The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity (see Mormonism and Nicene Christianity).
The founder of the Latter Day Saint movement was Joseph Smith, who was raised in the burned-over district of Upstate New York. Smith stated that, in response to prayer, he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, as well as angels and other visions. This eventually led him to a restoration of Christian doctrine that, he said, was lost after the early Christian apostles were killed. In addition, several early leaders made marked doctrinal and leadership contributions to the movement, including Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Brigham Young. Modern-day revelation from God continues to be a principal belief of the Mormon faith.
Mormon history as an academic field is called Mormon studies.
Movement's historical context Second Great Awakening and the Charismatic Movement The Latter Day Saint movement arose in the Palmyra and Manchester area of western New York, where its founder Joseph Smith was raised during a period of religious revival in the early 19th century called the Second Great Awakening, a Christian response to the secularism of the Age of Enlightenment which extended throughout the United States, particularly the frontier areas of the west.
A significant early event in this Second Great Awakening was the Cane Ridge Revival, a large camp meeting that took place in 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Joseph Smith's father Joseph Smith Sr. said he had several visions or dreams, as had Smith's paternal and maternal grandfathers.
The people of western New York, like the rest of the United States at the time, were also influenced by folk religion. The fathers of both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were reported to have used divining rods, though not by those within the LDS church. Joseph Smith used seer stones, which he used after his claimed First Vision. People of the time used such rods and stones in various ways, including to locate underground water, to find lost items, to locate buried treasure or mineral mines, as part of religious or magic rituals, or to communicate with spirits or angels. Until about the 1830s, the use of such divining media, even as a profession, was thought by many, though not all, as "honorable and profitable employment". (Palmyra Herald, July 24, 1822)
Another related strand of religious thought that became important to the Latter Day Saint movement was the Restoration Movement, primarily influenced by Barton W. Stone (who participated in the Cane Ridge revival), and Alexander Campbell, who joined Stone in 1824 in Ohio. Stone and Campbell believed that the division among Christian sects had been caused by a Great Apostasy (or falling away) from the original teachings of Jesus, and that the correct principles of Christianity could be re-established by "restoring" practices described in the New Testament. The Restorationists also intended to eliminate sectarianism, arguing that there should be only one Christian church, which should be called the "Church of Christ."
While these restorationist ideas were circulating in the western frontier, the family of Joseph Smith was living in western New York, where they attended many of the local revivals. During this time, the area was seeing so many Christian revivals that western New York's most well-known revivalist Charles Grandison Finney later dubbed the area the "Burned-Over District". Because of a lack of clergy from established churches, this area was unusually open to religious innovations, new movements, and social experiments such as religious communism.
Latter Day Saints do not typically distinguish between this Restoration movement and the broader Protestant Reformation, since both were an attempt to return to the values and doctrines taught by Jesus and the Apostles, while most Latter Day Saint groups believe that there was a need for God to actively restore both authority and doctrine. However, in spite of their different use of the word restoration, this movement was an important part of the culture that led Joseph Smith to become interested in religion.
Masonic influences
Joseph Smith and several of the church founders were Freemasons, and were founding members of a lodge in Nauvoo, Illinois in March 1842. There are some similarities between Mormon temple worship and symbolism and the stories and symbols of Freemasonry. In modern times, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) holds no position for or against the compatibility of Masonry with LDS Church doctrine.
Leadership of Joseph Smith
Smith's First Vision
Most Latter Day Saints trace the beginnings of Mormonism to Joseph Smith's First Vision, which he said he had in about 1820 in the woods near his home. Early accounts of this vision describe it as a vision of Jesus in which he was told his sins were forgiven. Later, more detailed accounts indicate Smith was also told that all Christian denominations had become corrupt and further clarify that Smith saw multiple heavenly beings, including Jesus and God the Father.
Early visits by angels, Urim and Thummim, and the Book of Mormon
Smith also described many other visions involving angels. Some of his earliest visitations involved a Nephite prophet-warrior, who called himself Moroni. Smith said this angel appeared to him many times, and showed him where to find a set of buried golden plates containing ancient writings that the prophet-warrior had sealed in a stone box before his death, together with other artifacts. The writings on the golden plates, according to Smith, contained an account of the various nations that inhabited ancient America, and described how they were led to the New World by Jesus, but eventually lost their Christian faith through a series of wars and corruption.
After he said he received the golden plates, Smith began to dictate their translation to his wife Emma Hale Smith and various associates of his, including Martin Harris and, for most of the later translation, Oliver Cowdery. Smith said he translated the text through the gift and power of God and through the aid of the Urim and Thummim, or seer stone. The resulting writings were published in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon.
The Book of Mormon was much more ambitious than being just a purported history of Native Americans. Mormons quickly adopted the book as a work of scripture of similar importance to the Bible. The book's title page described it as an attempt to show Native Americans "what great things the Lord has done for their fathers", and to convince "Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God." (Book of Mormon, title page.) The book contained doctrinal discussions on numerous themes, including how the pride of the wealthy leads to the downfall of civilization, the dangers of "secret combinations" of people who meet secretly and use secret signs and oaths "to carry out the evil purposes of the group", and God's mercy and protection over his followers. Latter Day Saints consider the crowning moment of the book to be Jesus' visit to the ancient Americans, during which time he teaches them in person about the meaning of his death and resurrection.
Shared experiences by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and restoration of the priesthood Some of the early movement's most important charismatic experiences were shared between Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who joined the movement during the translation of the Book of Mormon. During the translation of the golden plates, Smith and Cowdery determined that they needed to obtain the Priesthood, or the authority to act in God's name, which they believed had been lost from the earth during the Great Apostasy. According to an account by Cowdery in 1834, they went into the woods near Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania on May 15, 1829, were visited by an angel who gave them the "Holy Priesthood". (Messenger and Advocate, 1(1), Oct. 1, 1834.) In 1835, Smith and Cowdery stated that the angel was John the Baptist, and that the "Holy Priesthood" was specifically the Priesthood of Aaron", which included the power to baptize. Today this area is preserved as the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site.
Smith and Cowdery further elaborated for the 1835 publication of the Doctrine and Covenants that they were also later visited by Peter, James, and John, who restored the "keys of your ministry" and the "keys of the kingdom". Neither Smith nor Cowdery ever gave a date for this visitation.
Organization of the Church of Christ
After the restoration of the Priesthood, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery began baptizing dozens of people, as early as June 1829. (History of the Church 1:6, p. 59). These converts did not belong to a formal church organization. Nevertheless, this community of believers referred to themselves as "the Church of Christ", and included converts in three New York towns: Fayette, Manchester, and Colesville.
There is no known record of an early Mormon concept of the Lord's church prior to Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon from April to June 1829. Some time in April 1829, Smith dictated a story of Alma the Elder, the former priest of a wicked king, who baptized his followers by immersion, "having authority from the Almighty God", and called his community of believers the "church of God, or the church of Christ".
Some time between June and December 1829, Joseph Smith, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery said they received a revelation about "how he should build up his church & the manner thereof". This revelation was called the "Articles of the Church of Christ", and it indicated that the church should ordain priests and teachers "according to the gifts & callings of God unto men". The church was to meet regularly to partake of bread and wine. Cowdery was described as "an Apostle of Jesus Christ".
On April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and a group of approximately 50 believers met to formally organize the Church of Christ into a legal institution. By later accounts, this meeting was a charismatic event, in which members of the congregation had visions, prophesied, spoke in tongues, ecstatically shouted praises to the Lord, and fainted (Joseph Smith History, 1839 draft). Also, the church formally ordained a lay ministry. Smith and Cowdery, according to their 1831 account, were each ordained as "an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church". ("Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ", Painesville Telegraph, April 19, 1831).
Movement in Ohio The movement more than doubled in size with the conversion of Sidney Rigdon, a former Campbellite minister, who led several congregations of Restorationists in Ohio's Western Reserve area, causing hundreds of his adherents to follow him into Mormonism. A fiery orator, Rigdon was called to be Smith's spokesman, and immediately became one of the movement's leaders. By 1831 the church's headquarters were established in Kirtland, Ohio, and Smith urged the membership to gather there or to a second outpost of the church in Jackson County, Missouri (see below).