The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian, Christian restorationist 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 million members and 65,000 full-time volunteer missionaries. In 2012, the National Council of Churches ranked the church as the fourth-largest Christian denomination in the United States, with over 6.5 million members there as of January 2018. 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.
Reed Smoot was a businessman and apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was elected by the Utah state legislature to the United States Senate in 1902; he served as a Republican senator from 1903 to 1933. From his time in the Senate, Smoot is primarily remembered as the co-sponsor of the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which increased almost 900 American import duties. Thomas Lamont, a partner at J.P. Morgan at the time said, "That Act intensified nationalism all over the world". The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act is widely regarded as one of the catalysts for the Great Depression.
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.
Boyd Kenneth Packer was an American religious leader and former educator, who served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2008 until his death. He also served as the quorum's acting president from 1994 to 2008, and was an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve from 1970 until his death. He served as a general authority of the church from 1961 until his death.
Ezra Taft Benson was an apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
George Quayle Cannon was an early member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served in the First Presidency under four successive presidents of the church: Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. He was the church's chief political strategist, and was dubbed "the Mormon premier" and "the Mormon Richelieu" by the press. He was also a five-time Utah territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress.
Adam Samuel Bennion was a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Taylorsville, Utah Territory, Bennion received degrees from the University of Utah, Columbia University, and the University of California. He also studied at the University of Chicago. He became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on April 9, 1953, filling a vacancy created by the death of John A. Widtsoe.
Brigham Young Jr. served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1899 until his death. His tenure was interrupted for one week in 1901 when Joseph F. Smith was the president of the Quorum.
The Reed Smoot hearings, also called Smoot hearings or the Smoot Case, were a series of Congressional hearings on whether the United States Senate should seat U.S. Senator Reed Smoot, who was elected by the Utah legislature in 1903. Smoot was an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the top 15 leaders of the church. The hearings began in 1904 and continued until 1907, when the Senate voted. The vote fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to expel a member so he retained his seat.
The Mormon Corridor is the areas of Western North America that were settled between 1850 and approximately 1890 by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are commonly nicknamed “Mormons”.
This is a chronological listing of significant events surrounding Latter Day Saints seeking or winning political office. It refers primarily to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also some members of other Latter Day Saint movement religions, such as Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS). In addition to listing events chronologically, political firsts are noted. This list is very incomplete.
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.
Phineas Howe Young was a prominent early convert in the Latter Day Saint movement and was later a Mormon pioneer and a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Phineas Young was an older brother of Brigham Young, who was the president of the LDS Church and the first governor of the Territory of Utah.
Since its organization in New York in 1830, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had a presence in Canada. The first Latter Day Saint missionaries to preach outside of the United States preached in Upper Canada; the first stake to be established outside of the U.S. was the Alberta Stake; and the Cardston Alberta Temple was the first church temple to be built outside of the current boundaries of the United States.
David Todd Christofferson is an American religious leader and former lawyer who serves as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has been a general authority of the church since 1993. Currently, he is the ninth most senior apostle in the church.
Gary Jerome Coleman has been a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1992.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Early in its history, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a series of negative encounters with the United States federal government. This led to decades of mistrust, armed conflict, and the eventual disincorporation of the church by an act of the United States Congress. The relationship between the church and the government eventually improved and in recent times LDS Church members have served in leadership positions in Congress and held other important political offices. The LDS Church becomes involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level with over a dozen members of Congress having membership in the church in the early 2000s, and about 80% of Utah state lawmakers identifying as Latter-day Saints.
