Category: Mormon History
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One of My Family’s Best Kept Secrets (Mountain Meadows Massacre)
As a child I grew up thinking that it was the greatest blessing to be a great-great-granddaughter of Mormon Prophet Brigham Young. However, my LDS family was careful to only mention the most favorable aspects of Young’s life and early Mormonism.
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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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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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Joseph Smith’s Kirtland Bank Failure
By Sandra Tanner While it is common knowledge that Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, few know of his attempt to found a bank in Kirtland, Ohio. This important event in Mormon history was reportedly done because of a revelation that Joseph Smith received. The following excerpt is from Mormonism—Shadow…
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Illinois Leaders Apologize to LDS
In an article in the Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, April 8, 2004, we read: Nearly 160 years after religious persecution in Illinois launched the Mormon exodus to the West, a delegation from the Land of Lincoln met Wednesday with LDS Church and state leaders to formally extend its regrets. It was in 1844 that…
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Do LDS Historical Issues Matter?
Several historical issues which are the foundation of Mormonism’s truth claims.
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Wanted: “One Mighty and Strong”
Continuous changes in the LDS church are accompanied by fundamentalist claims of apostasy and hopes that “one mighty and strong” leader has now arrived, as prophesied.
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1869 Murder in a Mormon Ward House?
By Sandra Tanner In 1869 three non-Mormons, part of the John Wesley Powell expedition of the Colorado River, were murdered in southern Utah. Were they killed by Indians or by Mormons? Was it due to indiscretions with an Indian woman or to mistaken identity? The Salt Lake Tribune, in 1993, printed a story entitled “Did…
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John H. Gilbert (typesetter for the Book of Mormon)
Two important reminiscences of John H. Gilbert, the main compositor (typesetter) for the first printing of the Book of Mormon.
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Covering Up Mormon Polygamy
Should leaders be trusted who have used so much deceit and cover-up in establishing their work?