Artikkelit
Mormon Fundamentalism and Violence: A Historical AnalysisGarn LeBaron Jr. |
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And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God.1 In August 1972, followers of Ervil Morel LeBaron murdered his brother, Joel LeBaron as part of a power struggle for control of their particular polygamist church group. Ervil LeBaron quickly became the leader of the Church of the Lamb of God and proceeded to direct his followers in the murders of more than thirty people, all of them members of various polygamist groups. These murders included the execution style killing of prominent Salt Lake City polygamist leader Rulon Allred, as well as several members who tried to leave the LeBaron sect.2 Before LeBaron died in the Utah State Penitentiary in 1981, he authored a book entitled "The Book of New Covenants," which detailed a list of former followers who were to die in the name of God. Throughout the 1980's, children of LeBaron murdered several former church members in Dallas, Houston, Utah, and Mexico.3 In July 1978, the former David Longo, who had himself re-christened Immanuel David, drove a truck up a canyon east of Salt Lake City and proceeded to commit suicide by asphyxiating himself on the exhaust of the vehicle. Three days later, his wife ordered or pushed each of their seven children off the 11th floor balcony of a prominent Salt Lake City hotel to their deaths on the pavement below. She finally jumped herself, thus ending the grisly multiple homicide/suicide scene.4 In 1979, a long running battle between John Singer and Summit County, over whether Singer should be allowed to educate his children at home, came to a striking climax when Singer was shot and killed by police when he resisted their attempts to arrest him. Singer had refused to accept court judgements that his children needed to be educated in the public schools. He was shot during the attempted arrest when police feared that he would shoot one of them.5 On July 24, 1984, Ronald and Dan Lafferty went to the home of their brother Allen, located in American Fork, Utah, and slit the throats of his wife and fifteen month old child with a ten inch hunting knife. Ron and Dan later claimed that they had received a revelation from God telling them to kill these individuals, and that an additional revelation had instructed them to flee to Reno where they were to gamble and binge on booze, pot, and whores.6 In January of 1988, Adam Swapp bombed a Mormon Stake Center in Kamas, Utah in retaliation for the death of his father-in-law, John Singer, who was killed by police nine years earlier. Swapp and his family then proceeded to hold off an army of police officers and federal agents in a 13 day standoff before police finally stormed their cabin and took them into custody following a violent gun battle in which one officer was killed.7 In August of 1994, former Mormon church member Jim Harmston organized his own church named The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days. Attracting a devout group of polygamists, the church preaches that Armageddon is at hand and that the Federal Government is corrupt. The group's accumulation of guns and food supplies has resulted in comparisons between them and the Branch Davidians at Waco. Many in the group fear that federal agents will attack them.8 The common thread among all these incidents is the fact that the
participants were believers in fundamentalist Mormon doctrines,
including the practice of polygamy. While the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) officially renounced the practice
of polygamy in 1890, citing the manifesto of Wilford Woodruff, the
actual practice of polygamy and adherence to other fundamentalist
doctrines has continued to create problems for leaders of the main
body of the Saints, and has led to the creation of several splinter
groups which have left the larger group for reasons of doctrinal
difference. It is important to state at the outset that most fundamentalist
Mormons are decent, law abiding, and God fearing people who work
hard and only wish to be left alone. However, given In order to understand why a body of people, faithful to the original doctrines of the church and numbering between 10,000 and 30,000 individuals, has spawned so many individuals prone to violent and antisocial activity, it is necessary to explore the doctrines, ideas, and cultural practices of these people. This paper is concerned with understanding this propensity for violence through an analysis of the historical basis for beliefs, doctrines, and practices of these people. In order to understand such strange and ruthless behaviors, an understanding of the origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is necessary. OriginsPerhaps the quintessential modern American religion, claiming a worldwide membership of nearly nine million, the Mormon church began in 1823 when Joseph Smith Jr. claimed that he had visited with God and Jesus Christ in a grove of trees in upstate New York. Smith later translated the Book of Mormon from a set of gold tablets he claimed to have received from an angel named Moroni. Smith officially organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on April 6, 1830. One of the fundamental tenets of this new faith was that God spoke to the members on a regular basis and that anyone in the faith was capable of receiving revelation. Church leaders began the practice of polygamy, surreptitiously, not long after the church was organized. Some accounts argue that Joseph Smith began experimenting with polygamy as early as 1831.9 Regardless of when the practice of polygamy started, by the time Joseph Smith informed the elders of his revelation regarding the practice of polygamy in 1843, it is clear that Smith was married to at least seven women.10 After 1843, the practice of polygamy among church elders became a fairly common practice, although the church did not officially sanction the practice until the general church conference of 1852. Polygamy was not the only activity that distinguished the new church. Beginning during a period of great social experimentation in America, the church instituted several novel social programs which distinguished it from the mainstream of American society. Some of these ideas, beliefs, and practices--still held by fundamentalists today, include the concept of the gathering, the Law of Consecration (or United Order), a strong belief in personal revelation, heavenly visitations, inspired dreams and visions, the doctrine of Blood Atonement, the belief that the laws of God are more important than the laws of men, and the concept that the government of the United States is irredeemably corrupt and will be destroyed.11 Since each of these concepts was at odds with society at large,
it was almost inevitable that the Saints would find trouble, and
they did. Clashes with "gentiles" in Ohio, Missouri, and
Illinois pushed the Mormons west to Utah and inspired a strong persecution
complex among them. Even in Utah, the Mormons were strongly persecuted
for the practice of polygamy and were often in open rebellion against
the United States government. President Buchanan went so far as
to send an army in an attempt to enforce US law among the Mormons.12
It is impossible to understand the mind set of the fundamentalist
Mormon without understanding this persecution complex. While almost
all Mormons in Utah feel, to some degree, that their ancestors were
persecuted for their beliefs, the This persecution complex frequently complements other fundamentalist concepts to create an atmosphere where misunderstanding and violence can easily occur. To better understand how this interaction occurs, I will explore each of these concepts, discussing their historical development and exploring how they combine to create this sort of atmosphere. PolygamyThe practice of polygamy was the most obvious of all new church doctrines which indicated that the church had no intention of playing by the already established rules of American society. When Brigham Young announced that polygamy would be the official religious practice of the church, and that it was sanctioned by God, the cry of outrage from the rest of America was immediate. The Republican Party quickly tailored its platform in opposition to the "twin relics of barbarism." "The Democrats, not wishing to imply support of polygamy by their support of slavery, became as vehement as were their political opponents in denouncing the Mormon institution of Polygamy."13 By the time Buchanan entered the White House in 1857, he was convinced
that the Mormons were in a state of rebellion and would Polygamy continued unabated during the course of the Civil War,
and except for the passage of the Morrill Anti-bigamy Act, attentions
of the government were directed toward the more divisive question
of slavery. Once the war ended, however, the popular sentiment to
end polygamy surfaced again. Government attempts to stop the practice
of polygamy continued throughout the 1870's and 1880's. Under the
provisions of the Edmunds Act and the Edmunds-Tucker Act, Mormons
were precluded from voting, wives and children were declared illegitimate,
and the property of the church was confiscated. Many Mormon leaders
were jailed or had to go into hiding. In response to such intense
persecution, Wilford Woodruff signed the Woodruff Manifesto under
duress, putting an official end to the While the official practice of polygamy had ended, most Mormons still continued the practice. There is clear evidence that polygamous marriages were sanctioned by apostles of the church as late as 1904, and the practice probably continued covertly into the 1930's.16 There were a number of Mormons who never accepted the Manifesto. They became fundamentalists. Their continued practice of polygamy came increasingly under the scrutiny of both Federal and church officials. Although the main body of Mormons had officially renounced polygamy
and other fundamentalist doctrines, there was still a great deal
of sympathy among Mormons in Utah toward those who continued the
practice. However, when the church leaders began to realize that
the perception of polygamy was hurting the image of the church in
the 1930's and 1940's, they began to denounce the practice more
strongly. Under the leadership of J. Reuben Clark, a councillor
to President Heber J. Grant, the church instituted a program of
forcing Mormon men to sign loyalty oaths stating that they denounced
"the advocacy and practice of plural marriage . . . and that
I myself am not living in such alleged marriage relationship."
Those who refused to sign were summarily excommunicated. By 1940,
Clark had directed loyal priesthood leaders to spy on all people
attending meetings at houses of known fundamentalists, encouraged
the Polygamists were now social outcasts in relation to both the church and the society at large. They continued to rely on their faith and rejected the new direction that the main body of the church had taken. Polygamy sets the fundamentalists apart from the world and isolates their culture. An examination of this isolation in relation to other beliefs will illustrate how the fundamentalist propensity for violence has come to be. The GatheringThe gathering of the Saints was a policy implemented by the church
leaders while the Mormons were living in Kirtland. The goal of the The fundamentalists disagreed with bringing the gathering to an end. They believed, and continue to believe, that the return of Christ was imminent. They continue to urge believers to gather together and prepare for the advent of the millennial reign. This gathering phenomenon serves to congregate the believers in close-knit communities that are largely self sufficient and have few ties to the outside world. This reinforces the isolation of fundamentalists and removes them further from the reality of world affairs. The isolation of fundamentalist groups and other cults serves to create a sense of "otherness" that increases tendencies for violence. According to Stuart Wright, a professor of sociology at Lamar University,
The Law of Consecration and the United OrderThe Law of Consecration was a revelation received by Joseph Smith
in 1831.21 It stipulated that all the property of the Saints
should be held in common and distributed "that every man who
has need may be amply supplied and receive according to his wants."22
Mormons were early communists as they attempted to practice the
law of consecration in the 1830's, but this experiment was unsuccessful,
in part because of the Panic of 1837. Brigham Young attempted to
implement the Law of Consecration under the auspices of a plan he
termed "The United Order" on two separate occasions in
the 1850's and 1870's with varying degrees of success. This economic
system, designed to create self-sufficiency among Mormons and isolate
them from the "gentile economy," was Fundamentalists still believe in the teachings of Brigham Young and other early church leaders, and believe that the only true economic order is the United Order. They use this statement by Orson Pratt as part of their justification for believing that the law of consecration should continue to be practiced. "The Lord said in that revelation that the principle which
he had revealed in relation to the properties of his Church must
be carried out to the very letter upon the land of Zion; and those
individuals who would not give heed to it, but sought to obtain
their inheritances in an individual way by purchasing it themselves
from the Government should have their names blotted out from the
book of the names of the righteous, and if their children pursued
the same course their names should be blotted out too, they and
their children should not be known in the book of the law of the
Lord as being entitled to an inheritance among the Saints in Zion.
We find Not all fundamentalist groups practice the Law of Consecration, but several groups use modified forms of the United Order. Most notably, the Kingston group operates a conglomerate worth more than $150 million, with group members transferring all personal property to the group.25 In Colorado City, Arizona, the land for the community is held in a common trust known as the United Effort Plan Trust.26 The economic practices of fundamentalists hold a special key to understanding violence. Like all Mormons, fundamentalists tithe one-tenth of their earnings to their leaders. They are generally very thrifty and hard working people, and in the groups where property is held in common, the leaders generally control the assets. "[Owen] Allred testified at Ervil LeBaron's murder trial that Allred's approximately 2,000 followers in the Apostolic United Brethren pay about $125,000 in annual tithing and that his group owned more than $1 million in property. That testimony underscores the wealth that belongs to some polygamist groups."27 This makes the leadership of a fundamentalist group a potentially lucrative situation. It is widely believed that a major motivation behind the death of Rulon Allred was a desire on the part of Ervil LeBaron to gain the assets and tithes from the Allred group members. The various implementations of the "law of consecration" have also created tensions when members try to leave the main group. Because all property is consecrated to the group, leaving the group often entails a great deal of economic hardship. This serves to create resentment among disaffected members who feel they can't leave without giving up their homes and property.28 Personal Revelation and Heavenly VisitationsThe Mormon Church began with a personal visit from God and Jesus
Christ, and visitations from heavenly personages were common Mormons also believed in living prophets. Like the prophets of old, they believed that God spoke his will through the mouths of his prophets. There are numerous examples in the early history of Utah where various groups broke away from the main body of the church to follow different prophets who believed they had the gifts of prophecy and revelation. The Godbeites and Morrisites are the two most famous of these groups.31 When the church abandoned the practice of polygamy, it was logical that some groups of people would refuse to follow the counsel of the church leaders. These groups began to follow their own prophets and leaders. Two of the most influential of these breakaway leaders were Dayer LeBaron32 and Joseph Musser.33 Both men were extremely devout and believed that they had received special "keys" from God which instructed them to continue the practice of polygamy and other fundamentalist beliefs. These new fundamentalists believed firmly in the gifts of modern revelation and prophecy, and held a firm faith that otherworldy beings would continue to visit them on earth and instruct them in ways to keep the true and living church alive on the earth. The lines of authority and the keys to the priesthood are very important concepts among all Mormon groups. They believe it is important that their authority to act in the capacity of church leaders be directly traceable to Jesus Christ. Most Mormon priesthood holders can tell you the specific lineage through which their personal priesthood authority is derived. The polygamist groups that developed under the leadership of Dayer LeBaron and Joseph Musser derive their church authority from two early Mormon leaders. The LeBarons claimed that Benjamin F. Johnson, an early follower of Joseph Smith, bequeathed special priesthood keys, "the Right of the Firstborn Sceptre in Israel," from Joseph directly to the LeBaron family. Dayer told his family that Benjamin F. Johnson visited him in an angelic form after his death to inform him about the true scope of his mission on earth.34 This claim supposedly gave them the right to lead the "true church," and they later used this claim in an attempt to assert their authority over all fundamentalist groups. In 1955, Ross, Joel, and Floren LeBaron filed papers in Salt Lake to incorporate the Church of the Firstborn in the Fulness of Times. They quickly converted their brothers, Ervil and Alma, and then began missionary work to convert others. Ervil was especially charismatic and had a great deal of success converting people in Mexico, Utah, and in France. Soon the church claimed over five hundred members, with Joel declaring himself the "One Mighty and Strong" who would restore the polygamous heritage of the original church. With Ervil as second in command, the group claimed supremacy over all other fundamentalist groups.35 When Joel began to notice how unstable Ervil was, he threw him out of the church. Ervil's response was a revelation that Joel was to be removed as an obstacle to the work of God. He ordered Joel's murder in August 1972. After this incident, Ervil took control of the church, calling it the Church of the Lamb of God, and began receiving hundreds of revelations. He received revelations that allowed him to print numerous doctrinal pamphlets, and revelations which instructed his followers about whom they should kill next. Ervil had declared himself a prophet of God, claimed that he spoke for God here on Earth, and produced the revelations to prove it.36 The LeBaron group and the Musser group, claiming authority to lead the faithful from different sources, were about to combine themselves forever in history. Joseph Musser claimed his leadership authority from John Taylor, the third president of the LDS church. In 1886, John Taylor received a revelation and a visit from God while avoiding federal authorities and hiding out in Centerville, Utah. During this revelation, God instructed Taylor that the church must continue the practice of polygamy no matter what else happened. At the time of the revelation, church leaders had been considering a manifesto that would abandon the practice of polygamy. On the morning after the revelation, Taylor stated, "Sign that document, --Never! I would suffer my right hand to be severed from my body first. Sanction it, --Never! I would suffer my tongue to be torn from its roots in my mouth before I would sanction it!"37 Taylor then set apart Lorin C. Woolley and four other men, charging them that they should never let a year pass by without children being born under the principle of plural marriage. They were also given the authority to ordain others in carrying the work forward. Using this authority, Woolley began the first fundamentalist organization in 1929. After his death, a series of other leaders were ordained and placed in charge of the organization, most notably, J. Leslie Broadbent and John Y. Barlow. After their deaths, control of the organization fell to Joseph Musser in 1949.38 Musser was the shepherd for the small flock until a stroke left him slightly incapacitated and he ordained Rulon C. Allred to be his "Second Elder." This ordination created some controversy among the laity, and when Musser finally died in 1954 some of the members chose to follow LeRoy Johnson as the leader in Short Creek. Others chose to follow Allred in Salt Lake City, and his group came to be known as the Apostolic United Brethren.39 Ervil LeBaron saw Allred's Apostolic United Brethren as a threat to his organization. He saw them as removing potential converts, diverting tithing and assets, and most importantly, fragmenting the faith. He had revelations to kill Rulon Allred as a method to gain control of Allred's group, and to remove any power threat from his brother Verlan, who he planned to have killed at Allred's funeral. Owen Allred analyzed the LeBaron phenomenon, stating,
The role of Musser and his followers was to continually emphasize the revelatory and eternal nature of fundamentalist doctrines. They did this by publishing their revelations and the revelations of early church leaders regarding important religious subjects.41 Ervil LeBaron also published his revelations on such subjects, and those revelations eventually served to strike terror into the hearts of fundamentalists everywhere.42 Importantly, in each of the cases cited at the beginning of this
article, the principle actors indicated a heavy reliance on revelations
from God as the driving force behind their actions. Immanuel David
frequently claimed the gifts of prophecy and revelation, blessed
his son that he would become the prophet of the church,43
and often etched his revelations into the blades of hunting knives.44
Ron and Dan Lafferty recorded specific revelations from God instructing
them to kill, and Ron later asked a reporter, "If God came
to you and asked you to take someone's life, would you?"45
John Singer relied heavily upon revelation in his fight with the
Utah justice system,46 and the Singer family truly believed
that John would be resurrected and come to save them in their standoff
with the In an interview for this paper on May 6, 1995, a fundamentalist who maintains membership in the Apostolic United Brethren stated that he had no doubt that the revelations claimed by Ervil LeBaron were valid. He called them "black revelations," saying that they must have come from Satan. He also said that the Harmston group in Manti, Utah had also experienced several revelations, and had received visits from angels and resurrected personages who were early Mormon leaders.48 In a second interview, conducted on May 20, 1995, Douglas LeBaron confirmed the fact that the Harmston group claimed to have received several heavenly visitors.49 The conclusion is inescapable: strong reliance on revelation creates
an atmosphere where the proclivity for violence can flourish. According
to Ronald Enroth, a sociology professor at Westmont College, nearly
all cults insert themselves aggressively into their members lives,
but the "potential to explode depends on the leader's mental
health and whether or not the leader can be pushed over the cliff."
Keys to watch for are whether the leader "has made himself
into God's mouthpiece, or God," if the group has a strong fortress
mentality, and to what extent the group has armed itself.50
C. Jess Grossbeck, a psychiatrist at the Utah State Mental
Blood Atonement and Oaths of VengeanceIn 1842, Joseph Smith received a series of revelations regarding the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. His goal was the establishment of a theocratic kingdom at Nauvoo, Illinois where he would be the King of Israel, and the Council of Fifty would be the governmental structure which would prepare the way for the millennial reign of Christ. As part of the elaboration for this theocratic plan, Smith presented what would come to be known as the doctrine of "Blood Atonement." The concept behind this doctrine was that people who committed particularly grievous acts against the Mormons would have to shed their blood to atone for the sins they had committed. The Mormons, especially the Danites, used the doctrine of blood atonement as justification for the depredations they committed during their war against the Missourians. Orrin Porter Rockwell also used the concept of blood atonement as justification for his assassination attempt on Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs.52 When Joseph Smith was killed on June 27, 1844, his assassins created the circumstances for what has become known as the "Oath of Vengeance." A corollary to the doctrine of blood atonement, the oath of vengeance was created on the first anniversary of Smith's death as a formal prayer for God's vengeance upon those who shed the blood of the prophet's. Six months later this oath of vengeance became a part of the Mormon temple endowment ceremony.53 The specific oath stated the following:
This oath of vengeance was used several times in 1845 as justification for killing people who had been involved in the murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.55 When the doctrines of blood atonement and oath of vengeance were dropped as part of church doctrine, fundamentalists saw this as yet another instance of the church caving in to political pressure. They still believe firmly in these doctrines. Kraut remarks that "Today, the doctrine of blood atonement is never taught and rarely mentioned. The idea of capital punishment has almost become eradicated by communists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and liberal educators. The Oath of Vengeance is no longer a part of the temple ceremony."56 This belief in blood atonement and oaths of vengeance serves to further the atmosphere of violence that surrounds fundamentalist culture. Such doctrines make it much easier to believe that violent acts of murder are the will of God. After Adam Swapp bombed the church in Kamas, law enforcement authorities received letters from Swapp stating that their role in John Singer's death made them guilty of "cold blooded murder," and that "this blood cries to the Lord for vengeance. The Lord's holy arm cannot be stayed any longer."57 Ervil LeBaron developed the doctrine of blood atonement further, arguing that sinners should shed their blood to save their souls. He also developed an extension to the doctrine which he called the "Law of Liberty," which held that false prophets, traitors, and children who did not obey his directives would be killed. His "Book of New Covenants" was then created as a list of traitors to his cause so that family members could continue to exact his revenge even after his death.58 According to Salt Lake County district attorney investigator Richard Forbes, the creed defined individuals who left the sect as "sons of perdition" and required they be killed before the Kingdom of God could come to Earth. Forbes also said that the sect's regulations for its members spell out specific punishment for leaving the group, stating that the rules outline, "one-on-one punishment specifically, and that was the death penalty to anyone who forsakes the law."59 Laws of God and Laws of MenThe theocracy, planned for in Kirtland and Missouri and organized at Nauvoo by Joseph Smith, evolved on the strength of Mormon millennial views. The Mormons were clearly prepared for the destruction of the US Government and the beginning of the millennial reign. They saw their duty as preparing a political and religious system to be ready for the return of Christ. This need to prepare a theocracy to usher in the return of Christ led to the development of concepts such as "religious sovereignty," where Smith declared the Mormons a separate religious nation within the political entity of the United States, and "theocratic ethics," where Mormon leaders argued for their right to perform civil functions without sanction of the state, defended their right to ignore the laws of the state when they were in conflict with the "laws of God." This new theocratic view created a great deal of friction and violence between the Mormons and Gentiles of Missouri.60 The early history of Mormonism is fraught with violence. Mormons
defended their doctrines and their rights to religious freedom against On the other hand, when the church veered away from rebellion and toward harmony with the laws of the United States, fundamentalists were now persecuted from two angles. While justification for ignoring the laws of the state could be found by obeying the laws of God, Joseph Musser began to explain why fundamentalists would no longer follow the leaders of the church. His argument centered around the authority of the church and the authority of the priesthood. Musser's contention was that the church was a temporal and political
organization, while the priesthood was the true organization of
God here on earth. He argued that the president of the church was
not necessarily the president of the priesthood. He did not consider
himself in opposition to the gospel, only in opposition to a hierarchy
in error. He also wrote that since "church is subservient to
the priesthood, any action taken by it against those entering the
law [plural marriage] is, null and void. A man or woman cannot properly
be cut off [from] the church for keeping the law of God, for the
church belongs to God and God cannot act a lie and remain God."61
Musser then reasoned that fundamentalists were subject only to direction
from priesthood leaders who accepted the "truth" John Singer is perhaps the best example of a fundamentalist who
adamantly maintained that the laws of God must be followed when
in When the Lafferty's were bound over to the court for trial, both of them refused representation by an attorney. According to Judge Sumison, they were
When Dan Lafferty represented himself, he spent most of his defense quoting scripture and ultimately argued that God's court, and not man's court, must judge him.66 Joseph Smith once wrote,
This view of the world allows people incredible latitude. They can ignore the norms of society in favor of whatever they perceive to be the norms of God. Any social system organized in this manner leaves itself wide open to violence. Anyone can have revelations and these revelations must then be carried out because they are the laws of God. Such a system not only helps to explain the history of violence associated with fundamentalist Mormon doctrine, but also explains why the groups are so frequently splintered and fragmented, constantly running after the next self-proclaimed "One Mighty and Strong." Fall of the US GovernmentThe Mormon Church had its origins in the 1820's in a region historians now refer to as the "burnt over district." During this time, upstate New York was swept with a religious revival based on the belief that the millennium was at hand.(68) The Mormons originated as a millennialist sect, and their beliefs haven't changed greatly. Members of the church refer constantly to the second coming of Christ. Part of this original belief in the impending millennium was easily translated into the belief that the government of the United States would soon collapse. When the Mormons failed to receive federal aid for their cause against the Missouri mobs, church leaders prophesied this governmental collapse. As the nation slid closer to the slavery crisis, most Mormons were sure that the pressure would create the prophesied collapse. They were sure that the Civil War was the fulfillment of this prophecy. The emergence of a stronger federal government after the war failed to dim this thinking. Mormons were sure that a government which so badly persecuted God's chosen people could not long survive. This statement by Wilford Woodruff is a good example of the many revelations and prophecies that church leaders made regarding the fall of the United States government.
Fundamentalists have always believed that the second coming of Christ is close at hand, and they have always been politically conservative, but the followers of Jim Harmston have raised new concerns about millennialism among fundamentalists. Many of his followers claim that they were excommunicated for their ultra-conservative political beliefs and their preoccupation with the end of the world. Most members of the group believe that Christ will return on April 6, 2000. Many of the believers are well-armed conspiracy minded survivalists who have retreated to the central Utah mountains to await Armageddon.70 The conservative fervor among these new fundamentalist Mormons
reached a fever pitch in 1992 when over 28,000 of them voted for This new breed of Mormon fundamentalism is especially troubling. Rather than a small band obsessed with power and tithing money, rather than an isolated prophet with a revelation to kill, here is a group of people, feeling persecuted and armed with whatever they can find. Believing in their gifts of prophecy and revelation, fired up by heavenly visions and doctrines of blood atonement and oaths of vengeance, they have isolated themselves in a small valley and wait for the end of the world, concerned all the while that the government is about to take away their freedoms. This is a situation that certainly bears watching. ConclusionAs an exploration of the relationship between Mormon fundamentalism and violence, this paper has analyzed the origins of Mormon fundamentalist doctrines and illustrated how these doctrines can become operationalized in a violent way. Fundamentalists are isolated, committed to their beliefs, and live in a faith with a violent history. They believe strongly in the gifts of prophecy and revelation, claim that they are frequently visited by heavenly personages, and are instructed in how they should conduct their lives. They believe that they are following the laws of God, which are superior to the laws of society. Most fundamentalists are religious, law abiding people, but sometimes this potent blend of religion, isolation, revelation and action combines to create a culture of violence. America is a unique nation in that it guarantees the freedom of religion with the first amendment and the right to bear arms with the second amendment. This means that people can believe whatever they want, and they can buy the guns to protect that belief. Throughout the history of their faith, Mormons have relied on the constitution, their faith, and their guns to protect their rights. That tradition continues in the form of Mormon fundamentalism today, and can be expected to continue into the future. Notes
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