The 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, after the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention and United Methodist Church, and reported over 6.7 million US members as of 2021. It is by far the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement founded by Joseph Smith during the early 19th-century period of religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening.
Mormonism 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 to distance themselves from this label. A historian, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982, "One cannot even be sure, whether [Mormonism] is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these."
Elijah Abel, or Able or Ables was one of the earliest African-American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was the church's first African-American elder and Seventy. Abel was predominantly of Scottish and English descent and appears to have been the first, and one of the few, black members in the early history of the church to have received Priesthood ordination, later becoming the faith's first black missionary. Abel did not have his ordination revoked when the LDS Church officially announced its now-obsolete restrictions on Priesthood ordination, but was denied a chance to receive his temple endowment by third church president John Taylor. As a skilled carpenter, Abel often committed his services to the building of LDS temples and chapels. He died in 1884 after serving a mission to Cincinnati, Ohio, his last of three total missions for the church.
During the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, the relationship between Black people and Mormonism has included enslavement, exclusion and inclusion, official and unofficial discrimination, and friendly ties. Black people have been involved with the Latter Day Saint movement since its inception in the 1830s. Their experiences have varied widely depending on the specific denomination within Mormonism, and the time in history of their involvement. From the mid-1800s to 1978, Mormonism's largest denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred Black women and men from participating in ordinances of its temples necessary for the highest level of salvation, prevented most men of Black African descent from being ordained to the church's lay, all-male priesthood, supported racial segregation in its communities and schools, taught that righteous Black people would be made White after death, and opposed interracial marriage. The temple and priesthood racial restrictions were lifted by top leaders in 1978. In 2013 the church disavowed its previous teachings on race for the first time.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been subject to criticism and sometimes discrimination since its inception.
The 1978 Revelation on Priesthood was a revelation announced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that reversed a long-standing policy excluding men of black African descent from the priesthood.
Marcus Helvécio Martins is the former dean and department chair for religious education at Brigham Young University–Hawaii (BYU–Hawaii), and also the author of Setting the Record Straight: Blacks and the Mormon Priesthood. Martins was the first black member to serve as a missionary after the revelation extending the priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to all male members regardless of race or color. Martins is the son of Helvécio Martins, the first Latter-day Saint of African descent to serve as an LDS Church general authority.
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
From 1852 to 1978, temple and priesthood policies in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibited women and men of Black African descent from temple ordinances and ordination in the all-male priesthood. In 1978, the church's highest governing body, the First Presidency, declared in the statement "Official Declaration 2" that the restriction had been lifted. Between 1830 and 1852, a few black men had been ordained to the Mormon priesthood in the Latter Day Saint movement under Joseph Smith.
Since Mormonism’s foundation, Black people have been members, however the church placed restrictions on proselytization efforts among black people. Before 1978, black membership was small. It has since grown, and in 1997, there were approximately 500,000 black members of the church, mostly in Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean. Black membership has continued to grow substantially, especially in West Africa, where two temples have been built. By 2018, an estimated 6% of members were black worldwide. In the United States, approximately 1% of members are black.
Three missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started proselyting to white English-speaking people in Cape Town in 1853. Most converts from this time emigrated to the United States. The mission was closed in 1865, but reopened in 1903.The South African government limited the amount of missionaries allowed to enter the country in 1921 and in 1955. Starting around 1930, a man had to trace his genealogy out of Africa to be eligible for the priesthood, since black people were not permitted to be ordained. In 1954 when church president David O. McKay visited South Africa, he removed the requirement for genealogical research for a man to be ordained, stipulating only that "there is no evidence of his having Negro blood in his veins".
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, marriage between a man and a woman is considered to be "ordained of God". Marriage is thought to consist of a covenant between the man, the woman, and God. The church teaches that in addition to civil marriage, which ends at death, a man and woman can enter into a celestial marriage, performed in a temple by priesthood authority, whereby the marriage and parent–child relationships resulting from the marriage will last forever in the afterlife.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Black and Mormon is a 2004 book edited, with an introduction, by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith. It is a collection of articles about Black people and Mormonism, race and the LDS priesthood, and the experience of Black Mormons.
In the past, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have consistently opposed marriages between members of different ethnicities, though interracial marriage is no longer considered a sin. In 1977, apostle Boyd K. Packer publicly stated that "[w]e've always counseled in the Church for our Mexican members to marry Mexicans, our Japanese members to marry Japanese, our Caucasians to marry Caucasians, our Polynesian members to marry Polynesians. ... The counsel has been wise." Nearly every decade for over a century—beginning with the church's formation in the 1830s until the 1970s—has seen some denunciations of interracial marriages (miscegenation), with most statements focusing on Black–White marriages. Church president Brigham Young taught on multiple occasions that Black–White marriage merited death for the couple and their children.
This is a bibliography of works on the Latter Day Saint movement.
Civil rights and Mormonism have been intertwined since the religion's start, with founder Joseph Smith writing on slavery in 1836. Initial Mormon converts were from the north of the United States and opposed slavery. This caused contention in the slave state of Missouri, and the church began distancing itself from abolitionism and justifying slavery based on the Bible. During this time, several slave owners joined the church, and brought their slaves with them when they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. The church adopted scriptures which teaches against influencing slaves to be "dissatisfied with their condition" as well as scriptures which teaches that "all are alike unto God." As mayor of Nauvoo, Smith prohibited blacks from holding office, joining the Nauvoo Legion, voting or marrying whites; but, as president of the church blacks became members and several black men were ordained to the priesthood. Also during this time, Smith began his presidential campaign on a platform for the government to buy slaves into freedom over several years. He was killed during his presidential campaign.
Over the past two centuries, the relationship between Native American people and Mormonism has included friendly ties, displacement, battles, slavery, education placement programs, and official and unofficial discrimination. Native American people were historically considered a special group by adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement (Mormons) since they were believed to be the descendants of the Lamanite people described in The Book of Mormon. There is no support from genetic studies and archaeology for the historicity of the Book of Mormon or Middle Eastern origins for any Native American peoples. Today there are many Native American members of Mormon denominations as well as many people who are critical of Mormonism and its teachings and actions around Native American people.
Black segregation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a part of the religion for over a century. The LDS church discouraged social interaction or marriage with black people and encouraged racial segregation. The practice began with church founder Joseph Smith who stated, "I would confine them [black people] by strict law to their own species". Until 1963, many church leaders supported legalized racial segregation. David O. McKay, J. Reuben Clark, Henry D. Moyle, Ezra Taft Benson, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Mark E. Peterson were leading proponents of segregation. In the late 1940s First Presidency members publicly and privately condemned white-black marriage calling it "repugnant", "forbidden", and a "wicked virus".
