Item Detail
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8812
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5
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15
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English
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Mormonism and Capital Punishment : A Doctrinal Perspective, Past and Present
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Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
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Spring 1979
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12
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9-26
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Early Mormon leaders such as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Jedediah M. Grant, and Heber C. Kimball taught that, according to scripture, some crimes are so heinous that only the spillout of the perpetrator's blood can achieve atonement for his soul. The option of execution by firing squad--the shedding of blood--is peculiar to Utah in the United States due to the Mormons' influence on state laws. Decapitation was another option in the Territory of Utah during 1852-76, as was hanging, which persists. Although elements of utilitarianism appeared in some early Mormon arguments for capital punishment as a deterrent to crime, retribution and atonement were emphasized. In the 20th century there are few references to the blood atonement doctine. Recently Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote that there has never been a doctrine of blood atonement in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After the Dead
Defending Zion : George Q. Cannon and the California Mormon Newspaper Wars of 1856-1857
People of Paradox : A History of Mormon Culture
Playing with Shadows : Voices of Dissent in the Mormon West
The Mormon Reformation of 1856-1857 : The Rhetoric and the Reality -
A Study of Executions in Utah
Blood Atonement as Taught by Leading Elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Essentials in Church History
Joseph Smith and World Government
Joseph Smith, the Man and the Seer
Mormonism and American Culture
Penology in Early Utah
Quest for Empire : The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History
The Articles of Faith : A Series of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Mormon Reformation
The Mormons
The State of Deseret
The Story of the Latter-day Saints
The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion
Utah's Peculiar Death Penalty