Gospel Topics Chapter 6 Turner Part 1

Unprepared to engage Mormon missionaries when they knock on your door? Perhaps the book, Mormonism Research Ministry, has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. The book that was published by Signature Books in late 2020 critiques the 13 original Gospel Topics essays that were produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints between the years 2013 and 2015. Let me just recap that these chapters are written by different authors.

There is no one author who writes this entire book. It was edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst. Today we are looking at chapter six, a chapter titled Things Are So Dark and Mysterious, The Thomas Lewis Case and Violence in Early LDS Utah. This chapter was written by a man by the name of John G. Turner. John G. Turner also wrote a book on the life of Brigham Young that was titled Brigham Young, Pioneer Prophet.

That book came out in 2012. This chapter is supposed to be based on the essay titled Peace and Violence Among 19th Century Latter-day Saints, but Eric, as we've looked at this chapter, it becomes very apparent that he kind of steers away from the essay to focus more specifically, or at least a lot of his pages focus more specifically, on the treatment of a Mormon man by the name of Thomas Lewis, and we'll be getting to that story. But let's just jump into this chapter and what John Turner has to say in his opening lines. He writes, At the same time, the Church has been dogged by accusations that during the mid to late 19th century, it sanctioned vigilante reprisals against both dissenters and non-Mormons. In 1838, for instance, a number of Latter-day Saints organized Danites to threaten Mormon dissenters and defend Church members against anti-Mormon mobs.

Now, when you turn the page, he explains what the Gospel Topics essay was all about. Towards the bottom of page 164, he says, The essay goes on and says, At the same time, early Mormons suffered intense persecution from their opponents, and the essay allows that the actions of a few Latter-day Saints, In short, 19th century Mormons were a persecuted people, and a small number of Church members ignored their Savior's peaceful teachings and responded in kind toward their enemies. I think we should talk about that, because it's funny how sometimes the Mormons are depicted historically. I remember watching a movie years ago, I can't even remember the title of it, but there was a real quick scene that had some alleged members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it portrayed them as pacifists, almost like they were Amish, which certainly is not a good description of the politics of the early LDS Church.

But then you have just the opposite sometimes, where they depict them as being these horrible kidnappers and such. They're all over the spectrum as far as how the Church is portrayed. We have said many times on this show, we're not denying that the LDS people were often treated very badly, harshly persecuted as Mr. Turner explains here on page 165 of this book. But he's right when he says that the Mormons certainly were not entirely innocent when it came to reprisals or responding in kind to how they were persecuted. And sometimes I think a lot of Latter-day Saints seem to miss that part of their own history.

They always want to look at themselves as being the unnecessarily persecuted innocent people when that wasn't always the case. And I will say this, I do commend this Gospel Topics essay titled Peace and Violence Among Nineteenth-Century Latter-day Saints, because it does seem to go into a lot of detail, or at least a lot of confession, you might say, that the LDS people were guilty of bringing about violent acts on others. Not only perceived enemies from outside of the Church, but even using violent acts against those who tended to disagree as members of the Church. It goes both ways, I think, and when we're talking about the Mormon idea about persecution, you hear that oftentimes from Latter-day Saints, who talk about how they were persecuted in the earlier years, and that's true. But we also have to remember that sometimes these were instigated by Latter-day Saints, or there was retaliation that took place.

That oftentimes is forgotten by many who want to claim that the Church was persecuted throughout the years. Well, he mentions the Danites, and in the next paragraph on page 165, he says peace and violence, and that's the shortened term for this essay, Peace and Violence Among Nineteenth-Century Latter-day Saints, he says, peace and violence reaches plausible if not definitive conclusions about the Danites and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The essay states that, quote, Joseph Smith approved of the Danites, but that he was probably not briefed on all their plans and likely did not sanction the full range of their activities, end quote. What do you think about that statement? Everything goes through Joseph Smith, just as later on everything went through Brigham Young.

I'm sure that some people could read that sentence that's in the essay and kind of roll their eyes. Could Joseph Smith really be that ignorant of some of the things that the Danites did while Joseph Smith was still alive? He just throws it out there, and at this point he doesn't even address it, but then in the next sentence it says, in its discussion of the September 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, the essay summarizes the conclusions of LDS historians Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glenn M. Leonard, that while fiery preaching, quote, contributed to a climate of hostility, Brigham Young, quote, did not order the massacre. Local church leaders planned and executed the mass murder. This is speaking of the murder of over 120 immigrants in a wagon train coming from Arkansas heading towards California. Now that's just one view. I mean, there is the view that local church leaders planned and executed the mass murder.

That's certainly the view of Walker, Turley, and Leonard. But there are others, Bill, who have written on this topic who would disagree with that. Including Will Bagley, and I remember being at a Mormon history conference in downtown Salt Lake City. I think I've told this story before on air. And I was sitting next to a gentleman who was a Latter-day Saint.

I recognized who he was based on him meeting you at a temple outreach down in Newport Beach years before. He had mentioned to me that his daughter had been working with these historians, and I simply asked him, well, did she find anything interesting about evidence being destroyed or maybe doctored up? And we didn't have time for him to ask his daughter, who I believe was sitting at the end of the aisle. But during the Q&A, he raised that question, and I believe it was Turley who was taking the Q&A at that time. He asked in their research, did they find any evidence that looked like it could have been doctored up or perhaps even destroyed? Turley admitted to that.

Well, Will Bagley, who wrote a book on the Mountain Meadows, he made a comment. I heard him say this myself. He made a comment, speaking at a bookstore in Salt Lake City, where you don't destroy evidence to protect your innocence.

That always stuck with me because I totally agree with that. There would be no reason to destroy evidence if it's going to show you to be innocent. And yet, Turley admitted that they saw cases of where this probably did happen. So how are we ever going to know? When you draw the conclusion that Brigham Young did not order the massacre, you have to ask some other questions. And one of the questions that I've often asked is, do you really think for a minute that the average religious Latter-day Saint would participate in the murder of over 120 innocent men, women, and children on the words of a stake president, Isaac Haight? And that's basically the story that these three Mormon historians, Walker, Turley, and Leonard, are trying to sell in their book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I can't imagine any average Latter-day Saint going up to Isaac Haight being told to go kill these people and saying, you've got to be kidding me.

I'm not going to be involved in this. The only way, in my opinion, that you could get any Latter-day Saint to do such an act is first you have to prime the pump that what you're doing is a righteous act. And of course, the doctrines being taught during that time seem to clearly indicate that that kind of stuff could be considered a righteous act, as perverted as we would say it is looking back. But the only way I could see any average Mormon doing that is if they felt they could be protected or they had the permission of the supreme leader of the church at that time, which of course would be Brigham Young. And that's why I have a real struggle with this idea that these men were involved in this heinous crime based on the orders of someone of a lower local level, such as a man like Isaac Haight. I just don't buy that story. Bill, in that whole story, it just seems hard to believe that Brigham Young wouldn't have had anything to say about that, that there wouldn't have been any knowledge that he would have had, but they did have a scapegoat later, and they actually killed John D. Lee for this.

But he was the only one. There were others that were involved that did not receive the punishment, and John D. Lee went to his grave claiming his innocence. And it's interesting because John D. Lee's execution, which happened to take place at the site of the Mountain Meadows, he was sitting on the edge of his coffin, and there was a firing squad, and he was shot to death 20 years after the fact. Now think about that, folks.

20 years. Why did it take 20 years to execute only one man involved in this crime? Doesn't that raise a lot of questions in that point alone? It's not that Brigham Young did not know about this right after it took place. He most certainly knew about it.

But that goes back to what I was saying. Who would have the power to protect the people involved? It would be Brigham Young. And I have to believe in studying this story that Brigham Young did do everything he possibly could to make sure the word of this crime did not get out to the public, but once it did, somebody had to pay the price, and you're absolutely correct, Eric. It was John D. Lee. For more information regarding Mormonism Research Ministry, we encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org, where you can request our free newsletter, Mormonism Researched. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism.