For over a decade, the world has been embroiled in a conversation about the dangers of religious extremism and terrorism. Strangely, Mormonism has been left out of the conversation. Until today.

Multiple news sources are reporting that American Mormons, Ryan and Ammon Bundy, have organized a group of armed anti-government protesters and have taken over a federal building on a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. They are protesting against the pending imprisonment of two ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, who were convicted of burning federal land.

According to the Washington Post:

Noting that the group isn’t holding hostages, Ryan Bundy echoed his brother, telling the Oregonian that the group doesn’t want to resort to violence but will not rule it out if authorities attempt to remove the occupiers from the property. He said many of the occupiers would be willing to fight — and die — to reclaim constitutionally protected rights for local land management, according to the Associated Press.

It would be tempting to suggest that a handful of Mormons have gone rogue, that they have taken an extreme worldview that isn’t based on their faith, and that they are corrupting the tenets of Mormonism, a religion that goes generations back for the Bundy family. Could one conflate their behavior and politics with all Mormons? Are all Mormons dangerous?

Let’s look at the evidence:

Like the Bundy family, Mormonism has long believed that America is “The Promised Land,” and land they believed God wanted them to inherit. And like the Bundy’s, Mormons have believed the Constitution to be a Divine Document, at risk of being corrupted by greedy and wicked leaders.

Mormon founder, Joseph Smith and his followers, commonly known as Mormons, began to settle in Jackson County in 1831 to “build up” the city of Zion. Tensions built up between the rapidly growing Mormon community and the earlier settlers, eventually leading to Mormons being driven from the county. Like the Bundy family, Mormons in the early 1830’s began protesting their rights to be driven from land they believed they had a claim to. Mormon doctrine contends, by revelation (recorded on June 6, 1831) —that if they were righteous they would inherit the land held by others (“which is now the land of your enemies”) in Missouri.

According to Mormon historian Richard Anderson:

In 1833 [Lieutenant Governor Lilburn] Boggs passively saw community leaders and officials sign demands for Mormon withdrawal, and next force a gunbarrel contract to abandon the county before spring planting…anti-Mormon goals were reached in a few simple stages. Executive paralysis permitted terrorism, which forced Mormons to self-defense, which was immediately labeled as an “insurrection,” and was put down by the activated militia of the county. Once Latter Day Saints were disarmed, mounted squads visited Mormon settlements with threats and enough beatings and destruction of homes to force flight.

The stand-off between Mormons and government officials led to the death of at least 22 including 3 Mormons and 1 non-Mormon at Crooked River, one Mormon prisoner fatally injured while in custody, and 17 Mormons at Haun’s Mill. An unknown number of non-combatants died due to exposure and hardship as a result of being expelled from their homes in Missouri.

Over a decade and several similar conflicts later, Mormons would find themselves fleeing the United States for refuge in Mexico. They left the concentrated Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois and headed West, to what would eventually be the Utah Territory.

As they traveled West, the anti-government sentiment was strong:

He [Brigham Young] called upon the Lord to bless this place [winter quarters in Council Bluffs, Iowa] for the good of the Saints and curse every Gentile who should attempt to settle here, with sickness, rottenness and death. Also to curse the land of Missouri that it might cease to bring forth grain or fruit of any kind to its inhabitants, and that they might be cursed [with] sickness, rottenness and death; that their flesh might consume away on their bones. And their blood be turned to maggots, and that their torments never cease, but increase until they leave the land and it be blessed for possession of the Saints.

Diary of Mary Haskin Parker Richards, typescript, Sunday, May 14, 1848, Marriott Library, University of Utah, p. 69

(Brigham Young would make multiple, graphic, public calls for violence).

Mormons would arrive in the Salt Lake valley in 1847. They called this land “Deseret,” a term derived from the Book of Mormon, a scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to the Book of Mormon, “deseret” meant “honeybee” and speaks to the industrious attitude of 19th century Mormons.

As the Mormon people found themselves in increased conflict with the United States Government (so much so that Brigham Young, who would lead the Mormons in the 1840-70’s tried to create his own language, currency, and economic system that would not rely on an American system).

By the late 1850’s, tensions had spilled over and Mormons in Utah faced an inevitable government takeover. Faced with the threat of their liberty and religious freedom, Mormons engaged in several standoffs and conflicts. Brigham Young famously said:

Every organization of our government, the best government in the world, is crumbling to pieces. Those who have it in their hands are the ones who are destroying it. How long will it be before the words of the prophet Joseph will be fulfilled? He said if the Constitution of the United States were saved at all it must be done by this people. It will not be many years before these words come to pass.

The Mormons blocked the army’s entrance into the Salt Lake Valley, and weakened the U.S. Army by hindering them from receiving provisions.

The confrontation between the Mormon militia, called the Nauvoo Legion, and the U.S. Army involved some destruction of property and a few brief skirmishes in what is today southwestern Wyoming, but no battles occurred between the contending military forces.

At the height of the tensions, on 11 September 1857, more than 120 California-bound settlers from Arkansas, Missouri and other states, including unarmed men, women and children, were killed in remote southwestern Utah by a group of local Mormon militiamen. They first claimed that the migrants were killed by Native Americans, but it was proven otherwise. This event was later called the Mountain Meadows massacre, and the motives behind the incident remain unclear.

Involved in the massacre, was Dudley Leavitt, a distant maternal relative of Cliven Bundy and his sons. (Also my ancestor!) At the time of these conflicts, Mormons evoked religious doctrine, theology, and scripture as justification for their actions.

In the 1870’s and 1880’s, Mormons again found themselves in conflict with the tyrannical United States government. There was increased pressure for Deseret to give up it’s sacredly-held, and once-essential practice of Plural Marriage (polygamy).

You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray, and never cease to pray, Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and your children’s children unto the third and fourth generations.

U.S. Senate Document 486 (59th Congress, 1st Session) Proceedings Before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate in the Matter of the Protests Against the Right of Hon. Reed Smoot, a Senator from the State of Utah, to hold his Seat, pp. 6-7 (Oath was removed from temple ceremony on February 15, 1927)

Like the Hammond family (whose treatment the Bundy family is protesting), Mormons once again found themselves on public and legal trial. The tension led leaders like Mormon Church President John Taylor, to go into hiding in 1884 and evade authorities so he could practice plural marriage illegally. He ardently encouraged other Mormons to break the law and follow his lead.

“You have asked me concerning the New and Everlasting Covenant and how far it is binding upon my people. Thus saith the Lord All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant. For I the Lord am everlasting and my everlasting covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with; they stand forever. Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my law and the keeping of my commandments, and yet I have borne with them these many years and this because of their weakness because of the perilous times. And furthermore it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regard to these matters. Nevertheless I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not. And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph all those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory they must do the works of Abraham. I have not revoked this law nor will I for it is everlasting and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof, even so Amen.” – John Tayor Papers (Prophet), Church Historian’s Office, Sept. 27th, Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

There are hundred more conflicts and skirmishes that could be cited in line with the Bundy family. It’s not just LDS church history where comparisons can be drawn, Mormon hymns once contained violent stanzas:

Wake, O Wake, the World From Sleeping [T]he Lion’s left his thicket;

Up, ye watchmen, be in haste,

The destroyer of the Gentiles

Goes to lay their cities waste,

We’re the true born sons of Zion.

– Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1871, quoted in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, p. 250

and

O! Ye Mountains High God will strengthen thy feet,

On the necks of thy foes thou shalt tread…

Thy deliverance is nigh,

Thy oppressors shall die,

And the Gentiles shall bow ‘neath thy rod.

– Sacred Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1871, quoted in Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, p. 250

There isn’t enough room in this blog post to quote every oath of vengeance, every instance of Mormon anti-government rhetoric, every scripture calling for violence, but it’s there and it’s deep in the veins of Mormons who have settled in the West.

Ryan and Ammon Bundy have been flagged by the FBI for their anti-Muslim rhetoric. So too, have many other Mormons participated in xenophobic sentiment across social media and elsewhere.

When the American people or property are under attack by religious extremism, we tend to look at the religion to dig at the roots of the thinking leading to violent actions. Is it time to call on future leaders like Donald Trump, to take a stand against this violent and extremist group?

Can Mormonism be lumped in with perceived “violent” religions like Islam, because of some of its violent passages? Does this mean all Mormons are violent extremists?

Perhaps instead, Mormons can look to their own history to realize with self-reflection that a handful of religious extremists should not be used to condemn and entire religion of people. Perhaps Mormons can use this time to publicly denounce the cries to war and conflict that the Bundy’s are espousing. Mormons can stand in solidarity with all Americans (from Muslim to Mormon) against terrorism, and use our texts to reflect peace, instead of violence, empathy instead of hypocrisy, understanding instead of mistrust, and unity instead of discord.