Letters, Sermons, and Instructional Authority — With Special Attention to Blood Atonement Rhetoric

Abstract

This paper examines the documentary record commonly referred to as the Brigham Young Papers, with particular emphasis on letters, sermons, and administrative instructions attributed to Brigham Young during his presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his tenure as territorial governor of Utah. Special attention is given to the rhetoric known as “blood atonement,” most prominently articulated during the Mormon Reformation of 1856–1857. Drawing from archival descriptions, sermon publications, and historiographical analyses of transcription accuracy, this study evaluates both the content and transmission of Young’s teachings while distinguishing between public rhetoric, private correspondence, and institutional governance.

1. Introduction

Brigham Young (1801–1877) stands as one of the most influential and controversial figures in American religious history. As president of the LDS Church following the death of Joseph Smith and as the founding governor of Utah Territory, Young exercised extraordinary religious, political, and economic authority. His words—whether spoken from the pulpit, written in private correspondence, or issued as administrative counsel—shaped the lived experience of tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints.

The surviving documentary corpus known as the Brigham Young Papers provides a vast and complex record of this authority. Within that record appear sermons and statements containing what later came to be labeled “blood atonement” rhetoric—language suggesting that certain grave sins could only be atoned for by the shedding of the sinner’s own blood. This paper situates that rhetoric within its documentary, historical, and textual context.

2. The Brigham Young Papers: Scope and Composition

The term Brigham Young Papers does not refer to a single manuscript or published volume. Rather, it encompasses a sprawling archival collection distributed across multiple repositories and publication projects.

2.1 Office Files and Correspondence

The Brigham Young Office Files, housed primarily in the Church History Library, include:

  • Over 30,000 incoming letters
  • Approximately 10,000 outgoing letters
  • Telegrams, memoranda, drafts, and clerical copies
  • Records generated by Young’s office as both church president and territorial governor

These materials reflect not only Young’s personal views but also the bureaucratic machinery through which ecclesiastical discipline, settlement policy, and economic coordination were managed. The Church History Library notes that many outgoing letters survive only as letterpress copies or drafts, while incoming correspondence often prompted administrative responses that must be reconstructed by following finding aids across multiple series .

2.2 Letterbooks and Administrative Instructions

Outgoing letters were frequently copied into letterbooks, several of which have been digitized. These documents often contain instructions to bishops, stake leaders, and mission presidents, addressing issues such as discipline, repentance, rebaptism, and community order. Importantly, these instructions rarely use dramatic theological language; instead, they reflect practical governance and enforcement mechanisms.

3. Sermons as Primary Sources: Transmission and Reliability

3.1 Reporting and Publication

Many of Brigham Young’s sermons were recorded by stenographers, most notably George D. Watt, and later published in the Journal of Discourses (1854–1886), a 26-volume series widely cited as a primary source for early LDS preaching.

However, modern scholarship has demonstrated that these sermons passed through several stages:

  1. Spoken delivery
  2. Shorthand recording
  3. Longhand transcription
  4. Editorial revision
  5. Publication

Historian LaJean Purcell Carruth has shown that significant alterations—additions, omissions, and rephrasings—occurred between the shorthand notes and the published versions. In some cases, entire doctrinal expansions appear in print without clear shorthand support .

This does not render the sermons useless, but it requires caution: the Journal of Discourses reflects what was circulated and read by Latter-day Saints, even if it may not perfectly reflect what was spoken verbatim.

4. Historical Context: The Mormon Reformation (1856–1857)

The period in which blood atonement rhetoric appears most clearly corresponds to the Mormon Reformation of 1856–57, a movement initiated by church leadership to provoke widespread repentance and recommitment.

According to the Church’s own historical summary, the Reformation involved intense preaching, public confession, rebaptism, and strong warnings against sin and apostasy. Leaders called for dramatic reform, employing language designed to shock and awaken the community .

It is within this atmosphere—marked by fear of divine judgment, communal surveillance, and heightened authority—that blood atonement language must be understood.

5. Blood Atonement Rhetoric in Brigham Young’s Sermons

5.1 Defining the Term

“Blood atonement” is not a term frequently used by Brigham Young himself, but rather a label later applied to a cluster of statements asserting that:

  • Some sins are beyond the cleansing power of Christ’s atonement alone
  • The sinner’s own blood must be shed for forgiveness or exaltation
  • Such shedding could be construed as an act of love or mercy

5.2 September 21, 1856 — Great Salt Lake City

In a sermon delivered during the Reformation and later published in Journal of Discourses 4:51–57, Young declared that there are sins which “it can never remit” through Christ’s blood alone and warned that unrepentant individuals would be “cut off” from the community .

While the sermon does not explicitly command violence, it establishes a theological framework in which exclusion, destruction, or death are portrayed as divine necessities rather than human judgments.

5.3 February 8, 1857 — Salt Lake Tabernacle

The most explicit articulation appears in Journal of Discourses 4:215–221. In this discourse, Young described hypothetical individuals who would request that their blood be shed so they might be saved and posed the question of whether listeners loved such individuals enough to perform that act. He further claimed to have known “scores and hundreds” who might have been saved if their blood had been spilled as an offering to God .

This sermon represents the clearest surviving example of blood atonement rhetoric attributed to Young.

6. Letters, Instructions, and Practice

A crucial distinction must be made between rhetoric and policy. Despite the severity of language in some sermons:

  • Surviving correspondence and office files do not contain systematic written directives ordering bloodshed as church discipline
  • Administrative letters focus on confession, rebaptism, excommunication, and reconciliation
  • Enforcement mechanisms appear primarily social and ecclesiastical rather than judicial

This gap between sermon rhetoric and written instruction underscores the importance of not conflating pulpit language with codified policy.

7. Historiographical Considerations

Scholars continue to debate:

  • Whether blood atonement rhetoric was intended literally or rhetorically
  • How frequently, if ever, such ideas influenced extrajudicial violence
  • The relationship between Young’s theological statements and frontier vigilantism

What can be said with confidence is that the rhetoric existed, was printed, circulated, and read, and therefore shaped the moral imagination of the community—even if its application varied.

8. Conclusion

The Brigham Young Papers reveal a leader who governed through a combination of charismatic authority, bureaucratic administration, and forceful rhetoric. Blood atonement language, while limited in scope and time, represents one of the most troubling elements of that rhetorical legacy.

Careful historical analysis requires holding multiple truths in tension: the vastness of Young’s documentary record, the mediated nature of sermon texts, and the real impact of ideas once spoken and printed. The archive does not permit simplistic conclusions—but it does permit honest ones.

Annotated Source List (Core)

  • Church History Library, Brigham Young Office Files — archival descriptions and research guidance
  • LaJean Purcell Carruth, “Preached vs. Published” — sermon transcription analysis
  • Church History Topics, “Reformation of 1856–57” — institutional context
  • Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, pp. 51–57 — Sept. 21, 1856 sermon
  • Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, pp. 215–221 — Feb. 8, 1857 sermon