Category: Blood Atonement
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Did Brigham Young Teach False Doctrine?
Some of Brigham Young’s teachings were so un-biblical that they brought deep division in the church. By disavowing such teachings, modern church leaders would actually be considered heretical by his pronouncements.
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Will You Love that Man or Woman Well Enough to Shed Their Blood?
Brigham Young’s Culture of Violence and the Murders at Mountain Meadows By Will Bagley A paper presented at International Conference of the Center for Studies on New Religions in Salt Lake City and Provo (Utah), June 20-23, 2002, Salt Lake City & Provo. Preliminary version. Used with permission. In 1845, the Mormon apostles issued a…
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Mountain Meadows Massacre — 150 Years Later
By Sandra Tanner “Halt! Do your duty!” With that command scores of zealous LDS priesthood leaders and followers, along with a few Indians, from the Cedar City, Utah, area fired on at least 140 unarmed, non-Mormon men, women and children. The killings were over in a matter of minutes, sparing only 17 or 18 children…
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Brigham Young Sermon: Blood Atonement (1)
Brigham Young teaches that for those who willfully break their covenants with God, spilling their blood is not only deserved but in fact is necessary beyond Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice to atone for their sin. As printed in Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, pp. 243-49 (typescript, original spelling preserved) [page 243] INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BISHOPS—MEN JUDGED…
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Brigham Young Sermon: Blood Atonement (2)
Brigham Young teaches that there are some “sins that men commit for which they cannot receive forgiveness in this world” and therefore they would be “willing to have their blood split . . . to save them” since “the blood of the Son of God” is deemed insufficient. As printed in Journal of Discourses, vol.…
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Brigham Young Sermon: Blood Atonement (3)
Brigham Young teaches that if Latter-day Saints would understand how certain grave sins could jeopardize their promised exaltation they would whole-heartedly say, “shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with the Gods.”
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Brigham Young Speech on Slavery, Blacks, the Priesthood, and Blood Atonement
Governor Brigham Young argues against Orson Pratt’s support for Black suffrage based on the curse of Cain, which he said prohibits Blacks from the LDS priesthood (and, by extension, from voting or governance). Also, if White “seed” were to “mingle with the seed of Cain” it would bring whole generations under that curse, for which…
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Heber C. Kimball Sermon: Blood Atonement
Heber C. Kimball (first counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency) preaches that he “can see right through” many hypocritical Latter-day Saints with hidden sin, but that they should obtain mercy if they repent. Those who are not repentant, or whose sin is unforgivable (shedding innocent blood, or sinning against the Holy Ghost) “are…
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Jedediah M. Grant Sermon: Blood Atonement
Jedediah M. Grant (Brigham Young’s second counselor in the First Presidency) preaches that among the saints of Salt Lake City there was hardly a place “that is not full of filth and abominations,” requiring that many should “let your blood be shed . . . as an atonement for your sins, and that the sinners…
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Brigham Young’s Wives and His Divorce from Ann Eliza Webb
By Sandra Tanner [List of Brigham Young’s wives included at the end of this article.] In 1868 Brigham Young, at age sixty-seven, married Ann Eliza Webb, an attractive twenty-four-year-old divorcee with two children. Young had already married dozens of other women. LDS scholar Jeffery Johnson, writing on Brigham Young and his wives, explained: Sixteen women…