Mormonism Explained
Do Mormons Believe in Blood Atonement?
Brigham Young preached it during the frontier revival of 1856–57. The canon never contained it, the First Presidency has formally rejected it at least four times across 125 years — and the Church’s own essay tells the hard parts of the story anyway.
The Short Answer
Do Mormons believe in blood atonement?
No — and the Church has said so formally, repeatedly, on the record. Latter-day Saints believe remission of sins comes through one blood only: the blood of Jesus Christ, whose Atonement is infinite (1 John 1:7; Alma 34:8–12). During the revival preaching of 1856–57, Brigham Young taught that certain grave sins must be atoned for by the blood of the man — sermons that are real and stark. That teaching was never canonized. The First Presidency called practice-allegations entirely untrue in 1889; a First Presidency-commissioned 1978 response called it a theoretical principle never revealed nor practiced; and the 2010 official statement settled it: blood atonement is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Key Takeaways
- The sermons are real, and this article does not soften them. In the Mormon Reformation of 1856–57, President Brigham Young preached that some sins lie beyond ordinary remission and “must be atoned for by the blood of the man” (Sept. 21, 1856). Jedediah M. Grant preached in the same vein. Published then; quoted by critics ever since.
- The canon never contained it. No canonized text — before, during, or after 1856 — prescribes the sinner’s own blood as a remedy for any sin. In scripture, the blood that remits is always Christ’s: “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22) — His.
- The canon’s severity is real, and owned here. Scripture does teach hard categories: murder’s uniquely constrained forgiveness (D&C 42:18), blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Matthew 12:31), perdition (D&C 76:31–38). Severity is canonical. The self-blood remedy is not.
- The repudiation record spans 125 years. 1889: the full First Presidency and Twelve declare killing-of-apostates allegations “entirely untrue” and abhorrent. 1978: at the First Presidency’s direction, the teaching is called “a theoretical principle” never revealed nor practiced. 2010: officially, blood atonement “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
- The Church’s own essay tells the hard part. “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints” (2014) treats the sermons as revival-era hyperbole meant to provoke repentance, states that no Church-sanctioned instance of the practice is known — and acknowledges that violent rhetoric had real costs in territorial Utah. This article reports that concession rather than hiding it.
- What Latter-day Saints actually believe about atoning blood is the most Christ-centered doctrine they have: His, shed once, infinite, and sufficient.
Two Claims Travel Under This Question’s Name
The critic’s strong version: the Church taught — and practiced — the ritual killing of sinners. The record’s version: a prophet preached, in a season of revival fervor, that some sins demand the sinner’s own blood; the canon never adopted it; no Church-sanctioned instance of it is known; and the institution has rejected it in writing in four different generations — while its own essay concedes what the era’s rhetoric cost. The distance between those two versions is the distance this article measures, without flattening either.
Reading 1 — The Rhetoric
“By the blood of the man.” The Reformation sermons of 1856–57: real, published, severe — preached as a call to repentance in a revival season, never presented for canonization, and formally rejected as doctrine by every generation since that has addressed it.
Conceded in full · §02
Reading 2 — The Canon
“The blood of Jesus Christ... cleanseth us from all sin.” Scripture’s single answer to whose blood remits sin: an infinite Atonement, explicitly “not... a human sacrifice” (Alma 34:10), sufficient for all who repent — the doctrine, before 1856 and after.
Every claim primary-sourced · Critics’ best case included
Start With the Canon
What Canonized Scripture Actually Says
Begin with the question underneath the question: in Latter-day Saint scripture, whose blood remits sin? The canon’s answer is singular and insistent:
“And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins.”
Mosiah 4:2 — compare 1 John 1:7 (“the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”) and Hebrews 9:22
The Book of Mormon’s most systematic sermon on sacrifice goes further — it rules the alternative out by name. Amulek teaches that the required offering cannot be human: the great and last sacrifice will “not... be a human sacrifice” but “an infinite and eternal sacrifice” (Alma 34:10), for “there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another” (Alma 34:11). The Doctrine and Covenants locates all mediation in one person: Jesus, “the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood” (D&C 76:69). In canonized scripture the atoning blood has one owner, and every Latter-day Saint sacrament prayer renews the point weekly.
Honesty requires the other half: the canon’s severity is also real. Scripture teaches that murder carries uniquely constrained forgiveness — “he that kills shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come” (D&C 42:18); that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost “shall not be forgiven” (Matthew 12:31); that perdition is a real category (D&C 76:31–38). The Bible itself speaks of “a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16). What no canonized text does — in any of these hard passages — is prescribe the sinner’s own blood as the remedy. The severity is scriptural. The remedy proposed in 1856 never was.
At a Glance: What Is Scripture, What Was Preached — and What Is Neither?
Claim
Status
Canonized
Source
Claim
Status
Canonized
Source
Claim
Status
Preached — repudiated
Source
Claim
Status
Unresolved
Source
Claim
Status
Misinformation
Source
The Documents, in Context
The Sermons, the Era, and the Repudiations
The years 1856–57 were the Mormon Reformation — a season of intense revival preaching in territorial Utah, marked by calls to rebaptism, confession, and moral rigor after years of hardship. In that setting, on September 21, 1856, President Brigham Young preached the sermon critics quote most: that there are transgressions ordinary remission does not reach, and that some sins “must be atoned for by the blood of the man” (Journal of Discourses 4:53–54). Jedediah M. Grant, his counselor and the Reformation’s fiercest voice, preached in the same register. These sermons were published in Church newspapers, delivered from real pulpits, and framed — in their own texts — as terrible warnings meant to drive hearers to repentance before such a case could ever arise. An honest treatment concedes all of it: the teaching is not a critics’ invention, a misquotation, or a private aside.
What the teaching never became is doctrine — and here the record is unusually thick. It was never presented for canonization; no canonized text before or since contains it. When anti-polygamy prosecutions in the 1880s revived the accusation that the Church killed apostates, the full First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve issued a signed Official Declaration (Dec. 12, 1889) calling the allegation “entirely untrue” — punishment of that character, they wrote, they would view with horror as opposed to the fundamental principles of their creed. In 1978, when a University of Utah law journal inquired, the First Presidency directed Elder Bruce R. McConkie to respond formally; his answer called blood atonement “a theoretical principle” — one never revealed to the Church in this dispensation, never practiced, with no application to any living person, adding that if capital punishment is meant, honesty should call it capital punishment. And in June 2010, when a Utah execution revived the folklore in the press, the Church issued the settling official statement: mid-19th-century preachers used the strong, emotional oratory of their era, but so-called blood atonement “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” — the Church teaches an infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ that makes forgiveness possible for all people.
Then, in 2014, the Church did something institutions rarely do: it published the hard version of its own story. The Gospel Topics essay “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints” addresses blood atonement directly — reading the sermons as hyperbole intended to provoke repentance, and noting that most Latter-day Saints of the era appear to have understood them that way; stating that no instance of Church-sanctioned blood atonement is known; and acknowledging, without flinching, that violent rhetoric in territorial Utah carried real costs and may have influenced isolated acts of violence by individuals. That concession matters to this article’s credibility, and it is reported here exactly as the essay makes it: the doctrine was never doctrine — and the words were still not free. A tradition confident enough to publish that sentence about its own past has earned the right to be quoted on what its doctrine actually is.
The Full Picture
One Timeline: 1856 to 2014
The Canon’s Fixed Points
- Canonized / official
- Reported teaching
- Context
Scripture
Canonized. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb. 9:22) — and the blood is always Christ’s: infinite, “not... a human sacrifice” (Alma 34:10; 1 John 1:7; D&C 76:69).
Scripture
Canonized. The hard texts: murder’s constrained forgiveness (D&C 42:18); blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Matt. 12:31); perdition (D&C 76). Severity — with no self-blood remedy prescribed.
The Rhetoric — and Four Generations of Rejection
1856–57
Reported teaching. The Mormon Reformation. Brigham Young: some sins “must be atoned for by the blood of the man” (Sept. 21, 1856). Jedediah Grant preaches likewise. Never presented for canonization.
Dec. 12, 1889
Official. The full First Presidency and Twelve, in a signed declaration: allegations that the Church kills apostates are “entirely untrue” — abhorrent, and opposed to its creed.
1978
Official. At the First Presidency’s direction, Elder McConkie answers a law-journal inquiry: “a theoretical principle” — never revealed, never practiced, no application to anyone living.
June 2010
Official. Official statement: 19th-century preachers used the era’s emotional oratory, but blood atonement “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
2014
Official. The “Peace and Violence” essay: revival hyperbole meant to provoke repentance; no Church-sanctioned instance known — and an unflinching acknowledgment of what the era’s rhetoric cost.
The constant
Canonized. What Latter-day Saints covenant weekly at the sacrament: remission through one blood — His.
The Point
The Doctrine, Diagrammed
Whose Blood Atones? — and the Doctrine Test
The canon’s severity and the canon’s remedy must be read together — the 1856 sermons split them.
What Canon Teaches — Severity
Murder: forgiveness constrained (D&C 42:18). Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Matt. 12:31). Perdition (D&C 76:31–38); “sin unto death” (1 Jn. 5:16).
In every hard text: no self-blood remedy
What Canon Teaches — Remedy
“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7) — infinite, and explicitly “not... a human sacrifice” (Alma 34:10; D&C 76:69).
One atoning blood — His
The 1856 sermons kept the left panel and rewrote the right. The canon never did. Severity is scriptural; the self-blood remedy never was. Even the Bible’s “no more sacrifice for sins” texts (Hebrews 10:26) name no second blood — they mourn the refusal of the first. What remains is a classification question, and the Doctrine Test is the published instrument this site applies to every contested teaching.
The Doctrine Test — Applied to “Some Sins Require the Sinner’s Own Blood”
1 · Is it in the standard works — canonized by common consent?
yes
Doctrine — binding
No — every canonized remedy text names Christ’s blood, never the sinner’s
2 · Taught consistently, “frequently and by many,” in official channels?
yes
Current teaching — governing
No — rejected in writing: 1889, 1978, 2010; “is not a doctrine” of the Church
3 · Taught by a leader on occasion — never canonized or consistently repeated?
yes — 1856–57
Opinion / Reported Teaching
revival rhetoric — real, repudiated, not binding
4 · Does revelation address the question at all?
no
Unrevealed — no answer is doctrine
Verdict: Reported rhetoric — repudiated, never practiced
Only Christ’s blood atones in any canonized text. The 1856 excess was rejected in writing by four generations of the Church.
The gold trace is the claim’s actual path; grayed branches are roads not taken. Full instrument: the Doctrine Test. Criteria from published teachings: canonization by common consent; “taught frequently and by many” (Andersen, 2012); a single leader on a single occasion = opinion, not binding (Christofferson, 2012). The canon’s severity texts and Christ’s infinite Atonement take the top branch; the self-blood remedy never does.
Weighing the Claim
How Much Doctrinal Weight Does This Carry?
Canonized: One atoning blood — Christ’s, infinite, explicitly not a human sacrifice (Alma 34; 1 John 1:7; D&C 76:69) — and real severity categories for grave sin (D&C 42:18; Matthew 12:31; D&C 76), none of which prescribes a self-blood remedy. Both binding.
Preached, never canonized — and repudiated: The 1856–57 sermons proposing the sinner’s own blood. Real, published, severe; never presented for a vote; rejected in official writing in 1889, 1978, and 2010, and treated as revival hyperbole by the Church’s own 2014 essay. Historical weight: substantial. Doctrinal authority: none.
Official posture: Fourfold and consistent across 125 years — “entirely untrue” as practice (1889); “a theoretical principle” never revealed nor practiced (1978, at the First Presidency’s direction); “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (2010); hyperbole-with-costs (2014). On capital punishment generally, the Church’s stated position is neutrality: a matter for civil law.
Unresolved: Why the sermons were preached as they were — what Brigham Young and Jedediah Grant fully intended their frontier congregations to do with those words. The essay’s hyperbole reading is reported here; no further theory is adopted — the same restraint this site applies to the era’s other repudiated teaching and to how reported teachings are tiered generally.
Misinformation: That the Church practiced ritual killing, that apostates were “blood atoned” on Church orders, or that the teaching quietly persists. No Church-sanctioned instance is known; the allegation was formally denounced by the entire senior leadership in 1889; and the teaching survives today only in fundamentalist offshoots and true-crime folklore. Proportion: no manual, lesson, interview, or ordinance of the Church contains it, and most members first meet the phrase in critics’ materials.
The Root, Not the Branch
Why This Question Points to Christ
Strip the question to its theology and it asks: is the Atonement of Jesus Christ enough? The 1856 sermons, at their starkest, answered “not always” — and that is precisely where the canon refused to follow. Latter-day Saint scripture stakes everything on sufficiency: an atonement “infinite for all mankind” (2 Nephi 25:16), reaching “all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (2 Nephi 2:7), the only name and means given (Mosiah 3:17; Helaman 5:9). The sacrament — the Church’s weekly, universal ordinance — exists to point every member to His blood, not their own. When the Church’s 2010 statement rejected blood atonement, its stated ground was not public relations; it was Christology: the Church teaches an infinite, all-encompassing Atonement that makes forgiveness possible for all people.
And the hard texts, read whole, teach the same. The scriptures that constrain forgiveness for murder and blasphemy never propose a second sacrifice — Hebrews mourns that for the defiant “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:26), which is not the announcement of another offering but the tragedy of refusing the only one. The canon’s severity and the canon’s mercy are the same doctrine seen from two sides: one blood was shed, once, for all — and the gravest human condition is not to need a second, but to spurn the first. That is the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in 1830, in 1856, and today.
Steelmanning the Other Side
The Strongest Objection
Critics get three things right, and the first two are conceded above. The sermons were not stray hyperbole to their preacher: Brigham Young spoke of members offering their lives, framed the idea as mercy, and returned to the theme — this was preached as counsel in a real pulpit, not muttered in private. Second, the words were not free: the Church’s own essay acknowledges that the era’s violent rhetoric carried real costs in territorial Utah and may have influenced individuals toward violence — and critics did not extract that concession; the Church volunteered it. The strongest form of the objection then follows: a prophet’s preaching helped shape a climate in which people were harmed. Whatever the canon says, isn’t that the indictment — and doesn’t the “never doctrine” defense dodge it?
The Latter-day Saint response distinguishes what the objection fuses. On accountability: the Church’s 2014 essay accepts moral weight for the rhetoric’s climate — that is what publishing the concession means — and this article repeats it without qualification. Words from a pulpit have consequences, and these did. On doctrine: accountability for rhetoric is a different claim from “the Church taught and practiced ritual killing,” and the record separates them decisively — no canonized text ever contained the teaching; no Church-sanctioned instance is known; the full First Presidency and Twelve called the practice-allegation “entirely untrue” while the accusation was live and hostile, not after it faded; and the institution has renewed the rejection in three subsequent generations, unprompted by any court. On the residue critics cite — that a 1978 letter still located blasphemy and murder beyond the reach of Christ’s blood alone — precision matters: the severity is the canon’s own (D&C 42:18; Matthew 12:31), the letter’s operative sentence is that no blood-atonement law has ever been given to the Church, and the canon’s hard texts prescribe sorrow, not sacrifice. The honest verdict holds both halves: the rhetoric was real and costly, and the doctrine was never doctrine. A critique that needs those to be the same claim is not describing the record; it is flattening it.
The Honest Answer
So — Do Mormons Believe in Blood Atonement?
No. Latter-day Saints believe in one atoning blood — Christ’s, infinite and sufficient — and always have, by canon. Brigham Young preached beyond that canon in the revival heat of 1856–57; the canon never followed; and the Church has rejected the teaching in writing in 1889, 1978, and 2010, while its 2014 essay tells the era’s story with its costs included. What survives of “blood atonement” today lives in fundamentalist offshoots and folklore — not in any text, teaching, or practice of the Church.
The accurate one-sentence version: the sermons were real, the doctrine never was — and the Church has said both, on the record, for four generations.
Our Editorial Standard, Shown
The Nine-Principle Review: How This Article Was Stress-Tested
The Doctrine Test above classifies claims. This second instrument reviews the article itself against nine principles drawn from the published teachings of the Church’s prophets and apostles on how doctrine should be taught. On a subject involving violence, the fifth and eighth principles carry extra weight.
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The Test
How This Article Passes
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Principles drawn from published teachings including: D. Todd Christofferson, “The Doctrine of Christ” (Apr. 2012); Neil L. Andersen, “Trial of Your Faith” (Oct. 2012); Dale G. Renlund, “Your Divine Nature and Eternal Destiny” (Apr. 2022); Boyd K. Packer, “The Pattern of Our Parentage” (Oct. 1984); Russell M. Nelson, “Hear Him” (Apr. 2020) — all available at churchofjesuschrist.org. The same nine-point review is applied to every doctrine article we publish.
At a Glance
Quick Answers
Do Mormons believe in blood atonement?
No — “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (official, 2010).
NO — REJECTED ON THE RECORD
Did Brigham Young really preach it?
Yes — 1856–57 Reformation sermons, published then, quoted since. No misquotation defense is attempted.
YES — A MATTER OF RECORD
Was it ever Church doctrine?
No — never canonized, and formally rejected in writing in 1889, 1978, and 2010.
NEVER CANONIZED
Was it ever practiced?
No Church-sanctioned instance is known (essay, 2014); the full leadership called the allegation “entirely untrue” in 1889.
NO SANCTIONED INSTANCE KNOWN
Did the rhetoric do harm anyway?
The Church’s own essay says the era’s violent rhetoric carried real costs — a concession this article reports in full.
OWNED — BY THE CHURCH ITSELF
What do Latter-day Saints believe atones?
One blood: Christ’s — infinite, “not... a human sacrifice,” sufficient for all who repent.
HIS BLOOD ALONE
Frequently Asked Questions
Doesn’t D&C 42:18 say murderers can’t be forgiven? Isn’t that blood atonement?
It says forgiveness for murder is uniquely constrained — and prescribes no remedy of blood. The canon’s severity texts (D&C 42:18; Matthew 12:31; D&C 76) establish gravity, not a second sacrifice. The 1856 sermons added the remedy; the canon never did.
Is Utah’s firing squad a relic of blood atonement?
The folklore connecting them is why the Church issued its 2010 statement during a Utah execution’s press cycle: blood atonement “is not a doctrine” of the Church, and the Church’s stated position on capital punishment is neutrality — a matter for civil law. Individual inmates’ beliefs about their own deaths are theirs, not the Church’s.
Didn’t a 1978 letter say some sins are beyond Christ’s blood?
The letter — written at the First Presidency’s direction — restates the canon’s severity texts, then makes the operative point: no blood-atonement law has ever been given to the Church in this dispensation, it applies to no living person, and if capital punishment is meant, it should be called capital punishment. Its label for the 1856 idea: “a theoretical principle” never revealed nor practiced.
What about Mountain Meadows?
The 1857 massacre is the gravest event in Latter-day Saint history, and the Church has published its own unsparing scholarship on it. Its causes — war hysteria, local leadership failures, concealment after the fact — are treated there; historians of the event have long noted that blood atonement’s stated logic, concern for the sinner’s own salvation, does not describe what happened at Mountain Meadows. It deserves, and will receive, its own full treatment rather than a paragraph here.
Why did Brigham Young preach it at all?
The Church’s essay reads the sermons as revival hyperbole intended to provoke repentance, and notes most contemporaries appear to have heard them that way. Beyond that reading, this article adopts no theory — the same restraint applied throughout this series to what past leaders personally intended.
From the DMs: Tough Questions, Straight Answers
The harder questions, answered.
“Young said men came to him offering their lives. That’s not hyperbole — that’s a doctrine with believers.”
Verdict: Belief in a congregation is not doctrine in a canon — and this series has never claimed otherwise.
Some hearers plainly took the sermons at full strength; the preacher said so himself. That is exactly why the tier matters: the test for doctrine was never “did people believe it” but “was it canonized and consistently taught” — and by that published standard the teaching failed in its own century and every one since. The record you are citing is the record the Church’s essay prints.
“The essay admits the rhetoric fueled violence. Isn’t ‘it was never doctrine’ just a technicality after that?”
Verdict: Accountability and classification are both true — and only one of them is this question.
The essay’s concession is real and this article repeats it without softening: the words carried costs. But the claim under review is what Latter-day Saints believe — and no canonized text, manual, ordinance, or official teaching contains blood atonement, while four generations of formal rejection do. A tradition can owe honesty about its rhetoric’s history and still be owed accuracy about its doctrine. This article pays both debts.
“Fundamentalist groups still teach it and cite Brigham Young. Doesn’t that prove it was the original doctrine?”
Verdict: It proves the opposite — they must reach outside the canon to find it.
The groups that retain blood atonement retain it from sermons, not scripture — the same inversion this series met with Adam–God: elevating uncanonized preaching above the standard works and the living Church’s declarations. The Church that holds the canon rejected the teaching while its author’s own generation still lived, and has never stopped. What the offshoots preserve is precisely what the canon declined.
Sources
- 1 John 1:7; Hebrews 9:22; 10:26 — the blood that remits is Christ’s. churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures
- Alma 34:8–12 — an infinite Atonement, “not... a human sacrifice”; Mosiah 3:18; 4:2; 2 Nephi 25:16. churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/34
- Doctrine and Covenants 76:69 — the Mediator “wrought out this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood.” churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76
- Doctrine and Covenants 42:18; Matthew 12:31; D&C 76:31–38; 1 John 5:16 — the canon’s severity texts, remedy-free. churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/42
- Brigham Young, sermon of Sept. 21, 1856 (Journal of Discourses 4:53–54); Jedediah M. Grant, 1856–57 sermons — primary records of the teaching.
- First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, Official Declaration, Dec. 12, 1889 — practice allegations “entirely untrue” (primary record; Messages of the First Presidency).
- Bruce R. McConkie to Thomas B. McAffee, Oct. 1978, written at the First Presidency’s direction — “a theoretical principle,” never revealed nor practiced (primary record).
- Official Church statement, June 2010 — blood atonement “is not a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (issued via Church Public Affairs; widely reprinted). deseret.com
- “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints,” Gospel Topics essay (2014). churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays
- D. Todd Christofferson, “The Doctrine of Christ,” Apr. 2012; Neil L. Andersen, “Trial of Your Faith,” Oct. 2012 — the classification standards behind the Doctrine Test.
- “Do Mormons Believe Adam Is God?” — this series’ companion study of a repudiated 19th-century teaching.