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.
The Standard Works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are the four books that currently constitute its open scriptural canon. The four books of the standard works are:
The Doctrine and Covenants 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 and the Community of Christ.
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several groups following different leaders; the majority followed Brigham Young, while smaller groups followed Joseph Smith III, Sidney Rigdon, and James Strang. Most of these smaller groups eventually merged into the Community of Christ, and the term Mormon typically refers to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as today, this branch is far larger than all the others combined. People who identify as Mormons may also be independently religious, secular, and non-practicing or belong to other denominations. Since 2018, the LDS Church has requested that its members be referred to as "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," or more simply as "Latter-day Saints".
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."
The Lamanites are one of the four ancient peoples described as having settled in the ancient Americas in the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement. The Lamanites also play a role in the prophecies and revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants, another sacred text in the Latter Day Saint movement.
The Joseph Smith Translation (JST), also called the Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures (IV), is a revision of the Bible by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, who said that the JST/IV was intended to restore what he described as "many important points touching the salvation of men, [that] had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled". Smith died before he deemed it complete, though most of his work on it was performed about a decade beforehand. The work is the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) with some significant additions and revisions. It is considered a sacred text and is part of the canon of Community of Christ (CoC), formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and other Latter Day Saint churches. Selections from the Joseph Smith Translation are also included in the footnotes and the appendix of the LDS-published King James Version of the Bible, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has only officially canonized certain excerpts that appear in its Pearl of Great Price. These excerpts are the Book of Moses and Smith's revision of part of the Gospel of Matthew.
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 Pearl of Great Price is part of the canonical standard works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some other Latter Day Saint denominations.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Adam and Eve were the first man and the first woman to live on the earth and that their fall was an essential step in the plan of salvation. Adam in particular is a central figure in Mormon cosmology. Robert L. Millet, a Latter-day Saint author, wrote of the church's perspective:
Few persons in all eternity have been more directly involved in the plan of salvation—the creation, the fall, and the ultimate redemption of the children of God—than the man Adam. His ministry among the sons and daughters of earth stretches from the distant past of premortality to the distant future of resurrection, judgment, and beyond.
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.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, baptism is recognized as the first of several ordinances (rituals) of the gospel.
Darius Gray is an African-American Latter-day Saint speaker and writer.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was introduced to Ghana, West Africa, in 1962. It was officially organized in 1978, following announcement of the revelation on priesthood. As of 2022, the LDS Church reported 101,924 members in 353 congregations in Ghana, making it the second largest body of LDS Church members in Africa, behind Nigeria. In 2021, Ghana ranked as having the third most LDS Church members per capita in Africa, behind Cape Verde and Sierra Leone.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established in Brazil in 1926 with the opening of the South American Mission. Missionary work was focused on small German immigrant colonies in South Brazil. The LDS Church was forced to expand missionary work to Brazilians and Portuguese speakers when non-Portuguese languages were banned in public meetings in 1938. The Brazil Mission was opened on February 9, 1935, with Rulon S. Howells as mission president. The first Portuguese translation of the Book of Mormon was published in 1939.
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 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Zimbabwe refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in Zimbabwe. In 1975, there were 689 members in Zimbabwe. In 2022, there were 38,289 members in 91 congregations.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Uganda refers to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in Uganda. A branch was created in Kampala in 1991, and by year-end 1991, there were 99 members in Uganda. In 2022, there were 20,693 members in 38 congregations.
Remnant fellowships are a loosely organized branch of the Latter Day Saint movement formed by individuals who accept alleged divine revelations received by Denver Snuffer Jr.. The Remnant Fellowships generally feel called to personal and social renewal preparatory to Christ's eventual second coming. According to movement beliefs, participants anticipate a coming time when remnants remain within the full restored covenant with Jesus Christ: an allusion to a belief that "The Bible, Book of Mormon, and modern revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith, prophesy that the gospel of Jesus Christ would shift from the Gentile stewards of the gospel back to Israel in the last days." The movement places a renewed focus on individual communion with God, gifts of the spirit, tangible expressions of faith, and the eventual establishment of Zion. While the movement has no official name, the term "Snufferite" has been used to denote followers. Other designations include covenant of Christ movement and Denver Snuffer movement. Participants sometimes reference each other as "covenant Brother," "covenant Sister".
