Draft:Mormonism and authority
Within
Priesthood authority was used as a foundation for early political structures in the Latter Day Saint movement. These included the Council of Fifty in Nauvoo, Illinois, and the theocracy established in the State of Deseret.
Priesthood authority in early Mormonism
Priesthood authority as it now known in the Latter Day Saint movement originated from the movement's founder,
Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site.[citation needed
]
Smith and Cowdery further elaborated for the 1835 publication of the
James, and John, who restored the "keys of your ministry" and the "keys of the kingdom". Neither Smith nor Cowdery ever gave a date for this visitation.[citation needed
]
Political structures in Utah
Kingdom of God
"Early Mormonism established community legal structures as essentially
Territory of Utah,[4] and there was minimal effective separation between church and state until 1858.[5]
Young envisioned a Mormon stateexaltation in heaven by having "their blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins." More clearly stated, this doctrine holds that capital punishment is required to atone for murder.[12] Local church leaders occasionally took the rhetoric of such doctrines seriously as they contemplated sanctionable applications of violence.[13]
According to rumors and accusations, Brigham Young sometimes enforced "God's law" through a secret cadre of avenging
vigilante organizations in Utah who referred to themselves as "Danites",[15] they may have been acting independently.[16]
Notes
- ^ Prince, Gregory A (1993). Having Authority: The Origins and Development of Priesthood During the Ministry of Joseph Smith. Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House.
- ISBN 9780252084874.
- History of the Church 6:290, 292; Young 1855, p. 310); John Taylor (1853), JD 1:230; John D. Lee diary, 6 December 1848.
- ^ Fillmore 1850, p. 252
- ^ John Taylor (1857), JD 5:266 ("We used to have a difference between Church and State, but it is all one now. Thank God."). Removed as governor during the Utah War, Young yet retained a great deal of control until his death in 1877 Melville 1960, p. 48.
- ^ Called "Deseret," a word used in the Book of Mormon meaning "honeybee".
- ISBN 1-4179-6846-X, 70 (citing Brigham Young, Latter-day Saint Journal History, October 27, 1850, Ms.).
- ^ In 1856, Young said "the government of God, as administered here" may to some seem "despotic" because "[i]t lays the ax at the root of the tree of sin and iniquity; judgment is dealt out against the transgression of the law of God;" however, "does not [it] give every person his rights?" Young 1856b, p. 256.
- ^ Quinn 2001, pp. 143–45, 147.
- ^ Lee 1877, p. 235; Beadle 1870, p. 495 (describing what is said to be a portion of the Mormon Endowment in which participants are commanded to "obey all orders of the priesthood, temporal and spiritual, in matters of life or death").
- ^ On the Mormon Trail, Young threatened adherents who had stole wagon cover strings and rail timber with having their throats cut "when they get out of the settlements where his orders could be executed" Roberts 1932, p. 597. Young also gave orders that "when a man is found to be a thief,...cut his throat & thro' him in the River" (Diary of Thomas Bullock, 13 December 1846). In Utah, Young said "a theif [sic] should not live in the Valley, for he would cut off their heads or be the means of haveing [sic] it done as the Lord lived." (See the Diary of Mary Haskin Parker Richards, 16 April 1848). The preferred method of execution was by exsanguination or decapitation, the latter being "the law of God & it shall be executed." (See the diary of Willard Richards, 20 December 1846; Watson, Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 1846-1847, p. 480.)
- ^ Young 1856d, p. 53. Yet Mormon leaders stated that this practice was not yet "in full force" (1857, pp. 219–20), but the time was "not far distant" when Mormons would be sacrificed out of love to ensure their eternal reward (Young 1856b, pp. 245–46; Kimball 1857a, p. 174; Young 1857, p. 219.)
- ^ Quinn 1997, p. 249 (referring to a request Isaac C. Haight sent to Brigham Young asking permission to enforce blood atonement against an adulterous Mormon desirous to voluntarily submit for blood atonement — a request, however, that Young eventually denied.
- ^ Briggs 2006, p. 320, n.26. The southern Utah pioneer and militia scout of the time John Chatterley later wrote that he had received threats from a "secret Committee, called ...'destroying angels'"
- ^ Young 1857c, p. 6 (warning "mobocrats" that if they came to Utah, they would find "Danites").
- ^ Cannon & Knapp 1913, p. 271.
References
- Beadle, J H (1870), Life in Utah or the Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism, being an expose' of the Secret rites and ceremonies of the Latter Day Saints, with a full and authentic history of polygamy and the Mormon sect from its origin to the present time, Phildelaphia: National Publishing Company.
- Briggs, Robert H. (2006). "The Mountain Meadows Massacre: An Analytical Narrative Based on Participant Confessions" (PDF). Utah Historical Quarterly. 74 (4): 313–333. JSTOR 45062984. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2007-10-26. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
- Cannon, Frank J.; Knapp, George L. (1913). Brigham Young and His Mormon Empire. New York: Fleming H. Revell.
- GPO1887: 252.
- Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, His Two Counsellors, and the Twelve Apostles, vol. 4, Liverpool: S.W. Richards (published 1857), pp. 164–81.
- ISBN 978-0-608-38044-5.
- Melville, J. Keith (1960). "Theory and Practice of Church and State During the Brigham Young Era". BYU Studies. 3 (1): 33–55.
- JSTOR 45063638. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2008-08-19. Retrieved 2018-02-05.
- ISBN 1-56085-060-4.
- Quinn, D. Michael (2001). "LDS 'Headquarters Culture' and the Rest of Mormonism: Past and Present". JSTOR 45226795. Archived from the original on 2009-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-05.)
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link - History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, vol. 7, Salt Lake City: Deseret News.
- Young, Brigham (March 16, 1856), "Instructions to the Bishops—Men Judged According to their Knowledge—Organization of the Spirit and Body—Thought and Labor to be Blended Together", in Watt, G.D. (ed.), Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, His Two Counsellors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others, vol. 3, Liverpool: Orson Pratt (published 1856), pp. 243–49.
- Young, Brigham (September 21, 1856). Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, His Two Counsellors, and the Twelve Apostles. 4. Liverpool: S.W. Richards (published 1857): 51–63.
- Young, Brigham (July 5, 1857). Calkin, Asa (ed.). "True Happiness—Fruits of Not Following Counsel—Popular Prejudice Against the Mormons—The Coming Army—Punishment of Evildoers". Journal of Discourses Delivered by President Brigham Young, His Two Counsellors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others. 5. Liverpool: Asa Calkin (published 1858): 1–6.
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