Mormonism
Mormonism is the theology and religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s.
[1] One historian, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982 that, depending on the context, the term Mormonism could refer to "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.
[10] The doctrines of Mormonism began with the farmboy Joseph Smith in the 1820s in Western New York during a period of religious excitement known as the Second Great Awakening.
[12] Called the "First Vision", Smith said that God the Father and his son, Jesus Christ, appeared to him and instructed him to join none of the existing churches because they were all wrong.
After obtaining the plates in 1827, Smith began dictating the text of the Book of Mormon in April 1828 with the assistance of Martin Harris and later Oliver Cowdery.
[4] To avoid confrontation, Smith and the early church members, known as Mormons, moved West to Kirtland, Ohio, and Jackson County, Missouri where they hoped to establish a permanent New Jerusalem or City of Zion.
[21] The largest group of Mormons, now called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, followed Brigham Young as the new prophet and, under his direction, emigrated to what became the Utah Territory.
Polygamy became the faith's most sensational characteristic during the 19th century, and vigorous opposition by the United States Congress threatened the church's existence as a legal institution.
[24] Due to this formal abolition of plural marriage, several small groups broke from the LDS Church forming many smaller Mormon fundamentalist denominations.
[33] This conception differs from the traditional Christian Trinity in several ways, one of which is that Mormonism has not adopted or continued to hold the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are of the same substance or being.
[36] According to Mormons this apostasy involved the corruption of the pure, original Christian doctrine with Greek and other philosophies,[37] and followers dividing into different ideological groups.
In addition, Mormons believe that Smith and his legitimate successors are modern prophets who receive revelation from God to guide the church.
[50] Mormons accept Christ's atonement through faith, repentance, formal covenants or ordinances such as baptism, and consistently trying to live a Christ-like life.
The Earth is just one of many inhabited worlds, and there are many governing heavenly bodies, including the planet or star Kolob, which is said to be nearest the throne of God.
[51][52][53] In Upstate New York in 1823, Joseph Smith claimed to have had a vision in which the Angel Moroni told him about engraved golden plates buried in a nearby hill.
[54][55] According to Smith, he received subsequent instruction from Moroni and, four years later, excavated the plates and translated them from "reformed Egyptian" into English; the resultant Book of Mormon—so called after an ancient American prophet who, according to Smith, had compiled the text recorded on the golden plates—recounts the history of a tribe of Israelites, led by the prophet Lehi, who migrated from Jerusalem to the Americas in the 7th century BCE.
[54][55] In Mormonism, these Israelite tribes who migrated to the Americas centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ are considered to be among the ancestors of pre-Columbian Native Americans.
To Mormons, this places America as the originator of religious liberty and freedom, while noting a need to expand these American values worldwide.
The baptized person is expected to be obedient to God's commandments, to repent of any sinful conduct subsequent to baptism, and to receive the other saving ordinances.
[citation needed] Mormons believe in the Old and New Testaments, and the LDS Church uses the Authorized King James Version as its official scriptural text of the Bible.
These books, as well as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, have varying degrees of acceptance as divine scripture among different denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement.
The important consequence of this is that each person may receive confirmation that particular doctrines taught by a prophet are true, as well as gain divine insight in using those truths for their own benefit and eternal progress.
[citation needed] Mormons believe in Jesus Christ as the literal Son of God and Messiah, his crucifixion as a conclusion of a sin offering, and subsequent resurrection.
In the earliest days of Mormonism, Joseph Smith taught that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were members of some of the Lost Tribes of Israel.
The LDS Church has a Jerusalem Center in Israel, where students focus their study on Near Eastern history, culture, language, and the Bible.
According to LDS Church general authority Monte J. Brough, "Mormons who baptized 380,000 Holocaust victims posthumously were motivated by love and compassion and did not understand their gesture might offend Jews ... they did not realize that what they intended as a 'Christian act of service' was 'misguided and insensitive'".
[72] Members of the LDS Church consider their top leaders to be prophets and apostles, and are encouraged to accept their positions on matters of theology, while seeking confirmation of them through personal study of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
It has continuously existed since the succession crisis of 1844 that split the Latter Day Saint movement after the death of founder Joseph Smith, Jr.
Mormon fundamentalism teaches that plural marriage is a requirement for exaltation (the highest degree of salvation), which will allow them to live as gods and goddesses in the afterlife.
However, plural marriage remains a controversial and divisive issue, as despite the official renunciation of 1890, it still has sympathizers, defenders, and semi-secret practitioners within Mormonism, though not within the LDS Church.
