What type of person followed John Lee?

[SeattleUte]

John Lee was a strong leader, charismatic, highly intelligent, a General Authority, one of Brigham Young's favorites. Just about any mainstream Mormon would follow him; it's not a culture that incourages questioning leadership or personal discretion or responsiblity when leaders direct them. Your answer,then, is probably a majority of people you run into in SM.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

John Lee was a strong leader, charismatic, highly intelligent, a General Authority, one of Brigham Young's favorites. Just about any mainstream Mormon would follow him; it's not a culture that incourages questioning leadership or personal discretion or responsiblity when leaders direct them. Your answer,then, is probably a majority of people you run into in SM.

"SM"?

What does that mean? I know what S&M means, but you're probably not referring to that activity.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Was it the naive, follow any order member, the average member, the gung ho attend every meeting member?

Who did that thing?

To me, it's incomprehensible that members murdered innocent people, but do we still possess that ability?

I probably wouldn't have done it, not out of nobility, but because of the unlikeliness that I would attend a non-Sunday group activity. I despise group Church activities.

And actually shooting people would make my stomach sick. But was there every a time where I was gung ho enough to commit such an atrocity? I dunno.

In one of the holocaust museums I've attended, they have a question, "What does the face of evil look like?"

Afterwards, you walk through a door to see a mirror of yourself.

I don't believe anyone opted out of following Lee's orders, so if 100% of them did it, it's probably safe to say nearly 100% of us would have done it.

It's a totally different culture and environment today. So it's very difficult to put ourselves in their shoes.

[creekster]

This is a very tough question. I am not too sure I want to spend too much time dwelling on it. In short, I think anyone is capable of greats acts of goodness and horrible acts of evil. I am not prepared to judge where on the scale of things these acts fell. To empathize, I think you would have to put yourself into a mindset that is completely alien to you. You would have to: have experienced great physical hardship in your daily existence; be eking out a living from the sweat of your brow at subsistence levels; be very poor; be geographically isolated; have been subject to significant and deadly persecution as a group and perhaps within your own family; been forced to leave one or more homes as a result of persecution or because of your beliefs and obedience or both; be resentful of outsiders; believe that outsiders are coming to attack you as authorized by your government; be aware that one of your own was killed by some of these outsiders under circumstances you considered very unfair; have come to rely on the group for direction and sustenance in all things temporal and spiritual; receive at best ambiguous direction from absent and remote leaders; be, despite your guiding Christian principles, angry at the deprivations forced on you by others.

I am not trying to justify their behavior or their decisions, which were horrible and unthinkably cruel. But I think it is impossible for us to truly understand what they were feeling or thinking, as they had endured so many things and were in such a difficult spot, from their point of view, that their calculations cannot be recreated by us.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by creekster

This is a very tough question. I am not too sure I want to spend too much time dwelling on it. In short, I think anyone is capable of greats acts of goodness and horrible acts of evil. I am not prepared to judge where on the scale of things these acts fell. To empathize, I think you would have to put yourself into a mindset that is completely alien to you. You would have to: have experienced great physical hardship in your daily existence; be eking out a living from the sweat of your brow at subsistence levels; be very poor; be geographically isolated; have been subject to significant and deadly persecution as a group and perhaps within your own family; been forced to leave one or more homes as a result of persecution or because of your beliefs and obedience or both; be resentful of outsiders; believe that outsiders are coming to attack you as authorized by your government; be aware that one of your own was killed by some of these outsiders under circumstances you considered very unfair; have come to rely on the group for direction and sustenance in all things temporal and spiritual; receive at best ambiguous direction from absent and remote leaders; be, despite your guiding Christian principles, angry at the deprivations forced on you by others.

I am not trying to justify their behavior or their decisions, which were horrible and unthinkably cruel. But I think it is impossible for us to truly understand what they were feeling or thinking, as they had endured so many things and were in such a difficult spot, from their point of view, that their calculations cannot be recreated by us.

A meaningful post.

It is just hard for me to fathom shooting unarmed persons, especially women and children. That said, I can somehow imagine how a group could be whooped up into a fever.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Archaea

"SM"?

What does that mean? I know what S&M means, but you're probably not referring to that activity.

Even I know what SM means. Sacrament meeting. It's a perfect acronym/double entendre, don't you think?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Even I know what SM means. Sacrament meeting. It's a perfect acronym/double entendre, don't you think?

Oh, I call it ST, sleep time.

S&M would get my attention, even if that's not the type of sex I desire.

[SteelBlue]

Originally Posted by creekster

This is a very tough question. I am not too sure I want to spend too much time dwelling on it. In short, I think anyone is capable of greats acts of goodness and horrible acts of evil. I am not prepared to judge where on the scale of things these acts fell. To empathize, I think you would have to put yourself into a mindset that is completely alien to you. You would have to: have experienced great physical hardship in your daily existence; be eking out a living from the sweat of your brow at subsistence levels; be very poor; be geographically isolated; have been subject to significant and deadly persecution as a group and perhaps within your own family; been forced to leave one or more homes as a result of persecution or because of your beliefs and obedience or both; be resentful of outsiders; believe that outsiders are coming to attack you as authorized by your government; be aware that one of your own was killed by some of these outsiders under circumstances you considered very unfair; have come to rely on the group for direction and sustenance in all things temporal and spiritual; receive at best ambiguous direction from absent and remote leaders; be, despite your guiding Christian principles, angry at the deprivations forced on you by others.

I am not trying to justify their behavior or their decisions, which were horrible and unthinkably cruel. But I think it is impossible for us to truly understand what they were feeling or thinking, as they had endured so many things and were in such a difficult spot, from their point of view, that their calculations cannot be recreated by us.

Good post. I think I agree with everything you've said here. By the way, is your secretary typing your posts now? They've been flawless lately.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by Archaea

In one of the holocaust museums I've attended, they have a question, "What does the face of evil look like?"

Afterwards, you walk through a door to see a mirror of yourself.

I imagine some people were fairly conflicted. Murder is wrong, but certain oaths and covenants promised dire consequences for disobedience. Like you, I also wonder who could justify such actions.

JH Beadle's 1870 Life in Utah describes the temple ceremony from the late 19th century in detail.

Instruction to the initiates: "The holy priesthood is once more established upon the earth, in the person of Joseph Smith and his successors. They alone have the power to seal. To this priesthood as unto Christ, all respect is due; obedience implicit, and yielded without murmur. He who gave life has the right to take it. His representatives the same. You are then to obey all orders of the priesthood, temporal and spiritual, in matters of life or death." (pg. 495)

Couple this with the vengeance oath, in which initiates swear to avenge the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and you have a recipe for mass murder. This oath, among other things, was a major issue in confirming Reed Smoot as a US Senator.

J. Brooks deals with this explanation in chapters 3 and 4 of MMM. One of the men in the Fancher company claimed to have "the gun that had killed Old Joe Smith." (pg. 56).

I'm sure this information is old hat to everyone, but even so, I can't imagine following through on those covenants in that way. Then again, I'm not the most faithful person out there.

FWIW, D. Beurger's The Mysteries of Godliness is a very interesting treatment of the history of the LDS temple ceremony. It's not an expose, but a historical treatment of changes in context.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Oh, I call it ST, sleep time.

S&M would get my attention, even if that's not the type of sex I desire.

I've always called Sunday School the SS. That makes someone the "SS President." Nobody ever chuckles but me.