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94-548: The Mormon Alliance (originally the Mormon Defense League, but not to be conflated with a later organization of that name) was founded on July 4, 1992 by Paul Toscano to counter perceived spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to protect the Church against defamatory actions. During the next few months, the trustees established a broad range of supporting purposes: providing

188-566: A competing "reform church" , and in the following month, at the county seat in Carthage , they procured indictments against Smith for perjury (as Smith publicly denied having more than one wife) and polygamy. On June 7, the dissidents published the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor , calling for reform within the church but also appealing politically to non-Mormons. The paper alluded to Smith's theocratic aspirations, called for

282-631: A grand jury hearing in Daviess County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards. Many American newspapers criticized Missouri for the Haun's Mill massacre and the state's expulsion of the Mormons. Illinois then accepted Mormon refugees who gathered along the banks of the Mississippi River , where Smith purchased high-priced, swampy woodland in

376-485: A wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel." Smith said he recounted the experience to a Methodist minister, who dismissed the story "with great contempt". According to historian Steven C. Harper, "There is no evidence in the historical record that Joseph Smith told anyone but

470-463: A More Inclusive Church . She died on October 29, 2023. D. Michael Quinn was a Mormon historian. Among other studies, he documented LDS Church-sanctioned polygamy from 1890 until 1904, after the 1890 Manifesto that officially abandoned the practice. He wrote chapter 17, "Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843" in the book Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (1992). He

564-455: A brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order. Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing , where several of his former allies testified against him. Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with treason, and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri , to await trial. Smith bore his imprisonment stoically. Understanding that he

658-413: A comprehensive definition of spiritual abuse, working to reconcile leaders and members who were out of harmony, establishing a Members’ Bill of Rights , providing a forum for a reasonable and tempered discussion of governance in the Church, critiquing general conference, and identifying and documenting cases of spiritual and ecclesiastical abuse. Janice Merrill Allred and Lavina Fielding Anderson , two of

752-710: A cosmology of many gods. Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City the former Joseph Smith Memorial building on the campus of Brigham Young University as well as the Joseph Smith Building there, a granite obelisk marking Smith's birthplace, and a fifteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Smith in the World Peace Dome in Pune , India. Smith's death resulted in

846-460: A disfellowshipped member. While the LDS Church sometimes announces that a prominent member has been excommunicated, the default policy is to refuse to publicly discuss details about the reasons for any excommunication, even if details of the proceedings are made public by that person. Other than the summons sent to each of the six (specifying that their behavior was "contrary to the laws and order of

940-457: A dispute with a federal bureaucrat – he organized the secret Council of Fifty , which was given the authority to decide which national or state laws Mormons should obey, as well as establish its own government for Mormons. Before his death the Council also voted unanimously to elect Smith "Prophet, Priest, and King". The Council was likewise appointed to select a site for a large Mormon settlement in

1034-611: A few wealthy and influential converts, including John C. Bennett , the Illinois quartermaster general . Bennett used his connections in the Illinois state legislature to obtain an unusually liberal charter for the new city, which Smith renamed " Nauvoo ". The charter granted the city virtual autonomy, authorized a university, and granted Nauvoo habeas corpus power—which allowed Smith to fend off extradition to Missouri. Though Latter Day Saint authorities controlled Nauvoo's civil government,

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1128-450: A higher priesthood. Smith's authority was undermined when Cowdery, Hiram Page , and other church members also claimed to receive revelations. In response, Smith dictated a revelation which clarified his office as a prophet and an apostle , stating that only he had the ability to declare doctrine and scripture for the church. Smith then dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans . Cowdery

1222-402: A member, Whitesides claims that she "exploded" out of the church and her marriage in 1993, and she now considers herself a practitioner of Native American philosophies. Avraham Gileadi is a Hebrew scholar and literary analyst, who is considered theologically conservative. Following his 1981 Ph.D. in ancient studies from Brigham Young University , he published a new interpretive translation of

1316-558: A new round of violence against the Mormons, the Nauvoo City Council declared the newspaper a public nuisance, and Smith ordered the Nauvoo Legion to assist the police force in destroying its printing press . During the council debate, Smith vigorously urged the council to order the press destroyed, not realizing that destroying a newspaper was more likely to incite an attack than any of the newspaper's accusations. Destruction of

1410-523: A new temple. In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland. Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman , in Daviess County . Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Latter Day Saint settlers provoked tensions between

1504-453: A party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre . The following day, the Mormons surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state. Smith was immediately brought before a military court , accused of treason , and sentenced to be executed the next morning, but Alexander Doniphan , who was Smith's former attorney and

1598-441: A period of "rapid-fire translation". Between April and early June 1829, the two worked full time on the manuscript, then moved to Fayette, New York , where they continued the work at the home of Cowdery's friend, Peter Whitmer . When the narrative described an institutional church and a requirement for baptism , Smith and Cowdery baptized each other. Dictation was completed about July 1, 1829. According to Smith, Moroni took back

1692-508: A prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah . Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the LDS Church and the Community of Christ . Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Vermont , on the border between the villages of South Royalton and Sharon , to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph Smith Sr. , a merchant and farmer. He

1786-485: A relatively common practice in that time and place. Both his parents and his maternal grandfather reported having visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God. Smith said that, although he had become concerned about the welfare of his soul, he was confused by the claims of competing religious denominations. Years later, Smith wrote that he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion. He said that in 1820, while he had been praying in

1880-522: A repeal of the Nauvoo city charter, and decried his new "doctrines of many Gods". (Smith had recently given his King Follett discourse , in which he said that God was once a man, and that men and women could become gods.) It also attacked Smith's practice of polygamy, implying that he was using religion as a pretext to draw unassuming women to Nauvoo to seduce and marry them. Fearing the Expositor would provoke

1974-477: A revelation announcing that in order to redeem Zion, his followers would have to receive an endowment in the Kirtland Temple , which he and his followers constructed. In March 1836, at the temple's dedication, many who received the endowment reported seeing visions of angels and engaged in prophesying and speaking in tongues. In January 1837, Smith and other churchleaders created a joint stock company , called

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2068-751: A succession crisis within the Latter Day Saint movement. He had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference. The two strongest succession candidates were Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young. They eventually left Nauvoo and settled

2162-703: A type of magical supernaturalism common during the period. Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including, beginning in 1825, several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by Josiah Stowell , a wealthy farmer in Chenango County . In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure; Stowell's relatives accused Smith of tricking Stowell and faking an ability to perceive hidden treasure, though Stowell attested that he believed Smith had such abilities. The result of

2256-569: A warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on a charge of banking fraud , he and Rigdon fled for Missouri in January 1838. By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to redeem Zion in Jackson County, and instead declared the town of Far West, Missouri , in Caldwell County , as the new "Zion". In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on

2350-548: Is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Born in Sharon, Vermont , Smith moved with his family to Western New York , following a series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening , Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The first of these

2444-556: Is now treated as if it never happened. Gileadi is currently an active member of the church. Paul Toscano is a Salt Lake City attorney who co-authored, with Margaret Merrill Toscano, a controversial book, Strangers in Paradox: Explorations in Mormon Theology (1990), and in 1992, he co-founded The Mormon Alliance . He later wrote the book The Sanctity of Dissent (1994) and its sequel, The Sacrament of Doubt (2007). He

2538-501: The Nauvoo Expositor criticized Smith's power and his practice of polygamy , Smith and the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of its printing press , inflaming anti-Mormon sentiment. Fearing an invasion of Nauvoo, Smith rode to Carthage, Illinois , to stand trial, but was shot and killed by a mob that stormed the jailhouse. During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God . He dictated

2632-451: The 1838 Mormon War . Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns. In the Battle of Crooked River , a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistakenly believing them to be anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state". On October 30,

2726-695: The Book of Isaiah in 1988 and a study of its eschatological prophecies in 1991. Mormon scholars, including Hugh Nibley , Truman G. Madsen and Ellis Rasmussen , praised his work, but his argument that the Isaiah prophecies pointed to a human "Davidic king" who would emerge in the Last Days , apart from Jesus Christ, was controversial, and his second book was pulled from the shelves by its publisher, church-owned Deseret Book . The reasons for his excommunication on September 15 are unclear. According to Margaret Toscano (whose husband

2820-624: The Church of Christ , calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church . Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints" or "Mormons". In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal Zion in the American heartland. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio , and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri , which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During

2914-565: The Kirtland Safety Society , to act as a quasi-bank; the company issued banknotes partly capitalized by real estate. Smith encouraged his followers to buy the notes, in which he invested heavily himself. The bank failed within a month. As a result, Latter Day Saints in Kirtland suffered extreme high volatility and intense pressure from debt collectors. Smith was held responsible for the failure, and there were widespread defections from

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3008-675: The Republic of Texas , Oregon , or California (then controlled by Mexico ), where Mormons could live under theocratic law beyond the control of other governments. By early 1844, a rift developed between Smith and a half dozen of his closest associates. Most notably, William Law , his trusted counselor, and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Legion, disagreed with Smith about how to manage Nauvoo's economy. Both also said that Smith had proposed marriage to their wives. Believing these men were plotting against his life, Smith excommunicated them on April 18, 1844. Law and Foster subsequently formed

3102-701: The Salt Lake Valley , Utah Territory . Nominal membership in Young's denomination, which became the LDS Church, surpassed 17 million in 2023. Smaller groups followed Rigdon and James J. Strang , who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith but which some scholars believe was forged . Some hundreds followed Lyman Wight to establish a community in Texas. Others followed Alpheus Cutler . Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under

3196-702: The Sunstone symposium held in Salt Lake City, Utah. This article related to the Latter Day Saint movement is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Paul Toscano Lynne Kanavel Whitesides is a Mormon feminist and is noted for speaking on the Mother in Heaven . Whitesides was the first of the group to experience church discipline and was disfellowshipped September 14, 1993. Though technically still

3290-469: The 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations , and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple . Because of the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society , violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians, and the Mormon extermination order , Smith and his followers established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois , of which he was the spiritual and political leader. In 1844, when

3384-562: The 1996 book Same-Sex Dynamics Among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example , which argues that homosexuality was common among early Mormons and was not seen as a serious sin or transgression. He also authored the 1987 book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View , which argues that early Mormon leaders were greatly influenced by folk magic and superstitious beliefs including stone looking , charms , and divining rods . Despite his excommunication and critical writings, Quinn, who

3478-560: The Church, and Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor. The early Nauvoo years were a period of doctrinal innovation. Smith introduced baptism for the dead in 1840, and in 1841 construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge. An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fullness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing". The endowment resembled

3572-475: The Faiths of our Fathers: Women who Changed American Religion (2004), edited by Ann Braude. Maxine Hanks is a Mormon feminist theologian, who compiled and edited the anthology Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (1992). She was excommunicated on September 19, along with fellow contributor D. Michael Quinn . In February 2012, Hanks was rebaptized as a member of the church. Lavina Fielding Anderson

3666-469: The Latter Day Saint community, Smith was viewed as a prophet, martyred to seal the testimony of his faith. After a public funeral and viewing of the deceased brothers, Smith's widow – who feared hostile non-Mormons might try to desecrate the bodies – had their remains buried at night in a secret location, with substitute coffins filled with sandbags interred in the publicly attested grave. The bodies were later moved and reburied under an outbuilding on

3760-499: The Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's legacy varies between denominations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members consider Smith the founding prophet of their church, on par with Moses and Elijah . Meanwhile, Smith's reputation is ambivalent in the Community of Christ , which continues "honoring his role" in the church's founding history but deemphasizes his human leadership. Conversely, Woolleyite Mormon fundamentalism has deified Smith within

3854-543: The Latter Day Saint newcomers for both political and religious reasons. Additionally, their rapid growth aroused fears that they would soon constitute a majority in local elections, and thus "rule the county." Tension increased until July 1833, when non-Mormons forcibly evicted the Mormons and destroyed their property. Smith advised his followers to bear the violence patiently until after they had been attacked multiple times, after which they could fight back. Armed bands exchanged fire, killing one Mormon and two non-Mormons, until

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3948-490: The Mormons. After an unknown assailant shot and wounded Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in May 1842, anti-Mormons circulated rumors that Smith's bodyguard, Porter Rockwell , was the gunman. Though the evidence was circumstantial, Boggs ordered Smith's extradition. Certain he would be killed if he ever returned to Missouri, Smith went into hiding twice during the next five months, until the U.S. Attorney for Illinois argued that his extradition would be unconstitutional. (Rockwell

4042-576: The Nauvoo City Council surrendered themselves. Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River, but shortly returned and surrendered to Ford. On June 25, Smith and his brother Hyrum arrived in Carthage to stand trial for inciting a riot. Once the Smiths were in custody, the charges were increased to treason, preventing them from posting bail . John Taylor and Willard Richards voluntarily accompanied

4136-501: The September Six and were also involved in disciplinary actions during 1993. Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement . Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religion he founded

4230-643: The Smith property off the Mississippi River. Members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church), under the direction of then-RLDS Church president Frederick M. Smith (Smith's grandson) searched for, located, and disinterred the Smith brothers' remains in 1928 and reinterred them, along with Smith's wife, in Nauvoo at the Smith Family Cemetery . Modern biographers and scholars – Mormon and non-Mormon alike – agree that Smith

4324-497: The Smiths in Carthage Jail . On June 27, 1844, an armed mob with blackened faces stormed Carthage Jail , where Joseph and Hyrum were being detained. Hyrum, who was trying to secure the door, was killed instantly with a shot to the face. Smith fired three shots from a pepper-box pistol that his friend, Cyrus H. Wheelock , had lent him, wounding three men, before he sprang for the window. (Smith and his companions were staying in

4418-492: The book Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism (1992). Anderson continued to attend LDS Church services as a non-member. She wrote on Mormon issues, including editing the multi-volume Case Reports of the Mormon Alliance , an ongoing collection of interviews with Mormons who believe they were unfairly disciplined by the church. After her husband's death in 2018, Anderson's bishop approached her about reinstatement,

4512-635: The church hierarchy. Converts poured into Kirtland. By the summer of 1835, there were fifteen hundred to two thousand Latter Day Saints in the vicinity, many expecting Smith to lead them shortly to the Millennial kingdom. Though his mission to the Native Americans had been a failure, Cowdery and the other missionaries with him were charged with finding a site for "a holy city". They found Jackson County, Missouri . After Smith visited in July 1831, he pronounced

4606-512: The church"), the church is silent on why a member was disciplined. Such disciplinary proceedings are typically undertaken locally, initiated by leaders at the ward or stake level, although at least one of the September Six suggested his excommunication was orchestrated by higher-ranking church leaders. Procedures pertaining to the organization of these disciplinary councils are found in the church's scriptural Doctrine and Covenants section 102 as well as in its administrative handbook. During

4700-463: The church, including many of Smith's closest advisers. The failure of the bank was one part of a series of internal disputes led to the demise of the Kirtland community. Cowdery had accused Smith of engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage servant in his home, Fanny Alger . Construction of the Kirtland Temple had only added to the church's debt, and Smith was hounded by creditors. After

4794-479: The city guaranteed religious freedom for its residents. The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion , a militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. Smith and Bennett became its commanders, and were styled Lieutenant General and Major General respectively. As such, they controlled by far the largest body of armed men in Illinois. Smith appointed Bennett as Assistant President of

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4888-558: The couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester. Later that year, when Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, his father-in-law offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business. Smith made his last visit to the hill shortly after midnight on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him. This time, he said he successfully retrieved the plates. Smith said Moroni commanded him not to show

4982-448: The end of June, Smith deescalated the confrontation, sought peace with Jackson County's residents, and disbanded Zion's Camp. Nevertheless, Zion's Camp transformed Latter Day Saint leadership because many future church leaders came from among the participants. After the Camp returned to Ohio, Smith drew heavily from its participants to establish various governing bodies in the church. He gave

5076-448: The existence of the golden plates. Harris persuaded Smith to let him take 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife. While Harris had the manuscript in his possession—of which there was no other copy—it was lost. Smith was devastated by this loss, especially since it came at the same time as the death of his first son, who died shortly after birth. Smith said that as punishment for his having lost

5170-454: The first ecclesiastical leader in the twenty-four years since she was excommunicated to do so. The stake high council and regional council recommended to the First Presidency that she be reinstated, but on August 27, 2019, they received a denial without an explanation. Anderson continued to attend weekly church services and published in 2020 a collection of essays regarding inclusiveness and gender inequality in her book Mercy Without End: Toward

5264-640: The frontier hamlet of Independence the "center place" of Zion . For most of the 1830s, the church was effectively based in Ohio. Smith lived there, though he visited Missouri again in early 1832 to prevent a rebellion of prominent church members who believed the church in Missouri was being neglected. Smith's trip was hastened by a mob of Ohio residents who were incensed over the church's presence and Smith's political power. The mob beat Smith and Rigdon unconscious, tarred and feathered them, and left them for dead. In Jackson County, existing Missouri residents resented

5358-579: The golden plates for himself, property they believed should be jointly shared. After they ransacked places where they believed the plates might have been hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra. In October 1827, Smith and Emma permanently moved to Harmony, aided by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris , who began serving as Smith's scribe in April 1828. Although he and his wife, Lucy, were early supporters of Smith, by June 1828 they began to have doubts about

5452-460: The ground, and speaking in tongues . Rigdon's followers were practicing a form of communalism . Smith brought the Kirtland congregation under his authority and tamed ecstatic outbursts. He had promised church elders that in Kirtland they would receive an endowment of heavenly power, and at the June 1831 general conference , he introduced the greater authority of a High ("Melchizedek") Priesthood to

5546-471: The hamlet of Commerce . He attempted to portray the Mormons as an oppressed minority and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations . During the summer of 1839, while Mormons in Illinois suffered from a malaria epidemic, Smith sent Young and other apostles to missions in Europe, where they made numerous converts, many of them poor factory workers. Smith also attracted

5640-519: The hostility of those who remembered the 1826 Chenango County trial. After Cowdery baptized several new church members, Smith's followers were threatened with mob violence. Before Smith could confirm the newly baptized, he was arrested and charged with being a "disorderly person." Although he was acquitted , both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Smith later claimed that, probably around this time, Peter , James , and John had appeared to him and had ordained him and Cowdery to

5734-532: The image of the corporate church above its commitment to its members, to the teachings and the revelations of founder Joseph Smith , and to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In 2007, Toscano wrote that he lost his faith "like losing your eyesight after an accident." He regrets that church leaders have disregarded his criticisms of what he considers the church's growing anti-intellectualism, homophobia, misogyny, and elitism. Toscano's wife, Margaret, faced her own disciplinary council for her doctrinal and feminist views and

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5828-417: The jailer's bedroom, which did not have bars on the windows.) He was shot multiple times before falling out of the window, crying, "Oh Lord my God!" He died shortly after hitting the ground, but was shot several more times by an improvised firing squad before the mob dispersed. Following Smith's death, non-Mormon newspapers were nearly unanimous in portraying Smith as a religious fanatic. Conversely, within

5922-415: The kingdom". Smith also elaborated on his plan for a Millennial kingdom; no longer envisioning the building of Zion in Nauvoo, he viewed Zion as encompassing all of North and South America, with Mormon settlements being " stakes " of Zion's metaphorical tent. Zion also became less a refuge from an impending tribulation than a great building project. In the summer of 1842, Smith revealed a plan to establish

6016-556: The leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church (Community of Christ), which has about 250,000 members. The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two. The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831). When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia and Joseph Murdock, whose mother had recently died in childbirth;

6110-498: The majority of these in the first-person, saying they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God. His followers accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory, and several of these texts were canonized by denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement, which continue to treat them as scripture . Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology , family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard Smith as

6204-625: The manuscript, Moroni returned, took away the plates, and revoked his ability to translate. During this period, Smith briefly attended Methodist meetings with his wife, until a cousin of hers objected to inclusion of a "practicing necromancer " on the Methodist class roll. Smith said that Moroni returned the plates to him in September 1828, and he then dictated some of the book to his wife Emma. In April 1829 he met Oliver Cowdery , who had also dabbled in folk magic; and with Cowdery as scribe, Smith began

6298-674: The millennial Kingdom of God, which would eventually establish theocratic rule over the whole Earth. It was around this time that Smith began secretly marrying additional wives, a practice called plural marriage . He introduced the doctrine to a few of his closest associates, including Bennett, who used it as an excuse to seduce numerous women, wed and unwed. When rumors of polygamy (called "spiritual wifery" by Bennett) got abroad, Smith forced Bennett's resignation as Nauvoo mayor. In retaliation, Bennett left Nauvoo and began publishing sensational accusations against Smith and his followers. By mid-1842, popular opinion in Illinois had turned against

6392-489: The minister of his vision for at least a decade", and Smith might have kept it private because of how uncomfortable that first dismissal was. During the 1830s, Smith orally described the vision to some of his followers, though it was not widely published among Mormons until the 1840s. This vision later grew in importance to Smith's followers, who eventually regarded it as the first event in the restoration of Christ's church to Earth . Smith himself may have originally considered

6486-539: The new organization dramatically. After Rigdon visited New York, he soon became Smith's primary assistant. With growing opposition in New York, Smith announced a revelation that his followers should gather to Kirtland, Ohio , establish themselves as a people and await word from Cowdery's mission. When Smith moved to Kirtland in January 1831, he encountered a religious culture that included enthusiastic demonstrations of spiritual gifts , including fits and trances, rolling on

6580-455: The newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp , editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith. Fearing mob violence, Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion on June 18 and declared martial law . Officials in Carthage responded by mobilizing a small detachment of the state militia, and Governor Ford intervened, threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and

6674-450: The old settlers forcibly expelled the Latter Day Saints from the county. After petitions to Missouri governor Daniel Dunklin for aid were unsuccessful, Smith organized and led a small paramilitary expedition, called Zion's Camp , to aid the Latter Day Saints in Missouri. As a military endeavor, the expedition was a failure. The men of the expedition were disorganized, suffered from a cholera outbreak and were severely outnumbered. By

6768-523: The plates once Smith finished using them. The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon , was published in Palmyra by printer Egbert Bratt Grandin and was first advertised for sale on March 26, 1830. Less than two weeks later, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ , and small branches were established in Manchester, Fayette, and Colesville, New York . The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and renewed

6862-478: The plates the next morning, but was unsuccessful because Moroni returned and prevented him. He reported that during the next four years he made annual visits to the hill, but, until the fourth and final visit, each time he returned without the plates. Meanwhile, Smith's family faced financial hardship, due in part to the death of his oldest brother Alvin . Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers,

6956-430: The plates to anyone else, but to translate them and publish their translation. He also said the plates were a religious record of Middle-Eastern indigenous Americans and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian . He told associates that he was capable of reading and translating them. Although Smith had abandoned treasure hunting, former associates believed he had double crossed them and had taken

7050-607: The proceeding remains unclear because primary sources report conflicting outcomes. While boarding at the Hale house, located in the township of Harmony (now Oakland ) in Pennsylvania , Smith met and courted Emma Hale . When he proposed marriage, her father, Isaac Hale, objected; he believed Smith had no means to support his daughter. Hale also considered Smith a stranger who appeared "careless" and "not very well educated." Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, after which

7144-544: The right to call out federal troops in its defense. Smith then wrote to the leading presidential candidates, asking what they would do to protect the Mormons. After receiving noncommittal or negative responses, he announced his own independent candidacy for president of the United States , suspended regular proselytizing, and sent out the Quorum of the Twelve and hundreds of other political missionaries. In March 1844 – following

7238-571: The rites of Freemasonry that Smith had observed two months earlier when he had been initiated " at sight " into the Nauvoo Masonic lodge. At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum . For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society , a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of

7332-490: The time of the September Six, Handbook 1 , which was only available to ecclesiastical leaders, was in use. In 2020, the church publicly published a revised handbook, General Handbook: Serving in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . The 2020 Handbook changes some language and procedures regarding church discipline. The LDS Church later excommunicated Janice Merrill Allred in 1995 and Margaret Merrill Toscano in 2000, both of whom had collaborated with several of

7426-562: The trustees, became co-chairs of the Case Reports Committee in the fall of 1992 and served until the closing of the Mormon Alliance. Toscano and Fielding Anderson were excommunicated by the Church following their actions. The Alliance published a quarterly newsletter from Fall 1993 to January 2006, as well as three volumes of case reports online and in print. The Alliance also sponsored quarterly meetings, two of which would follow Church General Conferences and one in conjunction with

7520-482: The two groups, much as they had in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons . Tensions between the Mormons and the native Missourians escalated quickly until, on August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri , tried to prevent Mormons from voting, and a brawl ensued. The election day scuffles initiated

7614-453: The vision to be a personal conversion. According to Smith's later accounts, while praying one night in 1823, he was visited by an angel named Moroni . Smith claimed this angel revealed the location of a buried book made of golden plates , as well as other artifacts including a breastplate and a set of interpreters composed of two seer stones set in a frame, which had been hidden in a hill near his home. Smith said he attempted to remove

7708-467: Was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm during the Second Great Awakening . Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area. Smith's parents disagreed about religion, but the family was caught up in this excitement. Smith later recounted that he had become interested in religion by age 12, and as a teenager, may have been sympathetic to Methodism . With other family members, he also engaged in religious folk magic ,

7802-907: Was a Mormon feminist writer who edited the books Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (1992) and Lucy's Book , an edition of the Lucy Mack Smith narrative. She was a former editor for the Ensign and served as editor for the Journal of Mormon History from 1991 to May 2009. She was excommunicated September 23 for apostasy, allegedly because of her article "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology" in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought . She also wrote chapter 9, "The Grammar of Inequity" in

7896-500: Was after his excommunication openly gay , still considered himself to be a Latter-day Saint, a stance he maintained until his death in 2021. Except for Whitesides, all of the September Six were excommunicated . Whitesides was disfellowshipped , a lesser sanction that does not formally expel one from church membership. To date, three of the September Six have retained or regained church membership: Avraham Gileadi and Maxine Hanks, who were rebaptized, and Lynne Whitesides, who remains

7990-457: Was also assigned the task of locating the site of the New Jerusalem , which was to be "on the borders" of the United States with what was then Indian territory. On their way to Missouri , Cowdery's party passed through northeastern Ohio , where Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred followers of his variety of Campbellite Restorationism converted to the Church of Christ, swelling the ranks of

8084-419: Was among the September Six and who would also later be excommunicated), Gileadi's "books interpreting Mormon scripture challenged the exclusive right of leaders to define doctrine," but Gileadi himself disputes that characterization. The church (through Gileadi's Stake President and related membership council ) reversed the original disciplinary action against him and expunged it from the church's records, which

8178-428: Was effectively on trial before his own people, many of whom considered him a fallen prophet, he wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of his followers. "The keys of the kingdom ", he wrote, "have not been taken away from us". Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to moderate their antagonism toward non-Mormons. On April 6, 1839, after

8272-684: Was excommunicated September 26. Quinn was summoned to a disciplinary council to answer charges of "conduct unbecoming a member of the Church and apostasy," including " 'very sensitive and highly confidential' matters that were not related to Michael's historical writings." Anderson has suggested that the "allusion to Michael's sexual orientation, which Michael had not yet made public, was unmistakable." Quinn afterwards published several critical studies of Mormon hierarchy, including his three-volume work of The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power , The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power , and The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power. He also authored

8366-419: Was excommunicated from the LDS Church on September 19, 1993. The reasons for his excommunication, as reportedly given by church leaders, were apostasy and false teaching. According to Toscano, the actual reason was insubordination in refusing to curb his sharp criticism of Church leaders' preference for legalism, ecclesiastical tyranny, white-washed Mormon history, and hierarchical authoritarianism, which privilege

8460-469: Was excommunicated on November 30, 2000. Some view her excommunication as constituting a "seventh" member of the September Six, as she was summoned in 1993, but ecclesiastical focus shifted to her husband. Margaret's discipline was delayed until 2000. Margaret later wrote "The Missing Rib: The Forgotten Place of Queens and Priestesses in the Establishment of Zion" as well as the tenth chapter of Transforming

8554-470: Was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ ). In 1823, he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates. The same year he organized

8648-634: Was later tried and acquitted.) In June 1843, enemies of Smith convinced a reluctant Illinois Governor Thomas Ford to extradite Smith to Missouri on an old charge of treason. Two law officers arrested Smith but were intercepted by a party of Mormons before they could reach Missouri. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court. While this ended the Missourians' attempts at extradition, it caused significant political fallout in Illinois. In December 1843, Smith petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an independent territory with

8742-450: Was one of eleven children. At the age of seven, Smith had a bone infection and, after receiving surgery, used crutches for three years. After an ill-fated business venture and three successive years of crop failures culminating in the 1816 Year Without a Summer , the Smith family left Vermont and moved to Western New York , and took out a mortgage on a 100-acre (40 ha) farm in the townships of Palmyra and Manchester . The region

8836-406: Was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures. In popular opinion, non-Mormons in the U.S. generally consider Smith a "charlatan, scoundrel, and heretic", while outside the U.S. he is "obscure". Within

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