One of the hardest things to answer for in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the statements made by Brigham Young regarding race. In various accounts of speeches by Brigham Young, he made bold declarations regarding marriage, the priesthood, and race. In the very first essay on the subject, “In Defense of the LDS Church on the Question of Race and the Priesthood”, it is addressed how the priesthood exclusion was neither soteriological nor consequential in any other way than perhaps social - that essay is worthy of a read, but this essay addresses something different: the potential for a prophet to be wrong.
The primary problem with any attack on Brigham Young for his failings or the Church rejecting some of his words as canon is that virtually every single charge lands back against anyone’s tradition that holds to the Bible, and in most cases the charges land on their post-biblical traditions as well. Even reading one book of the Old Testament is likely to reveal an account of prophets having failings, misconceptions, and misdeeds - any attempt to argue for Brigham being a false prophet must provide a massive list of special pleadings for the prophets of both the Old Testament and New. Attacking the LDS theological position must also, in most cases, specially plead the attacker’s own position - a Catholic must justify how their tradition is still true despite fully disavowing multiple popes, and the entire basis of Protestantism is the rejection of leaders and institution in service of rendering their churches valid. Either our leaders can be fallible, or yours (including the biblical prophets) cannot - in any such case, an attack by other Christians on this basis is an attack on themselves.
The Primary Problems
There are two main logical principles that need to be addressed before pursuing the logical implications of an attack on Brigham: 1) Expecting an LDS prophet to meet outside criteria is question begging, and 2) Brigham Young is downstream of LDS epistemology, not upstream.
Re: #1: A framework must be evaluated on its own premises - evaluating it from outside premises, not granted by the framework, begs the question. Any criteria drawn from outside the LDS framework to exclude Brigham as a prophet presuppose the external framework is true, or that the LDS framework is false - this is a question beg and a violation of logic and reason. An example of this question beg is the assumption of a closed canon: To argue that Brigham is a false prophet because he made mistakes no other prophet made is to assume the canon already closed in order to prove a closed canon. If the Bible holds an exhaustive, uncurated account of every mistake any prophet could make and still maintain prophethood, then functionally no new prophets can exist since new prophets are bound to make new mistakes. Thus, a closed canon is presupposed in proving a closed canon and circularly refuses new prophets. The problem with even this circularity is that virtually every mistake Brigham potentially made can be categorized with Old Testament prophets and requires special pleading with increasing specificity to provide a sufficient distinction to strip him of his prophethood.
Re: #2: Attempts to disprove LDS theology on the basis of the failures of LDS prophets sidestep the epistemology of the framework and presuppose a definition of prophet not found in the Bible. In virtually every case in the Bible, prophethood is something to lose - a prophet can fall (and bounce back), and no honest reading of the Bible can produce an empty list of prophets who made major mistakes. In most readings, that list contains the name of nearly every prophet in the Old Testament, and the mistakes of the prophets are a core component of their stories. Because the LDS framework asserts the fallibility of prophets, finding errors in LDS prophets does nothing to disprove it from within. The basis for knowing the restorative claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests almost entirely on communication with God - proving failings in the claims of any prophet of the restoration, no matter how bombastic, does nothing to disprove the claims of the restoration, which already assert the potentiality of those failings. If Brigham erred, then certainly he stress-tested that framework, but at no point could his errors violate it - it would require more than potentially egotistical presuppositions stated boldly as law to defeat the claims of the restoration. The typical apologetics approach of mitigating those claims, particularly those regarding marriage, by their ineffectuality is not useless - that ineffectuality allows us to qualify them as not fully understood - but it does miss the point that a framework that requires a collective and ongoing prophetic witness already accounts for potential failings, misconceptions, and prophetic confusion, and thus the epistemology of the restorative claims remains unharmed.
Even if Brigham erred greatly, so greatly that he "lost the plot" and fell from grace as a prophet, there was the entire Quorum of the Twelve maintaining the keys and authority to lead Christ's church and continue on. LDS theology makes no claim of his falling, and it's not being asserted here, but the potentiality is definitely there for any prophet to err so greatly as to lose their prophetic mantle. If such a thing were to happen, that failing would be downstream of the epistemology, not upstream. Christ's church is built in such a way as to allow for such failure - you may recall that one of Christ's original Twelve even fell. Thus, in a hypothetical world, where Brigham were removed as a prophet for leading Christ's church astray, it would have no effect on the LDS claims of restoration. One could still gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph's First Vision, and know that Christ's church had been restored and it would maintain the authority and leadership to persist.
Those are perhaps the primary logical problems with the attacks, but, as you will see, there are far more.
The Curated Canon Problem
The Old and New Testaments undoubtedly leave much out of the picture - in most cases we’re provided the primary details of each story as it pertains to the narrative. The Old Testament stories especially enjoy a long history of being tailored and told with varying accounts of events and details - even within the very books of the Bible this occurs. The books of 1-2 Chronicles are notable and relevant to this discussion as they retell the history of Israel and Judah found in 1-2 Kings and gloss over the flaws of David and Solomon - thus we have examples of the canon being curated within the very same canon. Undoubtedly the prophets in the Bible had misconceptions, wrongdoings, and failures that are not listed within the text.
The point of bringing up the curation of the canon is to expose the question beg of arguing on behalf of a curated canon - it assumes that that which survived was correct and all else was illegitimate. In other essays we also explored how the New Testament canon was selected expressly using popularity and orthodoxy as primary criteria - a flawed, question-begging methodology that answers the question of “Is this text scripture?” with “if people already think it is scripture”. Most of Brigham’s statements regarding race have been rejected from canon in the LDS tradition and in some cases outright refuted.
Accepting what is expressly a curated, filtered, and in some cases adapted canon while refusing Latter-day Saints the freedom to apply the same methodology of accepting or rejecting statements, even from prophets, as canon, refuses them the same right and freedom every other Christian (and Jew) enjoys. It is a logical failing, and the asymmetry displays the likely malicious, dishonest, and ideological intent of the accuser rather than a hole in the LDS framework.
Arguing against the right of LDS to choose their own canon invites the question of why one would insist that Brigham’s statements should be canon in the first place. The polemic interlocutor is likely either attempting to malign the faith in lieu of the faith’s own terms (and thus acting in bad faith), or they awkwardly find themselves in a place of affirming Brigham’s statements.
The Uneven Outside Criteria
Although the LDS framework can’t justify itself via a tu quoque, it can point out that the standard applied is flawed before it arrives. There’s virtually no other Christian tradition that hasn’t rejected one of its leaders, yet maintained that their religion and organization is still valid. Catholics, very notably, dug up and abused the remains of one of their popes to make sport of their rejection of that particular leader, because that rejection was so strong. The various Protestant denominations have no singular formal ecclesiastical leaders, but of the leaders they’ve had, they’ve rejected and refuted several. The qualifying argument to justify the standard against LDS leaders while refusing it against their own might be that if they’re truly prophets and truly receiving revelation, then they wouldn’t get things wrong in the same way as their own theology allows. This not only presupposes an unbiblical standard (as will be somewhat further explained), but falls especially flat against both Catholics and Protestants, whose leaders are charged with elucidating scripture via the Spirit - which looks incredibly similar to the prophetic revelation that Latter-day prophets claim.
As pointed out in the very first essay on the subject, many, if not most, Protestant leaders in the US at the time of Brigham Young had the same presuppositions about the cursed nature of blacks. Perhaps Brigham put more weight on the idea, but the response is the same: most Christians must do special pleading to invalidate an LDS leader when they’ve had leaders in their own traditions who were just as flawed in their teachings, and many of those flawed teachings fell on the same subjects.
Affirming Atrocity
A major problem with applying a strong standard to every claim from Brigham, besides rejecting the collective prophetic witness the LDS framework requires, is that that same standard forces every Christian who applies it to strongly affirm the killing of infants and nursing children, boys and non-virgin women, the rejection of intermarriage between groups (ring a bell?), not fully killing a beaten slave, and numerous other very troubling accounts. LDS theology is actually much more comfortable with these accounts as it’s capable of holding teachings far more provisionally - if something is troubling or seemingly conflicting in the Bible, the Latter-day Saint can hold it in the air and wait on further light and knowledge without having to strongly affirm those troubling accounts. If, however, you apply a strong standard to the LDS faith to either affirm or admit a false theology, you create a false dilemma for the theology, but also create a standard that forces you into fist-pumping what would otherwise appear as atrocity.
You can’t soften the blow of what are potentially outright bizarre and brutal accounts in the Bible and then try to harden it against a statement regarding race and interracial marriage or the priesthood. Applying a negative standard to Brigham that doesn’t harm your Christianity requires you to invert the severity between a strongly worded, yet ineffectual proclamation against interracial marriage, and actually killing hundreds of innocent suckling children.
The 2 Prophet Dilemma
One thing often overlooked in this conversation is the fact that Orson Pratt, an apostle alongside Brigham Young, was himself a prophet, seer, and revelator. In order to argue that Brigham is not a prophet for the things he said, you must submit that Orson could potentially be a prophet for contradicting him. In reality, the LDS scriptures are clear that there must be consensus among them, especially to carry the weight and authority of canon - not only as a commandment, but as a feature to hedge against that very fallibility of the prophets. D&C 107:27 is clear that decisions of presiding quorums must be unanimous, and D&C 26:2 that the church must act by common consent, “by much prayer and faith”. Brigham’s failure to achieve that consensus before making his claims appears to be a mistake - the kind of mistake you’d expect from a bold, brash, visionary leader who had to trust his instincts and be rough and rowdy enough to lead the Saints out of the very serious peril they faced in the eastern United States across the plains to settle an entirely new outpost of civilization in a desert. Do not forget, their very prophet, Joseph, had just been murdered in cold blood, and they had faced numerous atrocities and violations of their rights, including an extermination order against them.
Attacking Brigham as a prophet requires turning a blind eye to at least one other prophet at the time who refuted Brigham on some of the very issues found troubling today. Ignoring the mechanism of the collective prophetic witness established, which clearly hedges against the fallibility of the prophets, requires cherry-picking to ignore that mechanism during an internal critique and question begging to refuse that mechanism while doing an external critique.
There are in fact many instances in the Bible where a prophet makes one claim, and years later another prophet corrects that claim - the mechanism remains the same in the restored gospel. There are also instances of contention among prophets in the Bible who coexisted, notably Paul and Barnabas, who split after a sharp contention (Acts 15:39). One of the most poignant examples of this corrective action of continuing revelation is Isaiah 56:3-7, where Isaiah promises eunuchs and foreigners who keep the covenant a place in God’s house, who were previously barred entry in Deuteronomy 23:1-3 (also ringing a bell?).
The Asymmetry of Fruits
There’s a certain asymmetry between Brigham’s troubling claims and his positive qualities, attributes, and claims. The opposition to Latter-day Saints, however, often offers its own asymmetry of focusing primarily on his troubling claims while ignoring the rest. Did Brigham potentially succumb to ego to a degree as his power and influence progressed? Very possibly, and LDS theology is not afraid in the slightest to allow for that possibility. The entire framework is built around becoming agents in the face of that fallibility - helping us with that is likely a core aspect of the atonement in LDS theology. Brigham will no doubt have to answer for any stumbling blocks he provided, but to look only at those stumbling blocks is dishonest and one-sided.
Brigham Young preserved the Church after Joseph’s death, sent missionaries of Christ across the world, and brought many thousands of converts to Christ who were willing to risk it all to be closer to God. As previously stated, there’s no test of fallibility that Brigham fails that Moses also wouldn’t fail - who not only killed an Egyptian, but violated God’s command and struck the rock in anger when God told him to speak to it instead (Numbers 20:7-12). Those failings, however, cannot overshadow the 65,000 pioneers who migrated across 1,300 miles of treacherous frontier to Utah to be part of Christ’s church, nor can those failings overshadow the fact that they were functionally ineffectual and black people felt comfortable enough to live near and directly petition him for changes.
No Latter-day Saint would argue that Brigham isn’t flawed, but to argue on that point alone is to turn a blind eye to the fact that he was a visionary, inspiring character who brought tens of thousands to Christ, helped many people temporally, and by some accounts was a colonizing genius.
The Biblical Precedents
There are so many biblical precedents that must be ignored to attack Brigham Young that identifying them brings into question whether the Christian making the attacks actually has any faith in their own tradition at all.
- Daniel doesn’t understand his own prophecy (Daniel 12:8-9)
- Peter says the prophets didn’t fully understand what they wrote (1 Peter 1:10-12)
- Philip provides a meaning to Isaiah that wasn’t previously known (Acts 8:30-35)
- Matthew 2:15 reinterprets Hosea 11:1
In the Bible there are examples of prophets erring, prophets updating, elucidating, and correcting the words of previous prophets, prophets not understanding their own prophecies, and prophets revealing troubling commandments involving slavery, marriage, killing, circumcision, and many others. You can’t look at Brigham Young as a false prophet without endless amounts of special pleading on behalf of the text used to compare him against - you must first insist he’s not a prophet and proceed on that presupposition in order to exclude him. Excluding Brigham from prophethood via that special pleading is like seeing a dog eat grass for the first time and concluding that it is not a dog, but instead some sort of cow. A dog can express its canineness as it pleases, and a prophet can make prophetly mistakes. A new prophet must be able to commit new mistakes, or else no one can be a new prophet - that is the conclusion of closed revelation smuggled in as part of its own argument.
Conclusion
No matter how certain Brigham may have claimed to be about his various proclamations, no claim of certainty, regardless of bombasticity, could eradicate the possibility of flaw. Had Brigham been a more humble or perfect prophet, perhaps he might have presumed less and leaned more on the counsel of his quorum and God on certain issues. Brigham was not perfect, however, and continuing revelation and prophetic counsel are exactly the hedge built into LDS theology against that imperfection.
Latter-day Saints can hold many things provisionally unless and until they receive greater light, and they have since received greater light and knowledge on the issue of race and priesthood and marriage. God works through imperfect men and doesn’t suddenly make them perfect upon being a prophet - there’s no shortage of prophets erring and defying the Lord in the Bible, and there’s no reason that pattern would not continue if God were to continue to call prophets. Placing the expectation of perfection or near perfection on Latter-day prophets not only ignores the purpose and function of the mechanisms of continuing revelation and combined prophetic counsel, but forces a standard onto the LDS faith that is nonexistent in the faiths of those Christians attacking it. Holding troubling things provisionally, obeying the prophets in the meantime, and working to receive revelation on those issues for ourselves is a primary aspect of agency building that the atonement of Christ has enabled for us.
Ultimately we don’t know if Brigham Young was teaching from incomplete understanding of revelation, his own ego or presuppositions, or something else, but we do know that without more context, later teachings from prophets contradict what he has said. Brigham was not the first and will not be the last to teach from his presuppositions - instead of burning those leaders at the stake, we rely on the collective prophetic witness and continuing revelation to hone in on the truth and simply exclude from canon those teachings that don’t conform. The allowance the LDS tradition has for speculation and postulation is arguably fundamental for new discovery and revelation, but it does not come without the cost of being wrong occasionally.