Mormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 30s. The word Mormon originally derived from the Book of Mormon, a religious text published by Smith.
After praying about which denomination he should join, Smith said he received a vision in the spring of 1820.
During the 1820s Smith chronicled several angelic visitations, and was eventually told that God would use him to re-establish the true Christian church.
He said an angel first showed him the location of the plates in 1823, buried in a nearby hill.
With the assistance of Martin Harris, an early follower, Smith began dictating the text of the Book of Mormon on April 12, 1828.
Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and other early followers began baptizing new converts in 1829 and formally organized in 1830 as the Church of Christ.
Although translation was interrupted by persecution, Smith's continued employment in order to support his family, and Harris's loss of 116 pages, the Book of Mormon manuscript was finished in June 1829.
Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and other early followers began baptizing new converts in 1829 and formally organized in 1830 as the Church of Christ.
Though the religion quickly gained a large following of Christian seekers, in the 1830s, many American Christians came to view the church's early doctrines and practices as politically and culturally subversive, as well as doctrinally heretical, abominable, and condemnable.
Mormonism includes significant doctrines of eternal marriage, eternal progression, baptism for the dead, polygamy or plural marriage as authorized by God, sexual purity, health (specified in the Word of Wisdom), fasting, and Sabbath observance. The theology itself is not uniform; as early as 1831, and most significantly after Smith's death, various groups split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that Smith established.
However, they were expelled from Jackson County in 1833 and fled to other parts of Missouri in 1838.
However, they were expelled from Jackson County in 1833 and fled to other parts of Missouri in 1838.
However, tensions between Mormons and their neighbors again escalated and in 1844 Smith was killed by a mob, precipitating a succession crisis. The largest group of Mormons (members of the LDS Church) accepted Brigham Young as the new prophet and, under his direction, emigrated to what became the Utah Territory.
Other than differences in leadership, these groups most significantly differ in their stances on polygamy, which the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) banned in 1890, and Trinitarianism, which the LDS Church does not affirm.
In the 1890 Manifesto, church president Wilford Woodruff announced the official end of plural marriage. Due to this formal abolition of plural marriage, several smaller groups broke with the LDS Church and formed denominations following what they called Mormon fundamentalism.
Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982, "One cannot even be sure, whether [Mormonism] is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these".
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Page generated on 2021-08-05