The Church is sometimes accused of believing and teaching the so-called doctrine of “blood atonement.” In most general terms the doctrine of blood atonement has reference to the great sacrifice made by Jesus Christ in the shedding of his blood upon the cross. Through that sacrifice the power of death was destroyed, and all mankind will receive the blessing of restoration to immortality. That is, each will be resurrected and can subsequently die no more. The doctrines of the Church also affirm that the atonement wrought by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ is fully efficacious in providing the gift of eternal life (living forever in the presence of God). This blessing may be provided for the individual who sincerely believes in the Savior, sincerely repent of his sins, is baptized by one having authority, and receives the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. So in this general way, we do believe in the doctrine of blood atonement. In fact, the entire Christian world believes in a variant of this doctrine.

The phrase “blood atonement” also has a more specific meaning. It refers to the doctrine that a murderer cannot be forgiven without his own blood’s being shed here in mortality. For the willful murderer, the Savior’s sacrifice alone will not absolve the person of the consequences of the sin. Only by voluntarily submitting to whatever penalty the Lord may require can that person benefit from the atonement of Christ.

Several early Church leaders, most notably Brigham Young, taught that in a complete theocracy the Lord could require the voluntary shedding of a murderer’s blood—presumably by capital punishment—as part of the process of atonement for such grievous sin. This is “the doctrine of blood atonement.” It remains, for us, a hypothetical doctrine only. Such a theocracy has not been operative in modern times. Blood atonement is not actually a doctrine of the Church and has never been practiced by the Church at any time.

Early anti-Mormon writers charged that under Brigham Young the Church practiced “blood Atonement,” by which they meant Church-instigated violence directed at dissenters, enemies, and strangers. This claim distorted the whole idea of blood atonement—which was based on voluntary submission by an offender—into a supposed justification of involuntary punishment. Occasional isolated acts of violence that occurred in areas where Latter-day Saints lived were typical of that period in the history of the American West, but they were not instances of Church-sanctioned blood atonement.