Mormon Scripture – The Articles of Faith/Part 30

Previous Article

This will conclude our discussion of the twelfth LDS Article of Faith which states, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustain­ing the law.” Our last two articles have shown that LDS leaders have not always lived up to what this Article of Faith says.

Mormonism began on April 6, 1830 in New York and moved to Kirtland, Ohio a few months later. But in June 1831, Joseph Smith visited Missouri where some Mormons were already living. On July 20, 1831 Smith claimed he received a revelation from the Lord which identified Independence in Jackson County Missouri as the gathering place for Mormons and the place to build a temple (Doctrine & Covenants, Sec. 57:1-5). It also told Mormons to buy all the land they could there. When many Mormons arrived there each month, the original settlers feared they would be forced out. Smith published another “revelation” in July 1832 in which the Lord said, “I will consecrate the riches of the Gentiles (non-Mormons), unto my people (Mormons) which are of the house of Israel” (The Evening and Morning Star). Non-Mormons understood that to mean that the Mormons wanted their property and that caused such conflict that the Mormons were driven from Jackson County into the counties in northwest Missouri.

The new location of the LDS Church didn’t change what LDS leaders said and did and that caused some Mormons to apostatize. Mormon leaders threatened apostates with violence and then drove them out of the area and took their property. Mormon leaders also prayed publicly asking God to curse their enemies and Smith prophesied that God would defeat their enemies. Then on July 4, 1838, Smith’s right hand man, Sidney Rigdon, preached a message in which he declared that any “mob that comes on us to disturb us; it shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them, till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us; for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed” (BYU Studies 14, Summer 1974, p. 527).

Such volatile language ultimately led to Missouri’s Gov. Boggs issuing his “Extermination Order” which said, “The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace” (The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, by Stephen LeSueur, p. 152). The Mormons were forced to leave Missouri and move to Nauvoo, Illinois. A recent Missouri Governor gave an official apology to Mormons for Gov. Boggs’ “exter­mination order,” but the Mormons have never apologized for Rigdon’s message or any of the other volatile messages and acts that alarmed the people of Missouri.

When Joseph Smith met Stephen A. Douglas in Carthage, Illinois on May 18, 1843 he said, “I prophesy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the (Latter-day) Saints, in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes commit­ted by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left” (History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, vol. 5, p. 394).

Again when Smith met with the Nauvoo City Council on Dec.16, 1843, “The Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors [sic] signed officially the Memorial to Congress for the redress of losses </nowiki>and grievances in Missouri (and Smith said) While discussing the petition to Congress, I proph­esied, by virtue of the holy Priesthood vested in me, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that, if Congress will not hear our petition and grant us protection, they shall be broken up as a government, and God shall damn them, and there shall nothing be left of them—not even a grease spot” (Millennial Star, vol. 22, p. 455).

Brigham Young also predicted, “God Almighty will give the United States a pill that will put them to death, and that is worse than lobelia. I am prophet enough to prophesy the downfall of the government that has driven us out” (Quest for Empire, by Klaus J. Hansen, p. 117).

These false prophecies by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young show that LDS leaders some­times spoke against the government of the United States because of their troubles in Missouri. But, the United States Government had nothing to do with the LDS troubles in Missouri. Those troubles were between Mormons and their neighbors along with the state militia. If Mormon leaders expected their followers to obey the twelfth Article of Faith, they should have set the example.

While the twelfth Article of Faith says, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates…,” in 1842 Joseph Smith apparently had himself “crowned KING under God, over the immediate House of Israel.” And in the only edition of the Nauvoo Expositor ever published, Smith’s Second Counselor in the First Presidency, William Law, reported that Smith said “that the kingdom referred to (in Daniel 1:44) was already set up, and that he (Smith) was king over it” (Quest for Empire, p. 155-156). And shortly before his death Smith apparently had himself ordained King on earth. When Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake valley, he had the same ordination performed in the Council of Fifty (Quest for Empire, p. 66). Such actions indi­cate that the main authority that these men recognized on earth was their own.

For more information on this subject we suggest Quest for Empire, by Klaus J. Hansen, published in 1967 by Michigan University Press. Our next article will discuss the thirteenth Article of Faith concerning honesty, truth, virtue and so on.