Blood Atonement Charge

Critics claim that during the administration of Brigham Young apostates were secretly put to death. They claim this is in line with the teachings of LDS leaders at the time that apostasy was the unforgivable sin, and that the only thing an apostate could do to redeem himself was to give his own life, willingly or unwillingly. H/T FairWiki

As outrageous as this claim is, it was a popular charge 150 years ago. The First Presidency responded formally to this preposterous charge in 1889.

Notwithstanding all the stories told about the killing of apostates, no case of this kind has ever occurred, and of course has never been established against the Church we represent. Hundreds of seceders from the Church have continuously resided and now live in this territory, many of whom have amassed considerable wealth, though bitterly opposed to the Mormon faith and people. Even those who made it their business to fabricate the vilest falsehoods, and to render them plausible by culling isolated passages from old sermons without the explanatory context, and have suffered no opportunity to escape them of vilifying and blackening the characters of the people, have remained among those whom they have thus persistently calumniated until the present day, without receiving the slightest personal injury.

We denounce as entirely untrue the allegation which has been made, that our Church favors or believes in the killing of persons who leave the Church or apostatize from its doctrines. We would view a punishment of this character for such an act with the utmost horror; it is abhorrent to us and is in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of our creed.

This illustrates in part the extreme lengths to which our enemies will go to in order to smear the Church. I submit that it is more of a reflection on them, then it is on us. Now I concede that the First Presidency issuing a statement is not proof that it never happened. Proving a negative is always difficult, that is probably why dishonest critics engage in such outrageous charges. Honest critics are never so outrageous. Dishonest ones practice this form of sophistry with regularity.