Affixing blame for the Mountain Meadows Massacre

Patheos ^ | SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 | DAN PETERSON

[robowombat]

Affixing blame for the Mountain Meadows Massacre SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 BY DAN PETERSON

This is not a photo of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. We have none. So I went for a cheerier note. This is a photo (by James Jordan) of director Mark Goodman working just a few days ago with extras in Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, for the “Witnesses” film project.

I note that I’m being accused by a small handful of people of blaming the Mountain Meadows Massacre on “anti-Mormons.”

First, two preliminary observations:

1) When I write anything for the public, at least some people will misread it in the most negative way that they possibly can.

2) The Mountain Meadows Massacre is, for quite manifest reasons, a controversial topic. And, accordingly, it’s one that some people are strongly inclined to exploit for ideological ends.

Of course, I don’t blame the Massacre on “anti-Mormons.” I blame it on the people who did it.

But the perpetrators interest me very particularly because, overwhelmingly, they do not seem to have been conventionally bad people – thugs, murderers, and the like – either before September 1857 or, for the most part, thereafter.

So the question that puzzles me (in this case as in more than a few others) is, What makes ordinary, decent people commit so extraordinarily horrific a crime?

Reading the Oxford book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Ron Walker and Rick Turley and Glen Leonard, when it first came out many years ago, I felt as if I were seeing a Greek tragedy unfold. There was a certain inexorable logic to what ultimately happened – a horrible logic, obviously, but one in which it made a certain degree of sense, after one bad step had been taken, to take the next one. I found myself wanting to scream “No! Stop!” while knowing what the outcome was inevitably going to be.

To me, if we see the people who committed the Mountain Meadows Massacre as utterly unlike ourselves, we’re not only falsifying history (and not merely in the sense that they, like me and many of my readers, claimed membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) but refusing to see a lesson (or, more aptly, lessons) in what happened. If they were something of a different species, their cautionary tale can have little if anything to teach us.

In order to understand what they did, we need to understand what factors acted upon them. And, beyond any reasonable dispute, one of the most important of those factors was a prior history of persecution and forced migration.

That doesn’t mean that the Missouri mobs bear legal and moral responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre any more than an abusive father is responsible for the violent acts committed much later by a criminal son. But neither are the two unrelated. Human evils ramify. They do damage, among other things to human psyches.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre certainly isn’t the Restoration’s finest hour. It’s anything but faith-promoting. But it shouldn’t be exploited as a weapon against the Church or against religious belief, either. It’s too complex to be reducible to a self-serving slogan on a partisan bumper sticker.

[Drago]

Speaking of shootouts, I have always wondered that barring the presence of the ATF & Janet Reno whether David Koresh could have developed his denomination to the level of Joe Smith’s in a few decades.

[fproy2222]

“The Massacre happened when the US Army was only 200 miles away from Utah!”

Was that:
The army that wintered at Fort Briger and would have starved to death if Brother Brigham hadn’t sent food to keep them alive.

The army that would have died in the canyons if the Saints wanted to fight the United States.

The army that didn’t stop in Salt Lake City, but went straight to a fort outside the city.

[Widget Jr]

The Mormons were in Utah because they were driven out of Missouri and Ohio.
President Buchanan had declared the Mormons enemies of the United States earlier in 1857 and started the Utah War.

What are your answers to the questions you asked me?

[fproy2222]

“Walter Martin and the Tanners were the instructional materials used.”

Now I understand why your knowlage of my faith is so one sided and full of mindless sound bites.

You may not agree with my faith, you can even believe that I will go to hell because I do not believe the same as you, BUT as a Christian you might what to learn what is real and what is not true at these ‘Mormon Roasts’

[fproy2222]

Thank you for not putting us down while calling us to repent.

I believe in God. I have a personal relationship.

Since you say we can have personal revelation (ask Him to reveal Himself to you, He will.) And other Christians here at FR say we cannot have personal revelations, how do I know which one of you is teaching “true Christianity”?

[fproy2222]

“The Mormons were in Utah because they were driven out of Missouri and Ohio”

You got the easy one, now for the second question:

Why did the people in Mountain Meadows see the wagon train something to fear?

[fproy2222]

“What are your answers to the questions you asked me?”

Start here,

Members of the militia entered the shop and found 10-year-old Sardius Smith, 7-year-old Alma Smith (sons of Amanda Barnes Smith), and 9-year-old Charles Merrick hiding under the blacksmith’s bellows. Alma and Charles were shot (Charles later died), and a militia man known as “Glaze, of Carroll county”, killed Sardius when he “put his musket against Sardius’s skull and blew off the top of his head.”[24] Later, a William Reynolds would justify the killing by saying, “Nits will make lice, and if he had lived he would have become a Mormon.

[Widget Jr]

That's the Haun's Mill massacre, October 30, 1838, Missouri. Mountain Meadows Massacre was. September 7, 1857, Utah.

19 years apart and 900 miles away. That is grasping at straws.

[robowombat]

I think the spelling is ‘Haun’s Mill’. It is a non-event in virtually all US history texts right along with Mountain Meadows. I was about 12 when I discovered the MM events by reading ‘Men to Match My Mountains’ by Irving Stone. Was in the USAF much later when a AF civilian from Utah mentioned Haun’s Mills.

In general the LDS chapter is the most poorly covered in standard scholarship. I believe it has less to do with religiously based anti-Mormonism than the history profession is almost purely secular except for the ghetto of ‘religious history’.
Secularists simply don’t know how to address the events of the origin of the LDS and Joseph Smith. I wish there were a secular scholar that would treat the subject with the seriousness it merits as Perry Smith did about the Puritans starting publishing in the 1930’s .
Until then polygamy, murder and Mountain Meadows will be the default for LDS history among us Gentiles.

[Elsie]

Why me?
Don’t I have enough on my plate??

[Elsie]

Hmm...perhaps you missed your calling Teppe.

Well; since teppe has decided to join the battle...

[Elsie]

I wonder what ever happened to Restornu?

[Elsie]

If this incident was somehow consistent with LDS teachings, as some claim .... how come it has never been repeated?

If polygamy was consistent with LDS teachings; as Mormon 'scripture' proves; how come it was repealed?

[Elsie]

On the other hand Conan Doyle tho a great writer would sometimes make up stuff.

Dang!

He could have been a Living Prophet®!

[Elsie]

The Mormon’s flight to the Salt Lake valley...

A 'true' Prophet would have warned those about to embark on this great trek that many would die on the journey.

---

I've always found it strange that the non-fearful Mormons; who stayed behind; were NOT murdered, killed, slain, tortured or otherwise received nastygrams from the non-Mormons they lived among.

And now; today; the offspring of those folk possess the lands that the others abandoned.

[Elsie]

I’ve spoken there; too; but just to my wife as we visited the place once.

[Elsie]

Take a break from your religious bigotry and take a cup of coffee!

I see the spirit is alive and well...

---

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Elsie]

True Christians deal with facts and understanding rather than bigotry and slander.

; ^ )

[Elsie]

If you want to be a Christian .... start by acting like one.

If you want to be a "worthy" Mormon; you've got to at least have a valid Temple Recommend.

You got one, teppe?

[Elsie]

Bigotry!

The Racist card in the Religion Forum