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." However, scholars and theologians within the Latter Day Saint movement, including Smith, have often used "Mormonism" to describe the unique teachings and doctrines of the movement.
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 Mormonism, the restoration refers to a return of the authentic priesthood power, spiritual gifts, ordinances, living prophets and revelation of the primitive Church of Christ after a long period of apostasy. While in some contexts the term may also refer to the early history of Mormonism, in other contexts the term is used in a way to include the time that has elapsed from the church's earliest beginnings until the present day. Especially in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "the restoration" is often used also as a term to encompass the corpus of religious messages from its general leaders down to the present.
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 the priesthood, later becoming the faith's first black missionary. Abel did not have his priesthood revoked when the LDS Church invoked a now-obsolete priesthood ban for black men, 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.
Over the past two centuries, the relationship between black people and Mormonism has included both official and unofficial discrimination.
Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Zion is often used to connote an association of the righteous. This association would practice a form of communitarian economics called the United Order meant to ensure that all members maintained an acceptable quality of life, class distinctions were minimized, and group unity achieved.
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith is a 1945 book by Fawn M. Brodie that was one of the first significant non-hagiographic biographies of Joseph Smith, the progenitor of the Latter Day Saint movement. No Man Knows My History was influential in the development of Mormon history as a scholarly field, though historians of Mormonism have since criticized the book for its methodological deficiencies, factual errors, and overt hostility to Smith.
The Genesis Group is an auxiliary organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for African-American members and their families.
Joseph Freeman Jr. was the first man of black African descent to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and be ordained an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the announcement of the 1978 Revelation on Priesthood, which allowed "all worthy male members of the Church" to "be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color."
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.
Warner "William" McCary was an African American convert to Mormonism who was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1847 for claiming to be a prophet. Some researchers have suggested that McCary's actions led to the Church's subsequent policy of not allowing people of black African descent to hold the priesthood or participate in temple ordinances.
From 1849 to 1978, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prohibited men of black African descent from being ordained to the priesthood. In 1978, the church's First Presidency declared in a statement known as "Official Declaration 2" that the restriction had been lifted. Between 1830 and 1849, a few black men had been ordained to the priesthood 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.
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.
Darron Smith is an African-American scholar, author and blogger. His research and scholarly writing focuses on social injustices impacting African Americans and other marginalized groups in the US. His work includes the study and impact of race on US health care, the practice of white parents adopting black and biracial children, religion, sports, politics and other pertinent subject matters of present time.
Newell G. Bringhurst is an American historian and author of books and essays. Most of his writings have been about Mormonism— particularly topics and figures of controversy, such as blacks and the priesthood, Fawn Brodie, polygamy, and schisms within the LDS movement
This is a bibliography of works on the Latter Day Saint movement.
This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Mormonism, sorted by alphabetical order of titles.
