Notes on Violence Accusations Against the LDS Church
Introduction
Craig Foster's presentation addresses accusations of violence against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its leaders, and members, from Joseph Smith's time to the present.
The presentation is part of a larger paper available on the Fair website.
Examples of accusations:
Hulu series "Under the Banner of Heaven": "this faith, our faith, breeds dangerous men."
John Krakauer: Mormonism as a violent faith.
Wallace Stegner: Claims of "holy murders" and "blood atonement" in Utah.
D. Michael Quinn: Joseph Smith's influence on a "culture of violence" within Mormonism, predating Brigham Young.
Quinn's argument:
Brigham Young didn't originate Mormonism's culture of violence.
Joseph Smith's revelations, theocracy, and personal behavior nurtured it before June 1844.
Smith's personality and theocratic teachings were the basis for early Mormonism's violent norms.
This created a violent religious subculture within a violent national culture.
violence against evil became a defensible rationale.
Thesis Question
Were early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a violent religious subculture within a violent national culture?
Were they more violent than their religious counterparts?
The paper examines indications of a culture of violence among other religious denominations in 19th-century United States.
American Christianity and Violence
Religion and morals espoused by most churches in 19th-century America generally supported or incorporated violence.
Men of God did not hesitate to use violence, and society followed their lead.
Most moments of violence or war in American history have been authored by Christians against other Christians or religious others.
In some regions and religious classes, religion and violence were closely intertwined, symbolizing the struggle between good and evil.
Example: Black patch people of Western Kentucky and Tennessee:
They took teachings like "an eye for an eye" literally to justify brawling and vengeance.
Reflected emotional Southern religion and frontier culture.
The "eye for an eye" approach to religion and society continued the culture of violence, especially on the frontier.
The Great Awakenings attempted to reform violent habits, but people often backslid into old habits.
Violent habits were expressed against institutions and individuals violating the community's moral norms. Example: A hardened preacher thrashed a newspaper man, justifying it with Psalms 144:1: "Blessed be the Lord my strength, who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."
This attitude extended to vigilantism and extralegal punishment (e.g., post-Civil War Bald Knobbers of Southwest Missouri).
The Bald Knobber vigilantism grew out of intensely devout evangelical Christianity of its members.
Leadership included ministers and church members who believed they were doing God's work by reforming morals.
An 1857 Eastern Iowa vigilance movement was led by reverends, and ministers were among Socorro, New Mexico's Vigilantes.
During the Ku Klux Klan's heyday, many Southern ministers either condoned or ignored its violent activities.
The Ku Klux Klan appealed to white Protestants, especially evangelicals.
Klan members embraced Protestant Christianity and a crusade to save America from domestic and foreign threats.
Twentieth-century Klan members included Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and United Brethren.
Violence Among Christian Denominations
Baptists
Southern Baptists, in particular, incorporated a culture of violence that continued throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th.
Despite efforts to pacify the Baptist population, it was difficult.
Preachers were sometimes the problem:
Reverend James N. Pace led a mob after being robbed on a steamboat, resulting in a man's death.
A Baptist preacher in Nebraska was tarred and feathered for adultery and beating his daughter.
In Graz, Kentucky, a preacher's wife whipped a Methodist preacher for slander.
In 1883, Reverend Evertz and Reverend Doctor Parker fought in Hartford, Connecticut.
That same year, a camp meeting fight broke out between Reverend Edwards and Reverend Jones in North Carolina.
Baptist leaders were significantly represented in the Ku Klux Klan and other vigilante groups.
Reverend John S. Ezel in South Carolina joined the Klan because it was popular.
Most of his congregation were Klan members.
During the Black Patch Tobacco War of Western Kentucky, Knight Riders (violent vigilantes) attacked a family; a Baptist church pillar applied the lashes.
Rape scandal at Baylor University in the late 1890s:
Journalist William Calper Brand wrote about the scandal involving Antonio Teixeira and Doctor Rufus Burleson, president of Baylor University.
Baylor and Baptist officials attacked Teixeira's reputation.
A Waco jury failed to convict H. Steen Morris, and Teixeira was moved back to Brazil.
Brand predicted Baylor would hide its "skeletons."
Burleson was forced to resign.
In 1897, Baylor students kidnapped Brand, beat him, and forced him to sign an apology.
In 1898, Tom Davis (real estate developer and Baylor supporter) shot Brand, and both died.
Lutherans
In the 1740s, conflict and violence against Moravians raged from Virginia to New York, especially in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, saw violent altercations between Lutheran and pro-Moravian families.
Both sides carried weapons to church services.
Eventually, Moravians and Lutherans developed as separate denominations.
Inter and intradenominational conflict decreased, but divisions still occurred.
An 1837 riot took place at a Lutheran church in New York City over theological issues and ritual; the conflict was between Lutherans and Calvinists.
Congregants were "thrashing each other."
In 1851, a riot occurred between two factions of the Chillicothe, Ohio, Lutheran Church.
Methodists
Methodists were both recipients and perpetrators of sectarian and extralegal violence.
Violence was expected and sometimes encouraged.
Francis Asbury said Methodists are not a fighting people, but they are not all sanctified and may retaliate.
Eli Farmer, an antebellum Methodist clergyman, preached and practiced violence.
He confronted and thrashed an antagonistic neighbor, choking him until he begged.
Circuit-riding Methodist clergymen from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio boasted of physical beatings.
A Methodist Sunday School superintendent organized a posse to punish a Bible thief.
Peter Cartwright could be combative and violent, with accounts of battles with evangelical rivals (especially Baptists).
Cartwright threatened to lynch Latter-day Saints for disrupting a camp meeting.
Methodists also fought amongst themselves; in 1859, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church North were threatened with Lynch Law in Texas.
Some Methodist acts of violence extended beyond fighting and rioting.
In Virginia, R. S. Bigam shot a man he had ejected from a church meeting.
In Greene County, Messere, Reverend John Calvin shot and killed William Herdick (a deacon) and wounded Herdick's brother-in-law due to suspected adultery.
Reverend B. Jenkins shot and killed Reverend J. Dane Bowden in Louisiana, suspecting him of seducing a friend.
Presbyterians
Ulster Scots Presbyterians (Scotch Irish) settled on the frontier fringes.
In 1763, the Scotch Irish Presbyterian Paxton Boys massacred Christian Susquehanna Indians near Lancaster.
They marched on Philadelphia in 1764 to kill Moravian, Lenape, and Mohican Indians who had been moved there for protection.
The Paxton Boys and their Presbyterian supporters were accused of targeting not only Native Americans but also whites, specifically English Quakers and German Moravians.
In Reconstruction South Carolina, leaders of the Bethesda Presbyterian Church voiced exasperation over federal intervention and mass arrests, not the Ku Klux Klan's violence.
Catholics
Anti-Catholicism has deep roots in American history, with Catholics being one of the most persecuted religious groups.
The antebellum Northeastern states experienced anti-Catholic riots and convent burnings.
These riots were over concerns about Catholics' allegiance to the Pope.
One known case was the burning of the Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1834.
Anti-Catholic riots occurred in New York (1841), Philadelphia (1844), Boston (1834), and Cincinnati (1853).
The 1844 anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic riots caused violence against Irish residents and two burnt Catholic churches in Philadelphia.
Catholics appear to have retaliated as well.
The 1842 Lombard Street riot involved the Black Young Man's Vigilant Association being attacked by an Irish Catholic mob, resulting in the burning of the African Presbyterian Church.
In 1852, a Catholic mob broke up the Baltimore lecture of Reverend Mr. Leahy (an ex-monk).
In 1871, more Catholic mobbing was threatened in Newark, New Jersey, when a Baptist minister baptized a Catholic girl.
In the mid-1890s, Joseph and Mary Elizabeth Slattery (claimed ex-priest and nun) gave anti-Catholic lectures and were accosted by Catholic mobs in St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco.
The most violent protest took place in Savannah, Georgia, in 1895, where a mob of 3,000-5,000 surrounded the lecture hall, throwing projectiles, and military companies were called to disperse them.