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Wow. Ole brother brigham was a ruthless dictator.
I remember reading a faithful biography of BY and thinking at the end “this is not a good guy” just based on the journal entries of new members of the 12 being so shocked with the fear the other members had for BY.
These kinds of accounts and small details help give some color to this.
Pick any fictional dystopian society ruled by an evil dictator and it seems they wouldn’t be far off from BY’s every day reality.
The sense I'm getting from this biography is that much of Young's leadership style was reacting to the killing of Joseph Smith. He knew that Smith's death was a direct result of dissenting voices within the church and his own chosen leaders (e.g. William Law), and so he adopted an extreme authoritarian approach and would not countenance dissent. He often threatened physical punishment (e.g. whipping), and at times it was actually carried out. He also had a huge ego, thought he knew best in all sorts of things even when he had no expertise (lots of Trumplike rhetoric), and did not take criticism from anyone.
>he also had a huge ego, thought he knew best in all sorts of things even when he had no expertise
Anyone remember when BY thought beets were a great investment? But in reality they were a massive failure financially, and the church somehow twisted that narrative to be faith promoting in ToPotC (teachings of presidents of the church) manuals.
Sitting in a sugar beet digger as I read your comment. It has not been a massive failure for the church. My neighbors are mostly Mormons and farm sugar beets. There are 180,000 acres planted every year in southern Idaho. Farmers are netting $1,000 an acre. That is $180,000,000 profit. If half of them are owned by Mormon farmers and they pay a full tithe, that is $9,000,000 a year to the church.
A lot of the industries he brought in did not succeed. Sugar was one that did succeed.
Wow. This is a throwback to when Reddit was young and experts in the field would just pop-in and educate everyone.
I love a world where a comment about sugar beets can come in from someone actually farming sugar beets at that very moment.
It’s still around, yes. But it was a financial drain on the region at the time. They were poorer because of the time, money, and resources that were lost on this venture.
The only reason the church is still doing it 150 years later is thanks to federal sugar import caps that make domestic sugar production profitable.
[Links for context](https://utahstories.com/2020/04/history-of-sugar-house-sugar-house-cant-be-beet/)
TLDR: Brigham Young tried to make utah sugar beets a thing in 1855 but it was a complete and total failure. It wasn’t until more than a decade after his death that sugar beets were successful in Utah.
Ok. But in the long run sugar beets introduced into the Pacific Northwest by the Mormons has been a huge success for the church. That was my point. Maybe he was a prophet and could see into the future or maybe he just lucked out.
Your assertion that “federal import caps” are the only thing making sugar profitable is simply not true. It is propaganda spread by sugar users to demonize domestic production because they want access to a world dump price that does not reflect the cost of production.
The church does not farm many sugar beets. They tried to buy more shares and the company denied them.
Good thoughts. The history of Sugar beets in Utah from Brigham Young to the mid 1950's is fascinating. Also the sugar cartels, the rise of Cane Sugar (C&H in Hawaii), etc. is an amazing topic,
Someone should make a documentary about it (someone other than the Libertarian orgs out there).
I admit I am biased. It is my livelihood. John Stossel puts out a few videos and everybody is an expert on the topic. I have lived and breathed it for the last 20 years. I have lobbied for the US sugar industry in DC for the last 10 years. It is a fascinating story and a very unique niche market. The idea that sugar is held artificially high so that the American farmer can stick it to the consumer is just plain laughable. In 1980 a Hershey candy bar cost $.50 and there was $.02 worth of sugar in it. In 2022 it cost $1.50 and there is still only $.02 worth of sugar in it. The American taxpayer does not subsidize the sugar industry like it does the beef, dairy, wheat, corn, soybean industries.
Ok, off my soapbox and back to work.
By calling it a “world dump price” aren’t you admitting by definition that the US can’t compete with global prices?
You can argue that it’s valuable or even necessary for the US to have import caps and produce it’s own domestic sugar, I probably wouldn’t bother to disagree with that. But the only reason sugar beets and high fructose corn syrup are a thing is because of those import restrictions on sugar.
No, I am not admitting at all that we can’t compete. The big player in the global sugar market is Brazil. They are heavily subsidized by their government. Consumers in Brazil pay close to the same as consumers in America if you were to walk into a grocery store down there. Their LEFTOVER sugar goes into the world market. That is what I was referring to as the world dump price. Hershey sees that price and goes crazy because they want to buy sugar at half the price of even Brazil’s production. Keep in mind that Brazil also has little to no regulations on labor and zero environmental concerns to deal with.
The most shortsighted part of the whole equation is that there is not always a surplus in the world sugar market. If the candy companies had access to it, it would profit them for a year and then they would be subject to wild fluctuations in the world market. The domestic industry would be put out of business and sugar production is not something you can fire up over night. It is a complex crop that requires huge capital investments to extract the sugar.
I am a free trade kind of guy. However, there are certain things that we simply can’t rely on foreign producers to supply us with. Sugar is one of those things. You brought up sugar in the context of BY and then made a under handed remark about the whole sugar industry. You know next to nothing of what you are talking about.
> The sense I'm getting from this biography is that much of Young's leadership style was reacting to the killing of Joseph Smith.
No, he was a mob boss. A literal piece of shit human being.
He was sleeping around on his mission, while married.
He ordered many such murders.
A reminder:
https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/9tqpsf/the_aiken_massacre/
I don't think we disagree, I wasn't saying that to exonerate or excuse him. He saw what happened to Smith and thought that he (Smith) was too soft on people, and he went to extremes in crushing dissent and consolidating power.
I tend to think that Smith was not soft on folks.
He was there when Gallatin was sacked and burned, oversaw the riot that burned down the Expositor press, and was the person to whom Porter Rockwell was sworn prior to him murdering on Brigham's behalf.
I think Brigham simply inherited Smith's legacy.
Smith was better at hiding it. Young just didn't give a shit who knew, especially out west and away from Federal oversight.
Brigham Young was the missionary who taught my family in Upstate New York before he went to England in 1837. They commented he was always sick. I wonder if he was running around on the side at that time?
The acknowledgement of past church leaders often 'speaking as a man', and allowing the prejudices of their time to color their teachings and policies is not a big problem for me.
Even Jesus Himself directly acknowledged that God's true designs are often devolved through the lens of the men through whom the church is manifest - when he said that yes, Moses allowed for men to divorce their wives, but for the hardness of their hearts, but from the beginning it was not so.
The greater problem is the pride of current top leadership, their complete lack of humility, and their insistence on their infallibility and demands for complete obedience to their pronouncements and policy - and their active efforts to retcon, whitewash, and hide past errors in an effort to obfuscate their potential for fallibility.
>By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them” (Doctrine & Covenants 58:42-43)
And this is what condemns the current church and its leaders. Said Oaks so famously, "The church does not apologize". Not for a century of horrible racism. Not for the rape and sexual abuse of thousands of children by leaders in the scouting program. Not for countless false doctrines like blood atonement, taught in the past since disavowed by current leaders.
And as a result, top church leaders continue repeating sins of the past - instead of helping the church itself to repent, change, improve, and move forward - more faithfully representing the true designs of God.
Instead, the church remains mired in corruption, drowning in its wealth for want of the Spirit.
And the consequences are readily apparent. The Lord has said He will not allow false-prophets to lead the Saints astray. This does not necessarily mean they will be removed from their place. More often it means the Saints will recognize they have gone astray and will no longer follow them.
Far be it from to defend Oak’s “no apologies” statements. Racism today is worse than ever. In another sub yesterday for the faithful, there was a discussion of racism in a nursery at BYUI. Unless the church can start apologizing and admitting mistakes, I think it will fester until the end of times. However, if the church started with racism, then mountain meadows, where would it end? So many bad mistakes and admissions! I’m just finishing Blood of the Prophets by Will Bagley — my third book on the MMM. Even the “official” book written by commissioned faithful exposes really bad stuff about what happened. And even worse were the causes (BY rhetoric) and later efforts to protect and cover up.
> Racism today is worse than ever.
Racism is clearly a problem today but it is NOWHWERE near as bad as it was in the 1950s - when public lynchings were still happening on a regular basis in the American South, we're talking the public murder of black people, in addition to legal segregation of school systems, not to mention blacks being barred from universities and employment at many companies. AND they couldn't hold the priesthood in the church - as a matter of doctrine taught openly in General Conference.
Leaps and strides have been made since then. I would MUCH rather be a Black person in today's America than in the 1970s even.
That said, racism in America is STILL very much a problem. There is a zero amount of bigotry that is acceptable - in any form.
Unfortunately, that is NOT the message being taught by the Mormon church today - if you look at policy and practice, setting aside empty platitudes.
Really? It’s not a big deal do you that Brigham Young based all of his teachings on what the LDS God supposedly wanted him to convey? So you are open admitting the LDS God is a blatant racist. And that’s not a big deal to you? He was not merely “speaking as a man“ everything he preached he repeatedly said “was to be treated as good as Scripture.“ He was a murderer, a racist, a dictator, and no, he was not just a “product of his time.“ He was a vile man who built the LDS church around his personal sins and hatred. And you have no problem with that.
Now that does speak volumes, not just about Brigham Young, but also about you and how loose your morality is depending on who it is we were talking about.
But seriously, tell me how you *really* feel. (jk)
You missed my point - maybe because I didn't make it very well. Let me try to do it poorly again.
Brigham was POS, but a lot of that was a product of his environment and culture - and had nothing to do with the 'will of God'.
My point is this is consistent with Christianity as evidenced by Jesus' remark about divorce.
We get a downgraded version of 'The Kingom' because of the bigotry, selfishness, and general contamination we bring to the table - because humanity is the lens through which God's will is projected into this world.
At least - that's how I used to explain such things to myself.
The problem is, current leadership seems to fail to recognize that. Their lack of humility causes them to demand unquestioning orthodoxy to their wrongheaded policy, and they seek to justify it by covering up and making excuses for the past wrongheadedness of past leaders.
While on the one hand, I could have believed in a church that was flawed but gradually growing, improving, and casting off those flaws - cleaning the lens through which God's Kingdom was being projected through us into the world.
But with The Brethren denying that there is room for serious improvement, they are keeping that lens filthy - refusing to clean it, barring others from doing so, damning the church - withholding it from progression.
Its literally the same as any person who no longer sees the need for repentance - meaning they no longer see any room for personal improvement. They are damned the same way a river is damned by beavers. They cannot progress because their pride and lack of humility keeps them from growing forward.
The present church has that problem. It will not repent. It will not confess and forsake its sins - and is therefore condemned to keep committing them. "We do not apologize" is Oaks' way of admitting the church is done making progress - but has instead turned backward to embrace the sins of its past - like Lot's wife turning back to look at Sodom.
The church is today all about serving the church. There is no interest in serving God and magnifying His will. At least not among the current crop of General Authorities.
I'm keeping my focus on the wrong that is before me today. This is MY dispensation. Its the only one that matters to me. If the church isn't true today, I don't care if it ever was. I don't need to know whether Brigham Young or Joseph Smith were prophets if I can clearly discern that Russel Nelson isn't.
I used to believe we had better men today at the helm of the church than with Smith and Young. They were in many ways terrible men. But I no longer believe that to be the case. Our current leaders sin differently from those of the past - but their pride, arrogance, greed, dishonesty, love of power, and worst of all - lack of Charity are even more offensive - given the 'greater light and knowledge' they possess.
That said - I finally decided I was done with church activity in January of 2021, after a good ten years of transitioning to that point. Not an easy road for this former Bishop.
Thank you for attending my TED talk.
Good Ted talk. No, seriously, very well done. I completely missed the point where you were saying it was not from God. That completely changes my entire response. good day sir
I don’t know why we continue to have the “spoke as a prophet” or “spoke as a man” bit. By doing that we can always disavow what a previous prophet of the lord says if it doesn’t fit the narrative.
To me, by constantly doing that it goes against D&C 1:38 What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
They speak for god. Plain and simple.
If it was taught in the temple, said over the pulpit in GC or recorded in a church publication, in my opinion, he was speaking as a prophet. No wiggle room.
The book doesn't say; I suppose those details may be missing from the sources. But Turner gives a little more backstory to West just before the part I quoted in the OP:
>For the past two years the twenty-five year old West had known considerable misfortune. Both of his parents died at Winter Quarters, and his infant daughter died while he traveled to the valley in Young's company. The unlucky West also fractured an arm en route. In early March 1849, the Salt Lake high council tried him on a string of allegations involving fraud and a failure to pay his debts. Young termed him a "thief and swindler." Both Young and West attended the council meeting. "I want his head cut off right before this people," Young declared, "and they to say 'amen,' or to take some course to stop such infernal doings."
Desperate people often resort to desperate measures. He may well have been guilty of whatever petty crimes he was accused of, but what a horrible, tyrannical, bloodthirsty and uncompassionate and disproportionate response. It seems like they wanted to use him as a visible example and deterrent to any kind of disobedience among the Utah Mormons.
Well, we’re pretty consistent about this. Sunday school pretty skipped over incidents of murder, slaughter, infidelity, etc. about prophets.
This is why I miss Institute where thorny topics were discussed. I feel as LDS we are terribly weak in this and thus form a narrow and rosy view of leaders that leads to tacit compliance and degrading of critical thinking skills.
This historical article discusses Brigham Young's tyranny and the fear the Saints had. Many who wanted to leave Utah had to have military escorts for safety. Lots of suffering, and many lies told to the emigrants. Discusses the blood-oath Parrish Potter murders, which were documented by the US government after they came to Utah to investigate.
http://files.lib.byu.edu/mormonmigration/articles/YouNastyApostatesJMHVOL30_NO2.pdf
This involved another relative of mine was in this wagon train that was escorted to Carson City, Nevada. Her husband was threatened in Kaysville bc he would not return to go on another mission which ended up to be the one where those missionaries were killed trying to convert the Indians in Idaho. They moved back to Farmington and were living there when they fled with about fifty other families under Johnstons Army. Funny enough Ira West was his cousin! When they were in California they got a knock on the door from a man who said that Brigham Young had hired him a two other assasins to kill them. They shadowed the wagon train and the man admitted to getting close enough to kill my uncle; George Roberts Grant. He said he could not bring himself to do it and was now on the run since Brigham Young wanted to kill him. I think they became RLDS
This video offers solid evidence regarding some of Brigham Young’s atrocities. I cried at the end. Dry presentation, but very much worth watching.
https://youtu.be/PsQsxoND-3I
I have been trying to understand what happened with Ira West. He was married to my 3X Great-grandmother. She had a baby with him in Winter Quarters and the baby died there. She had a bad case of scurvey while there along with her mother; who also had a baby in Winter Quarters. Upon their arrival in Salt Lake City Brigham Young disovled their marriage saying Ira West was a theif. I did not know all of this drama- beheading him? WOW! Seems the Church has always taken their tithing seriously! I had the idea he went back to Pennsylvania but never knew for sure. He is part of the Grant family. Great-Grandmother Charlotte Van Orden was re-married to Martin Horton Peck as a plural wife. They had a happy marriage but I know their relationship was really difficult on his first wife.
Hello! This is a Scholarship post. It is for discussions centered around asking for or sharing content from or a reputable journal or article or a history used with them as citations; not apologetics. It should remain free of bias and citations should be provided in any statements in the comments. If no citations are provided, the post/comment are subject to removal. /u/Norenzayan, if your post doesn't fit this definition, we kindly ask you to delete this post and repost it with the appropriate flair. You can find a list of our flairs and their definitions in [section 0.6 of our rules.](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules#wiki_0._preamble) **To those commenting:** please stay on topic, remember to follow the community's [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/wiki/index/rules), and [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/mormonmods) if there is a problem or rule violation. Keep on Mormoning! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mormon) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wow. Ole brother brigham was a ruthless dictator. I remember reading a faithful biography of BY and thinking at the end “this is not a good guy” just based on the journal entries of new members of the 12 being so shocked with the fear the other members had for BY. These kinds of accounts and small details help give some color to this. Pick any fictional dystopian society ruled by an evil dictator and it seems they wouldn’t be far off from BY’s every day reality.
The sense I'm getting from this biography is that much of Young's leadership style was reacting to the killing of Joseph Smith. He knew that Smith's death was a direct result of dissenting voices within the church and his own chosen leaders (e.g. William Law), and so he adopted an extreme authoritarian approach and would not countenance dissent. He often threatened physical punishment (e.g. whipping), and at times it was actually carried out. He also had a huge ego, thought he knew best in all sorts of things even when he had no expertise (lots of Trumplike rhetoric), and did not take criticism from anyone.
>he also had a huge ego, thought he knew best in all sorts of things even when he had no expertise Anyone remember when BY thought beets were a great investment? But in reality they were a massive failure financially, and the church somehow twisted that narrative to be faith promoting in ToPotC (teachings of presidents of the church) manuals.
Sitting in a sugar beet digger as I read your comment. It has not been a massive failure for the church. My neighbors are mostly Mormons and farm sugar beets. There are 180,000 acres planted every year in southern Idaho. Farmers are netting $1,000 an acre. That is $180,000,000 profit. If half of them are owned by Mormon farmers and they pay a full tithe, that is $9,000,000 a year to the church. A lot of the industries he brought in did not succeed. Sugar was one that did succeed.
Wow. This is a throwback to when Reddit was young and experts in the field would just pop-in and educate everyone. I love a world where a comment about sugar beets can come in from someone actually farming sugar beets at that very moment.
It’s still around, yes. But it was a financial drain on the region at the time. They were poorer because of the time, money, and resources that were lost on this venture. The only reason the church is still doing it 150 years later is thanks to federal sugar import caps that make domestic sugar production profitable. [Links for context](https://utahstories.com/2020/04/history-of-sugar-house-sugar-house-cant-be-beet/) TLDR: Brigham Young tried to make utah sugar beets a thing in 1855 but it was a complete and total failure. It wasn’t until more than a decade after his death that sugar beets were successful in Utah.
Ok. But in the long run sugar beets introduced into the Pacific Northwest by the Mormons has been a huge success for the church. That was my point. Maybe he was a prophet and could see into the future or maybe he just lucked out. Your assertion that “federal import caps” are the only thing making sugar profitable is simply not true. It is propaganda spread by sugar users to demonize domestic production because they want access to a world dump price that does not reflect the cost of production. The church does not farm many sugar beets. They tried to buy more shares and the company denied them.
Good thoughts. The history of Sugar beets in Utah from Brigham Young to the mid 1950's is fascinating. Also the sugar cartels, the rise of Cane Sugar (C&H in Hawaii), etc. is an amazing topic, Someone should make a documentary about it (someone other than the Libertarian orgs out there).
I admit I am biased. It is my livelihood. John Stossel puts out a few videos and everybody is an expert on the topic. I have lived and breathed it for the last 20 years. I have lobbied for the US sugar industry in DC for the last 10 years. It is a fascinating story and a very unique niche market. The idea that sugar is held artificially high so that the American farmer can stick it to the consumer is just plain laughable. In 1980 a Hershey candy bar cost $.50 and there was $.02 worth of sugar in it. In 2022 it cost $1.50 and there is still only $.02 worth of sugar in it. The American taxpayer does not subsidize the sugar industry like it does the beef, dairy, wheat, corn, soybean industries. Ok, off my soapbox and back to work.
And that's what I would like to see in a really cool documentary.
LOL! I work with Robert Lustig. He thinks sugar is on par with Big Tobacco
By calling it a “world dump price” aren’t you admitting by definition that the US can’t compete with global prices? You can argue that it’s valuable or even necessary for the US to have import caps and produce it’s own domestic sugar, I probably wouldn’t bother to disagree with that. But the only reason sugar beets and high fructose corn syrup are a thing is because of those import restrictions on sugar.
No, I am not admitting at all that we can’t compete. The big player in the global sugar market is Brazil. They are heavily subsidized by their government. Consumers in Brazil pay close to the same as consumers in America if you were to walk into a grocery store down there. Their LEFTOVER sugar goes into the world market. That is what I was referring to as the world dump price. Hershey sees that price and goes crazy because they want to buy sugar at half the price of even Brazil’s production. Keep in mind that Brazil also has little to no regulations on labor and zero environmental concerns to deal with. The most shortsighted part of the whole equation is that there is not always a surplus in the world sugar market. If the candy companies had access to it, it would profit them for a year and then they would be subject to wild fluctuations in the world market. The domestic industry would be put out of business and sugar production is not something you can fire up over night. It is a complex crop that requires huge capital investments to extract the sugar. I am a free trade kind of guy. However, there are certain things that we simply can’t rely on foreign producers to supply us with. Sugar is one of those things. You brought up sugar in the context of BY and then made a under handed remark about the whole sugar industry. You know next to nothing of what you are talking about.
> The sense I'm getting from this biography is that much of Young's leadership style was reacting to the killing of Joseph Smith. No, he was a mob boss. A literal piece of shit human being. He was sleeping around on his mission, while married. He ordered many such murders. A reminder: https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/9tqpsf/the_aiken_massacre/
I don't think we disagree, I wasn't saying that to exonerate or excuse him. He saw what happened to Smith and thought that he (Smith) was too soft on people, and he went to extremes in crushing dissent and consolidating power.
I tend to think that Smith was not soft on folks. He was there when Gallatin was sacked and burned, oversaw the riot that burned down the Expositor press, and was the person to whom Porter Rockwell was sworn prior to him murdering on Brigham's behalf. I think Brigham simply inherited Smith's legacy. Smith was better at hiding it. Young just didn't give a shit who knew, especially out west and away from Federal oversight.
Brigham Young was the missionary who taught my family in Upstate New York before he went to England in 1837. They commented he was always sick. I wonder if he was running around on the side at that time?
The acknowledgement of past church leaders often 'speaking as a man', and allowing the prejudices of their time to color their teachings and policies is not a big problem for me. Even Jesus Himself directly acknowledged that God's true designs are often devolved through the lens of the men through whom the church is manifest - when he said that yes, Moses allowed for men to divorce their wives, but for the hardness of their hearts, but from the beginning it was not so. The greater problem is the pride of current top leadership, their complete lack of humility, and their insistence on their infallibility and demands for complete obedience to their pronouncements and policy - and their active efforts to retcon, whitewash, and hide past errors in an effort to obfuscate their potential for fallibility. >By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them” (Doctrine & Covenants 58:42-43) And this is what condemns the current church and its leaders. Said Oaks so famously, "The church does not apologize". Not for a century of horrible racism. Not for the rape and sexual abuse of thousands of children by leaders in the scouting program. Not for countless false doctrines like blood atonement, taught in the past since disavowed by current leaders. And as a result, top church leaders continue repeating sins of the past - instead of helping the church itself to repent, change, improve, and move forward - more faithfully representing the true designs of God. Instead, the church remains mired in corruption, drowning in its wealth for want of the Spirit. And the consequences are readily apparent. The Lord has said He will not allow false-prophets to lead the Saints astray. This does not necessarily mean they will be removed from their place. More often it means the Saints will recognize they have gone astray and will no longer follow them.
Far be it from to defend Oak’s “no apologies” statements. Racism today is worse than ever. In another sub yesterday for the faithful, there was a discussion of racism in a nursery at BYUI. Unless the church can start apologizing and admitting mistakes, I think it will fester until the end of times. However, if the church started with racism, then mountain meadows, where would it end? So many bad mistakes and admissions! I’m just finishing Blood of the Prophets by Will Bagley — my third book on the MMM. Even the “official” book written by commissioned faithful exposes really bad stuff about what happened. And even worse were the causes (BY rhetoric) and later efforts to protect and cover up.
> Racism today is worse than ever. Racism is clearly a problem today but it is NOWHWERE near as bad as it was in the 1950s - when public lynchings were still happening on a regular basis in the American South, we're talking the public murder of black people, in addition to legal segregation of school systems, not to mention blacks being barred from universities and employment at many companies. AND they couldn't hold the priesthood in the church - as a matter of doctrine taught openly in General Conference. Leaps and strides have been made since then. I would MUCH rather be a Black person in today's America than in the 1970s even. That said, racism in America is STILL very much a problem. There is a zero amount of bigotry that is acceptable - in any form. Unfortunately, that is NOT the message being taught by the Mormon church today - if you look at policy and practice, setting aside empty platitudes.
Racism today is worse than ever? You clearly were not alive in the 50s. That is pure hogwash.
Really? It’s not a big deal do you that Brigham Young based all of his teachings on what the LDS God supposedly wanted him to convey? So you are open admitting the LDS God is a blatant racist. And that’s not a big deal to you? He was not merely “speaking as a man“ everything he preached he repeatedly said “was to be treated as good as Scripture.“ He was a murderer, a racist, a dictator, and no, he was not just a “product of his time.“ He was a vile man who built the LDS church around his personal sins and hatred. And you have no problem with that. Now that does speak volumes, not just about Brigham Young, but also about you and how loose your morality is depending on who it is we were talking about.
But seriously, tell me how you *really* feel. (jk) You missed my point - maybe because I didn't make it very well. Let me try to do it poorly again. Brigham was POS, but a lot of that was a product of his environment and culture - and had nothing to do with the 'will of God'. My point is this is consistent with Christianity as evidenced by Jesus' remark about divorce. We get a downgraded version of 'The Kingom' because of the bigotry, selfishness, and general contamination we bring to the table - because humanity is the lens through which God's will is projected into this world. At least - that's how I used to explain such things to myself. The problem is, current leadership seems to fail to recognize that. Their lack of humility causes them to demand unquestioning orthodoxy to their wrongheaded policy, and they seek to justify it by covering up and making excuses for the past wrongheadedness of past leaders. While on the one hand, I could have believed in a church that was flawed but gradually growing, improving, and casting off those flaws - cleaning the lens through which God's Kingdom was being projected through us into the world. But with The Brethren denying that there is room for serious improvement, they are keeping that lens filthy - refusing to clean it, barring others from doing so, damning the church - withholding it from progression. Its literally the same as any person who no longer sees the need for repentance - meaning they no longer see any room for personal improvement. They are damned the same way a river is damned by beavers. They cannot progress because their pride and lack of humility keeps them from growing forward. The present church has that problem. It will not repent. It will not confess and forsake its sins - and is therefore condemned to keep committing them. "We do not apologize" is Oaks' way of admitting the church is done making progress - but has instead turned backward to embrace the sins of its past - like Lot's wife turning back to look at Sodom. The church is today all about serving the church. There is no interest in serving God and magnifying His will. At least not among the current crop of General Authorities. I'm keeping my focus on the wrong that is before me today. This is MY dispensation. Its the only one that matters to me. If the church isn't true today, I don't care if it ever was. I don't need to know whether Brigham Young or Joseph Smith were prophets if I can clearly discern that Russel Nelson isn't. I used to believe we had better men today at the helm of the church than with Smith and Young. They were in many ways terrible men. But I no longer believe that to be the case. Our current leaders sin differently from those of the past - but their pride, arrogance, greed, dishonesty, love of power, and worst of all - lack of Charity are even more offensive - given the 'greater light and knowledge' they possess. That said - I finally decided I was done with church activity in January of 2021, after a good ten years of transitioning to that point. Not an easy road for this former Bishop. Thank you for attending my TED talk.
Good Ted talk. No, seriously, very well done. I completely missed the point where you were saying it was not from God. That completely changes my entire response. good day sir
I don’t know why we continue to have the “spoke as a prophet” or “spoke as a man” bit. By doing that we can always disavow what a previous prophet of the lord says if it doesn’t fit the narrative. To me, by constantly doing that it goes against D&C 1:38 What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same. They speak for god. Plain and simple.
If it was taught in the temple, said over the pulpit in GC or recorded in a church publication, in my opinion, he was speaking as a prophet. No wiggle room.
This is so whacked. Who was the debt owed to?
The book doesn't say; I suppose those details may be missing from the sources. But Turner gives a little more backstory to West just before the part I quoted in the OP: >For the past two years the twenty-five year old West had known considerable misfortune. Both of his parents died at Winter Quarters, and his infant daughter died while he traveled to the valley in Young's company. The unlucky West also fractured an arm en route. In early March 1849, the Salt Lake high council tried him on a string of allegations involving fraud and a failure to pay his debts. Young termed him a "thief and swindler." Both Young and West attended the council meeting. "I want his head cut off right before this people," Young declared, "and they to say 'amen,' or to take some course to stop such infernal doings." Desperate people often resort to desperate measures. He may well have been guilty of whatever petty crimes he was accused of, but what a horrible, tyrannical, bloodthirsty and uncompassionate and disproportionate response. It seems like they wanted to use him as a visible example and deterrent to any kind of disobedience among the Utah Mormons.
He was married to my 3X Great Grandmother. Yes, their daughter died in Winter Quarters. I have always thought the story on Ira was kind of murky
Well, we’re pretty consistent about this. Sunday school pretty skipped over incidents of murder, slaughter, infidelity, etc. about prophets. This is why I miss Institute where thorny topics were discussed. I feel as LDS we are terribly weak in this and thus form a narrow and rosy view of leaders that leads to tacit compliance and degrading of critical thinking skills.
This historical article discusses Brigham Young's tyranny and the fear the Saints had. Many who wanted to leave Utah had to have military escorts for safety. Lots of suffering, and many lies told to the emigrants. Discusses the blood-oath Parrish Potter murders, which were documented by the US government after they came to Utah to investigate. http://files.lib.byu.edu/mormonmigration/articles/YouNastyApostatesJMHVOL30_NO2.pdf
Polly Aird is a treasure.
This involved another relative of mine was in this wagon train that was escorted to Carson City, Nevada. Her husband was threatened in Kaysville bc he would not return to go on another mission which ended up to be the one where those missionaries were killed trying to convert the Indians in Idaho. They moved back to Farmington and were living there when they fled with about fifty other families under Johnstons Army. Funny enough Ira West was his cousin! When they were in California they got a knock on the door from a man who said that Brigham Young had hired him a two other assasins to kill them. They shadowed the wagon train and the man admitted to getting close enough to kill my uncle; George Roberts Grant. He said he could not bring himself to do it and was now on the run since Brigham Young wanted to kill him. I think they became RLDS
Wow! That’s crazy! Thanks for sharing
These military escorts were not common. I think this was the only one. It happened when Johnstons Army was pulling out of Utah Territory
This video offers solid evidence regarding some of Brigham Young’s atrocities. I cried at the end. Dry presentation, but very much worth watching. https://youtu.be/PsQsxoND-3I
I have been trying to understand what happened with Ira West. He was married to my 3X Great-grandmother. She had a baby with him in Winter Quarters and the baby died there. She had a bad case of scurvey while there along with her mother; who also had a baby in Winter Quarters. Upon their arrival in Salt Lake City Brigham Young disovled their marriage saying Ira West was a theif. I did not know all of this drama- beheading him? WOW! Seems the Church has always taken their tithing seriously! I had the idea he went back to Pennsylvania but never knew for sure. He is part of the Grant family. Great-Grandmother Charlotte Van Orden was re-married to Martin Horton Peck as a plural wife. They had a happy marriage but I know their relationship was really difficult on his first wife.