This is an index of articles about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian, Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. 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 16.8 million members and 54,539 full-time volunteer missionaries. The church is the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States, with over 6.7 million US members as of 2021. It is 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.
Early Mormonism had a range of doctrines related to race with regards to black people of African descent. References to black people, their social condition during the 19th and 20th centuries, and their spiritual place in Western Christianity as well as in Mormon scripture were complicated.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is one of the governing bodies in the church hierarchy. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are apostles, with the calling to be prophets, seers, and revelators, evangelical ambassadors, and special witnesses of Jesus Christ.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the second anointing, or second endowment, is the pinnacle ordinance of the temple and an extension of the endowment ceremony. Founder Joseph Smith taught that the function of the ordinance was to ensure salvation, guarantee exaltation, and confer godhood. In the ordinance, a participant is anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and is sealed to the highest degree of salvation available in Mormon theology.
The Latter Day Saint movement is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s.
The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity. The purpose of this article is to give an overview of the different groups, beliefs, and denominations that began with the influence of Joseph Smith.
This is a timeline of major events in Mormonism in the 20th century.
Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are two denominations that share a common heritage in the Church of Christ founded by Joseph Smith on April 6, 1830. Since Smith's death in 1844, they have evolved separately in belief and practices. The LDS Church is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and claims more than 16 million members worldwide; Community of Christ is headquartered in Independence, Missouri, and reports a worldwide membership of approximately 250,000.
The Holy of Holies or Holiest of Holies is a room in the Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wherein the church's president — acting as the Presiding High Priest of the church — enters to act as High Priest of Israel in direct relationship with God, in accordance with the LDS interpretation of the Book of Exodus. Hence, this Holy of Holies in the temple is considered by adherents to be a modern cognate to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem. The room was also the place where the second anointing ordinance was administered, although now any room in a temple set apart for this purpose is used.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Quorum of the Twelve is one of the governing bodies or (quorums) of the church hierarchy organized by the movement's founder Joseph Smith and patterned after the Apostles of Jesus. Members are called Apostles, with a special calling to be evangelistic ambassadors to the world.
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.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a temple is a building dedicated to be a House of the Lord. Temples are considered by church members to be the most sacred structures on earth.
In the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, an endowment refers to a gift of "power from on high", typically associated with Latter Day Saint temples. The purpose and meaning of the endowment varied during the life of movement founder Joseph Smith. The term has referred to many such gifts of heavenly power, including the confirmation ritual, the institution of the High Priesthood in 1831, events and rituals occurring in the Kirtland Temple in the mid-1830s, and an elaborate ritual performed in the Nauvoo Temple in the 1840s.
The President of the Church is the highest office of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was the office held by Joseph Smith, the church's founder. The President of the LDS Church is the church's leader and the head of the First Presidency, the church's highest governing body. Latter-day Saints consider the president of the church to be a "prophet, seer, and revelator" and refer to him as "the Prophet", a title that was originally given to Smith. When the name of the president is used by adherents, it is usually prefaced by the title "President". Russell M. Nelson has been the president since January 14, 2018.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the life and influence of Joseph Smith:
Exaltation is a belief among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that mankind can reach the highest level of salvation, to eternally live in God's presence, continue as families, become gods, create worlds, and have spirit children over which they will govern. Church leaders have taught God wants exaltation for all humankind and that humans are "gods in embryo". The church teaches that through exaltation believers may become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ as stated in Romans 8:17 and Revelation 21:7. The objective of adherents is to strive for purity and righteousness and to become one with Jesus as Jesus is one with God the Father. A verse in the canonized Doctrine and Covenants states that those who are exalted will become gods, and a 1925 statement from the church's highest governing body said that "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother ... [and are] capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God." A popular Mormon quote—often attributed to the early apostle Lorenzo Snow in 1837—is "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be."
Apostolic succession in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the process of transition to a new church president when the preceding one has died.
