While once avidly engaged in dialogue with other Latter Day Saint factions, the church no longer has any official contact with any other organization.

[3] Most of the members live in the United States, but there are parishes in Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Nigeria, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, India, Ethiopia, and the Philippines.

After the death of Joseph Smith, the Latter Day Saint movement's founder, on June 27, 1844, several leaders vied for control and established rival organizations.

This grassy, 2-acre (8,100 m2) plot is considered by Latter Day Saints of nearly all persuasions to be the site designated by Joseph Smith for the temple of the New Jerusalem, a sacred city to be built preparatory to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

In July 1898, W. D. C. Pattison, a suspended member of the LDS Church from Boston, Massachusetts,[6] was arrested and briefly detained after attempting to remove a fence placed around the Temple Lot.

[7] Late in the following month, he reportedly demanded that church officials sign ownership of the property over to him because he believed he was the "One Mighty and Strong".

[7] After he testified in court appearances in November 1898, Pattison was found guilty but insane and sentenced to a stay in a mental institution.

[11] The fire caused significant damage to the second story of the building, although the first floor containing church records and documents remained intact.

This church initially accepted only the King James Bible and Book of Mormon as scripture, though it rejected the latter in 1973 and formally dissolved itself in 1984.

Instead of a president–prophet, the Church of Christ is led by its Quorum of Twelve Apostles, with all members of that body being considered equal in precedence and authority.

The Church of Christ assumes its authority from Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery's account of May 15, 1829, when John the Baptist came to them and ordained them to the Priesthood of Aaron, "which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness".

Smith and Cowdery reported that Peter, James, and John visited them later that same year and bestowed upon them the higher Melchizedek priesthood.

[16] The Temple Lot church publishes its own edition of the Book of Mormon, identical in chaptering and versification to versions printed by the Community of Christ.

Rather, it has been generally described by the Temple Lot organization as a place for Jesus to show himself and "endow his servants whom he chooses with power to preach the gospel in all the world to every kindred, tongue, and people, that the promise of God to Israel may be fulfilled".

In it, Whitmer repeatedly claims that Smith had "fallen"—or began to "fall"—from his divine calling almost as soon as the church was established in 1830, or perhaps even before then.