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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), church that traces its origins to a religion founded by Joseph Smith in the United States in 1830. The term Mormon, often used to refer to members of this church, comes from the Book of Mormon, which was published by Smith in 1830; use of the term is discouraged by the church. Now an international movement, the church is characterized by a unique understanding of the Godhead, emphasis on family life, belief in continuing revelation, desire for order, respect for authority, and missionary work. Its members obey strict prohibitions on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea and promote education and a vigorous work ethic.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and had more than 16 million members by the early 21st century. A significant portion of the church’s members live in the United States and the rest in Latin America, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Philippines, and parts of Oceania.
In western New York state in 1823, Joseph Smith had a vision in which an angel named Moroni told him about engraved golden plates buried in a nearby hill. According to Smith, he received subsequent instruction from Moroni and, four years later, excavated the plates and translated them 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 plates—recounts the history of a family of Israelites that migrated to America centuries before Jesus Christ and were taught by prophets similar to those in the Old Testament. The religion Smith founded originated amid the great fervour of competing Christian revivalist movements in early 19th-century America but departed from them in its proclamation of a new dispensation. Through Smith, God had restored the “true church”—i.e., the primitive Christian church—and had reasserted the true faith from which the various Christian churches had strayed.
The new church was millennialist, believing in the imminent Second Coming of Christ and his establishment of a 1,000-year reign of peace. This belief inspired Smith’s desire to establish Zion, the kingdom of God, which was to be built somewhere in the western United States. He received revelations not only of theological truth but also providing day-to-day practical guidance. The early members of the church devised new secular institutions, including collective ownership (later changed to a system of tithing) and polygamy, which was practiced by Smith himself and by most leading Mormons in the church’s early years.
Soon after the church’s founding, Smith and the bulk of the members moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where a prominent preacher, Sidney Rigdon, and his following had embraced the faith. In Jackson county, Missouri, where it was revealed that Zion was to be established, Smith instituted a communalistic United Order of Enoch. But strife with non-Mormons in the area led to killings and the burning of Mormon property. Tensions between church members and local slave-owning Missourians, who viewed the Mormons as religious fanatics and possible abolitionists, escalated to armed skirmishes that forced 15,000 of the faithful to leave Missouri for Illinois in 1839, where Smith built a new city, Nauvoo. There the commercial success and growing political power of the newcomers once again provoked renewed hostility from their non-Mormon neighbours. Smith’s suppression of some dissidents among the Nauvoo Mormons in 1844 intensified non-Mormon resentment and furnished grounds for his arrest. Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered by a mob while both were in jail in Carthage, near Nauvoo, on June 27, 1844.
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After Smith’s unexpected death, the government of the church was left in the hands of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, whose senior member was Brigham Young. Ignoring several claimants to the church leadership, the majority of its members supported Young, who became the church’s second president. Increasing mob violence, however, made their continued presence in Nauvoo untenable, and Young thus led a mass 1,100-mile (1,800-km) migration to Utah in 1846–47. There they hoped to establish a commonwealth where they could practice their religion without persecution. Envisioning a new state that he called Deseret, Young helped to establish more than 300 communities in Utah and neighbouring territories. To build the population, he sent missionaries across North America and into Europe. Converts were urged to migrate to the new land, and it is estimated that about 80,000 Mormon pioneers traveling by wagon, by handcart, or on foot had reached Salt Lake City by 1869, when the arrival of the railroads made the journey much easier.
Download this video. “May we ever be courageous and prepared to stand for what we believe, and if we must stand alone in the process, may we do so courageously, strengthened by the knowledge that in reality we are never alone when we stand with our Father in Heaven,” President Thomas S. Monson said during the priesthood session of the ...
Hace 5 días · This page provides a summary of recent news about the many houses of the Lord being built around the world by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. May 28. Open House and Dedication Dates Set for the San Pedro Sula Honduras Temple. May 20.
Hace 1 día · SALT LAKE CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints released 13 new hymns Thursday, in the first wave of releases for their new and revised Hymnbook. According to a Church Newsroom press release, “small batches of new music will continue to be published digitally in preparation for the full hymnbook release.”.
Hace 3 días · God's Greatest Creation. As children of God, we are His greatest creation. "Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has surely seen God moving in His majesty and power." -Elder Russell M. Nelson. As children of God, we are His greatest creation. "Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has surely seen God moving in His ...
Hace 1 día · The U.N. agency for refugees calls the displacement of nearly 8 million Venezuelans “the largest forced displacement crisis ever in Latin America.”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has donated $3.4 million to improve the health of vulnerable Venezuelans in multiple countries. The church gave the funds to one of its longtime ...
