Mormon Reformation was a period of religious purification and rededication within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of the church are commonly called Mormons , based on their belief that the Book of Mormon is scripture, alongside the Bible . The reformation lasted from late 1856 to mid-1857. During that time, the church leadership under Brigham Young and Jedediah Grant strongly criticized the behavior of people living in the Utah Territory, in an effort to get them to repent. The Mormon Reformation led some people to leave Utah . It also contributed to conditions that led to some violent incidents.
Mormon pioneers had arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the northern part of what is now the state of Utah in the western United States in 1847. They founded Great Salt Lake City (now Salt Lake City ) there. Nearly ten years later, Brigham Young, church president and governor of the Utah Territory, lamented what he perceived as church members’ dwindling attention to religious worship. To remedy this problem, Young began a series of reforms. For example, he suspended the sacrament (religious ceremony) of the Lord’s Supper. He required the rebaptism of all Mormons who wished to remain church members. He also established a program of home visits to encourage church members to reform and repent. Mormon leaders and teachers visited the scattered settlers of the Utah Territory and emphasized the importance of moral behavior and commitment to churchly duties. They had an order to seek out and uncover sinful behaviors—even minor ones.
Young and other church leaders went on preaching tours, condemning sin and explaining redemption in terms that often were violent. Some Mormon leaders, including Young, preached the concept of blood atonement—that is, the belief that some sins may be forgiven only through the shedding of the sinner’s blood. This harsh view of repentance might have contributed to several episodes of physical violence against dissenters and non-Mormons. Dissenters were Mormons who disagreed with church leaders. Some historians think the Mormon Reformation helped cause the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. During that massacre, some Mormon settlers and some American Indians they had recruited killed about 120 members of a wagon train traveling through southern Utah to California.
By the middle of 1857, the reformation had reinvigorated religious worship and church attendance among the Mormons. It also had encouraged many discontented Mormons and non-Mormons to leave the Utah Territory. The sermons about blood atonement and the intense effort to expose sinful behavior soon faded from Mormon teaching and practice. Although church leaders had achieved their goal of spiritual recommitment, their efforts to unify church members in Utah also unified much of the United States public against Mormonism. Through the media of that time, people who had left Utah communicated their concerns about what was happening there. Such publicity may have helped cause the Utah War (1857-1858), an armed conflict between Utah’s Mormons and the U.S. government.
