By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
On March 11, 1989, the Salt Lake Tribune reported the following: “University of Utah law professor Edwin Firmage has received more than 150 phone calls and several death threats since he said there is no doctrinal basis for the Mormon Church’s restriction against women holding the church’s priesthood.”
While this might give outsiders the impression that modern Utah is as repressive as Iran’s Ayatollah Khomenini, death threats over religious matters are actually very rare in Mormon country. Although there are some extremists, most Mormons are rather peaceful.
If we look back into the past history of the church, however, we find that book-burning and death threats were used to keep the people under control. For instance, in 1844 the newspaper, Nauvoo Expositor, published by Mormon dissidents, exposed Joseph Smith’s secret involvement in polygamy. According to the History of the Church, vol. 6, page 445, Joseph Smith’s brother, Hyrum, felt the best way to deal with the matter was to suppress the newspaper: “Councilor Hyrum Smith believed the best way was to smash the press and pi the type.” Joseph Smith agreed with his brother. On page 432, we read: “I [Joseph Smith] immediately ordered the Marshal to destroy it without delay . . .” The “press, type, printed paper, and fixtures” were taken out in the street and destroyed. This action, of course, eventually led to the murder of Joseph Smith.
In early Utah, President Brigham Young ruled with an iron hand, and like Khomenini, Young did his best to stifle religious dissent. In 1853 a man by the name of Gladden Bishop opposed the practice of polygamy and tried to set up a rival sect. On March 27 of that year, Brigham Young stood before the saints in the Tabernacle and publicly threatened the Bishop and his followers:
We have known Gladden Bishop for more than twenty years, and know him to be a poor, dirty curse. . . . Now you Gladdenites, keep your tongues still, lest sudden destruction come upon you. . . .
I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath my bowie knife, and conquer or die. . . . Now you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put to the line . . . If you say it is right, raise your hands. [All hands up.] Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this, and every good work. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 83)
Brigham Young was successful in stamping out the Gladdenites’ opposition. The historian Hubert Howe Bancroft noted that within a few months, “most of them set forth for California, the rest recanted, and after the year 1854 we hear no more of this apostasy” (History of Utah, p. 644). While Gladden Bishop escaped with his life, many others were not that lucky. The “sudden destruction” which Brigham Young threatened, fell on many who opposed the Mormons in Nauvoo and early Utah. The documentation concerning this matter is found in Major Problems of Mormonism, pp. 175-205.
Originally appeared in: