Mormonism

• 1. Introduction

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  Mormonism is a name that the largest church bearing it has, since 2018, been pushing people to use less. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, wants distance from the label. Yet the word persists, because it covers more than one thing. It names a theology and a religious tradition founded by Joseph Smith. It names a wider Latter Day Saint movement that has splintered many times. It also names a culture, a term coined by cultural Mormons, people who identify with that culture, especially in much of the American West, without necessarily sharing the theology. This documentary asks how a single question from a teenage farmboy grew into a book of scripture and then a faith. It asks what Latter Day Saints believe about God, the afterlife and America. And it asks why one church broke into so many pieces.

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• 2. A Boy's Question

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  At 14 years old, the farmboy Joseph Smith wanted to know which church taught the true doctrine of God. He lived in Western New York during the Second Great Awakening, a time of intense religious excitement. He believed God existed. But the competing churches around him seemed to contradict one another, and that confusion troubled him.

  In his account, Joseph Smith-History, he describes reading the first chapter of the Epistle of James. Verse five says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally." Smith prayed about which denomination to join. In the spring of 1820, he said, God the Father and his son Jesus Christ appeared to him. They told him to join none of the existing churches, because all of them were wrong. Followers call this the First Vision.

  Through the 1820s, Smith described a series of angelic visitations. The angels eventually told him that God would use him to re-establish the true Christian church. In 1823, he said, an angel showed him where golden plates lay buried in a nearby hill. He obtained the plates in 1827. In April 1828 he began dictating a translation, helped first by Martin Harris and later by Oliver Cowdery. After several interruptions he finished the manuscript in June 1829, and he said the plates then went back to the angel.

  Smith began baptizing converts in 1829. In 1830 he published the Book of Mormon and formally organized the Church of Christ. His followers saw him as a modern-day prophet. The book takes its name from Mormon, an ancient American prophet who, in Smith's telling, compiled what the plates recorded.

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• 3. Scripture and Canon

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  Around 600 BC, according to the Book of Mormon, a prophet named Lehi led his family out of Jerusalem and sailed to the Americas. The book follows their descendants over many generations. It says people in the Americas believed in Jesus hundreds of years before his birth. It says they saw him in person after his resurrection. It then says they gradually lost Christianity through wars and apostasy. Smith said he translated the text from "reformed Egyptian" into English. Latter Day Saints regard these Israelite travelers as among the ancestors of pre-Columbian Native Americans, and the book presents itself as a chronicle of early Indigenous peoples and their dealings with God.

  The Book of Mormon sits beside the Bible rather than replacing it. The LDS Church uses the Authorized King James Version as its official Bible text. Mormons trust the general accuracy of the modern Bible but consider it incomplete and marked by introduced errors. They hold that many lost truths are restored in the Book of Mormon, which they treat as divine scripture equal in authority to the Bible.

  The canon also includes the Doctrine and Covenants, a collection of revelations and writings with doctrine and prophecy. It includes the Pearl of Great Price, which briefly addresses Genesis through Exodus. The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible has its own place, though these books are accepted to varying degrees across the Latter Day Saint movement. Smith's fullest account of the universe appears in his later revelations and sermons, among them the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses and the King Follett discourse.

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• 4. God and Eternity

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  In the orthodoxy formalized in 1915, Latter Day Saints describe a Godhead of three distinct persons. God the Father is called Elohim. Jesus, his firstborn Son, is called Jehovah. The third person is the Holy Ghost. The Father and Jesus have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, while the Holy Ghost is a spirit with no body. Latter Day Saints also believe in other gods and goddesses outside the Godhead, including a Heavenly Mother married to the Father. They hold that faithful members may attain godhood in the afterlife. Smith taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted.

  This picture parts ways with the Christian Trinity. Mormonism does not hold the Nicene Creed's teaching that Father, Son and Holy Ghost share one substance. It also teaches that the intelligence in each human is coeternal with God. God is called omnipotent and creator, yet he is subject to eternal natural law. He organized the world from existing matter and did not make it from nothing. Mormons see this as very different from the Jewish tradition of ethical monotheism, where elohim carries another meaning entirely.

  Earthly life, in this view, is a short stretch of a much longer existence. In the beginning, everyone existed as spirits, or "intelligences," in God's presence. God proposed a plan of salvation so they could progress and "have a privilege to advance like himself." The spirits were free to refuse it, and a "third" of them, led by Satan, did. The rest accepted, knowing they would come to earth, receive bodies, and face sin and suffering. The Earth is just one of many inhabited worlds, and Kolob, a planet or star, is said to be nearest the throne of God.

  The atonement of Jesus Christ is the heart of that plan. People learn to choose good over evil, inevitably make mistakes, and so cannot return to God unaided. Mormons believe Jesus paid for the sins of the world and that everyone can be saved through him. They accept this through faith, repentance, covenants such as baptism, and a sustained effort to live like Christ. Some Mormons place the start of the atonement in the garden of Gethsemane, not the crucifixion alone. The afterlife has three degrees of glory. Hell, often called spirit prison, is a temporary holding place for the wicked between death and the resurrection.

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• 5. Restored Authority

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  Mormons speak of a Great Apostasy that began not long after the ascension of Jesus Christ. In their telling, pure early doctrine was corrupted by Greek and other philosophies, and believers divided into rival camps. The martyrdom of the Apostles, they say, ended the priesthood authority needed to run the church and its ordinances. God then restored the first-century church through Joseph Smith. The angels Peter, James, John and John the Baptist, they believe, appeared to Smith and others and conferred priesthood authority. On that basis the church calls itself the "only true and living church." Mormons accept Smith and his legitimate successors as modern prophets. They still say other Christian religions hold a portion of the truth and are guided by the light of Christ.

  An ordinance is a ritual of special significance, often sealing a covenant with God, and it resembles what other denominations call a sacrament. The ordinances viewed as necessary for salvation begin with baptism by immersion after the age of accountability, normally 8. Next come confirmation, with the gift of the Holy Ghost given by laying hands on the head, and ordination to the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods for males. After that come the endowment, including washing and anointing, received in temples, and marriage, called sealing. These are required but not enough alone. A baptized person must also obey the commandments, repent of later sin, and receive the other saving ordinances.

  Because everyone must receive these ordinances, Mormons perform them by proxy for the dead. A temple must first receive and correctly process the deceased person's genealogical information. Only saving ordinances are done this way. Mormons believe the dead keep their free agency and may accept or reject the offering in the spirit world.

  God still speaks to people, according to the doctrine of continuous revelation. It comes mainly through the influence of the Holy Ghost, and also through visions and visits from divine beings. Smith pointed to Deuteronomy to explain why. God said, "Thou shalt not kill"; at another time he said, "Thou shalt utterly destroy." For Smith this showed heaven governed by revelation suited to circumstances. Revelation is not reserved to prophets. Parents may be inspired in raising families, and church officers may receive guidance for those they serve. Many converts say personal revelation from God was instrumental in their own conversion.

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• 6. An American Faith

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  Leo Tolstoy described Mormonism as the quintessential American religion, and Molly Worthen speculates that its geography explains why. Mormons believe the people of the Book of Mormon lived in the western hemisphere. They believe Christ appeared there after his resurrection and that the Garden of Eden was in North America. They also hold that the faith was restored in Upstate New York and that the New Jerusalem will be built in Missouri. Smith made the point in the 10th Article of Faith, placing the millennial New Jerusalem in America.

  The United States holds a special place in this theology. The Book of Mormon treats it as the biblical promised land and Mormons as a people chosen for a singular destiny. In the Doctrine and Covenants, God says it is "not right that any man should be in bondage one to another." He adds that he established the Constitution of the land through wise men he raised up. Mormons therefore see America as the source of religious liberty, while noting a need to spread those values worldwide. Fundamentalist Mormons add the White Horse Prophecy, which says Mormons will be called to preserve a Constitution hanging "by a thread." The LDS Church officially shuns it.

  The promised land did not welcome the church. Residents of Palmyra, New York and several surrounding towns criticized and persecuted the early members. Smith and his followers moved west to Kirtland, Ohio and Jackson County, Missouri, hoping to build a permanent City of Zion. They were expelled from Jackson County in 1833 and fled to other parts of Missouri. In 1838 fighting between Missourians and Mormons led the governor to issue an "extermination order" and forced them out of the state. In Illinois the church bought a small town, renamed it Nauvoo, and lived for a few years with some peace and prosperity. Tensions rose again, and in 1844 a mob killed Smith, which set off a succession crisis.

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• 7. Splits and Successors

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  Brigham Young led the largest group of Mormons west after 1844, to what became the Utah Territory. There the church openly practiced plural marriage, a form of religious polygamy Smith had instituted in Nauvoo. It became the faith's most sensational feature in the 19th century. The United States Congress opposed it so vigorously that the church's survival as a legal institution was threatened. Idaho and Arizona also saw polygamy as a major reason to oppose Mormons. Church president Wilford Woodruff announced the official end of plural marriage in the 1890 Manifesto. Utah would not have been accepted as a state while polygamy continued, and statehood soon followed.

  Unity had never been complete. As early as 1831 groups began splitting from the Church of Christ that Smith founded, and after his death the splits multiplied. One source estimates that over 400 denominations have come from his original movement. Beyond leadership, the main dividing lines are polygamy and the Trinity. The second-largest denomination, the Community of Christ, was formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It affirms the Trinity and describes its doctrine as Trinitarian Christian restorationist.

  Mormon fundamentalism grew from groups that left after the LDS Church dropped plural marriage, around the turn of the 20th century. Fundamentalists teach that plural marriage is required for exaltation, the highest degree of salvation. Mainstream Mormons teach that a single celestial marriage suffices. Fundamentalists also keep other teachings of Brigham Young that the LDS Church abandoned. These include the law of consecration, known as the United Order, the Adam-God teachings, and the principle of blood atonement. They include barring black men from the priesthood, which the LDS Church ended in 1978. Fundamentalists believe the church dropped these doctrines to fit into American society and escape persecution. The LDS Church excommunicates members who practice polygamy or adopt fundamentalist beliefs.

  A liberal path has existed too. The Godbeites left the LDS Church in the late 19th century, motivated by political and religious liberalism. In 1985 the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ broke away as an LGBT-friendly denomination, and it was formally dissolved in 2010. The LDS Church itself grew from about 1.7 million members in 1960 to around 7.7 million in 1990. Growth has slowed since, and the church claimed 16 million members in 2020.

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• 8. Neighbors and Critics

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  In the 1830s, many American Christians came to see the new church as politically and culturally subversive, and as doctrinally heretical. The disagreements led to a series of conflicts, some of them deadly. Violence declined during the 20th century, but criticism of the church's distinct teachings continues, sometimes vehemently. Nearly all Mormons call themselves Christian and believe Jesus is the literal Son of God and Messiah. Those who define Christianity by Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant doctrine often place Mormonism outside it. Both sides have worked to win converts from the other.

  A different relationship runs through Judaism. Smith first taught that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas belonged to the Lost Tribes of Israel. Later he taught that Mormons themselves were Israelites who could learn their tribal affiliation. Patriarchal blessings still declare a member's lineage in one of the twelve tribes, by bloodline or by adoption at baptism. Smith hired Joshua (James) Seixas, a Hebrew teacher at Congregation Shearith Israel and son of Gershom Mendes Seixas, to teach Mormon leaders. Smith attended some classes himself. Nauvoo means "beautiful" in Biblical Hebrew, and Brigham Young named a tributary of the Great Salt Lake the Jordan River. The LDS Church also runs a Jerusalem Center in Israel.

  The relationship soured in the 1990s, when Jewish groups objected loudly to baptism for the dead on behalf of Jewish Holocaust victims. Monte J. Brough, an LDS general authority, said Mormons who baptized 380,000 Holocaust victims acted from love and compassion. He said they did not realize the act would offend, and he called the gesture "misguided and insensitive."

  One surprise is the link to UFOs. Matthew Bowman, a scholar of Mormon Studies, notes that many Latter-day Saints believe in or promote the idea of UFOs as an interstellar or non-human phenomenon. Some outsiders use this to mock the faith, but "a good number of Latter-day Saints" welcome the association. Bowman traces it to a strain of theology going back to Brigham Young, which peaked in early 20th-century writings by church leaders such as B.H. Roberts and John Widtsoe.

  Criticism has followed the LDS Church since Smith founded it in 1830. The most controversial issue, and by one account a contributing factor in Smith's murder, was the claim that plural marriage had biblical authority. Despite the 1890 renunciation, some sympathizers, defenders and semi-secret practitioners remain within Mormonism, though not within the LDS Church. More recent critics raise historical revisionism, homophobia, racism, sexist policies and inadequate financial disclosure. They also question the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon, the text on which the whole tradition rests.

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