Christian primitivist church, called the "Church of Christ". The Book of Mormon attracted hundreds of early followers, who later became known as "Mormons", "Latter Day Saints", or just "Saints". In 1831, Smith moved the church headquarters to Kirtland, Ohio, and in 1838 changed its name to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints".[7][8]
After the church in Ohio collapsed due to a financial crisis and dissensions, in 1838, Smith and the body of the church moved to Missouri. However, they were persecuted and the Latter Day Saints fled to Illinois. After
Smith was killed in 1844, a succession crisis led to the organization splitting into several groups. The largest of these, the LDS Church, migrated under the leadership of Brigham Young to the Great Basin (now Utah) and became known for its 19th-century practice of polygamy. The LDS Church officially renounced this practice in 1890 and gradually discontinued it, resulting in Utah Territory becoming a U.S. state. This change resulted in the formation of several small sects that sought to maintain polygamy and other 19th-century doctrines and practices, now referred to as "Mormon fundamentalism".[9]
Other groups originating within the Latter Day Saint movement followed different paths in Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. For the most part, these groups rejected plural marriage and some of Smith's later teachings. The largest of these, Community of Christ (known previously as the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"), was formed in Illinois in 1860 by several groups uniting around Smith's son, Joseph Smith III.
The founder of the Latter Day Saint movement was Joseph Smith, and to a lesser extent, during the movement's first two years, Oliver Cowdery.[citation needed] Throughout his life, Smith told of an experience he had as a boy having seen God the Father and Jesus Christ as two separate beings, who told him that the true church of Jesus Christ had been lost and would be restored through him, and that he would be given the authority to organize and lead the true Church of Christ.[10]
The Latter Day Saint church was formed on April 6, 1830, consisting of a community of believers in the western
Manchester, and Colesville. The church was formally organized under the name of the "Church of Christ". By 1834, the church was referred to as the "Church of the Latter Day Saints" in early church publications,[11] and in 1838 Smith announced that he had received a revelation from God that officially changed the name to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints".[12][13]
In 1844,
William Law and several other Latter Day Saints in church leadership positions publicly denounced Smith's secret practice of polygamy in the Nauvoo Expositor, and formed their own church. The city council of Nauvoo, Illinois, led by Smith, subsequently had the printing press of the Expositor destroyed. In spite of Smith's later offer to pay damages for destroyed property, critics of Smith and the church considered the destruction heavy-handed. Some called for the Latter Day Saints to be either expelled or destroyed.[14][15]
Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, the
Midwest United States); and "Rocky Mountain Saints" (those who followed Young to what would later become the state of Utah).[16]
Today, the vast majority (over 98 percent) of Latter Day Saints belong to the LDS Church, which reports over 16 million members worldwide.
fundamentalist sects which separated from the LDS Church after it rejected plural marriage in 1890 claim tens of thousands of members.[19]
Most members of Latter Day Saint churches are adherents to
Second Coming as traditional Christianity. Nevertheless, Mormons agree with non-Mormons that their view of God is significantly different from the trinitarian view of the Nicene Creed of the 4th century.[20]
Mormons consider the Bible as scripture and have also adopted additional scriptures. These include the
evangelicals, proselytize Mormons.[24] The LDS Church has a formal missionary program with nearly 70,000 missionaries, with 15 training centers and 407 missions worldwide.[25] A prominent scholarly view is that Mormonism is a form of Christianity, but is distinct enough from traditional Christianity so as to form a new religious tradition, much as Christianity has roots in but is a distinct religion from Judaism.[26]
The Mormonism that originated with Smith in the 1820s shared strong similarities with some elements of 19th-century
Godhead included God, the Eternal Father, also known as Elohim; his only-begotten son in the flesh, Jesus Christ, also known as Jehovah, the savior and redeemer of the world; and the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, an individual personage of spirit whose influence can be felt in many places at once. Further, Smith taught that the essence of all humans is co-eternal with God and that humans, as the spirit offspring of God the Father, have the potential to become like God. The LDS Church, the largest Mormon denomination, while acknowledging its differences with mainstream Christianity, often focuses on its commonalities, which are many, the most important of which is that Christ is the savior of the world and that he suffered for the world's sins so that the penitent can return to live in heaven.[22]
A small fraction of Latter Day Saints, most notably those within Community of Christ, the second largest Latter Day Saint denomination, follow a traditional Protestant theology. Community of Christ views God in trinitarian terms, and reject the distinctive theological developments they believe to have been developed later in Mormonism.[27]
Saint-designation of members
The beliefs within the LDS Church with regard to saints are similar but not quite the same as the Protestant tradition. In the
Latter-day Saints" or "LDS", and among themselves, "saints".[29]
Restoration
Main article:
Restoration (Latter Day Saints)
The Latter Day Saint movement classifies itself within Christianity, but as a distinct restored
Greek and other philosophies,[31] and followers dividing into different ideological groups.[32]
^While not considered a schism of the Church of Christ (Fettingite) and its founder Otto Fetting, the Church of Christ at Halley's Bluff accepted Fetting's revelations, but it did not immediately break with the Fettingites in 1929. Nerren and Long instead formed a separate sect in 1932, which was later joined by five other former Temple Lot congregations by 1941.
— (III.) Minuscule, founded in the 19th century*† —
*^ Membership worldwide; generally church-reported; with an occasional exception †^ Once larger
^Organized the Church of Christ, the Latter Day Saint movement's original organization, of which multiple denominations currently believe themselves the true successor
^Members consider themselves as remaining adherents of the (historical) Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (As of 2011, litigation by the Community of Christ against Restoration Branch individuals and entities generally established CofC's right to both the full and abbreviated RLDS name.)
^Manuscript History of the Church, LDS Church Archives, book A-1, p. 37; reproduced in Dean C. Jessee(comp.) (1989). The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings(Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book) 1:302–303.
^H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters (1994). Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books) p. 160.
^See, e.g., Joseph Smith (ed), Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Kirtland, Ohio: F. G. Williams & Co., 1835).
^Manuscript History of the Church, LDS Church Archives, book A-1, p. 37; reproduced in Dean C. Jessee (comp.) (1989). The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book) 1:302–303.
^H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters (1994). Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books) p. 160.
^Oaks, Dallin H; Hill, Marvin S (May 1979). Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith. University of Illinois Press. p. 15.
^Saturday/Sunday Bulletin World Conference 2019. Community of Christ. 2019. pp. 15–16.
^The term Mormon fundamentalist appears to have been coined in the 1940s by apostleMark E. Petersen: Ken Driggs, "'This Will Someday Be the Head and Not the Tail of the Church': A History of the Mormon Fundamentalists at Short Creek", Journal of Church and State43:49 (2001) at p. 51.
^Shipps (1985, pp. 148–49) (arguing that "Mormonism differs from traditional Christianity in much the same fashion that traditional Christianity ... came to differ from Judaism.").
^Smith's restoration was slightly different from other restorationists of the era (for instance, that of Alexander Campbell). Instead of analyzing the Bible, Smith claimed to write and interpret scripture as the biblical prophets did. Bushman (2008, p. 5)
Media related to Latter Day Saints at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of Latter-Day Saint at Wiktionary
Works related to Category:Mormons at Wikisource
Quotations related to Category:Latter Day Saints at Wikiquote
