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Latter-day Saint Temples/Endowment/Oath of vengeance
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Important note: Members of FAIR take their temple covenants seriously. We consider the temple teachings to be sacred, and will not discuss their specifics in a public forum.
Criticism
Critics claim that a former version of the endowment contained an oath taken by participants that they would exact vengeance upon the United States or its government.
Source(s) of the criticism
Response
The leaders of the Church have modified the endowment from time to time. Prior to changes made in 1927, there was an "oath of vengeance" that was taken by participants in the endowment.
The oath was an outgrowth of Joseph Smith's inner circle which continued to meet as after his death.[1] Joseph Smith's circle met to test revelation ("try all things"), pray for the healing of sick members, pray for the success of church projects, and pray for deliverance from their enemies. After Joseph's death, Heber C. Kimball recalled how the prayer circle met and prayed for God's vengeance.[2]
Summarizing Willard Richards' activities immediately after the martyrdom, historian Claire Noall wrote:
- True, in this [1850] speech Richards finally denounced the actual murderers; but when notifying the Church of Joseph Smith's death at Carthage jail, he wrote to Nauvoo that the people of Carthage expected the Mormons to rise, but he had "promised them no." The next day from the steps of the Prophet's home, he reminded his people that he had pledged his word and his honor for their peaceful conduct. And when writing the news of Smith's death to Brigham Young then near Boston, Willard Richards said the blood of martyrs does not cry from the ground for vengeance; vengeance is the Lord's.[3]
It is easy for modern Latter-day Saints who don't experience mobocracy, threats on our life, and kidnapping attempts to wish that leaders would have prayed for their enemies instead of for harm or justice to befall them. We live in kinder, gentler times. But nineteenth-century Mormons — especially those who came out of Nauvoo — saw the hand of God whenever their persecutors suffered misfortune, a feeling common to most powerless, persecuted minority groups.
Temple work in general and, more specifically, prayers that God, rather than Mormon members, would avenge Joseph Smith is what was the salvation of the church in Nauvoo. Instead of giving vent to passionate desires for revenge using the impressively-sized Nauvoo Legion, the brethren were able to get members to channel their frustration and anger into petitions to the Almighty for justice. Their actual energy was concentrated on the things of heaven through temple building and service. Temple prayer became a way of ritually memorializing Joseph Smith's martyrdom.
This is the background of the oath to pray for God's vengeance (a much more adequate phrase than oath of vengeance). Most accounts of the temple oath stressed that God, rather than man, would do the actual punishing. For example, August Lundstrom, an apostate Mormon, testified at the Reed Smoot hearings in December 1904:
- Mr. [Robert W.] Tayler [counsel for the protestants]: Can you give us the obligation of retribution?
- Mr. Lundstrom: I can.
- Mr. Tayler: You may give that.
- Mr. Lundstrom: "We and each of us solemnly covenant and promise that we shall ask God to avenge the blood of Joseph Smith upon this nation." There is something more added, but that is all I can remember verbatim. That is the essential part.
- Mr. Tayler: What was there left of it? What else?
- Mr. Lundstrom: It was in regard to teaching our children and children's children to the last generation to the same effect.[4]
One could object that Lundstrom, as an apostate, fabricated the existence of such an oath or, intentionally or unintentionally, distorted its wording. However, others who spoke publicly on the subject had similar recollections. Here is David H. Cannon's late reminiscence about the practices at the Endowment House:
- To pray the Father to avenge the blood of the prophets and righteous men that has been shed, etc. In the endowment house this was given but as persons went there only once, it was not so strongly impressed upon their minds, but in the setting in order [of] the endowments for the dead it was given as it is written in 9 Chapter of Revelations [sic] and in that language we importune our Father, not that we may, but that He, our Father, will avenge the blood of martyrs shed for the testimony of Jesus.[5]
Although the religious stress was on letting God perform the actual vengeance, individuals sometimes imagined they might be called upon to take a more active role. This surfaced in the apocalyptic language of some patriarchal blessings. Others would make comments about not resting until God carried out vengeance. From the pulpit, many Church leaders held the United States as a nation responsible for letting mobocracy get out of control. However, the oaths of members should have taught them to channel their righteous indignation into petitioning God and for them to work at constructively building up Zion.
Conclusion
Until 1927 the temple endowment very likely contained such an oath. The exact wording is not entirely clear, but it appears that it did not call on the Saints themselves to take vengeance on the United States, but that they would continue to pray that God himself might avenge the blood the prophets. Such wording is in keeping with scriptural passages about the vengeance of God (3 Nephi 9:5-11; Luke 11:49-51; Revelation 16:4-7).
Endnotes
- [note] For a history of prayer circles, see D. Michael Quinn, "Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles," Brigham Young University Studies 19 no. 1 (Fall 1978), 79–105. PDF link
- [note] See his 21 December 1845 diary entry in The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845–1846: A Documentary History, Richard Van Wagoner, Devery Scott Anderson, and Gary James Bergera, eds. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2005).
- [note] Claire Noall, "The Plains of Warsaw," Utah Historical Quarterly 25:1 (January 1957), pp. 47–51.
- [note] Testimony of August W. Lundstrom, Proceedings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to Hold His Seat (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906), 2:153. PDF link
- [note] David John Buerger, "The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 34 no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2001), 103. PDF link
Further reading
FAIR wiki articles
Latter-day Saint Temples/Endowment/Oath of vengeance
Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are sacred places where Church members participate in sacred ceremonies (ordinances) that help them come closer to God and prepare to live forever in an eternal family.
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External links
Printed material
| Temple printed materials |
- Matthew B. Brown,The Gate of Heaven: Insight on the Doctrines and Symbols of the Temple (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 1999), 1.
- Matthew B. Brown, Symbols in Stone: Symbolism on the Early Temples of the Restoration, 2d ed., (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 1997).
- William J. Hamblin and David Seely, Solomon's Temple: Myth and History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2007), Chapter 3.
- Hugh W. Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, 2nd edition, (Vol. 16 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John Gee and Michael D. Rhodes, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2005), 1. ISBN 159038539X. 1st edition GL direct link
- Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present (Vol. 12 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by Don E. Norton, (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Company ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1992), 1.
- Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1980), 1. ISBN 0884944115.