Brigham Young advocated in multiple sermons that people should be killed for committing certain sins, because Christ’s sacrifice was not enough to cover for these sins. This is also known as the mormon law of Blood Attonment. The sins that the mormon leader considered to fall under Blood Atonement even included black interracial marriages, and apostasy from the mormon church. There seems to be a direct link between Brigham Young’s sermons, which are recorded in LDS scripture, and the murder of over 100 innocent people by mormons and their church leaders, in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
As pointed out in other articles, the Journal of Discourses has been considered scripture for many years, and though they try to distance them selves from it mormon leaders still categorize it as scripture. Even if you don’t want to trust the Journal of Discourses, the same sermon from Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses about “blood atonement” was also printed in the Deseret News. Deseret News was the official church publication of the day, that went out to all the local saints in the Utah area. And an even stronger link between Brigham Young’s words about blood atonement and the Mountain Meadows massacre is that the dates line up perfectly. They happen in the same year!!! The Mountain Meadows Massacre happened September 11th, 1857 (yes this was the first 9-11), and Brigham Young’s sermon on Blood Atonement was given earlier in the same year, on Feb. 8th 1857.
Here are several paragraphs directly from the sermon, that was just months before the Mountain Meadows Massacre:
“Now take a person in this congregation … and suppose that he is overtaken in a gross fault, that he has committed a sin that he knows will deprive him of that exaltation which he desires, and that he cannot attain to it without the shedding of his blood, and also knows that by having his blood shed he will atone for that sin, and be saved and exalted with the Gods, is there a man or woman in this house but what would say, “shed my blood that I may be saved and exalted with the Gods?”
All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?
I could refer you to plenty of instances where men have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins. I have seen scores and hundreds of people for whom there would have been a chance (in the last resurrection there will be) if their lives had been taken and their blood spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty, but who are now angels to the devil … I have known a great many men who left this church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them, the wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbids this principle’s being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.
This is loving our neighbour as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. Any of you who understand the principles of eternity, if you have sinned a sin requiring the shedding of blood, except the sin unto death, would not be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled, that you might gain that salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind.”
(Sermon by Brigham Young, delivered in the Mormon Tabernacle, Feb. 8, 1857, printed in the Deseret News, Feb. 18, 1857; also reprinted in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, pp. 219-20)
Even if the saints in Utah didn’t hear it directly from Brigham Young’s lips in the tabernacle, they would have had the chance to get the sermon in the Deseret News and read and ponder it for a few months before the Mountain Meadows Massacre occurred. Doesn’t the sequence of events make so much sense? It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say Brigham Young’s words seem to have had a direct influence on the Mountain Meadows Massacre!
By the way, if you want to look up the 122 different modern LDS General Conference talks that quote from Journal of Discourses, here is a link:
http://lds.org/search?query=%
Some of the talks quote from Journal of Discourses multiple times. The first talk listed quotes from Journal of Discourses 8 separate times, different quotes! If it wasn’t a valid source for Brigham Young’s word, then LDS General Authorities wouldn’t be quoting from it. But again, the local Mormons in Utah who participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre probably heard it during General Conference in the tabernacle, or from Deseret News.
Can you see how the Mountain Meadows Massacre seems to be a direct result of Brigham Young’s doctrine of Blood Atonement?
The LDS Church says their prophet will never guide you astray. In the Bible, Jesus says many false prophets will come, and that we should judge them by their fruits. Jesus says if a tree has bad fruits, the whole tree is bad (see Mathew 7:20-27). Joseph Smith has plenty of bad fruits, such as his lies about his own adulteries, to which the LDS church has recently acknowledged, but had hidden for many years.
All these facts can be verified via the inline links above.
We would advise readers to examine these things critically, that LDS “prophets” have taught, and see how they contrast very much from the teachings of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament from the Bible.