined the authority that Smith had placed in the Council of Fifty. However at the beginning of the Mormon exile to the Rocky Mountains, Brigham Young found the Council of Fifty useful in creating and governing the Kingdom of God he hoped to establish in state of Deseret. As Joseph Smith's successor, Young was put in the position to enact the laws in Utah that Smith was unable to do in Illinois.
In December 1846 while the Latter-day Saints languished at Winter Quarters, Iowa, Brigham Young explained to his adherents that decapitation of repeated sinners "is the law of God and it shall be executed…" Even for the sin of lying Young said he would enforce the death penalty. "I ... warned those who lied and stole and followed Israel that they would have their heads cut off, for that was the law of God and it should be executed" (45)
Brigham Young, as supreme authority over all matters of Mormon theology, used his position of governor of the territory to enact into law decapitation as a form of execution in Utah. As prophet/king, Young expected the Council of Fifty to codify into territorial law all his views on capital punishment, including legalizing decapitation as a means for slaying thieves, murderers, and sexually immoral people.
For nearly four decades, from 1851 to 1888, because of Mormon theology regarding the Law of God, Utah's territorial laws allowed persons convicted of murder to be decapitated. (46)
Whether or not taught by the authorities of the predominant church in Utah, Blood Atonement is still believed and practiced in the state. On 14 Jan 2001, an religious assassin walked into a meeting of a polygamous church in Bluffdale and attacked a member of the Apostolic United Brethren Church by slashing the throat of one of its members. The would be killer "grabbed and pulled [Allen] Grover's head back with one hand. With the other, he allegedly used a knife to cut Grover's throat." (39) The Apostolic United Brethren Church is fundamentalist off shoot of the Mormon Church under the leadership of Owen Allred. (40)
Due to the widespread belief in Blood Atonement on the part of Mormon People, capital punishment is firmly entrenched within the legal system of Utah. The first Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, believed strongly in the death penalty and even taught that the Law of God required decapitation as a form of punishment. He wrote of his views on the subject remarking: "In debate, George A. Smith said imprisonment was better than hanging. I replied, I was opposed to hanging, even if a man kill(ed) another. I will shoot him, or cut off his head, spill his blood on the ground, and let the smoke thereof ascend up to God; and if ever I have the privilege of making a law on that subject, I will have it so." (41)
Joseph Smith was lynched before he could "have the privilege of making a law" requiring beheading as a form of capital punishment. Nonetheless after setting up a theocratic government along the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, Smith's zealous adherents, following their prophet's counsel, incorporated decapitation as a form of punishment in Utah along with execution by firing squad and hanging.
The hangman's noose was most often reserved however for apostates and Gentiles because Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both taught that execution on the gallows did not satisfy the Law of God, which required blood to fall on the ground.
In the characteristic genre of early Mormon character assassination, Joseph Smith espoused his hatred for Liliburn W. Boggs, (42) for his participation in driving the Latter-day Saints out of Jackson County Missouri. Joseph Smith venomously wrote in 1835: "[I]t was the design and craft of this man [Boggs] to rob an innocent people of their arms by stratagem, and leave more than one thousand defenseless men, women, and children to be driven from their homes among strangers in a strange land to seek shelter form the stormy blast of winter. All earth and hell cannot deny that a baser knave, a greater traitor, and a wholesale butcher, or murderer of mankind ever went untried, unpunished, and unhung-since hanging is the popular method of execution among Gentiles in all countries professing Christianity, instead of blood for blood, according to the law of heaven." (43)
The belief in the noose being a deficient form of punishment was taught again in 1838, when Joseph Smith told his followers of a vision wherein Saint Peter spoke to him confessing that he had killed Judas Iscariot. In this vision, Smith claimed that Peter confessed that Judas did not commit suicide as reported in the New Testament but rather had been executed for his betrayal of Jesus Christ. Peter was reported to have said to Joseph Smith that he hung Judas and then the other Disciples of the Lord kicked Judas to death until his bowels broke open. This gruesome form of execution ensured that Judas' exaltation was forfeited by not having his bloodshed.
Prior to his death, Joseph Smith's organized a quasi shadow government known as the Council of Fifty (44). This council was to act as implementers of Smith's policies once he was crowned king of the Kingdom of God on earth. However Smith's untimely demise in 1844 prevented the enacting of the "Law of God" publicly within the kingdom. Brigham Young, after Smith's death, used the Council of Fifty to secure his tenuous grasp on the Mormon throne as the successor to Joseph Smith. The Council of Fifty was useful in reinforcing Young's claim, over his rivals, of being Smith's rightful heir.
When Young's ecclesiastical coup was successful, he eventually undermined the authority that Smith had placed in the Council of Fifty. However at the beginning of the Mormon exile to the Rocky Mountains, Brigham Young found the Council of Fifty useful in creating and governing the Kingdom of God he hoped to establish in state of Deseret. As Joseph Smith's successor, Young was put in the position to enact the laws in Utah that Smith was unable to do in Illinois.
In December 1846 while the Latter-day Saints languished at Winter Quarters, Iowa, Brigham Young explained to his adherents that decapitation of repeated sinners "is the law of God and it shall be executed…" Even for the sin of lying Young said he would enforce the death penalty. "I ... warned those who lied and stole and followed Israel that they would have their heads cut off, for that was the law of God and it should be executed" (45)
Brigham Young, as supreme authority over all matters of Mormon theology, used his position of governor of the territory to enact into law decapitation as a form of execution in Utah. As prophet/king, Young expected the Council of Fifty to codify into territorial law all his views on capital punishment, including legalizing decapitation as a means for slaying thieves, murderers, and sexually immoral people.
For nearly four decades, from 1851 to 1888, because of Mormon theology regarding the Law of God, Utah's territorial laws allowed persons convicted of murder to be decapitated. (46)
So ingrained in the Mormon psyche was the
concept of Blood Atonement that in 1859 Thomas Ferguson, the first white man
executed in the territory of Utah, bitterly complained at his execution that
the Gentile judge did not give him the option of being shot which he preferred
to being hung.
Even in 1876 the Mormon mass murderer John D.
Lee, who was the official scapegoat or the atrocities committed by LDS church
authorities at Mountain Meadows, was given the choice of "being beheaded,
shot by a firing squad, or hung on a gallow "as a means of saving his
immortal soul by the shedding of his blood," he elected to be shot. Lee understood,
from church leaders, that by having his bloodshed, there was still the
opportunity that he would become an exalted being after death.
As earlier mentioned, Mormon Apostle Bruce R.
McConkie, in the 1950's, reflected Joseph Smith's views; that the blood of
sinners must be shed for exaltation in the Mormon Celestial Kingdom. But McConkie
complained that modern methods of execution were not sufficient to exalt the
condemned. "As a mode of capital punishment,
hanging or execution on a gallows does not
comply with the law of blood atonement, for the blood is not shed" (47)
McConkie further claimed that sexual immorality was one of the offenses worthy
of death.
"Modern governments do not take the life
of the adulterer, and some of them have done away with the supreme penalty
where murder is involved- all of which is further evidence of the direful
apostasy that prevails among the peoples who call themselves Christians"
(48)
Mormon Prophet and church historian Joseph
Fielding Smith, a grandnephew of Joseph Smith, agreed with his son-in-law,
McConkie. Smith wrote: "Just a word or two now, on the subject of blood
atonement ... man may commit certain grievous sins - according to his light and
knowledge - that will place him beyond the reach of the atoning blood of
Christ. If then he would be saved he must make sacrifice of his own life to
atone - so far as in his power lies - for that sin, for the blood of Christ
alone under certain circumstances will not avail.... Joseph Smith taught that
there were certain sins so grievous that man may commit, that they will place
the transgressor beyond the power of the atonement of Christ. If these offenses
are committed, then the blood of Christ will not cleanse them from their sins
even though they repent. Therefore their only hope is to have their own
bloodshed to atone, as far as possible, in their behalf.... And men for certain
crimes have had to atone as far as they could for their sins wherein they have
placed themselves beyond the redeeming power of the blood of Christ... the
founders of Utah incorporated in the laws of the Territory provisions for the
capital punishment of those who willfully shed the blood of their fellow men.
This law, which is now the law of the State, granted unto the condemned murderer
the privilege of choosing for himself whether he die by hanging, or whether he
be shot and thus have his blood shed in harmony with the law of God; and thus
atone, so far as it is in his power to atone, for the death of his victim.
Almost without exception the condemned party chooses the latter death."
(49)
The idea that murderers should be shot so
that their blood can flow is clearly an outgrowth of this Mormon belief of
Blood Atonement; although the LDS Church refuses to take responsibility for the
teaching publicly stating that it has never been a doctrine of the church. When
the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in the United States, in 1977
Utah executed the first man in the country. This execution reinstated the death
penalty in America after an abeyance of almost seven years. Utah's
determination to execute Gary Gilmore opened the floodgates of capital
punishment in the United States once again.
Gary Gilmore, who was raised in the Mormon
faith, believed that he could atone for murders committed in Provo, Utah, by
having his blood shed. He therefore elected to be shot by a Utah firing squad
and thus helped Utah prosecutors reinstate the death penalty by refusing all appeals
to stay his execution. A Salt Lake Tribune article regarding the execution of
Gary Gilmore read: "A last-minute court decision cleared the way today for
the execution of Gary Mark Gilmore, 36, and moments later the condemned killer
was shot to death here by a firing squad." (50) Gilmore was executed on
January 17, 1977 at Draper, Utah, believing that his blood would bring him
forgiveness.
The Utah prosecutors' convictions regarding
the correctness of capital punishment may not have been so ardent if Quakers
rather than Mormon refugees would have founded the state. That Blood Atonement,
as the Law of God, played a large role in the feverish desire to reinstate the
death penalty in Utah, there can be no argument.
The "bizarre legal statute"
authorizing the use of the firing squad in capital punishment in Utah can only
be explained by the fact that predominately Mormon lawmakers maintained a
religious belief that blood must be literal shed for murder. Until only
recently has the Utah State penal code been repealed requiring that the firing
squad be offered as an option for death in capital punishment cases.
Worldwide censure and outrage over what was
perceived as a barbaric remnant of frontier justice when applied to a child
killer in 1994, made officials in Utah, who were courting the Winter Olympics, cringed
at the notoriety. John Albert Taylor was executed by firing squad in 1996 which
so outraged world opinion against Utah that in 2004 that the state legislature
banned death by firing squad as an option
for death row inmates. However they did not make the ban retroactive and
those convicted of murder prior to that date were allowed to still choose that
method of execution.
As late as 2010 Utah used the firing
squad as a method of execution when Ronnie Lee Gardner’s sentence was carried
out at the state prison in Draper, Utah.
Five police officers using .30-caliber Winchester rifles executed
Gardner firing at a target over his heart.
Four other death-row inmates, grandfathered in under the old system, have said they may choose death by the gun as well. Ralph
Menzies, Troy Kell, Ronald Lafferty, and Taberone Honie are Utah death row
inmates who are grandfathered in by the 2004 ban on execution by firing squad
and they have all chosen to have their sentences carried out by that method.
Today the Mormon church’s public
relation department denies Blood Atonement was ever a doctrine of the LDS
theology and Utah officials state that the belief has all but disappeared among
Utahns today. (51) However Utah state Rep. Paul Ray said in May 2014 that he would introduce a
firing squad proposal in the 2015 legislative session in response to a blotched
lethal injection execution in Oklahoma.
Lawmakers in Wyoming and Missouri had similar
ideas to restore the firing squad but both efforts have stalled. It is thought
that Ray’s proposal may succeed due to Utah’s tradition of execution by firing
squad. An LDS church member, Paul Ray, a
Republican from the northern Utah city of Clearfield, argued the controversial
method may seem more palatable now, especially as states struggle to maneuver
lawsuits and drug shortages that have complicated lethal injections.
"It sounds like the Wild West,
but it's probably the most humane way to kill somebody," Ray said. (52)
It also saves their souls he could
have added.
FOOTNOTE:
FOOTNOTE:
1. Diary of Hosea Stout: 6 Nov 1846, edited,
Juanita Brooks 1964
2. The Reed Peck Manuscript, pg. 13
2. The Reed Peck Manuscript, pg. 13
3. Thomas Ford. History of Illinois pg 327
"It was asserted that Joe Smith, the founder and head of the Mormon
church, had caused himself to be crowned and anointed king of the
Mormons; that he had embodied a band of his followers called Danites, who
were sworn to obey him as God, and to do his commands, murder and
treason not excepted; that he had instituted an order in the church whereby
those who composed it were pretended to be sealed up to eternal
life against all crimes save the shedding of innocent blood or
consenting thereto. That this order was instructed that no blood was
innocent blood, except that of the members of the church; and that these two
orders were made the ministers of his vengeance and the
instruments of an intolerable tyranny which he had established over his
people, and which he was about to extend over the neighboring country.
4. Klaus J. Hansen. Quest for Empire, p 70.
5. The scribe who recorded Young's sermon
made notations that there was a "Great commotion in the
congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the
declaration." And when Young called upon a show of hands to sustain his
statements the scribe wrote "all hands up". Rightly so for they just
heard from the Lion of the Lord what would happen to Latter-day Saints that
didn't.
6. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol.
4, pp 53-54; also published in Deseret News, 1856
7.Journal of Discourses, vol. 4, pp. 219-20:
also published in Deseret News, February 18, 1857
8. D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy:
Extensions of Power, Vol. 2, pages 251-53, 56-57, 60
9. Quinn, Extensions of Power, Vol. 2, pages
246
10.George A. Smith was the first cousin of
Joseph Smith, and member of the Mormon Quorum of Twelve Apostles.
11. Ironically the replacement governor,
Alfred Cummings proved even more disloyal to the United Sates, leaving
his post to return to Georgia to serve the Confederate States in
support of the immoral practice of slavery.
12. Hansen p 70
13. Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1958,
p.87
14."Utah Historical Quarterly",
January 1958, pg.62, notes 39. Gustive O. Larson
15. Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pg. 83
16. 29 April 1990 Salt Lake Tribune
17. May 5, 1990, the Los Angeles Times quote
attributed to Ron Priddis, vice president of Signature Books
18. 3 May 1990 The New York Times "The
Mormon Church has changed some of its most sacred rituals, eliminating
parts of the largely secret ceremonies that have been viewed as
offensive to women and to members of some other faiths. `Last month the
church... quietly dropped from its temple rituals a vow in
which women pledged obedience to their husbands... and a
portrayal of non-Mormon clergy as hirelings of Satan. ` Church officials
have confirmed that changes went into effect in mid-April, but
the ceremonies are considered to be too sacred, they say, for
them to comment further.... More specific information on the
changes has been provided to the news media by Mormons
participating in the rituals at the church's 43 temples around the world and
by former Mormons who are critical of the rituals. A number of
Mormons who would not discuss details of the rituals verified that
these reports were 'pretty factual' or 'not
inaccurate.'..."'Because the temple ceremony is sacred to us, we don't speak
about it except in the most general terms,' said Beverly Campbell, the
East Coast director for public communications for the Church... she
said 'the ceremony itself needs to meet the needs of the people.' The
revised ritual is 'more
in keeping with the sensitivities we have as
a society,' she added. "Lavina Fielding Anderson, who
will soon become an editor of the Journal of Mormon History, said she
'greeted the changes with a great deal of joy,' and added, 'The temple
ceremony in the past has given me a message that could be interpreted
as subservient and exclusionary.' "In the place of an oath
of obedience that men took to God and the church, the previous ceremony
required women to vow obedience to their husbands... "Although
Ms. Anderson would not describe any of the changes, she said the
revision 'gives me hope and renewed faith that changes will occur in the
future as they have in the past.'... "The ceremony also
contains elements resembling the Masonic rituals current in 1830, when Joseph
Smith founded the church... "The latest revisions diminish
these elements, including gestures symbolizing the participant's pledge
to undergo a gruesome death rather than reveal the rituals. Also
dropped is a scene in which Satan hires a non-Mormon 'preacher' to
spread false teachings...."Ross Peterson, the editor
of Dialogue, an independent Mormon quarterly, said the unfamiliar
elements of the ritual frequently 'catches young Mormons cold' and
disturbs them. I've known an awful lot of people who went once and it
was years before they'd go back, especially women,' he said....
"Bruce L. Olsen, managing director of the church's communications
office in Salt Lake City, denied that the changes were made in response
to criticism or social pressure. The Mormon Church believes 'in
continued and modern revelation,' Mr. Olsen said, so that
practices might be changed when 'the Lord clarified' church
teaching...."But some Mormons see the church as responding, without admitting
it, both to critics and to the church's growth overseas....
"Among the critics are many conservative Christians who complain that
Mormonism features occult practices."
19. 28 April 1990 The Arizona Republic
"Church officials in Salt Lake City refused to discuss the ceremony which is
shrouded in secrecy. In fact, the church has issued a directive to
temple members telling them to refrain from talking about the
changes in the ceremony...."Another prominent Mormon,
who asked not to be identified, confirmed that portions of the
ceremony have been removed. "' The temple ceremony has been
significantly abridged,' he said..."Changes in the ceremony
include:... A modified version of the woman's vow of obedience to the husband....
"I think this is in response to the feminist movement in the
Mormon Church," said Sandra Tanner, a former Mormon who now heads Utah
Lighthouse Ministries in Salt Lake City. 'Many of the women objected
to the obedience.'"
20. Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, pg. 247
21. Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pg. 20
22. Times and Seasons, vol. 4, pp.183-84 the
Journal of Discourses,
vol. 7, pg.19)
23. 13 Millennial Star, vol. 16, pg.739
24. History of the Church, vol. 7, p.597
25. Quinn. Extension of Power, pg. 247
26. Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp.108-9
27. Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p.73
28. Quinn, Extensions of Power, pp. 804-805
29. Garn LeBaron Jr. Mormon Fundamentalism
and Violence: A Historical Analysis 1995
30. 29 September 1977 The Deseret News
31. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy:
A History. SLC. 1986 pp 212-217
32.LeBaron
33.Pamela Abramson, "A hand from the
grave." Newsweek, 21 December 1987,
34.LeBaron
35.No byline, "Polygamists Refuse
Attorney in Murder Trial," United Press International, 11 September, 1984, AM
Cycle
36.Ted C. Fishman, "Unholy voices? Legal
prosecution of religiously inspired violence," Playboy, November
1992, 58.
37.LeBaron
38.Garn LeBaron Jr., Kraut, Ogden. 95 Theses.
Dugway, Utah: 79.
39.19 January 2001 Deseret News
40.Garn LeBaron Jr. sites several other
examples of Mormon sects that have preached or practiced violence as part
of an attempt to establish the Kingdom of God. In July 1978,
the former David Longo, who had himself re-christened Immanuel David,
drove a truck up a canyon east of Salt Lake City and proceeded
to commit suicide by asphyxiating himself on the exhaust of the
vehicle. Three days later, his wife ordered or pushed each of their
seven children off the 11th floor balcony of a prominent Salt Lake City
hotel to their deaths on the pavement below. She finally jumped
herself, thus ending the grisly multiple homicide/suicide scene.
Source-Cynthia Gorney, "The Prophet' Who Failed: Immanuel David's tragic
journey," The Washington Post, 11 August 1978, B1. In 1979, a long
running battle between John Singer and Summit County, over whether Singer
should be allowed to educate his children at home, came to a
striking climax when Singer was shot and killed by police when he
resisted their attempts to arrest him. Singer had refused to accept
court judgments that his children needed to be educated in the public
schools. He was shot during the attempted arrest when police
feared that he would shoot one of them. Source-David Fleisher and David
M. Freedman, Death of an American: The Killing of John Singer, (New
York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1983), 175-197 In January of 1988, Adam
Swapp bombed a Mormon Stake Center in Kamas, Utah in retaliation
for the death of his father-in-law, John Singer, who was killed by
police nine years earlier. Swapp and his family then proceeded
to hold off an army of police officers and federal agents in a
13-day standoff before police finally stormed their cabin and took them
into custody following a violent gun battle in which one officer was
killed. Source- James Coates, "Cult's Resurrection Delivered
Only Death. Polygamist Violence Stuns Utah Town." The Chicago
Tribune, 31 January 1988, 21. In August of 1994, former Mormon Church
member Jim Harmston organized his own church named The True and Living
Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days. Attracting a devout
group of polygamists, the church preaches that Armageddon is at
hand and that the Federal Government is corrupt. The group's
accumulation of guns and food supplies has resulted in comparisons between
them and the Branch Davidians at Waco. Many in the group fear
that federal agents will attack them. Source-Chris Jorgensen,
"Schism Disrupts the Faithful in Sanpete Valley," The Salt Lake Tribune,
28 August 1994, A1; Chris Jorgensen, "Ex-Mormons Found New Faith,
Preach Polygamy and Doom," The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 August 1994, D1.
41.History of the Church, vol. 5, p 296
42.Lilburn William Boggs was born in
Lexington, Kentucky on December 14, 1792. As a young man, he went west to St.
Louis, Missouri to make his fortune. After the death of his first
wife, Boggs moved across the Missouri River and found work at Fort
Osage in the fur trade. In 1823 he was a prosperous merchant and fur
trader. Boggs married Panthea Grant Boone, the granddaughter of
Daniel Boone, the legendary trailblazer. He moved with his new bride to
the frontier village of Independence, located in Jackson County,
Missouri. Boggs and his wife were soon considered leading figures. They
were honest, hard working frontier people, earning much of their wealth
as merchants. In 1826 Boggs was elected on the Democratic ticket,
to the Missouri state senate where he served until his being
elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1832. As Lieutenant Governor,
Boggs was keenly aware of the events of Jackson County. As one of the
old settlers and a Gentile he had been alarmed by the threats of
the Saints to rid the county of all non-believers. He as a merchant
was also disgusted with Joseph Smith's revelations claiming that
debts to Gentiles were non-binding. He was not neutral on the Mormon and
Gentile conflict in his hometown. In deed his stance was
completely partisan with the sentiment to rid the county of the
"Mormon menace." Boggs was no friend of the Mormons, having witnessed and
participated in the expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County
in 1835. His position on expelling the Saints from Jackson County did
not hurt him politically as the new sect was extremely unpopular.
After the expulsion, Boggs ran for governor of the state and won. During
his administration, the Bank of the State of Missouri, a conservative
and highly successful bank, was chartered and the state of Missouri
prospered. All of Boggs civic accomplishments however were clouded by
his highly prejudicial regard against the Missouri Mormons. His
order to expel the Saints not only from Jackson County but also from
all of Missouri would place the governor in the darkest regions of
Latter-day Saint cosmology, as a blood stained monstrous
villain.
43. History of the church Vol. 1 pp. 434-353
44. The Council of Fifty by Kenneth W.
Godfrey The Council of Fifty, a council formed in Nauvoo in 1844, provided a
pattern of political government under priesthood and revelation.
It was, to its members, the nucleus or focus of God's latter-day
kingdom.Old Testament prophecy speaks of a stone "cut out of
the mountain without hands" that will roll forth to fill the whole earth
(Dan. 2:44-45). Joseph Smith and his associates believed that the
"little stone" represented in part a political kingdom similar to the
other kingdoms referred to by Daniel. Joseph Smith taught that in this,
the dispensation of the fullness of times, "all things"
would be set in place for Christ's return, including the basic principles and
organization for a system that would govern the earth during the
Millennium (JD 1:202-203; 2:189; 17:156-57).On April 7, 1842, Joseph
Smith received a revelation giving the formal name of the
"Living Constitution"—or, as it came to be known by the number of its
members, the Council of Fifty—and indicating that the nucleus of a
government of God would be organized. Two years later, in the spring of
1844, after a small group of faithful Church leaders and members
had received their temple Endowment, the Prophet formally
established the Council of Fifty. Members of the council understood its
principles to be consistent with the ethics of scripture and
with the protections and responsibilities of the Constitution of the
United States. Non-Latter-day Saints could be members (three were among
the founding members), but all were to follow God's law and seek to
know his will. The president of the church sat as council president,
with others seated according to age, beginning with the oldest.
Revealed rules governed proceedings, including one that required that
decisions be unanimous. The council had some practical
responsibilities for organizing Joseph Smith's presidential campaign in 1844, the
exodus from Nauvoo in 1845-1846 (see Westward Migration), and early
government in the Great Basin. But what interested council members
most was, not their specific duties, but the expectation that the
council represented something much larger: it was a working
demonstration of the principles and pattern for a future kingdom
of God on earth. The Church already had a well-developed
apocalyptic outlook, including belief in the latter-day collapse of existing
governments before Christ's return. In this framework, the
Council of Fifty was viewed as the seed of a new political order that
would rule, under Christ, following the prophesied cataclysmic events
of the last days.The council, therefore, did not challenge
existing systems of law and government (even in Nauvoo), but functioned
more as a private organization learning to operate in a
pluralistic society. Its exercise of actual political power was
modest, but provided a symbol of the future theocratic kingdom of God.
Always, the Fifty functioned under the First Presidency and the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles, who were also members of the council.After the
westward migration and the early pioneer period, the Council of Fifty
largely disappeared as a functioning body, except for a brief resurgence
during John Taylor's presidency when the Church again faced
intense political challenges. Still, the Saints found consolation in the
belief that one day, when the Savior returned, the Council of Fifty, or
a council based on its principles, would rise again to govern the
world under the King of Kings.(See Daily Living home page; Politics
home page) BibliographyAndrus, Hyrum L. Joseph Smith and
World Government. Salt Lake City, 1958.Ehat, Andrew F. "It
Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the
Kingdom of God." BYU Studies 20 (Spring 1980):253-79.Hansen, Klaus J.
Quest for Empire. East Lansing, Mich., 1967.Quinn, D. Michael.
"The Council of Fifty and Its Members, 1844 to 1945." BYU Studies 20
(Winter 1980):163-197.Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1,
Council of FiftyCopyright © 1992 by Macmillan Publishing Company
45. Manuscript History of Brigham
Young," December 20, 1846, typed copy; original in LDS church archives
46. D. Michael Quinn Extension of Power pg.
247
47. McConkie, pg.314
48. McConkie, p.104
49. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of
Salvation, vol. 1, pp.133-36
50. 17 January 1977 Salt Lake Tribune
51.
17 May 2014 Christian Science Monitor “Utah may bring back firing squad:
Perhaps more humane after all?”
52. 17 May 2014 AP Utah Lawmaker: Bring Back Firing Squad
Executions
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