Mormons
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the Second Great Awakening. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several groups following different leaders; the majority followed Brigham Young, while smaller groups followed Sidney Rigdon and James Strang. Many who did not follow Young eventually merged into the Community of Christ, led by Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III. The term Mormon typically refers to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest branch, which followed Brigham Young. People who identify as Mormons may also be independently religious, secular, and non-practicing or belong to other denominations.
Since 2018, the LDS Church has expressed the desire that its followers be referred to as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or just members, if the identity of the church is made clear previously in the context, as the term Mormon can be considered offensive by the community.
Members have developed a strong sense of community that stems from their doctrine and history. One of the central doctrinal issues that defined Mormonism in the 19th century was the practice of plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy. From 1852 until 1904, when the LDS Church banned the practice, many members who had followed Brigham Young to the Utah Territory openly practiced polygamy. Members dedicate significant time and resources to serving in their churches. A prominent practice among young and retired members of the LDS Church is to serve a full-time proselytizing mission. Members have a health code that eschews alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, and addictive substances. They tend to be very family-oriented and have strong connections across generations and with extended family, reflecting their belief that families can be sealed together beyond death. Members also adhere to a law of chastity, requiring abstention from sexual relations outside heterosexual marriage and fidelity within marriage.
Mormons identify as Christian, but no other Christian denominations consider LDS Church members to be Christian because their beliefs differ from those of Christianity. They believe that Christ's church was restored through Joseph Smith and is guided by living prophets and apostles. Members believe in the Bible and other books of scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. They have a unique view of cosmology and believe that all people are literal spirit children of God: they believe that returning to God requires following the example of Jesus Christ and accepting his atonement through repentance and ordinances such as baptism.
During the 19th century, converts into LDS Church tended to gather in a central geographic location, a trend that reversed somewhat in the 1920s and 1930s. The center of LDS Church cultural influence is in Utah, and North America has more members than any other continent, although about 60% of LDS Church members live outside the United States. As of December 31, 2021, the LDS Church reported a membership of 16,805,400.
Terminology
The terminology preferred by the church itself has varied over time. At various points, the church has embraced the term Mormon and stated that other sects within the shared faith tradition should not be called Mormon.The word Mormon was initially coined to describe any person who considers the Book of Mormon to be a scripture volume. Mormonite and Mormon were originally descriptive terms used both by outsiders to the faith, church members, and occasionally church leaders. The term Mormon later was sometimes used derogatorily; such use may have developed during the 1838 Mormon War, although church members and leaders "embraced the term", according to church historian Matthew Bowman, and by the end of the 1800s it was broadly used.
The LDS Church has made efforts, including in 1982, in 2001 prior to the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, in 2011 after The Book of Mormon appeared on Broadway, and again in 2018, to encourage the use of the church's full name, rather than the terms Mormon or LDS. According to Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and Richard Bennett, a professor of church history at Brigham Young University, this is because non-church members have historically been confused about whether it represents a Christian faith, which concerns church leaders, who want to emphasize that the church is a Christian church. The term Mormon also causes concern for church leaders because it has been used to include splinter groups such as Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, who practice polygamy, which the LDS Church does not; Mason said "For more than 100 years, the mainstream LDS Church has gone to great pains to distance itself from those who practice polygamy. It doesn't want to have any confusion there between those two groups."
In 2018, the LDS Church published a style guide that encourages the use of the terms "the Church", the "Church of Jesus Christ" or the "restored Church of Jesus Christ" as shortened versions after an initial use of the full name. According to church historian Bowman, 'the term "restored" refers to the idea that the original Christian religion is obsolete, and Mormons alone are practicing true Christianity.'
The 2018 style guide rejects the term Mormons along with "Mormon Church", "Mormonism", and the abbreviation LDS. The second-largest sect, the Community of Christ, also rejects the term Mormon due to its association with the practice of polygamy among Brighamite sects. Other sects, including several fundamentalist branches of the Brighamite tradition, embrace the term Mormon.
History
The history of the Mormons has shaped them into a people with a strong sense of unity and commonality. From the start, Mormons have tried to establish what they call "Zion", a utopian society of the righteous.Mormon history can be divided into three broad periods: the early history during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, a "pioneer era" under the leadership of Brigham Young and his successors, and a modern era beginning around the turn of the 20th century. In the first period, Smith attempted to build a city called Zion, where converts could gather. Zion became a "landscape of villages" in Utah during the pioneer era. In modern times, Zion is still an ideal, though Mormons gather together in their individual congregations rather than in a central geographic location.
Beginnings
The Mormon movement began with the publishing of the Book of Mormon in March 1830, which Smith stated was a translation of golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient American civilization that the ancient prophet-historian Mormon had compiled. Smith stated that an angel had directed him to the golden plates buried in the Hill Cumorah. On April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ. In 1832, Smith added an account of a vision he had sometime in the early 1820s while living in Upstate New York. Some Mormons regarded this vision as the most important event in human history after the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.The early church grew westward as Smith sent missionaries to proselytize. In 1831, the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where missionaries had made a large number of converts and Smith began establishing an outpost in Jackson County, Missouri, where he planned to eventually build the city of Zion. In 1833, Missouri settlers, alarmed by the rapid influx of Mormons, expelled them from Jackson County into the nearby Clay County, where local residents were more welcoming.
After Smith led a mission, known as Zion's Camp, to recover the land, he began building Kirtland Temple in Lake County, Ohio, where the church flourished. When the Missouri Mormons were later asked to leave Clay County in 1836, they secured land in what would become Caldwell County.
The Kirtland era ended in 1838 after the failure of a church-sponsored anti-bank caused widespread defections, and Smith regrouped with the remaining church in Far West, Missouri. During the fall of 1838, tensions escalated into the Mormon War with the old Missouri settlers. On October 27, the governor of Missouri ordered that the Mormons "must be treated as enemies" and be exterminated or driven from the state. Between November and April, some eight thousand displaced Mormons migrated east into Illinois.
In 1839, the Mormons purchased the small town of Commerce, converted swampland on the banks of the Mississippi River, renamed the area Nauvoo, Illinois, and began constructing the Nauvoo Temple. The city became the church's new headquarters and gathering place, and it grew rapidly, fueled in part by converts immigrating from Europe. Meanwhile, Smith introduced temple ceremonies meant to seal families together for eternity, as well as the doctrines of eternal progression or exaltation and plural marriage.
Smith created a service organization for women called the Relief Society and the Council of Fifty, representing a future theodemocratic "Kingdom of God" on the earth. Smith also published the story of his First Vision, in which the Father and the Son appeared to him when he was about 14 years old. This vision would come to be regarded by some Mormons as the most important event in human history after the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In 1844, local prejudices and political tensions, fueled by Mormon peculiarity, internal dissent, and reports of polygamy, escalated into conflicts between Mormons and "anti-Mormons" in Illinois and Missouri. Smith was arrested, and on June 27, 1844, he and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois. Because Hyrum was Smith's logical successor, their deaths caused a succession crisis, and Brigham Young assumed leadership over most Latter Day Saints. Young had been a close associate of Smith's and was the senior apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve. Smaller groups of Latter-Day Saints followed other leaders to form other denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement.