Gospel Topics Chapter 6 Turner Part 4

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They look forward to seeing you soon. Viewpoint on Mormonism, the program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a biblical perspective. Viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism Research Ministry. Since 1979, 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. And now, your host for today's Viewpoint on Mormonism. Welcome to this edition of Viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism Research Ministry, and with me today is Eric Johnson, my colleague at MRM.

Violence in early Utah. We're talking about Chapter 6 in the book, the LDS Gospel Topics Series, a scholarly engagement. This particular chapter was written by John G. Turner, and as I've mentioned earlier this week, Turner is the author of a book titled Brigham Young, Pioneer, Prophet that came out in 2012. He is given the job of discussing the Gospel Topics essay titled Peace and Violence Among 19th Century Latter-day Saints. And today we're going to be looking at page 175, where he gets into the subject of what is known as the Mormon Reformation.

As we brought out in yesterday's show, he spends a lot of time talking about the castration of a Mormon member by the name of Thomas Lewis, an operation, as it's called, that was performed by a Mormon bishop by the name of Warren Snow. What does he have to say on page 175, Eric? He writes, in the spring of 1856, Young announced that it was time for the elders, quote, to put away their velvet lips and smooth things and preach sermons like pitchforks, tines downwards that the people might wake up, end quote.

Young and his counselor, Jedediah Grant, soon began hurling those rhetorical pitchforks. In a sermon that September, Young condemned a multitude of sins ranging from adultery to dishonesty to a failure to tithe. Mincing no words, he complained that some Saints kept their, quote, brains below their waistbands, end quote. He warned that the, quote, whole people will be corrupted if we do not lop off those rotten branches, end quote. Grant and other LDS leaders traveled to communities across the territory, insisting that church members confess their sins, seek rebaptism, and demonstrate a higher level of commitment and obedience. As part of that obedience, Young encouraged hesitant Latter-day Saints to enter into or expand their practice of plural marriage, reminding them of their sacred duty to prepare tabernacles or bodies for spirit children ready to assume their time on earth. Now, some of those sins we certainly do find in the New Testament.

Not all, but some. But when Turner goes to the next paragraph, we start to see something really change and seriously get away from what we understand the New Testament message to say. He writes, during this season of reformation, Young and other church leaders preached that some men would have to atone for their sins with their own blood. The death of Jesus did not make satisfaction for all human sins. There are transgressors, Young explained, 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. Young explained that to kill such sinners was a form of spiritual charity. When facing individuals whose sins could not be atoned for without the shedding of their blood, Young asked, Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood? That is what Jesus Christ meant. In a reinterpretation of the golden rule, Young suggested that killing people before they had the opportunity to forsake their salvation is loving our neighbor as ourselves. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, Young and other high-ranking church leaders had occasionally hinted at this teaching, but during the reformation, they preached it openly and repeatedly.

Let me stop you there, because I think most people listening to this who are of a Christian mindset are probably asking themselves, Really? It's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Brigham Young is supposed to be a prophet of God, speaking on behalf of Jesus Christ, and yet he is preaching sermons such as this? Jedediah Grant, who is his counselor, they're both preaching sermons such as this? No, there's no doubt that Brigham Young taught these things, and one of the footnotes has Journal of Discourses, volume 4, page 53, as well as Journal of Discourses, volume 4, pages 219 and 220. Let me just read you a portion of the sermon that Turner is referring to.

This was a message that he gave on September 21st, 1856. He said, 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 opened 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 their 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. So in other words, Brigham Young is teaching that if your sin is so bad, that you must shed your own blood on behalf of those sins.

If you don't do that, he says, your sins will stick to you and remain upon you in the spirit world. Now, going back to my earlier question, these are really the words of a New Testament-type prophet who's supposed to be representing the teachings of Jesus Christ? I would object, and I think Turner objects as well, and that's why he elaborates on this teaching. But that was a very real part of Mormon history during the mid-1800s. Now, again, I would like to commend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for including this part of their history in this essay, Peace and Violence Among Nineteenth Century Latter-day Saints.

They do talk about that. In fact, it says in one of the paragraphs, at times during the Reformation, President Young, his counselor, Jedediah M. Grant, and others preached with fiery rhetoric, warning against the evils of those who dissented from or opposed the Church. Drawing on biblical passages, particularly from the Old Testament, leaders taught that some sins were so serious that the perpetrator's blood would have to be shed in order to receive forgiveness. My question is, how in the world can you assume that Brigham Young is a true prophet of God when he is teaching nonsense like this? The question then becomes, was he meant to be taken literally? Because the essay tends to make it sound like this was a lot of hyperbole.

It's just an exaggeration. But yet there are some who assume that because of the sermons being given by Brigham Young, as well as Jedediah M. Grant, and we might say others, including Warren Snow, who was involved in the castration of Thomas Lewis, they were all teaching this kind of a doctrine. And if you're going to assume that those messages were merely to be taken as hyperbole, I have to ask you, would people listening to those messages at that time take it that way? I mean, wouldn't that tend to undermine what you think Brigham Young is trying to accomplish? He's trying to get his people fired up for the things of Mormonism. And if he's letting on that I'm just talking in hyperbole, that wouldn't seem to have the same effect.

So I can understand why some would take what he's saying seriously, and not figuratively, but quite literally. Well, Will Bagley, we talked about him earlier this week, and he wrote on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He suggests, according to page 178, that the sermons of Brigham Young and Jedediah Grant helped to inspire their followers to acts of irrational violence. And then on page 179, it says in their Chronicle of the Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Walker, Turley, and Leonard, the three authors of that book, they state that, quote, the tough talk about blood atonement and dissenters must have helped create a climate of violence in the territory.

And I think it's only obvious. When these leaders are talking the way that they are, many of the people are going to follow through, and they're going to do violence if they think that that's what the Church is approving. John Turner mentions this Mormon author, Paul Peterson, who did conclude that a lot of this talk was merely just hyperbole or incendiary talk, likely designed to frighten Church members into conforming with Latter-day Saint principles. I struggle with that, because as you just mentioned, Eric, Will Bagley certainly didn't take it that way.

He saw this as inciting this kind of irrational violence as he describes it. And then you have Dr. D. Michael Quinn. He was an award-winning historian who wrote several books on LDS Church history. Sadly, Michael Quinn passed away on April 21st, 2021, but he worked for the Church as an assistant to Church historian Leonard J. Arrington, and taught history at Brigham Young University for over 10 years. He was quite honest in his reporting of LDS history.

He was excommunicated from the Church in September of 1993. Michael Quinn is quoted in this book on page 178 at the very bottom, and then again at the top of 179, where Turner says, Michael Quinn contends that the establishment of an LDS theocracy in the Great Basin fostered a culture of violence, and he argues that the Mormon hierarchy bore full responsibility for the violent acts of zealous Mormons who accepted their instructions literally and carried out various forms of blood atonement. Turner quotes this, and then brings us back to the story of Thomas Lewis, who we recall earlier in our series, wanted to marry this woman that a Mormon bishop by the name of Warren Snow also wanted to marry. And even though the book says we can't know for sure why Warren Snow had Thomas Lewis castrated, I think it's pretty obvious that that's probably the reason. Lewis wanted the same woman Snow wanted, and this is a good way of getting Thomas Lewis out of the picture. Turner says on page 183, dismissing the explanations of Mormonism unveiled, that was the exposé written by John D. Lee, who was executed for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and Anne Eliza Young, who we mentioned earlier this week, who also talks about the Lewis incident, John Peterson, this Mormon author, concludes that the sermons delivered in the Manti Ward, because that's where this incident took place, was in Manti. The spirit of the times, the form of punishment itself, and the record of Brigham Young's reaction to it make it clear that Lewis had committed a sexual crime. But we don't have any example of this. Even Turner says there's no record of Lewis having committed a sexual crime or indiscretion in the Ward minutes or court records on September or October of 1856. However, Snow has more authority than Lewis, plus he also has the ear of Brigham Young, and that's why Snow is never held accountable for this crime. on Mormonism.