I just rented a video about some Mormons killing people in the 1800s. What’s that all about?

There was an incident, referred to commonly as the “Mountain Meadows Massacre”, where it appears that members of the church murdered the members of a passing wagon train in cold blood. The evidence seems to support this – and if the facts are true, then what happened was wholly unjustifiable – and stains the reputation of the church by association.

It is not the case that the leadership of the church was complicit in any way. Not only is there no reliable evidence to that point, but a study of the character of the leaders of the church makes it wholly unbelievable.

Some have twisted the peculiarity of the church (yes, I admit we are different) and the devotion of its members to create a tainted lens which, if used to view the events, could indicate a potential for systematic wrong. But every experience I have ever had interacting with the leadership of this church points the other way.

Some have pointed to the defensive posture of the church as a justification for the actions. We had been driven out of our homes many times, and serious wrongs were committed against members of our church – ranging from disenfranchisement to assault to rape. Our Prophet had been murdered with the complicity of the State of Missouri, the President of the United States had turned down our pleas for redress on political grounds, and one of the beloved missionaries of the church had been assassinated in Arkansas – the very place from which the victims of the massacre originated. Missouri Executive Order 44, which ordered the extermination of all Mormons in Missouri, was finally repealed officially in 1976.

In light of that history, a defensive posture by members of the church is certainly justifiable. But an offensive one, like that demonstrated at Mountain Meadows, is not. In short, what those members of the church are accused of is unconscionable both legally and doctrinally.

The church disciplined those responsible. The territorial government, which was basically operated by the church at the time (it was still beyond the western frontier of the US and not yet a state) went so far as to execute the leader of the perpetrators.

Both then and now, the church condemned the actions of this handful of members of the church – and in doing so, confirmed our adherence to the true doctrines of the gospel with regards to how others are treated.