Anti-Mormonism

The term, "anti-Mormon" first appears in the historical record in 1833 by the Louisville (Kentucky) Daily Herald in an article, "The Mormons and the Anti-Mormons" (the article was also the first known to label believers in the Book of Mormon as "Mormons"). In 1841, it was revealed that an Anti-Mormon Almanac would be published. Dozens of publications had strongly criticized Mormonism since its inception. In 1834, Eber D. Howe published his book Mormonism Unvailed. The Latter Day Saints initially labeled such publications "anti-Christian", but the publication of the Almanac and the subsequent formation of an "Anti-Mormon Party" in Illinois heralded a shift in terminology. "Anti-Mormon" became a common self-designation for those opposed to the religion. Today, the term is primarily used as a descriptor for persons and publications active in their opposition to the LDS Church, although its precise scope has been the subject of some debate. Some use it to describe all thought perceived as critical of the LDS Church. Siding with the latter, less-inclusive understanding of the term, Latter-day Saint scholar William O. Nelson suggests in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism that the term includes "any hostile or polemic opposition to Mormonism or to the Latter-day Saints, such as maligning Joseph Smith, his successors, or the doctrines or practices of the Church. Though sometimes well-intended, anti-Mormon publications have often taken the form of invective, falsehood, demeaning caricature, prejudice, or legal harassment, leading to both verbal and physical assault." Reaction Many of those who have been labeled "anti-Mormon" object to the designation, arguing that the term implies that disagreement or criticism of Mormonism stems from some inherent "anti-Mormon" prejudice, rather than being part of a legitimate factual or religious debate. Even some members of the LDS Church who write negatively about it have had their writings labeled anti-Mormon. Ex-members who write about the LDS Church are likewise frequently labeled anti-Mormon, even when their writings are not inflammatory in nature. The debate on who is "anti-Mormon" frequently arises in Mormon discussions of authors and sources. Stephen Cannon has argued that use of the label is a "campaign by Latter-day Saints to disavow the facts presented by simply labeling the source as 'anti-Mormon'". Critics of the term also claim that Mormon authors promote the ideal of a promised heavenly reward for enduring persecution for one's beliefs. Those individuals and groups who challenge Mormonism, particularly those who approach the challenge from an evangelical Christian perspective, would generally sustain that they do, in fact, have the best interests of the Mormon at heart. ==History==

Opposition to Mormonism in Smith's lifetime of Smith's body about to be mutilated (Library of Congress). The Latter Day Saint movement—its devotees being known as Mormons—arose in western New York, the state in which its founder, Joseph Smith, was raised, during a period of Christian revivalism in the early 19th century. Smith claimed to have had visions involving God, Jesus, and angelic Native American prophets. His claims were often not received well by those in the community in which he lived, which is evident in the following excerpt from Smith's account of LDS Church history: . In New York and Pennsylvania, anti-Mormonism concerned whether Smith had factually encountered the so-called golden plates; whether Smith had genuine visions (at least ones of theological import); Smith's treasure-digging episodes; and his alleged occult practices. In Ohio, anti-Mormons focused on the ill-fated banking efforts of the Kirtland Safety Society and other failed economic experiments, including the United Order. In Missouri, once the major gathering place of Latter-day Saints, members tended to vote in elections as a voting bloc, wielding "considerable political and economic influence," often unseating local political leadership and earning long-lasting enmity in the sometimes hard-drinking, hard-living frontier communities. The city of Nauvoo had become the largest in Illinois, and its city council was primarily composed of Latter-day Saints; the Nauvoo Legion—a militia composed of Mormons from the city—had grown to a quarter of the size of the U.S. Army. Other issues of contention included the LDS Church’s doctrine on polygamy; freedom of speech; Smith's anti-slavery views expressed during his presidential campaign; and the LDS Church's doctrines on exaltation and human deification. After the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor printing press and institution of martial law, Joseph Smith was arrested on charges of treason against the State of Illinois and incarcerated in Carthage Jail, where he was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob on June 27, 1844. Anti-Mormon persecution became so severe in Illinois that most of the residents of Nauvoo fled across the Mississippi River in February 1846. In 1847, Mormons established a community hundreds of miles away in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. Beginning in 1849, every federally appointed official left Utah under duress from Mormon pioneers. In 1857, President James Buchanan determined that the Mormons in the territory were rebelling against the United States government. In response, Buchanan deployed one-third of the US Army to Utah in 1857 to engage in what became the Utah War. Early publications Much of the anti-Mormon sentiment during that period was expressed in non-Mormon publications, which appeared very early in LDS Church history. In his 2005 biography of Joseph Smith, Richard Lyman Bushman cites four 1838 pamphlets as anti-Mormon: Mormonism Exposed by Sunderland, Mormonism Exposed by Bacheler, Antidote to Mormonism by M'Chesney, and Exposure of Mormonism by Livesey. Antidote to Mormonism describes Mormons as "miserable enemies of both God and man—engines of death and hell." M'Chesney described combat with them as being "desperate, the battle is one of extermination." Bushman described the characteristics of these anti-Mormonism materials as sensationalizing actuality: British author Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887), the novel in which the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance, includes a very negative depiction of the early Mormon community in Utah after its migration westwards and the foundation of Salt Lake City. Mormons are presented as violent, rigidly intolerant, and corrupt, systematically terrorizing both members of the LDS Church and non-Mormon neighbors as well as forcing polygamous marriage on Mormon girls against their will. Later in his career, Conan Doyle apologized to the Mormons for his depiction of their religion. During a 1923 tour of the United States, Doyle was invited to speak at the LDS Church's Salt Lake Tabernacle; while some individual Mormons remained deeply upset over the negative depiction, in general, the Mormons present received him warmly. ==Forms==

Vehement opposition to the LDS Church comes from individuals and groups associated with the Christian countercult movement, which is mostly an evangelical Christian phenomenon. In the 21st century, opposition to Mormonism has become frequent among secular groups. Religious anti-Mormonism Among those with religious motives, Daniel C. Peterson has identified two major streams of modern anti-Mormon thought. The first is "traditional anti-Mormonism", typified by Wesley P. Walters and Walter Ralston Martin. Anti-Mormons in this category generally try to explain Mormonism in naturalistic terms. They appeal to "Joseph Smith's environment and his (wicked or pathological) character, perhaps assisted by a co-conspirator or two", as a sufficient explanation for Mormon origins. "New Age anti-Mormonism", according to Peterson, "is quite different. It admits the presence of supernatural events in the founding events of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is quite willing to acknowledge continuous supernatural influence in the life of the Church today." However, "unlike faithful Latter-day Saints, New Age anti-Mormons see the supernatural agents involved in the founding and progress of the Church as demonic, occultic, diabolical, luciferian." New Age anti-Mormons have generated considerably more controversy than traditional anti-Mormons. The most prominent of their number, Ed Decker, produced The God Makers and The God Makers II, and wrote books by the same name. The film is generally considered acerbic and misleading, and has provoked bomb threats against LDS meetinghouses and death threats against members. In other publications, Decker has asserted that the literal source of Mormonism is Satan, that its religious symbolism is satanic in nature, and that it is a political conspiracy by nature. Notably, protesters also made an appearance at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. One group that actively organizes peaceful protests is the Mormonism Research Ministry, a non-profit organization that insists its activities are not "anti-Mormon". Some other individuals have been seen throwing copies of the Book of Mormon on the ground, stepping on them, and portraying using temple garments, which Latter-day Saints hold sacred, as toilet tissue, and other similarly offensive actions. However, nearly every evangelical ministry, including those that actively challenge the truth claims of Mormonism, vehemently condemns this offensive and belligerent behavior and further objects to being placed in the same category as those few who engage in such behavior. As a result of organized protests at Mormon events, a number of Latter-day Saints, and even non-Mormons, have begun to counter-demonstrate at events (by singing hymns, for example). Secular anti-Mormonism Opposition to Mormonism has been more prominent in the 21st century from atheist perspectives. Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and John Dehlin are among the more prominent individuals who have used media appearances or podcasts to oppose the institutional LDS Church and its doctrines and policies. The LDS Church has been associated by some members of the left as being part of the Christian right, leading to additional dissatisfaction, and the church's active stance against same-sex marriage has led to criticism from LGBT groups and occasional destruction/defacement of property. ==Violence==

Tangible acts of violence against Latter-day Saints are considerably less common in the United States today than they were in the 19th century. The first significant violent persecution occurred in the early 1830s in Missouri. Mormons tended to vote as a bloc there, wielding "considerable political and economic influence," often unseating local political leadership and earning long-lasting enmity in the frontier communities. These differences culminated in the Missouri Mormon War and the eventual issuing of an executive order (since called the extermination order within the LDS community) by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs, which declared that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State." Three days later, a renegade militia unit attacked a Mormon settlement at Haun's Mill, resulting in the death of 18 Mormons and no militiamen. The extermination order was not formally rescinded until 1976. After the destruction of the press of the Nauvoo Expositor in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith was arrested and incarcerated in Carthage Jail where he was killed by a mob on June 27, 1844. The persecution in Illinois became so severe that most of the residents of Nauvoo fled across the Mississippi River in February 1846. Even after Mormons established a community hundreds of miles away in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, anti-Mormon activists in Utah Territory convinced U.S. President James Buchanan that the Mormons in the territory were rebelling against the United States; critics pointed to plural marriage as a sign of the rebellion. In response, President Buchanan sent one-third of the American standing army in 1857 to Utah in what is known as the Utah War. More recent persecution against Mormons in the U.S. has occasionally taken the shape of acts of vandalism against church property. At an LDS Church building in Orangevale, Sacramento County, vandals spray painted "No on 8" and "No on Prop 8" on the front sign and sidewalk. An affiliate group of the radical Trans/Queer organization Bash Back!, claims credit for pouring glue into the locks of an LDS Church building and spray painting on its walls. An internet posting signed by Bash Back!'s Olympia chapter said: "The Mormon church ... needs to be confronted, attacked, subverted and destroyed." According to the Chicago Tribune, the acts of vandalism against the LDS Church appear to be in retaliation for support of Proposition 8. The Anti-Defamation League released a statement condemning the "defacement and destruction of property." In November 2008, the United States Postal Service delivered envelopes containing white powder to two LDS Church temples—the Los Angeles California Temple and the Salt Lake Temple—and to the Knights of Columbus' national headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, prompting a hazardous materials response and a federal domestic terrorism investigation. The LDS Church blamed opponents of the marriage ban for sending the hoax mailings, while a group that also supported the measure condemned "acts of domestic terrorism against our supporters." LGBT rights groups, such as Equality Utah and Equality California, have spoken out against the use of violence in protests, and note that the source of the "white powder" mailings has not been determined. In Latin America, opposition to Mormonism has taken a deadlier form. In May 1989, members of a terrorist organization called the Zarate Willka Armed Forces of Liberation murdered two Mormon missionaries in La Paz, Bolivia. Another Bolivian terrorist group, the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army, claimed responsibility for two attacks against Mormon chapels. The Lautaro Youth Movement in Chile conducted 27 small-scale bombings against LDS meetinghouses in 1992. On Sunday, September 28, 2025, a LDS meetinghouse in Grand Blanc Michigan, was attacked during the congregation's Sunday service. The perpetrator, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford, rammed his pickup truck into the front wall of the chapel, then exited the vehicle and opened fire on the congregation with an assault rifle. At some point Sanford set the building on fire, likely using gasoline as an accelerant, which destroyed most of it. In all four church members were killed and eight injured. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel said that Sanford reportedly "hated people of the Mormon faith" and a Burton City Council candidate told reporters that Sanford called LDS Church members "the antichrist" when the two had met the week before the attack. ==Responses==

Official Although a position on anti-Mormonism is not part of the official doctrine of the LDS Church, it has been mentioned specifically in a number of general conference talks made by church general authorities. Marvin J. Ashton, speaking as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, began a fall 1982 conference by relating an experience he had with a protester outside Temple Square. He went on to declare "[t]o the world, and especially to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" that "there is no time for contention," and encouraged "all our members to refuse to become anti-anti-Mormon. In the wise words of old, can we 'live and let live'?" Carlos E. Asay of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy spoke in the fall 1981 conference concerning opposition to the LDS Church. He describes "Lucifer" as the source of at least some anti-Mormonism and apostate groups, relates an experience of a Mormon convert being excommunicated and encourages the avoidance of "those who would tear down your faith.” A passage from an early Mormon epistle addresses a claimed tendency of ex-Mormons to criticize the church of which they are no longer a part: [A]postates after turning from the faith of Christ ... have sooner or later fallen into the snares of the wicked one, and have been left destitute of the Spirit of God, to manifest their wickedness in the eyes of multitudes. From apostates the faithful have received the severest persecutions ... "When once that light which was in them is taken from them, they become as much darkened as they were previously enlightened, and then, no marvel, if all their power should be enlisted against the truth," and they, Judas like, seek the destruction of those who were their greatest benefactors. In 1985, Vaughn J Featherstone, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the LDS Church, addressed students at the church-owned Brigham Young University, calling anti-Mormon material "theological pornography that is damaging to the spirit." In 1992, the church issued a press release describing their scriptural mandate to "[gather] up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them. ... And perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat ...." The Strengthening Church Members Committee was appointed by the First Presidency to comply with this scripture and to serve as a resource to local church leaders to assist their members who have questions. The committee consisted at that time of Russell M. Nelson and James E. Faust. Apologetic Mormon apologetics and members vary both in their perception of criticism and opposition, as well as what they see as falling under the umbrella of anti-Mormonism. According to Hugh Nibley, a noted Mormon apologist, some of those who leave the LDS Church "become sometimes feverishly active, determined to prove to the world and themselves that it is a fraud after all," while others "hold no rancor and even retain a sentimental affection for the Church—they just don't believe the gospel." However, neither group, Nibley affirms, can ever "leave it alone. ... It haunts them all the days of their life. No one who has ever had a testimony ever forgets or denies that he once did have it—that it was something that really happened to him." Although some Mormons avoid anti-Mormon material, others analyze and criticize it, such as William J. Hamblin, who addresses anti-Mormon attacks on the geography and archeology of the Book of Mormon in "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon." Some prominent LDS Church apologists believe that the opposition from anti-Mormonism can be beneficial to Mormonism. As Hugh Nibley expressed it, "We need more anti-Mormon books. They keep us on our toes." Orson Pratt also seemed to invite criticism when he said: Convince us of our errors of doctrine, if we have any, by reason, by logical arguments, or by the word of God, and we will be ever grateful for the information, and you will ever have the pleasing reflection that you have been instruments in the hands of God of redeeming your fellow beings from the darkness which you may see enveloping their minds. Evangelical Regarding the subject of Christian anti-Mormonism, Richard Mouw (President of the Fuller Theological Seminary) stated in 2004 at the Salt Lake Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, I am now convinced that we ... have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community. Indeed, let me state it bluntly to the LDS folks here this evening: we have sinned against you. The God of the Scriptures makes it clear that it is a terrible thing to bear false witness against our neighbors, and we have been guilty of that sort of transgression in things we have said about you. We have told you what you believe without making a sincere effort first of all to ask you what you believe...Indeed, we have even on occasion demonized you, weaving conspiracy theories about what the LDS community is 'really' trying to accomplish in the world. Mouw is not the only Christian calling for moderation. Similar pleas have been issued by David Rowe, Carl Mosser, Francis J. Beckwith, Paul Owen, Craig Blomberg, and others. Some church and parachurch groups have also made efforts to repair relations with the Mormons. In the 1980s, Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority "took some small steps toward Evangelical-Mormon cooperation for a shared social, political, and ethical agenda". In or around 2000, a Pentecostal congregation in Provo, Utah held a public ceremony of repentance for its negative attitudes and actions toward the Latter-day Saint community. Some traditional Christian churches and ministries, however, have expressed varying degrees of concern about the movement to abandon what they consider to be valid and cogent challenges to Mormon doctrine and teaching for the sake of "peaceful co-existence", and yet at the same time do not wish to be categorized with the fringe Christian elements that seek to be openly disruptive and antagonistic toward the LDS community. Political In 2011, Rick Santorum was asked if Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney would have problems in the 2012 presidential election cycle as Mormons. Santorum answered, "I hope not. ... I hope that people will look at the qualities of candidates and look at what they believe and what they're for and look [at] their records and then make a decision." Then-Vice President Joe Biden said, in a long response to a University of Pittsburgh student's question about how his own religious faith affected his philosophy of government: I find it preposterous that in 2011 we're debating whether or not a man is qualified or worthy of your vote based on whether or not his religion ... is a disqualifying provision. ... It is not. It is embarrassing and we should be ashamed, anyone who thinks that way. ==See also==