Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints

Joseph Smith says in the history he began in 1838 that in his fifteenth year, at Manchester in the state of New York, there was “an unusual excitement on the subject of religion” among Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists (Joseph Smith, History, JS—H 1:3–9); see the Second Great Awakening. In the spring of 1820, he writes, he went into the woods to ask God which church to join and saw two Personages in a pillar of light, one of whom called the other his beloved Son; he was told to join none of the sects, “for they were all wrong” (Joseph Smith, History, JS—H 1:14–20). He left other accounts: one written about 1832 says “I saw the Lord”, who told him that his sins were forgiven (Joseph Smith, History (c. 1832), p. 3); a sketch printed in 1842 speaks of “two glorious personages” (Joseph Smith, Church History (1842), p. 707).

The same history says that in 1823 a messenger named Moroni told him of a book written on gold plates, that he was given the plates in 1827, and that he translated them (Joseph Smith, History, JS—H 1:27–35, 59–67). The title page of the Book of Mormon, with the imprint Palmyra, 1830, calls it an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, written “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God” (Book of Mormon (1830) title page). At the end of the volume three men state that an angel showed them the plates (Book of Mormon (1830) p. [589]), and eight more that Smith showed them plates with “the appearance of gold”, which they handled (Book of Mormon (1830) p. [590]).

On 6 April 1830, the history says, Smith and five others met at the house of Peter Whitmer to organize a church, and a revelation given that day at Fayette called Smith “a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ” (Joseph Smith, History, vol. A-1, p. 37). The church’s Articles and Covenants order baptism by immersion “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”, by one who has authority from Jesus Christ (Doctrine and Covenants 20:72–74). A revelation that the church dates to the same month, given for some who wished to join without rebaptism, says that to be baptized even a hundred times avails nothing (Doctrine and Covenants 22, heading and verses 1–4). In 1842 Smith wrote that the Latter-day Saints believe in God the Eternal Father, in his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost, in the Bible as the word of God “as far as it is translated correctly”, and in the Book of Mormon as the word of God (Joseph Smith, Church History (1842), p. 709).

Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot by a mob in the jail at Carthage, Illinois, on 27 June 1844 (Doctrine and Covenants 135, heading and verse 1). An epistle of December 1847, signed by Brigham Young as president on behalf of the Twelve Apostles (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 88), reports that members of that council and 143 pioneers reached the Great Basin in the latter part of July 1847 (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 82) and chose the site of a city there, to be called Great Salt Lake City (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 83).

One of the church’s revelations calls it “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30), and its First Presidency and Twelve Apostles declared in 2020 that it is “Christ’s New Testament Church restored” (Latter-day Saints, Bicentennial Proclamation (2020) paragraph 6). Documents of three other churches do not accept its baptism. Asked in 2001 whether baptism conferred by the Latter-day Saints is valid, the Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered “Negative”, with the approval of John Paul II (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Response of 5 June 2001 question and response). A leaflet of the ecumenical office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) calls Mormonism “a new religious tradition distinct from the historic apostolic tradition of the Church” and advises that people who come from it be received on profession of faith and baptized (Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterians and Latter-day Saints opening paragraph and ‘Support the search for witness’). A page of the United Methodist Church’s website says that the Latter-day Saints baptize with the words Father, Son and Holy Spirit but mean such different things by them that this “is not what we consider Christian baptism” (United Methodist Church, Does the UMC accept the baptism of other denominations? paragraph on baptisms not recognized).