Question about the Nauvoo Endowment

[moksha]

The oath of vengeance was an addition made to the Nauvoo endowment under the direction of Brigham Young by 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple, soon after the 1844 death of Joseph Smith. Participants agreed to be bound by the following oath:

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

Is there anyone left from that 4th generation we need to worry about?

[Give It Time]

The oath of vengeance was an addition made to the Nauvoo endowment under the direction of Brigham Young by 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple, soon after the 1844 death of Joseph Smith. Participants agreed to be bound by the following oath:

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

Is there anyone left from that 4th generation we need to worry about?

Nope. My father just escaped that clause. Same here.

[Corsair]

In contrast, Bruce McConkie believed that “it is not unreasonable to suppose that many young men had babies at the time of this prophecy and also had other children as much as 50 or 75 years later, assuming for instance that they were married again to younger women. This very probable assumption would bring the date up to, say, the 2nd decade in the 20th century — and the children so born would be members of that same rising generation of which the Prophet spoke. Now if these children lived to the normal age of men generally they would be alive well past the year 2000 A.D.” (Mormon Doctrine pp. 692-693).

This is a case where leaders liked the idea of long generations. On the other hand, four generations of swearing an oath of vengeance against the United States became rather embarrassing by the time the Reed Smoot was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1903.

[Hagoth]

Maybe they still do it in special Q15 sessions but it's aimed at the people who names appear in the bubbles in their Enemies of the Church PowerPoint slide.

[Spicy McHaggis]

Maybe trump is the curse? Sorry, didn't mean to get political.

[Not Buying It]

Maybe trump is the curse? Sorry, didn't mean to get political.

Since you already got political, I'm going to point out that Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem is pretty tame compared to covenanting and promising "that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation." So many members blow a gasket over Kaepernick's protest, but I'd say imploring God to kick America's butt in the temple is way more unpatriotic.

Besides, praying for God to take vengeance on all of America is pretty unfair anyway, it wasn't all of America that murdered Joseph Smith, it was just a couple hundred really pissed off Illinosians.