Joseph SmithJoseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith had attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religion he founded continues to the present day, with millions of global adherents and several churches claiming Smith as their founder, the largest being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Community of ChristThe Community of Christ, known from 1872 to 2001 as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), is an American-based international church, and is the second-largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement. The church reports 250,000 members in 1,100 congregations in 59 countries. The church traces its origins to Joseph Smith's establishment of the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830. His eldest son Joseph Smith III formally accepted leadership of the church on April 6, 1860 in the aftermath of the 1844 death of Joseph Smith.
Burned-over districtThe term "burned-over district" refers to the western and parts of the central regions of New York State in the early 19th century, where religious revivals and the formation of new religious movements of the Second Great Awakening took place, to such a great extent that spiritual fervor seemed to set the area on fire. Charles Grandison Finney (1792–1875) popularized the term: his posthumous 1876 book Autobiography of Charles G.
Standard worksThe Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church, the largest in the Latter Day Saint movement) are the four books that currently constitute its open scriptural canon.
Doctrine and CovenantsThe Doctrine and Covenants (sometimes abbreviated and cited as D&C or D. and C.) is a part of the open scriptural canon of several denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. Originally published in 1835 as Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God, editions of the book continue to be printed mainly by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [RLDS Church]).
First VisionThe First Vision (also called the grove experience by members of the Community of Christ) refers to a theophany which Latter Day Saints believe Joseph Smith experienced in the early 1820s, in a wooded area in Manchester, New York, called the Sacred Grove. Smith described it as a vision in which he received instruction from God the Father and Jesus Christ. According to the account Smith told in 1838, he went to the woods to pray about which church to join but fell into the grip of an evil power that nearly overcame him.
MormonismMormonism is the religious tradition and theology of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of the Latter Day Saint movement, although there has been a recent push from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to distance themselves from this label. A historian, Sydney E.
Great ApostasyThe Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his twelve Apostles. A belief in a Great Apostasy has been characteristic of the Restorationist tradition of Christianity, which includes unrelated Restorationist groups emerging after the Second Great Awakening, such as the Christadelphians, Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Iglesia ni Cristo.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a restorationist, nontrinitarian Christian denomination belonging to Mormonism. The church is headquartered in the United States in Salt Lake City, Utah and has established congregations and built temples worldwide. According to the church, it has over 17 million members and 62,544 full-time volunteer missionaries. Based on these numbers, the church is the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States as of 2012, and reported over 6.
Book of MormonThe Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude dated by the text to the unspecified time of the Tower of Babel. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi.