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Episode: 088 The First Violence Against Latter-day Saints

Author: Scripture Central
Duration: 00:57:01

Episode Shownotes

In the late summer of 1831, select groups of Church members began settling on the far western frontier of the United States in Jackson County, Missouri. Earlier that year the prophet Joseph Smith had received a revelation identifying the area as “the land of promise” and “the place for the

city of Zion,” and shortly afterward the gathering to Zion had begun. Tensions between Church members and the non-Latter-day Saint locals in Jackson County existed almost immediately. By the spring of 1832 Missouri locals began verbally threatening the saints and occasionally vandalizing their homes to intimidate them and get them to leave. By the summer of 1833 the hatred and fear of the locals erupted into full-blown violence against Church members culminating in their forcible expulsion from Jackson County. On this episode of Church History Matters, we take a close look at the various factors that led to this violent eviction of the Saints from Jackson County, the response of the Missouri governor to this illegal action in his state, and the revelations received by Joseph Smith responding to this severe treatment. For show notes and transcript for this and other episodes go to https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/church-history-matters-podcast/

Full Transcript

00:00:05 Speaker_00
In the late summer of 1831, select groups of church members began settling on the far western frontier of the United States in Jackson County, Missouri.

00:00:15 Speaker_00
Earlier that year, the Prophet Joseph Smith had received a revelation identifying the area as the land of promise and the place for the city of Zion. And shortly afterward, the gathering to Zion had begun.

00:00:29 Speaker_00
Tensions between church members and the non-Latter-day Saint locals in Jackson County existed almost immediately.

00:00:35 Speaker_00
By the spring of 1832, Missouri locals began verbally threatening the Saints and occasionally vandalizing their homes to intimidate them and get them to leave.

00:00:46 Speaker_00
By the summer of 1833, the hatred of the locals erupted into full-blown violence against church members, culminating in their forcible expulsion from Jackson County.

00:00:57 Speaker_00
Today on Church History Matters, we take a close look at the various factors that led to this violent eviction of the Saints from Jackson County, the response of the Missouri governor to this illegal action in his state, and the revelations received by Joseph Smith responding to this severe treatment.

00:01:13 Speaker_00
I'm Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths. And today, Casey and I dive into our second episode in this series on peace and violence in Latter-day Saint history. Now let's get into it. Hi, Casey. Hey, Scott, how we doing? Great, man.

00:01:31 Speaker_00
Here we are, episode two of Peace and Violence in Latter-day Saint History.

00:01:37 Speaker_02
Yeah, and I should mention, we're basing this series off the Gospel Topics essay, Peace and Violence Among Nineteenth-Century Latter-day Saints. It's a good read, it's not super long, and it's definitely worth your time.

00:01:50 Speaker_02
And also, those Gospel Topics essays are great because they have links often to primary sources. So,

00:01:57 Speaker_02
A lot of the stuff that we're talking about today, if you go to the Gospel Topics Essay or hit up some of those Church History Topics Essays in the Gospel Library app, you'll be able to go straight to some of the documents that we're working through today.

00:02:08 Speaker_02
So take advantage of all these wonderful resources that we've been given.

00:02:13 Speaker_00
And part of the reason that we wanted to explore this topic in particular is because of the work of people like John Krakauer and others who have suggested that the faith of the Latter-day Saints and religious faith in general, he says, is inherently violent, right?

00:02:30 Speaker_00
We wanted to talk about that in our own history.

00:02:33 Speaker_02
Yeah, and we brought up Krakauer last episode, and I want to reiterate again, I like John Krakauer.

00:02:40 Speaker_02
I'm a fan of most of his books, but he wrote a book called Under the Banner of Heaven that kind of has that thesis that Latter-day Saint religion is violent, and like you said, Scott, in general, religion is violent.

00:02:51 Speaker_02
And we want to explore that a little bit and say, is that the case? So in our first episode in this series, we introduced a model we're going to use this model to explore the key events of this series that we're talking about.

00:03:03 Speaker_02
And the model is this, okay, so there's scenario one. Situation one is situations where Latter-day Saints have been victims of violence.

00:03:12 Speaker_02
And these include most of the examples we cited last week, including the physical and legal attacks on Joseph Smith during the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. And then the first organized mob attack, which happens at the John Johnson Farm

00:03:27 Speaker_02
in March 1832 where both Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon are badly beaten and tarred and feathered. In category one, it feels like people may have had disagreements and people may have been offended by some of Joseph Smith's actions or his theology.

00:03:43 Speaker_02
It seems like the mob attack on the John Johnson farm, historians like Mark Staker have said was motivated by consecration. People didn't want to consecrate. But violence is not justified, right?

00:03:55 Speaker_02
And it doesn't seem like Latter-day Saints in these early cases did anything to start the violence. They were victims of the violence.

00:04:03 Speaker_00
So that's category one, just straight up victims of other people's prejudice that erupts into actually violent actions against us.

00:04:12 Speaker_02
Yeah, and the Gospel Topics essay highlights that this was something that happened in 19th century America that

00:04:19 Speaker_02
A lot of people felt like in certain situations they had to take the law into their own hands and use violence to accomplish what they felt was necessary to accomplish.

00:04:30 Speaker_00
A stronger strand of vigilantism than maybe we have today in our society. Yeah, and not good vigilantes like Batman. Not like Batman, yeah.

00:04:39 Speaker_02
More like the pitchfork-and-torch kind of vigilantes that, I don't know, a famous one of those, you know, mobs, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so situation two is situations where Latter-day Saints chose to fight back.

00:04:56 Speaker_02
inflicting violence on others, but only after they were attacked. So a great example of this that we're going to talk about in a couple of weeks is probably the 1838 conflict in Missouri.

00:05:07 Speaker_02
It's still to this day called the Mormon war among Missouri historians.

00:05:12 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:05:12 Speaker_02
Um, and in this one, I mean, the saints at first kind of gave as good as they got their settlements get attacked. So they attacked Missouri and settlements.

00:05:20 Speaker_01
Mm.

00:05:20 Speaker_02
There's organized militias against them, so they organize militias to fight against the Missourians. Eventually it escalates, it gets out of control, and we have things happen like Hans Mill and the Siege of Far West.

00:05:31 Speaker_02
But the point here is Latter-day Saints inflicted violence on people in response to the way they were treated, too. So they gave as good as they got, at least at first.

00:05:41 Speaker_00
Gave as good as they got. Eye for an eye, we might say here. A little lex talionis going on here.

00:05:46 Speaker_02
Lex Talionis. Scott, that's the first time you busted out Latin, and do it more, okay?

00:05:53 Speaker_00
Okay, yeah. Should I just be the Latin guy?

00:05:55 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah. Anytime you want to be like Vox Dei, Vox Populi, bust it out, or E Pluribus Unum. Semper Fidelis, you know, go crazy.

00:06:06 Speaker_00
Today's term is Lex Talionis, yes.

00:06:09 Speaker_02
Which means? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Nice. I'm going to work that into a conversation with my wife tonight, probably, so. Yes. You mess with my dinner, I'll mess with your dinner. Lex Talionis. Just a little tit for tat. Lex Talionis, sister.

00:06:25 Speaker_02
Yeah. Okay. So example three is probably the darkest one. This is category three. This is where the saints acted as the aggressors. They're the ones that started the violence and they carried out acts of violence.

00:06:39 Speaker_02
And probably the most graphic example of this is the darkest day in the history of the church, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which happens in the 1850s. And so

00:06:50 Speaker_02
As we go through these, we're going to refer back to this model, and we're not going to try and justify events like retaliating during the 1838 conflict or initiating the violence that happened in Mountain Meadows, but we do believe it's important to understand the context that they took place in.

00:07:06 Speaker_02
Context is always crucial when we're interpreting facts and events. And we always try to situate these things within their historical context. Always. That's really important to us. You got to understand what was happening.

00:07:17 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:07:18 Speaker_02
So we started last time talking about how persecutions in New York and higher of Ohio were aggressions directed towards specific individuals, people like Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon.

00:07:29 Speaker_02
But what we're going to talk about today is the first systematic persecution that wasn't directed at a person per se, but at the Latter-day Saints as a group.

00:07:38 Speaker_02
And this begins in full throttle in 1833 in Jackson County, Missouri, though there's a lot of things that kind of gradually lead up to the just straight-up outbreak of mob violence against the Saints.

00:08:04 Speaker_02
That leads us to today's burning question, which is what were the factors that led to the violence and forceful eviction of the saints from Jackson County, Missouri in 1833? Okay. So, we've got our question. Let's set the scene.

00:08:19 Speaker_00
So, as we've discussed many times on this podcast and different series, Latter-day Saints believe in Book of Mormon prophecies about a new Jerusalem to be built upon the American continent at some point.

00:08:31 Speaker_00
Even one of our articles of faith, Joseph Smith, articulated this in the Wentworth letter in Nauvoo.

00:08:36 Speaker_00
We believe in the literal gathering of Israel, the restoration of 10 tribes, and that Zion, the new Jerusalem, will be built upon the American continent.

00:08:45 Speaker_00
And the early saints eagerly anticipated revelations that would reveal the place, the location for the new Jerusalem.

00:08:54 Speaker_00
And the Lord sort of teased at the location, little by little, little breadcrumbs throughout the Doctrine and Covenants, the first several sections of the Doctrine, first half of the Doctrine and Covenants up to section 52.

00:09:05 Speaker_00
And the first one was in the summer of 1830, when the Lord told the saints, quote, now behold, I say unto you, it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter.

00:09:20 Speaker_00
Yehold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites. There's the hint. This is section 28. The border by the Lamanite at that time was along the western side of Missouri. Missouri was the edge, the western edge of the United States.

00:09:34 Speaker_00
And so somewhere beyond the edge of Missouri there. The frontier.

00:09:39 Speaker_02
Yeah, near unorganized Indian territory. You can probably see this on the maps in your scriptures, but go to the frontier, the edge of European civilization at that time.

00:09:49 Speaker_00
The borders by the Lamanites. And so just as a few months later, Joseph Smith and all the saints were commanded to gather to the Ohio in Kirtland. In the spring of 1831, Joseph holds a gathering of all the priesthood members of the church

00:10:04 Speaker_00
and there receives a revelation commanding him to hold the next meeting in Missouri." And this is D&C 52.

00:10:10 Speaker_00
And almost immediately after Joseph sets out for Missouri with a group of elders designated in revelation by the Lord, and the Lord tells them that He will reveal to them the place of their inheritance, the New Jerusalem, He says.

00:10:24 Speaker_00
And when they get there, the very first revelation received in Missouri is section 57 of the Doctrine and Covenants, where the Lord announces that that is the center place of Zion, that that is the place where the new Jerusalem would be built.

00:10:39 Speaker_00
And so shortly after Joseph returns back to Ohio, many of the saints there start preparing to gather to the site of Zion, the new Jerusalem. Now we know the place.

00:10:49 Speaker_00
And so over the next two years, from 1831 to 33, more than a thousand Latter-day Saints gather to Independence and the surrounding areas. Now, here's the problem. Independence, Missouri was already inhabited by original settlers, right?

00:11:04 Speaker_00
There are people that are already there.

00:11:07 Speaker_00
And when suddenly they get an influx of over a thousand Latter-day Saints who think differently than them, who see the world differently than them, who have a different religion than them, this is going to set the scene for conflict.

00:11:19 Speaker_00
In fact, in a lot of ways, it's hard to imagine a more difficult place for the saints to build Zion than an independence, Missouri, uh, given, given the who's already there. Right.

00:11:30 Speaker_02
And I got to wonder if this is by design, like independence was difficulty level 10.

00:11:36 Speaker_02
You're going to take a bunch of people from the northern United States who believe Native Americans are part of the House of Israel and put them into this place, which was already sort of volatile, to be honest with you.

00:11:48 Speaker_02
The Lord was asking a lot of the early saints to build Zion here. But I also think there might be a purpose behind that.

00:11:56 Speaker_00
Anyway, keep going. No, and you point out a good thing, that the original settlers there, the non-LDS people, saw Native Americans as like a threat. But Latter-day Saints come skipping along and saying, they are the descendants of Father Lehi.

00:12:11 Speaker_00
These people are heirs of the promises made to the house of Israel, and we need to preach the gospel to them. So that makes Latter-day Saints immediately suspect in the eyes of the original settlers.

00:12:22 Speaker_00
Add to that another layer that Missouri at this time is a slave state, and there's a lot of tension at this time over the rights of slaves and fears that slaves might rise up against their masters, right?

00:12:33 Speaker_00
I mean, this is just shortly after the old Nat Turner revolt occurred, right, in 1831, that year. A slave named Nat Turner rose up against his masters in Virginia, which resulted in the deaths of, what, like 65 white people?

00:12:48 Speaker_00
And then, in retaliation, the European settlers then kill over 120 slaves. And news of that spread all over the nation, and there were some fears about slave revolts, right?

00:12:59 Speaker_00
Well, most of the Latter-day Saints immigrating to Jackson County came from the North. They came from the free states. And a lot of them held the belief that slavery was wrong. So this, too.

00:13:10 Speaker_00
was a cause of much tension between them and the original settlers.

00:13:15 Speaker_00
And so as you think about, you know, that on top of their religious beliefs, where you get these people coming into town, like over a thousand of them saying they believe in additional scripture.

00:13:25 Speaker_00
They believe in new revelation, they believe in modern prophets, and a host of other things that cause them to be, again, suspect in the eyes of the original settlers.

00:13:34 Speaker_00
Which, by the way, this is still, these beliefs that Latter-day Saints have are still the cause of conflict between some Latter-day Saints and other Christian groups today.

00:13:44 Speaker_00
Many of the saints believed that before they could build the city of Zion, the New Jerusalem there, that God would have to cleanse the land, which you can imagine how that went over when the original settlers learned of that, right? Yeah.

00:13:57 Speaker_00
This is highly offensive. So, I mean, from the very beginning, this is like oil and water, right? Latter-day Saints and the original settlers coming in like there couldn't be two different groups from one another.

00:14:06 Speaker_02
Yeah. And you'll see this highlighted in the history, like WW Phelps. Most people know WW Phelps as a hymn writer. He's the editor of the newspaper in Independence that the church sponsors and the church printer, and he's an abolitionist.

00:14:21 Speaker_02
And so the situation was ripe for conflict. The other thing is if you start to superimpose the maps, there's maps of what the city of Zion was gonna look like.

00:14:33 Speaker_02
It's clear that if they were building what they were planning on, at least half of the already existing settlement of Independence would just have to go away.

00:14:41 Speaker_02
In the August design, there's a design set out in August 1833 that would have completely wiped independence off the map. And so the cultural differences and the millennial expectations of the saints do kind of set up, this is a recipe for calm.

00:14:57 Speaker_02
So, and because of these clear differences, tensions between church members and the Jackson County locals existed almost from the time the first church members began settling there in the summer of 1831.

00:15:08 Speaker_02
That's when you have the Knight family and a couple people come in and start setting it up.

00:15:13 Speaker_02
In fact, even before their arrival, the Lord told a group of church members in Ohio that the land of Missouri was both the future land of your inheritance and also the current land of your enemies. That's in Doctrine and Covenants 52 verse 42.

00:15:27 Speaker_02
So the Lord is trying to tell them prepare for some turbulence, I guess. Probably going to be some conflict there. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, public threats and intimidation don't take long to start up, especially as the saints start to multiply.

00:15:42 Speaker_02
in numbers. We're talking about the spring of 1832, so less than a year after the place is identified as the location for the city of Zion.

00:15:51 Speaker_02
There's written handbills posted in various places warning church members to leave the county, and then verbal warnings and threats to church leaders, and finally the violence starts with things like throwing stones and bricks through their homes and breaking windows several nights in a row.

00:16:08 Speaker_02
So it flares up in the spring of 1832, then it kind of calms down. Then in the fall of 1832, hostilities briefly flare up again. There's hostilities and intimidation briefly as some gunshots were fired at the homes of some church members.

00:16:25 Speaker_02
So this is the heat increasing gradually, but after the fall of 1832, it subsides again. Things kind of do calm down.

00:16:35 Speaker_02
Now that September, in Doctrine and Covenants 84, the Lord told Missouri church members that they needed to repent of some specific things, otherwise, he warns, there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion.

00:16:49 Speaker_02
That's Doctrine and Covenants 84, verse 58. That's ominous. Yeah, so the Lord's, again, from the beginning, said this is going to be challenging, but is starting to warn them, like, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. A scourge is coming.

00:17:03 Speaker_02
During the winter and spring of 1833, due to the circulation of a lot of false stories about the Saints, hatred towards the Saints festers and intensifies, and a mob spirit secretly begins to spread wider and wider. gradual increase.

00:17:21 Speaker_02
In March of 1833, the Lord told Joseph Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 90 that although, quote, your brethren in Missouri begin to repent, nevertheless I am not well pleased with many things.

00:17:33 Speaker_02
And this includes that William McClellan, Sidney Gilbert, Edward Partridge, and others have many things to repent of, adding, I, the Lord, will contend with Zion and plead with her strong ones and chasten her until she overcomes and is clean before me.

00:17:48 Speaker_02
That's Doctrine and Covenants 90 verses 34 to 36. So there's this gradual pattern of warning of the saints in Missouri.

00:17:56 Speaker_02
And by the way, the warnings of the Doctrine and Covenants are supplemented by a documentary record that we have, you can find in the Joseph Smith Papers and other places, that really, there was a lot of disunity among the saints in Missouri.

00:18:09 Speaker_02
And there were a lot of problems. I mean, they hadn't been there for very long, but it also seems like conflict was rife among them. And they were struggling to carry out the directives that they've been given.

00:18:20 Speaker_00
And we should note too that these revelations coming to Joseph Smith are coming to him over in Ohio. That's a long ways away. And so the Lord is sending these messages through the prophet. I can't remember how many miles is it? A thousand miles?

00:18:33 Speaker_00
I mean, it's a lot of miles.

00:18:35 Speaker_02
Around 800 miles from Kirtland to Missouri. There you go. And Joseph Smith is traveling to Missouri. In fact, in the spring of 1832, not long after he and Sidney Rigdon were attacked,

00:18:47 Speaker_02
They go to Missouri and they kind of get a stern talking to from the Missouri saints, which again leads us to believe that there were major problems happening there and the Lord was trying to warn the saints to knock it off or that there was something that was going to happen.

00:19:13 Speaker_00
Now let's flip the camera back over to the Missourians from their perspective, these original settlers in Missouri, and let's talk about why they wanted the Mormons out.

00:19:24 Speaker_00
So months later, we're in the summer of 1833, the verbal threats, the house stonings, the window breaking starts happening again. And then on July 15th, a declaration was written and signed by some 300 of the Jackson County locals.

00:19:42 Speaker_00
And they issue this, they circulate it in the county, wherein they declare their intentions to rid their society of the Mormons, quote, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.

00:19:54 Speaker_00
And what's insightful about this document is they actually declare exactly why they hate church members so much and why they want to eject them from their society.

00:20:05 Speaker_00
And so this is not us speculating, this is actually in their document as to why they hate the Mormons.

00:20:11 Speaker_02
this is kind of incredible because they literally like publish their thesis. So yeah, we don't have to do a lot of guesswork about why the Missourians wanted the saints leave. I mean, they just pretty much flat out say, just say 0.1, 0.2, 0.3.

00:20:23 Speaker_02
Here's the reasons why.

00:20:25 Speaker_00
Yeah. So let me walk through these real quick. So the first thing is they say that the Mormons were

00:20:29 Speaker_00
poor, lazy, deluded, religious fanatics, or they were knowing deceivers who pretended to receive revelation, healing the sick, speaking in tongues, performing miracles, such as was done by the apostles in ancient times, all of which was blasphemous and openly, quote, derogatory of God and religion, close quote.

00:20:49 Speaker_00
2. They said that the Mormons bombastically claimed that, quote, their God hath given them this county of land, and that sooner or later they must and will have possession of our lands for an inheritance, close quote.

00:21:02 Speaker_00
And I can kind of see their point on this one. Of all the points, I'm like, yeah, that one's kind of brutal. And Latter-day Saints should have not waved this in the face of the locals.

00:21:14 Speaker_00
I mean, there's some things Latter-day Saints could have done a lot better. Sometimes we're our own worst enemy here.

00:21:20 Speaker_02
Yeah, there's some blame to be shared here.

00:21:22 Speaker_02
I mean, it's not exactly in How to Win Friends that influence people that you walk in and say, the land must be cleansed of you, Gentile, which it sounds like the saints were doing, and they were pretty direct with.

00:21:33 Speaker_02
So yeah, it's kind of a twisted manifestation of faith, but

00:21:37 Speaker_00
It is what it is. In a weird way. Yeah. Okay, now the third thing they write is, and this is their biggest complaint of all, and they say that it centers on their fears of the effect that the Mormons would have on their slaves.

00:21:50 Speaker_00
Keep in mind, Missouri is a slave state here, right? They accuse them of, quote, tampering with our slaves to sow dissensions and to raise seditions among them. They accused W.W.

00:22:01 Speaker_00
Phelps of using his newspaper to implicitly invite, quote, free Negroes and mulattos from other states to become Mormons and remove and settle among us, close quote.

00:22:12 Speaker_00
This, they fear, will be, quote, one of the surest means of driving us from the county, since it would corrupt our blacks and instigate them to bloodshed.

00:22:20 Speaker_00
And think again, this is just on the hills of the Nat Turner revolt, and so that fear is still in the air.

00:22:26 Speaker_00
They said that it would require them, if the blacks come into this county, it would require them, the white locals, to, quote, receive into the bosom of our families as fit companions for our wives and daughters, the degraded free Negroes and mulattos who are now invited to settle among us under such a state of things, they declared, even our beautiful county would cease to be a desirable residence.

00:22:50 Speaker_00
and our situation intolerable." And then just a few days later, in a follow-up resolution written on July 20th, they mention each of these points again, and then they added one more.

00:23:02 Speaker_00
They added the fear that Mormons posed a political threat as well, saying that since they intend to continue to gather to Jackson County, it's only going to be a matter of time until, quote, the civil government of the county will be in their hands.

00:23:15 Speaker_00
when the sheriff, the justices, and the county judges will be Mormons."

00:23:22 Speaker_00
In the name of self-preservation, they concluded that this community of Mormons, now only 1,200 strong, needed to be blasted in the germ, nipped in the bud, before it could grow any larger in Jackson County.

00:23:38 Speaker_00
We need to act now while they're still small, otherwise we're going to be out. So, they threaten straight up saying, if they refuse to leave us in peace as they found us, then we agree to use such means as may be sufficient to remove them.

00:23:52 Speaker_00
They write that right in their declaration. So, man. Now, of course, when church leaders read this, they deny any of this is true. They refute it, but their refutations are futile.

00:24:04 Speaker_02
Yeah. And while you're reading that, I mean, I thought of that old church movie legacy where they have a scene where the guy's like, these Mormons are coming into down it.

00:24:14 Speaker_02
They're going to be no time before you have a Mormon sheriff and a Mormon mayor. And everybody's like, yeah. Yeah.

00:24:21 Speaker_02
But I mean, in the movie that feels like a contrivance, but when you start to read through the documents, no, that's exactly what they said. Yeah, this was actually their fear. They never deny it. They never go back on it.

00:24:33 Speaker_02
They're like, yeah, they like black people. Yeah. They're deluded. Yeah. There's too many of them in the early American Republic. There really was this generalized fear that if you lost control of the politics, you lost control of the situation.

00:24:47 Speaker_02
And this happens to the saints again and again and again, like, Ten years later, you're going to hear some of the same justifications when Joseph Smith is murdered in Nauvoo.

00:24:56 Speaker_00
So it's a sad fact.

00:24:57 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:24:58 Speaker_00
And the saints are conspicuous because we always have this command to gather. So we become very conspicuous in any community. We start to grow in large numbers, and that typically made the locals nervous.

00:25:10 Speaker_00
Ultimately, this is going to lead us to just come out to Utah, just to be like, all right, we're going to leave, and we're just going to be our own thing, and we'll build

00:25:17 Speaker_00
the kingdom of God out there without any local neighbors around to bother and who won't bother us back.

00:25:23 Speaker_02
Yeah, and it affects us in different ways, too.

00:25:26 Speaker_02
For instance, when we talked with Andrew Bolton from Community of Christ, I was surprised to hear him say that an early principle of our LDS Church was to not gather, that this has caused too many problems, so we're going to stay small and not be threatening.

00:25:42 Speaker_02
But when Everlatter Day Saints did gather, I mean, to a certain degree, even in Utah, persecutions started to flare up. All right, so that sets the scene, and it's not very many days after the mob manifesto is issued that outright violence begins.

00:25:58 Speaker_02
So on our timeline, on July 20th, a delegate of 13 locals meets with six church leaders and demand that WW Phelps' printing office and Sidney Gilbert's store and all other shops be closed, and for the Latter-day Saints to leave the county immediately.

00:26:16 Speaker_02
Now, church leaders ask for three months to consider their demand. This is refused. They are then asked for 10 days, to which the mob leaders responded that 15 minutes was the most that could be granted.

00:26:29 Speaker_02
Given such short notice, each church leader responded that they couldn't consent to the demands. It's not long after that a mob of several hundred people storms WW Phelps' print shop.

00:26:40 Speaker_02
This is a two-story brick building with the print shop on the second floor, and his family lived on the first floor. There's still a plaque in Downtown Independence that marks where this is. The mob throw the printing press from the upper floor.

00:26:51 Speaker_02
They destroy it. They scatter the type and the paper throughout the streets.

00:26:56 Speaker_02
while Phelps's wife and children are forcefully thrown out of the home on the first floor, and their furniture was thrown out behind them in broken pieces, and then the building itself was destroyed. And we've made reference to this.

00:27:09 Speaker_02
This is the Book of Commandments, the earliest version of the Doctrine and Covenants, was supposed to be printed in Independence.

00:27:15 Speaker_02
And this is where Mary Elizabeth Rollins and her little sister Caroline and several other members of the church run in and grab the printed copies of the Revelations, which is the reason why we have any copies.

00:27:26 Speaker_02
of the Book of Commandments, but they go straight for the printing press. Then the mob goes to Sidney Gilbert's store, which is only about a block away. They begin to do the same.

00:27:34 Speaker_02
This point, Sidney Gilbert intercedes and agrees to pack up his goods and close the store, and so the mob stops. then the mob goes after church leadership.

00:27:45 Speaker_02
So Bishop Edward Partridge, who lives not far away too, is taken from his house by the mob along with church member Charles Allen. They're marched to the public square where they're publicly tarred and feathered before a taunting crowd. In fact,

00:27:59 Speaker_02
I pulled this up, this is Edward Partridge's account of this incident. I love Edward Partridge. He's so good.

00:28:06 Speaker_02
One of my favorite accounts from church history, he says, this is a history he writes later on, I told the mob that the saints had suffered persecution in all ages of the world, that I had done nothing which ought to offend anyone, that if they abused me, they would abuse an innocent person, and that I was willing to suffer for the sake of Christ, but to leave the country, I was not then willing to consent to it.

00:28:29 Speaker_02
I bore my abuse with so much resignation and meekness that it appeared to astound the multitude, who permitted me to retire in silence, many looking very solemn, their sympathies having been touched as I thought.

00:28:41 Speaker_02
And as to myself, I was so filled with the Spirit and love of God that I had no hatred towards my persecutors or anyone else." Wow, what a man. I know. He's awesome.

00:28:54 Speaker_02
It's basically his nonviolent response in his recollection that disarms the mob, that that's what finally stops them from rampaging, is that he stands up and says, this is what people did to Christ, and that he sits there and takes it, causes the mob to just kind of gradually wander off.

00:29:10 Speaker_02
And unfortunately, that's not the end of the story, but he does stop the violence that day, I guess.

00:29:18 Speaker_02
It's three days later, on July 23rd, that a mob of 500 people, armed and waving red flags, rode into the town, threatening death and destruction to the Mormons.

00:29:27 Speaker_02
And seeing the mob's determination, these six leaders that had met with them courageously offered to sacrifice their lives to the mob if they would satisfy them and turn away their wrath from the rest of the saints and let them stay in the land and live there in peace.

00:29:41 Speaker_02
But the mob refuses this offer, saying that everyone should die for themselves or leave the country. So church leaders at this point don't have any choice.

00:29:50 Speaker_02
They sign an agreement on this day that half of the saints would leave Jackson County by January 1st, 1834, and the other half by April 1st.

00:29:59 Speaker_02
And they're hoping to buy some time to try and consult with Joseph Smith and other church leaders in Ohio and to try to get help from the Missouri governor.

00:30:07 Speaker_02
So they haven't given up, but it doesn't seem like they have a lot of choice at this point, unless they want further violence to come upon them.

00:30:15 Speaker_00
Now they know that the mob is serious. They've seen what they've done three days ago. Now 500 men are saying, sign this agreement or else. Sign it, they did. Sign it, they did.

00:30:27 Speaker_00
Okay, so now let's talk about Joseph Smith's response when he learns of all of this.

00:30:44 Speaker_00
So Oliver Cowdery was actually in Missouri, and he is sent shortly thereafter, after the mob threatens, after the leaders sign the agreement to leave, he is sent to Ohio to consult with church leaders there, and he arrives on August 9th, 1833.

00:31:01 Speaker_00
Meanwhile, actually a week earlier, on August 2, Joseph had received section 97, where the Lord warned that if Zion, quote, "...observe not to do whatsoever I have commanded her, I will visit her according to all her works with sore affliction, including," He said, "...with sword, with vengeance, and with devouring fire."

00:31:23 Speaker_00
Close quote. That's pretty remarkable considering that Joseph would not have known exactly the extent to which things had ramped up at that point. And then Oliver Cowdery shows up seven days later and confirms that some of this had already begun.

00:31:37 Speaker_00
Then four days later, after Oliver arrives, Joseph receives section 98.

00:31:42 Speaker_00
which contains counsel intensely relevant to both the situation of the saints in Missouri and the saints in Kirtland, who had also recently begun to experience severe persecution.

00:31:51 Speaker_00
I hear the Lord counsels church members to be temperate in their reactions to violence, to follow constitutional law, and to renounce war and proclaim peace, offering forgiveness to wrongdoers, which is awesome.

00:32:05 Speaker_00
He also outlines conditions under which self-defense is justified in his eyes, after I think he says three provocations, right? And then on August 18th, after learning from Oliver Cowdery more of the particulars of what was happening there,

00:32:21 Speaker_00
Joseph writes a letter to church leaders in Missouri declaring, he says, quote, that it is the will of the Lord that not one foot of land should be given to the enemies of God or sold to them. So they're to hold the ground.

00:32:35 Speaker_00
They were to hold their ground. Shortly thereafter, Orson Hyde is sent from Ohio to Missouri, where he and W.W. Phelps were to carry a petition from the afflicted Missouri Saints to the Missouri governor, whose name is Daniel Dunklin.

00:32:49 Speaker_00
and to solicit his protection and help in obtaining damages for the loss of property and personal abuse.

00:32:57 Speaker_00
They also request Dunklin to raise troops to help them sue for redress and perhaps even to help prosecute the perpetrators of anti-Mormon violence for treason against the government.

00:33:14 Speaker_00
And to his credit, Governor Dunklin said he was willing to help the saints, but he says you must first try the law and the courts. And so he advises them to sue their enemies for damages. So they actually hire four lawyers ready to help them sue.

00:33:30 Speaker_00
But boy, Casey, this backfires, doesn't it? Yeah, it does in a big way.

00:33:35 Speaker_02
And unfortunately, yeah, it doesn't diffuse the situation, it enflames the situation.

00:33:42 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:33:43 Speaker_02
When the mob in Jackson County finds out about this petition to the governor and that they hired lawyers to help prosecute them, they become enraged and the violence just starts all over again.

00:33:54 Speaker_02
So they start stoning houses, they start breaking windows. Again, small aggressions at first, just like the lead up to it, but by October 31st, things escalate dramatically.

00:34:06 Speaker_02
And it's less than a week that the saints find themselves forcibly expelled from Jackson County. And eyewitness among the saints, partly P Pratt is there. He's in Zion. He's acting as the school teacher in Zion. And this is what he records. Okay.

00:34:21 Speaker_02
He said Thursday night, the 31st of October Halloween Halloween between 40 and 50, many of whom were armed with guns unroofed. and partly demolished 10 dwelling houses.

00:34:33 Speaker_02
And in the midst of the shrieks and screams of women and children, whipped and beaten in a savage manner, several of the men, and with their horrid threats, frightened women and children into the wilderness.

00:34:43 Speaker_02
So straight up forcible violence, forcing them out. Saturday night, November 2nd, a party of the mob made an attack upon a settlement about six miles west of town.

00:34:53 Speaker_02
Here they tore the roof from a dwelling, broke open another house, found the owner, Mr. David Bennett, sick in bed.

00:35:00 Speaker_02
Him they beat inhumanly, and swore they would blow his brains out, and discharging a pistol, a ball cut a deep gash across the top of his head. In this skirmish, one of their men was shot in the thigh.

00:35:13 Speaker_02
On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, this is the 5th and 6th of November, Parley records, women and children fled in every direction before a merciless mob.

00:35:22 Speaker_02
One party of about 150 women and children fled to the prairie, where they wandered for several days, mostly without food, and nothing but the open firmament for their shelter. Other parties fled towards the Missouri River.

00:35:33 Speaker_02
Parties of the mob were hunting men, firing upon some, typing up and whipping others. Thursday, November 7th, on the shore of the Missouri River, hundreds of people were seen in every direction.

00:35:46 Speaker_02
Some in tents, some in the open air around their fires, while the rain descended in torrents. Husbands were inquiring for their wives, and women for their husbands, parents for their children, and children for parents.

00:35:58 Speaker_02
Some had the good fortune to escape with their family, household goods, and some provisions, while others knew not the fate of their friends and had lost all their goods.

00:36:06 Speaker_02
The scene was indescribable, and I am sure would have melted the hearts of any people upon earth except are blind oppressors and a prejudiced and ignorant community.

00:36:16 Speaker_02
In short, every member of the society was driven from the county, and fields of corn were plundered and destroyed.

00:36:21 Speaker_02
Stacks of wheat were burned, household goods plundered, and every kind of property lost, and at length no less than 203 houses burned, according to the estimate of their own people in Jackson.

00:36:34 Speaker_02
The saints who fled took refuge in the neighboring counties, mostly in Clay County, which received them with some degree of kindness. So Parley's account is pretty gripping.

00:36:45 Speaker_00
Meanwhile, back in Ohio, Joseph Smith learns the details of what happened on November 25th. when eyewitnesses Orson Hyde and John Gould show up and tell the tale.

00:36:58 Speaker_00
Then, later on December 10th, Joseph receives letters from Missouri church leaders Edward Partridge, John Corll, and W.W. Phelps that they had written weeks earlier because mail traveled slowly.

00:37:11 Speaker_00
And these letters supply more details and seek counsel from the prophet and direction about what should be done next.

00:37:19 Speaker_00
Like here's Edward Partridge, he wrote, quote, we are in hopes that we shall be able to return to our houses and lands before a great while, but how this is to be accomplished is all in the dark to us as yet.

00:37:31 Speaker_00
I want your advice upon the subject of the lands. and also I want wisdom and light on many subjects in this time of trial," he wrote to the prophet.

00:37:40 Speaker_00
Joseph actually responds in a letter that same day, saying, among other things, quote, I cannot learn from any communication by the Spirit to me that Zion has forfeited her claim to a celestial crown.

00:37:52 Speaker_00
Notwithstanding, the Lord has caused her to be thus afflicted. I have always expected, he said, that Zion would suffer sore affliction from what I could learn from the revelations which have been given.

00:38:03 Speaker_00
And you can look in the revelations, he's probably referring to probably DNC 58, DNC 84, 90, 97.

00:38:11 Speaker_00
These have been received over a period of over two years, and there's always these intimations, these forebodings of some affliction that will come upon the saints if they don't repent.

00:38:21 Speaker_00
He then says, but I would remind you of a certain clause in one, and then he cites D&C 58 verse four, which says that after much tribulation cometh the blessing.

00:38:32 Speaker_00
By this and also one received of late, I know that Zion in the own due time of the Lord will be redeemed. which is a reference to D&C 100 that he had just received, verse 13.

00:38:43 Speaker_00
But how many will be the days of her purification, tribulation, and affliction? The Lord has kept hid from my eyes. And when I inquire concerning this subject, the voice of the Lord is, Be still, and know that I am God.

00:38:56 Speaker_00
All those who suffer for My name shall reign with Me, and he that layeth down his life for My sake shall find it again.

00:39:03 Speaker_00
Then Joseph continues, he says, Now there are two things of which I am ignorant, and the Lord will not show me, perhaps for a wise purpose in Himself. And they are these. Why God has suffered so great calamity to come upon Zion.

00:39:17 Speaker_00
By what means He will return her back to her inheritance with songs of everlasting joy upon her head. These two things, brethren, are in part kept back, that they are not plainly shown unto me," he said.

00:39:31 Speaker_00
But then, good news, Casey, six days after he wrote that letter, the Lord actually does reveal to Joseph, in what's now Doctrine and Covenants 101, very clear answers to both of those questions.

00:39:43 Speaker_00
In the first eight verses, the Lord does say that He allowed these calamities to come upon the saints, in part because of their hardness, their contentions, their lustful and covetous desires, their jinglings, and their fighting with each other and with the locals.

00:40:00 Speaker_00
And as section 101 progresses, the Lord actually gives a parable-formed response to how Zion might be redeemed through military means in the future. That's verses 43 to 62.

00:40:13 Speaker_00
He then commands all church members to help redeem Zion by pooling their money together to purchase Jackson County and the surrounding area.

00:40:21 Speaker_00
And then he invites the scattered saints themselves to continue to petition government leaders for help and to legally hold onto their property. And so that's kind of the section 101 response.

00:40:32 Speaker_00
So maybe possibly a military means might come into play here, but for sure, let's pool our money and try to buy out the Jackson County settlers. Let's purchase it legally. Let's purchase all the land we can.

00:40:44 Speaker_00
And at this time, there's about 40 different settlements of saints throughout the United States. And they're not all just in Ohio and Missouri. There's people back East and other places. And so this is kind of an all call.

00:40:57 Speaker_00
Section 101 is an all call to all the saints in the church to pool their money. He says there is sufficient even now in the church collectively to be able to redeem Zion by purchasing the lands.

00:41:08 Speaker_00
Sad to report that this money was not raised and the land was not purchased. This is a possibility the Lord outlines in section 101.

00:41:16 Speaker_00
So, in the aftermath here now of section 101, Missouri church leaders petition both Missouri Governor Daniel Dunklin, and they even reach out to U.S. President Andrew Jackson for assistance. Governor Dunklin was actually quite responsive to them.

00:41:31 Speaker_00
He called for both civil and military courts of inquiry, sending the attorney general with witnesses, protected by a military escort to Jackson County,

00:41:41 Speaker_00
in order to criminally prosecute the mob and to order the mob to restore the weapons they had stolen from the saints. This part of the story is cool, right? It sounds like the saints are gonna get a little bit of help here.

00:41:53 Speaker_00
It looks like things might turn. The tide may turn in their favor, but so widespread was the hatred of the saints that the Jackson County court and the jurors refused to do anything.

00:42:06 Speaker_00
The small little military escort and the witnesses were actually driven back out of the county, causing the attorney general to advise the saints to quote, Relinquish all hopes of criminal prosecution against this band of outlaws.

00:42:21 Speaker_00
That's the Missouri attorney general's advice.

00:42:26 Speaker_02
Yeah. And does that show how bad it is? Like the attorney general of the state is like. Nothing you can do. Yeah. These guys are outlaws.

00:42:34 Speaker_02
Like they're basically just admitting that there's anarchy in a County in their state and they're not going to do anything about it, which.

00:42:41 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:42:41 Speaker_02
I don't know. You know, you read later things where Joseph Smith and the other saints talk about Missouri and stuff like this just makes me go. Yeah, they were right.

00:42:52 Speaker_00
Missouri was a law during this time. And they're right there on the border of the United States, right? And border towns, from what I understand, oftentimes attracted some of the societal riffraff, right?

00:43:04 Speaker_00
Some folks who were a little loose on the law, because if people came to apprehend them, they could jump over the border outside the jurisdiction of, like, U.S. marshals and those kinds of things.

00:43:15 Speaker_00
So in some ways, lawless folks were attracted to border towns, like independence was. When you get enough of those together, we see what happens. They defy, for instance, the governor's order to return the weapons of the Saints that they had taken.

00:43:31 Speaker_00
They say, no, what are you going to do about it? So when they return and report to Governor Dunklin, he expresses his willingness to have a military guard escort the Saints back to their lands and property.

00:43:43 Speaker_00
He said, quote, under the protection of this guard, your people can, if they think proper, return to their homes in Jackson County, close quote. But he said that he is not authorized to station the military there for any length of time after that.

00:43:58 Speaker_00
So he can give a military escort, yes, but a standing military army, no. And that essential piece of news is what's going to factor heavily into the decision of Joseph Smith,

00:44:09 Speaker_00
and over 200 saints from the east to march to Missouri in what will become known as Zion's Camp, with the intent of marching with the governor's military escort, bringing the scattered saints back into Jackson County, and then when the governor's troops withdraw, they will have this 200-plus member military of saints

00:44:30 Speaker_00
there to defend the Saints from ongoing attacks.

00:44:33 Speaker_00
In fact, church leaders write to Governor Dunklin informing him of their intentions to form their own army, and they said, quote, our object is purely to defend ourselves and possessions against another unparalleled attack from that mob.

00:44:47 Speaker_00
Inasmuch as the executive of this state cannot keep a military force to protect our people in that county without transcending his powers, we want, therefore, the privilege of defending ourselves. and the constitution of our country."

00:45:01 Speaker_00
So this is going to lead to what's called Zion's Camp. We're going to talk a lot more about this in our next episode, but Zion's Camp is going to fail in its stated purpose.

00:45:15 Speaker_00
They will march from Ohio to Missouri, and on the 12th of June, 1834, before entering Jackson County, Joseph sends Orson Hyde and Parley Pratt to go meet with Governor Dunklin and say, we're ready.

00:45:26 Speaker_00
and to request that the governor now calls out the state militia on the Saints' behalf to escort them back to Jackson County, as he had offered to do.

00:45:34 Speaker_00
But the governor, at this point, seeing the writing on the wall that this is going to end in a bloodbath on both sides, he wisely reneged on his previous commitment to have his army escort the Saints back to their homes.

00:45:50 Speaker_00
And without the governor's military escorting them back, they were basically stalled, and there was nothing for the scattered saints to do, and there was nothing for Zion's camp to do.

00:46:02 Speaker_00
And so Joseph prays, section 105 is received, and there the Lord disbands Zion's camp at that time. There's more to the story. We're going to get more into it in our next episode, but this is how basically the violence of 1833 essentially ends.

00:46:18 Speaker_00
The Saints are kicked out of Jackson County, Missouri. Some efforts by the governor to help them get back in, but ultimately those efforts fail.

00:46:26 Speaker_00
The efforts of Zion's camp to be a standing defensive army within Jackson County fail, and the Saints remain in the northern county. It's called Clay County. The Saints go up to Clay County, and many of them also return back to Ohio.

00:46:39 Speaker_00
That's kind of where this chapter of the story ends.

00:46:54 Speaker_02
If we're following our model where there's category one, violence inflicted upon the saints. Category two, the saints fight back. Category three, the saints inflict violence upon people. Where do you think this one fits?

00:47:07 Speaker_00
Well, it seems like it's mostly category one, right? We were the recipients of violence. And then a little bit with the Zion's camp, it seems like we were ready to defend ourselves.

00:47:17 Speaker_00
if we could with the governor's blessing, but it never seems to have amounted to that. And so we, we almost get to category two, but I don't think we quite got there. Would you agree?

00:47:26 Speaker_02
I think there's some people in the church that wanted to go to category two, but we're sort of held back and restrained and I don't blame them for wanting to.

00:47:35 Speaker_02
But I also think that a person that says that our theology is inherently violent hasn't read the revelations surrounding these events.

00:47:44 Speaker_02
I mean, just to give you like a sample, section 98, verse 16, "...renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children."

00:47:57 Speaker_02
Like he's telling them to not engage in violence. And then a little further down in verse 23 and 24, Now I speak unto you concerning your families.

00:48:06 Speaker_02
If men will spite you or your families once, and ye bear it patiently and revile not against them, neither seek revenge, shall ye be rewarded.

00:48:15 Speaker_02
But if ye bear it not patiently, it shall be accounted unto you as being meted out as a just measure against you. And he does this again and again.

00:48:23 Speaker_00
So you're justified in defending yourself if need be, but if you don't, if you just bear it nonviolently, that's even better. Is that what he's saying?

00:48:32 Speaker_02
Yeah, it seems like in every instance he's pushing them towards finding a nonviolent solution.

00:48:38 Speaker_02
even though they're under these adverse circumstances where they're basically being given no choice to do anything other than roll over completely, they don't have any means to fight back.

00:48:49 Speaker_02
And so, I mean, it's hard to read sections like section 98, which is probably the most extensive statement we have on violence, and say that it's inherently violent when the Lord is telling them, no, I will bless you if you bear this patiently.

00:49:07 Speaker_02
And only, it seems like, advocating defensive violence. Like, you never started, but you can defend your family. But if you don't fight back, you'll be blessed. And so on and so on.

00:49:19 Speaker_02
So, I mean, I've gotta say that any analysis of Latter-day Saint theology that says it's inherently violent isn't taking into account these revelations. Just doesn't seem like they've done the work.

00:49:30 Speaker_00
And these are the revelations that would show our theology, right? Yeah. These are the revelations that would bring out from the Lord and His prophet what we believe about war and violence and peace and conflict. And here it is. Look at section 98.

00:49:48 Speaker_00
Look at section 101, look at section 103, and then 105.

00:49:51 Speaker_02
Yeah, and not just here.

00:49:54 Speaker_02
I mean, when I read through the Doctrine and Covenants to prep some of the materials that we put up on Doctrine and Covenants Central, I was really, really impressed with the fact that in almost every revelation concerning the lands in Missouri, the Lord doesn't say, seize it or take it.

00:50:11 Speaker_02
He says, purchase it. Yes. Use legal means. Don't use violence, don't use force, don't outmaneuver them, just purchase it. Get the money together and buy it, because that's non-violent. I also think that there's a flow there too.

00:50:29 Speaker_02
I want to talk about one more thing in these revelations. This is something that I never saw until President Oaks came to BYU and spoke. This was shortly after, you know, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and a bunch of that stuff that was happening.

00:50:43 Speaker_02
He goes to section 101, this is verses 78 and 79, and he says, every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity according to the moral agency, which I have given unto him.

00:50:55 Speaker_02
that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.

00:51:05 Speaker_02
President Oaks just flat out said in this revelation, in a revelation given in 1833, the Lord condemned slavery. And so that fits into the picture too, where basically the Lord isn't justifying what the Missourians are doing.

00:51:21 Speaker_02
In fact, he says that they're wrong.

00:51:25 Speaker_02
He says that the source of the violence is that the saints, well, the reason why the affliction comes upon the saints is because they aren't united, because there's faint janglings among them and they're fighting against each other.

00:51:35 Speaker_02
But he also doesn't back down on the morality of their cause. So it seems like he's not too happy with the saints, but he's also saying the Missourians are morally wrong in doing this.

00:51:46 Speaker_02
feels like a category one to me, where the saints didn't start the violence, they were victims of violence.

00:51:53 Speaker_00
Yeah, and those verses you just read about the constitution of the land as well, seems to be the Lord really, really endorsing the idea of if something like this happens,

00:52:04 Speaker_00
you have the obligation to petition those in authority in the government to help you because this is part of why I set up this land the way that it is in the Constitution and established its principles so that those who are in positions of power to help can help.

00:52:22 Speaker_00
and they ought to help, and you ought to importune for their assistance." He even invokes the importuning widow of the New Testament here to say, ask them, ask the judges, ask the civic leaders to help you out.

00:52:37 Speaker_00
And so every means you can go about before violence, do it. Anything you can do to avoid violence, do it. Now, after multiple provocations, are you justified in defending your family? Of course you are, but try every means in your power to avoid that.

00:52:54 Speaker_00
There's another revelation where he said, there's two ways to get the land, by bloodshed and by purchasing. And since I have commanded you not to shed blood, you really only have one option. You can only get this land by purchasing it.

00:53:08 Speaker_00
Everyone's thinking of the two options and he just nips that first one in the bud. He says, I know you're thinking there's these two. And you're right, bloodshed, is an option, but I've commanded you not to commit it.

00:53:18 Speaker_00
Therefore, you have one choice, and that is to purchase the land." The stage is now set, Casey, for the next chapter in this. We'll dig a little bit deeper next time into the saga of Zion's camp.

00:53:32 Speaker_00
We've mentioned it today, we've talked about why it was set up, and we want to dig a little deeper next time to look at some of the dynamics of this that may hold some insight about Latter-day Saints and violence.

00:53:45 Speaker_02
The events that happened in 1833, I mean, continue to echo through the rest of the history of the church.

00:53:53 Speaker_02
Again, the 1838 persecutions just pile on this, but what happens in Missouri kind of does set the tone where Latter-day Saints start to realize that this is going to be a harder project than we thought it was going to be.

00:54:05 Speaker_02
It's not going to be easy to build the city of Zion, but these revelations, especially the ones that run from about section 97 up to section 105, kind of lay down the theology for peace and violence.

00:54:17 Speaker_02
And again, it's just hard to read them without getting a clear impression that the Lord is not okay with violence, and that he wants the saints to seek nonviolent solutions to their problems.

00:54:29 Speaker_02
They exhaust every possible option before they use violence.

00:54:33 Speaker_02
And whether or not the saints have been great at following this is a whole separate debate, but I don't think you can argue that the principles aren't there and that the saints haven't been steered towards being nonviolent.

00:54:46 Speaker_00
Amen.

00:54:47 Speaker_02
Amen. Well said.

00:54:48 Speaker_02
A lot of this gets wrapped up in Zion's camp, which we're going to talk about next week, where there are further revelations about how Zion gets redeemed and how the Lord wants them to go about it, and if violence is supposed to play a role in that.

00:55:02 Speaker_02
Stay tuned until next time. All right. See you next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Scott.

00:55:11 Speaker_00
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. In our next episode, Casey and I dig into the details behind Zion's camp as we consider this question.

00:55:20 Speaker_00
What does the march of a quasi-military group of Latter-day Saints led by a prophet of God say about peace and violence among Latter-day Saints?

00:55:30 Speaker_00
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00:55:41 Speaker_00
That makes us easier to find. Today's episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Goletti, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis.

00:55:50 Speaker_00
Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere.

00:56:03 Speaker_00
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00:56:14 Speaker_00
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00:56:19 Speaker_00
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00:56:35 Speaker_00
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00:56:52 Speaker_00
Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.