Mormon Miscellaneous: Oath of Vengeance

Mormon Miscellaneous

Date: Sunday, 1 July 2007

Subject: Oath of Vengeance. Several books recently published claim
that a primary cause of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, 11 September
1857, was a solemn commitment made by the Saints in the Temple
endowment. According to some ex-Mormons in the 19th century, Saints
were required to enter into an oath - the Oath of Vengeance - to
avenge the blood of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum by hostile acts
upon the Nation, including murder. Various forms of this alleged Oath
were published in a significant number of publications in the 19th
century, and was kept alive in 20th century publications. It was
claimed that this was a traitorous oath, and some Mormons were denied
citizenship because of these allegations.

A number of writers and historians have accepted as fact that such an
oath was included in the Temple ceremony from the Nauvoo period until
1927. A careful examination of the issue has turned up substantial
sources which persuasively argue that no such Oath was required of
anyone in the Temple ceremony. The best evidence demonstrates that,
through some dishonest twisting by some ex-Mormons and a reluctance by
LDS leaders to discuss the Temple ceremony, that a false tradition has
emerged and gained strength that endowment participants for some 80
years took this alleged Oath of Vengeance. This tradition has become
so strong that a number of historians have accepted and promoted the
existence of such an Oath without so much as footnote acknowledging
the existence of a significant body of contrary evidence.

I will be presenting some of this evidence which I collected 20 years
ago for a paper I presented in 1987. Because these allegations have
not been examined, I have decided to prepare this paper and submit it
for publication.

Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm MST

Host: Van Hale

Radio Station: KTKK 630 AM, Salt Lake City

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