The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

• 1. Introduction

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  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reports more than 17.5 million members and more than 109,000 volunteer missionaries. Its headquarters stand in Salt Lake City, Utah, yet its congregations and temples now spread across the globe. Outsiders often call it the LDS Church or the Mormon Church. Its members call themselves Latter-day Saints. The church counts itself as Christian. Catholics, Orthodox churches, evangelicals and mainline Protestants have all treated it as distinct from mainstream Christianity. Its scripture remains open to additions. Its members hand over a tenth of their income. This documentary asks how a church that began in western New York came to dominate a region of the American West. It asks what members actually believe, and what the faith asks of them each week. It also asks what the church has had to answer for, from its money to its record on race.

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• 2. A Church on the Move

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  On the 6th of April 1830, Joseph Smith formally organized a new congregation in western New York under the name Church of Christ. Early converts were drawn in part by the newly published Book of Mormon. The book describes itself as a chronicle of Indigenous American prophets. Smith said he translated it from golden plates.

  Smith meant to build a New Jerusalem in North America, which he called Zion. In 1831 the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and began an outpost in Jackson County, Missouri. There Smith planned to settle eventually. In 1833, Missouri settlers violently drove the Latter Day Saints out of Jackson County. A paramilitary expedition to win the land back did not succeed.

  Kirtland, meanwhile, flourished. Smith published new revelations, and the congregation built the Kirtland Temple. Its dedication was compared to the day of Pentecost. That era ended in 1838, when a financial scandal rocked the church and drove widespread defections.

  Smith regrouped in Far West, Missouri, but tensions with settlers soon turned violent. Believing the Latter Day Saints to be an insurrection, the Missouri governor ordered that they be "exterminated or driven from the State". In 1839 the Saints turned a swampland on the Mississippi River into Nauvoo, Illinois.

  Nauvoo grew fast, as missionaries sent to Europe and elsewhere sent converts flooding in. Smith privately introduced polygamy to his closest associates. He also taught ceremonies that he said would let righteous people become gods in the afterlife. He gave the church a full account of his First Vision, in which he said two heavenly "personages" appeared to him at age 14. The church now regards that vision as the most important event in human history since the resurrection of Jesus.

  On the 27th of June 1844, a mob in Carthage, Illinois, killed Smith and his brother Hyrum while they were held on charges of treason. Hyrum was Joseph's designated successor, so both deaths together triggered a succession crisis. Most of the membership followed Brigham Young. Other leaders drew away smaller groups, which share the early history but have no affiliation with the LDS Church. The largest is the Community of Christ, based in Independence, Missouri, followed by the Church of Jesus Christ, based in Monongahela, Pennsylvania.

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• 3. Zion in the Desert

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  After Smith's death, two years of mounting conflict with other Illinois residents pushed Brigham Young to lead his followers west. They crossed to Nebraska, and in 1847 they reached the land that became the Utah Territory. It was then the home of the Ute, Goshute and Shoshone nations, and Mexico claimed it until 1848.

  Around 80,000 settlers arrived between 1847 and 1869. They spread out and colonized a broad region now called the Mormon Corridor. At the same time, missionaries were sent to the Sandwich Islands, which are present-day Hawaii, and to India, Chile, Australia, China, South Africa and much of Europe.

  Young incorporated the church as a legal entity. At first he governed both church and territory as a theocratic leader. By 1857, accusations about polygamy and his rule of the territory had again set Mormons against other Americans. The Utah Mormon War followed, running from 1857 to 1858, and it ended in a relatively peaceful invasion of Utah by the United States Army.

  The worst Mormon violence of that conflict was the Mountain Meadows massacre. Leaders of a local Mormon militia ordered the killing of a civilian emigrant party passing through Utah. Once the massacre came to light, the church faced heavy criticism in the press. After the Army withdrew, Young agreed to step down in favor of a non-Mormon territorial governor, Alfred Cumming. The church still held significant political power.

  The settlers' push onto tribal lands brought a separate string of clashes, which lasted from about 1849 to 1873. They included Wakara's War, the Bear River Massacre and the Black Hawk War. Even so, Mormons and Indigenous peoples made attempts at peaceful coexistence. Young died in 1877, and the fight over his territory's most controversial practice was only beginning.

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• 4. The Plural Marriage Fight

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  In 1852, Brigham Young publicly announced plural marriage, the church's term for polygamy, though Joseph Smith had introduced it privately in the 1830s. Between 20 and 30 percent of Latter-day Saint families practiced it publicly from 1852 to 1890. Church leaders had practiced it for more than half of the 19th century.

  For more than 60 years the church and the United States were at odds. One Republican platform pointed to polygamy and slavery as the "twin relics of barbarism". In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which banned plural marriage in the territories. The church defended the practice as religious freedom.

  Young's successors, John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, resisted efforts to outlaw it. Then in 1878, the Supreme Court decided Reynolds v. United States. The justices ruled that a "religious duty" to practice plural marriage was no defense against state laws that banned polygamy.

  The pressure grew until 1890, when Congress disincorporated the church and seized most of its assets. Soon after, Woodruff issued a manifesto that officially ended new plural marriages in the United States. It did not dissolve the marriages that already existed. Some members kept entering such marriages in Canada and Mexico. Relations with Washington improved, and Utah became a state in 1896.

  In 1904, church president Joseph F. Smith disavowed polygamy before Congress and issued a "Second Manifesto", calling for all plural marriages to stop. The church now excommunicates members found practicing it. Small fundamentalist groups split off to continue the practice, and the church distances itself from them.

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• 5. Beliefs Apart

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  Latter-day Saints believe in a Godhead of three separate persons: God the Father, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Ghost. They share a unity of purpose, but they are distinct beings. That differs from the predominant Christian doctrine of one essence in three persons. The Father and Jesus have bodies of flesh and bone, while the Holy Ghost has none.

  Jesus is seen as the literal Son of God, and as the elder brother of everyone on earth. The church teaches that his atonement began in the garden of Gethsemane and continued through his crucifixion. Church leaders have said that God is married to a Heavenly Mother. Yet they have discouraged prayers to her and speculation about her.

  The church holds that after the death of Jesus and his original apostles, the true church and its authority were lost. Persecution and internal heresies were to blame. Joseph Smith's work is understood as the Restoration of that lost priesthood power, those spiritual gifts, and living prophets. The church leaders assert it is the only true and authorized church.

  Its plan of salvation includes a pre-existence before birth, mortal life, and three degrees of heaven. Every human spirit is a spiritual child of a Heavenly Father. The highest goal is exaltation, in which people may become divine beings, sometimes described as becoming a "joint-heir with Christ". Husbands and wives can be sealed so that marriage endures beyond death. Children can be sealed to parents in the same way. Ordinances such as baptism can be performed by proxy for the dead.

  The church even views the fall of Adam and Eve positively. It teaches that the fall let humankind experience separation from God and exercise agency.

  The church's authoritative texts are four "standard works": the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The terms "Mormon" and "Mormonism" come from the Book of Mormon itself. The church teaches that the Angel Moroni told Smith of golden plates buried in the Hill Cumorah. Smith translated them from Reformed Egyptian. The church usually uses the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Two extended portions of the Joseph Smith Translation are canonized, along with over 600 excerpted verses.

  Members also believe in personal revelation, which arrives through thoughts and feelings from the Holy Ghost in response to prayer. A patriarchal blessing is given only once in a lifetime, and it is recorded, transcribed and archived.

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• 6. Rules of Daily Life

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  In 1833, Joseph Smith published the Word of Wisdom, a dietary code that began as advice only. Violating it did not restrict membership. Leaders began stressing it more in the 1890s. In 1921, church president Heber J. Grant made obedience a requirement for worship inside temples. Today it forbids alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco. In 2019, the church extended the ban to marijuana and opioids, except as a physician prescribes them for medical purposes.

  In July 1838, with the membership concentrated in Missouri, the church created the law of tithing. It had relied on a communal law of consecration through most of the 1830s. Early members tithed in livestock and produce, but now they give money. Paying a full tithe is required to take part in temple ordinances. Members also fast for two consecutive meals on the first Sunday of each month. They donate at least what those meals would have cost as a fast offering.

  All able-bodied young men are expected to serve a two-year, full-time mission, though it is not compulsory. Missionaries do not choose where they serve or what language they will speak, and they generally pay their own way. Men may go between the ages of 18 and 25. Unmarried women between 18 and 29 may serve, usually for 18 months. Older couples and single men over 40 can serve six to 23 months, sometimes as humanitarian workers or family history specialists.

  The Sabbath is set aside for rest and worship. Shopping and recreation are discouraged on Sundays. The main Sunday service is the sacrament meeting, which includes prayers, hymns and sermons by ordinary members. Congregations are organized by geography into larger wards or smaller branches. Regional bodies include stakes, missions, districts and areas.

  Family life has its own rhythm. Members are encouraged to set aside one evening each week, typically Monday, for Family Home Evening. In 1995, church leaders issued "The Family: A Proclamation to the World". It defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The law of chastity prohibits sexual relations outside marriage, and the church discourages romantic dating until around age 16.

  Temples sit at the center of this life. A temple is dedicated as a "House of the Lord", more sacred than a regular meetinghouse. Operating temples are closed to the public. Entry requires a temple recommend card, which members receive after periodic interviews. Inside, members make covenants, including in the endowment ceremony, which involves washing, anointing and receiving a temple garment. To do the work for deceased relatives, the church promotes genealogical research and runs FamilySearch, the largest genealogical organization in the world.

  Twice a year, in the first weekend of April and October, general conference is broadcast from the 21,000-seat Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Sessions are translated into as many as 80 languages.

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• 7. Hierarchy and Wealth

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  The church's legal name took shape slowly. In the 1830s the original church went through several names. Then in 1851, after Smith's death, Brigham Young and most of his followers incorporated under legislation of the Utah Territory as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", with a hyphen and a lowercase d. In August 2018, president Russell M. Nelson asked members and others to stop using "LDS" and "Mormon". The Mormon Tabernacle Choir became the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Reaction has been mixed.

  A president, called the Prophet, leads the church. Members regard him as a "prophet, seer, and revelator". He chooses two counselors, and the three form the First Presidency. Twelve other apostles form the Quorum of the Twelve. When a president dies, the longest-tenured apostle becomes the next one, and since apostles serve for life, leadership has grown older. After the death of Russell M. Nelson, senior apostle Dallin H. Oaks was announced as president on the 14th of October 2025.

  The priesthood is open to male members living by church standards. The Aaronic priesthood begins at age 11, and the Melchizedek priesthood at 18. Women are not ordained, though they lead the Relief Society, Young Women and Primary. In the early-to-mid 2010s, the Ordain Women organization sought ordination for women. In 2019, church leaders allowed women to witness baptisms. Bishops lead local wards as unpaid volunteers.

  The church runs schools through its Church Educational System, which includes Brigham Young University. Its welfare system began in 1930, during the Great Depression. From 1913 to 2020 the church was a major sponsor of Scouting for boys. In 2020 it ended its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America and started its own religion-centered youth program.

  The church has not released church-wide financial statements since 1959. It has held tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization since 1941. In 1997, Time magazine called it one of the world's wealthiest churches per capita. In 2020, the church-owned investment firm Ensign Peak Advisors reported managing $37.8 billion in securities. A 2020 estimate from The Wall Street Journal put the church's investment fund near $100 billion. By summer 2023, assets were estimated to exceed $163 billion. Its holdings include Bonneville International, Deseret Book, farms and ranches in at least twelve U.S. states, hotels, banks and insurance companies.

  In December 2019, a whistleblower alleged the church held over $100 billion and misled the public about it. In February 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a $5 million penalty to the church and Ensign Peak. It alleged that shell companies hid the investments from 1997 to 2019.

  The church says it spent $1.2 billion on humanitarian aid over 30 years, and reports $906 million in charitable donations in 2021. In October 2022, The Sydney Morning Herald announced that the church publicly claimed US$1.35 billion in donations between 2008 and 2020. Its private financial reports showed only US$0.177 billion. Aid has been real, though. In 2010 it worked with Islamic Relief for Pakistan flood victims, and in 2022 it gave $32 million to the United Nations World Food Programme.

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• 8. Hard Questions

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  In 1852, the church began barring men of Black African descent from the priesthood. From 1844 until 1978 it barred Black people from temple ordinances needed for the highest salvation. Joseph Smith had allowed several Black men to be ordained, but he also taught that dark skin was a sign of a curse from God. Brigham Young legalized Black slavery as governor of Utah. Leaders lifted the restrictions in 1978 after public pressure during the civil rights movement. In 2013, the church disavowed its earlier teachings on race for the first time. In 2018, it formed an alliance with the NAACP.

  Native Americans were taught to be descendants of the Lamanites, a cursed, dark-skinned people from the Book of Mormon. Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen later said that "Resources the Indians had relied on for generations diminished" as settlers took the land. Within 50 years of Mormon settlement, Utah's Native American population fell by almost 90 percent. From the 1950s to the 1990s, an Indian Placement Program housed Native children with church families during school years. Some praised it, while others alleged abuse and forced assimilation.

  Scholars have long challenged the church's scriptures. Archaeologists and historians have found little support for the civilizations in the Book of Mormon. No evidence of Reformed Egyptian has surfaced. The Book of Abraham, published in 1842, drew objections from Egyptologists, who say the translated papyri do not match Smith's text and never mention the patriarch Abraham. Later, documents forged by Mark Hofmann, aimed to contradict early church history, added another challenge.

  Critics also point to the church's teachings on sexuality. For decades it taught that same-sex attraction could be changed. Today gay and bisexual members are left with a mixed-orientation marriage or lifelong celibacy. Critics also fault the church for alleged abuse cover-ups by local leaders. Several cases were settled out of court.

  Membership figures hide quieter strains. The church counts anyone ever baptized, and researchers estimate that about 4 million people attend weekly worship. A 2016 survey found that 54 percent of millennials raised in the church had disaffiliated. On the 28th of September 2025, a shooting in Grand Blanc, Michigan, left four members dead. Growth has slowed in the 21st century, and in 2022, eight of the ten nations with the highest membership growth rates were in Africa.

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