Appearance
Blood Atonement
The claim:
Brigham Young "taught a doctrine known as 'Blood Atonement' where a person's blood had to be shed to atone for their own sins as it was beyond the atonement of Jesus Christ," citing Journal of Discourses 4:53-54. The CES Letter then notes that the Church's own Gospel Topics Essay confirms blood atonement was taught, and that "the Blood Atonement doctrine was later declared false by subsequent prophets and apostles."[1]
The CES Letter folds this into its running refrain: "Yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine. Yesterday's prophet is today's heretic."
The quotes are real. The rhetoric is genuinely disturbing to modern ears. And the honest answer requires distinguishing between what was said, what was meant, and what was done.
Did Brigham Young's blood atonement rhetoric reflect actual Church policy -- or was it revivalist language that never became practice?
Further Reading
The Church's Gospel Topics Essay "Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints" addresses blood atonement rhetoric, the Mormon Reformation, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre directly.
What Brigham Young actually said
On September 21, 1856 -- at the height of the Mormon Reformation -- Brigham Young addressed the Saints in Great Salt Lake City:
"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 open 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 the 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."[2]
Then the line the CES Letter includes but never engages with:
"I know, when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth, that you consider it is strong doctrine; but it is to save them, not to destroy them."[2:1]
Young acknowledged the rhetoric was "strong doctrine." He framed it as salvific, not punitive. And he was speaking in a specific historical moment -- one the CES Letter never mentions.
Out of Young's approximately 390 recorded speeches in the Journal of Discourses, roughly five address blood atonement.[3] The rhetoric was concentrated in a narrow window -- primarily September 1856 through February 1857 -- a tiny fraction of his public ministry.
The Mormon Reformation: what was happening in 1856
The CES Letter quotes Brigham Young's blood atonement sermons as though they were routine Sunday addresses. They emerged during a specific, intense, short-lived episode called the Mormon Reformation (1856-1857).
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Dates | Roughly September 1856 through spring 1858 |
| Catalyst | Perceived spiritual decline -- drought, crop failures, grasshoppers, famine |
| Leader | Jedediah M. Grant, Second Counselor in the First Presidency |
| Methods | Home visits with a 27-question catechism, mass rebaptisms, fiery preaching |
| Scale | Within days of Grant's initial preaching, 500 Saints were rebaptized |
| Tone shift | By December 1856, Wilford Woodruff urged leaders to adopt "a Fatherly feeling" instead[4] |
| End | Grant died of pneumonia in December 1856. The Reformation's intensity faded through 1857-1858 |
Grant -- the firebrand driving the campaign -- "really led the rally, sometimes attacking the Gentiles but usually raining pitchforks on the Latter-day Saints."[4:1] He died at age forty, months after the campaign peaked.
His catechism pushed members through searching moral inventories. Some confessed sins they hadn't even committed. Lorenzo Snow warned against the "popularity" of the Reformation and cautioned against public confessions of nonexistent transgressions.[4:2]
Blood atonement rhetoric didn't emerge in a theological vacuum. It emerged during a period of intense revivalist preaching that the Church's own leaders recognized had gone too far and deliberately walked back.
Frontier Americans understood this genre
The Church's Gospel Topics Essay places this rhetoric in its era:
"Nineteenth-century Americans were accustomed to violent language, both religious and otherwise. Throughout the century, revivalists had used violent imagery to encourage the unconverted to repent and to urge backsliders to reform."[5]
Jonathan Edwards's 1741 "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" described God holding sinners over hell "much as one holds a spider." Camp meetings across the frontier echoed with violent imagery -- hanging, burning, divine wrath. Frontier justice was the operating norm in many Western communities.
Young was employing a rhetorical device common during periods of religious awakening. His audiences -- settlers on the American frontier who had attended Protestant revivals and camp meetings -- understood the genre.
That doesn't make the language comfortable. It does make it historically intelligible.
Rhetoric vs. reality: was blood atonement ever practiced?
The CES Letter implies it was. The evidence says otherwise -- with one important caveat.
What Young actually did when tested. In 1856, when specifically asked about killing someone for fornication, Young instructed rebaptism -- not execution. He pardoned a soldier condemned for bestiality in 1857. Hundreds of apostates lived openly and unmolested in Utah Territory.[6]
Paul H. Peterson, whose 1981 BYU dissertation is the definitive study of the Reformation, concluded that Young's "motive... was not theological -- it was practical," using "incendiary talk to bring about desired results."[4:3]
Gustive O. Larson, writing in the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1958, examined killings attributed to blood atonement and concluded they "resulted from motives not related to blood atonement" -- personal vendettas, property disputes, and ordinary frontier violence.[7]
William Hickman, the most frequently cited witness for church-directed killings, was "known to exaggerate his crimes and Brigham's involvement in them" and wrote his autobiography while seeking a deal with federal prosecutors.[8] He is not a reliable witness to systematic church policy.
The honest caveat
The Gospel Topics Essay includes this sentence: "it is likely that in at least one instance, a few Latter-day Saints acted on this rhetoric."[5:1]
That acknowledgment matters. A clean "never practiced, full stop" defense doesn't hold. The Church is being honest about it. Fiery rhetoric from a church president, even if intended as hyperbole, can inspire real people to do terrible things.
The evidence still doesn't support a systematic program of religious killings. But it does support the conclusion that reckless language from leaders can have real-world consequences -- a point the Church itself has accepted.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
The Mountain Meadows Massacre of September 1857 is the darkest episode in Church history. Approximately 120 emigrants were killed by local militia members and recruited Paiute Indians under a false flag of truce.[5:2]
The CES Letter doesn't directly link Mountain Meadows to blood atonement doctrine. Critics often do. The connection deserves honest assessment.
Brigham Young's involvement. When local leaders in southern Utah sent an express rider to Salt Lake City asking for direction, Young sent back a letter instructing them to "not meddle" with the emigrants and to let them pass in peace. The letter arrived two days too late.[9]
A 2008 Oxford University Press study concluded that Young "did not order the massacre" but that his "intemperate preaching about outsiders... contributed to a climate of hostility."[9:1]
Juanita Brooks reached the same conclusion decades earlier: Young "did not order the massacre, and would have prevented it if he could."[10]
The honest difficulty. The fiery rhetoric of the Reformation period -- including blood atonement language -- contributed to a climate where local leaders made a catastrophic, criminal decision. Young didn't order the massacre, but the atmosphere his preaching helped create was a contributing factor. The Church acknowledges this.[5:3]
Worth Acknowledging
The scholarly consensus -- from Juanita Brooks in 1950 to the Oxford University Press study in 2008 -- is that Young did not order the Mountain Meadows Massacre but that his rhetoric contributed to the climate that produced it. The Church has accepted this conclusion.
The theological concept behind the rhetoric
The CES Letter presents blood atonement as though it meant the Church practiced ritual murder. The theological concept was different -- rooted in specific scriptures and framed within conditions that never existed.
Young drew on passages most Christians would recognize:
- Hebrews 10:26-29 -- "If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins"
- Matthew 12:31-32 -- "The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men"
- D&C 132:27 -- The only unforgivable sin is shedding innocent blood after receiving the Holy Ghost
Young taught that certain extreme sins -- primarily murder and denial of the Holy Ghost -- were theoretically beyond the reach of Christ's Atonement for full exaltation, and that in a complete theocracy, the sinner might voluntarily submit to capital punishment as part of the atonement process.[11]
"Voluntary." Young's own language reflects this: sinners "would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt."[2:2] This isn't a prescription for murder. It's a theological claim about what an ideal penitent would choose.
A skeptic will fairly note: "voluntary" is a loaded word in a frontier theocracy where the church president was also the territorial governor. The power dynamics complicate genuine consent. That's a legitimate concern. But it also cuts against the theory of systematic blood atonement -- if the Church were ordering executions, the pretense of voluntariness would be unnecessary.
"In a complete theocracy." Church leaders "simultaneously instructed that it 'cannot be carried out' due to civil law constraints."[12] Young was describing a theoretical framework. He specifically rejected blood atonement in individual cases, directing at least one man to seek rebaptism instead.[6:1]
The concept was extreme. It was also theoretical. And it was abandoned.
The disavowal timeline
The CES Letter implies the Church quietly reversed course only after public pressure. The record tells a different story.
| Date | Source | Statement |
|---|---|---|
| 1884 | Charles W. Penrose address | "Not, and never has been, a doctrine practiced" as critics allege[12:1] |
| 1889 | First Presidency & Twelve declaration | "No case of this kind has ever occurred"[13] |
| 1978 | Bruce R. McConkie | Applicable only in a theocracy like Moses's time |
| 1992 | Encyclopedia of Mormonism | "Never been practiced by the Church at any time"[11:1] |
| 2010 | Church official statement | "Not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ"[14] |
| 2014 | Gospel Topics Essay | Rhetoric was likely "hyperbole or incendiary talk"[5:4] |
The 2010 statement is the most direct:
"So-called 'blood atonement,' by which individuals would be required to shed their own blood to pay for their sins, is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in and teach the infinite and all-encompassing atonement of Jesus Christ, which makes forgiveness of sin and salvation possible for all people."[14:1]
The correction started within a generation of the rhetoric and has been consistent ever since.
The CES Letter's framing problem
The CES Letter presents blood atonement the same way it presents Adam-God: a prophet taught something, later prophets rejected it, therefore prophets can't be trusted.
As covered in the Adam-God article, that argument requires prophets to be infallible to be authoritative. The Church has never claimed this.
| Source | Statement |
|---|---|
| Joseph Smith | "A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such."[15] |
| D&C 1:24 | The Lord gives commandments to his servants "in their weakness, after the manner of their language." |
| D. Todd Christofferson (2012) | "A statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion."[16] |
| Neil L. Andersen (2012) | Doctrine "is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve."[17] |
Blood atonement was never canonized. It was never sustained by the body of the Church. It was never taught consistently across the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It was explicitly repudiated. It fails every test for binding doctrine.
The strongest form of the CES Letter's criticism isn't really about blood atonement at all. It's epistemological: if a prophet can teach something this disturbing from the pulpit and present it as doctrine, what mechanism exists for members to distinguish genuine revelation from personal error in real time?
That's a fair question. The answer is the system the Church already teaches: binding doctrine requires consistent teaching across the united First Presidency and Twelve, scriptural canonization, and common consent. Blood atonement met none of those criteria. The mechanism existed. And it worked -- producing a correction that moved steadily from subsidence to public disavowal to formal repudiation.
What the CES Letter gets right
The rhetoric is real. It's genuinely troubling. Young said things about shedding blood that no modern Church leader would say -- and that no modern member should be expected to defend as inspired counsel.
The "javelin through her heart" passage in JD 3:247 is not defensible as prophetic teaching.[18] The CES Letter is right that the Church has moved away from these statements. It's right that the Gospel Topics Essay acknowledges the rhetoric contributed to a dangerous climate.
Where the CES Letter goes wrong is in the leap from "a 19th-century prophet used extreme revivalist rhetoric" to "therefore prophetic authority is a fraud." That conclusion doesn't follow -- not unless you believe prophets must be infallible, which the Church has never taught and which no religious tradition in history has successfully maintained.
A system that corrected itself
The blood atonement episode, like Adam-God and the priesthood and temple ban, tests the same question: Does the Latter-day Saint theological framework have a mechanism for correction?
It does.
- 1856-1857 -- Blood atonement rhetoric peaks during the Mormon Reformation.
- 1857-1858 -- The Reformation winds down. The rhetoric subsides. Young begins preaching peace and love.[19]
- 1884 -- Penrose publicly declares blood atonement was never practiced as alleged.
- 1889 -- The First Presidency and Twelve issue an official declaration denying any such practice.
- 1992 -- The Encyclopedia of Mormonism states it was never practiced.
- 2010 -- The Church issues a direct statement: blood atonement "is not a doctrine."
- 2014 -- The Gospel Topics Essay contextualizes the rhetoric as hyperbole within 19th-century revivalism.
The correction wasn't instant. It took decades to be formalized. But the Atonement of Jesus Christ -- infinite and all-encompassing -- was always the foundational doctrine. Blood atonement rhetoric was a distortion of that foundation, and the system corrected it.
Bottom line: Brigham Young's blood atonement rhetoric was real, disturbing, and rooted in a specific historical moment -- the Mormon Reformation of 1856-1857. The evidence shows it was never systematically implemented as Church policy, though the Church honestly acknowledges that "in at least one instance, a few Latter-day Saints acted on this rhetoric." The rhetoric was publicly disavowed within a generation and has been formally repudiated multiple times. The CES Letter presents the quotes without the context, the repudiation, or the historical environment that produced them.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," no. 2, pp. 63-64. ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, September 21, 1856, Journal of Discourses 4:53-54. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Brigham Young and 'blood atonement': What's the deal?" Saints Unscripted, August 14, 2020. https://saintsunscripted.com/faith-and-beliefs/laws-and-ordinances/brigham-young-blood-atonement/ ↩︎
Paul H. Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation of 1856-1857: The Rhetoric and the Reality," Journal of Mormon History 15 (1989): 59-87. See also Peterson, "The Mormon Reformation" (PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1981). ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/peace-and-violence-among-19th-century-latter-day-saints?lang=eng ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Blood Atonement and Capital Punishment," mormonr.org. https://mormonr.org/qnas/0vsOHr/blood_atonement_and_capital_punishment ↩︎ ↩︎
Gustive O. Larson, "The Utah War and the Reformation," Utah Historical Quarterly 26 (1958): 58-79. ↩︎
Sarah Allen, "Letter for My Wife Rebuttal, Part 24: Blood Atonement," FAIR Blog, November 22, 2023. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2023/11/22/letter-for-my-wife-rebuttal-part-24-blood-atonement ↩︎
Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). ↩︎ ↩︎
Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1950; repr. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). ↩︎
Lowell M. Snow, "Blood Atonement," Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992). https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Blood_Atonement ↩︎ ↩︎
Charles W. Penrose, "Blood Atonement, as Taught by Leading Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," address delivered in the Twelfth Ward Assembly Hall, Salt Lake City, October 12, 1884. Reprinted by Deseret News, 1916. ↩︎ ↩︎
Official Declaration of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, December 12, 1889. Signed by Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith, and all members of the Quorum of the Twelve. ↩︎
"Mormon Church Statement on Blood Atonement," Deseret News, June 18, 2010. https://www.deseret.com/2010/6/18/20122138/mormon-church-statement-on-blood-atonement/ ↩︎ ↩︎
Joseph Smith, quoted in History of the Church 5:265. See also Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 278. ↩︎
D. Todd Christofferson, "The Doctrine of Christ," Ensign, May 2012. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/04/the-doctrine-of-christ?lang=eng ↩︎
Neil L. Andersen, "Trial of Your Faith," Ensign, November 2012. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/10/trial-of-your-faith?lang=eng ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, March 16, 1856, Journal of Discourses 3:247. ↩︎
Thomas G. Alexander, Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). Alexander observed that after the Utah War, Young "reversed course and began to preach peace and love." ↩︎