Mormon: Definition from Answers.com
- ️Sat Sep 09 2006
Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, result from visions experienced in Manchester, NY, during the 1820s by Joseph Smith (1805-44), enabling him to locate and translate The Book of Mormon (1827), a history of American religion from Babel to the 5th cent. AD, written on gold tablets in ‘reformed Egyptian’ and deciphered by sacred crystals which Smith had to return to the angel Moroni on completion. There followed seventeen years of sectarian vagabondage: founded in 1830, the sect reached Great Salt Lake Valley, Utah, in 1847. In that time twelve apostles were appointed, Smith became first president, received his revelation about plural marriages (1843), and was killed in prison. Mormonism's survival, therefore, owes most to Smith's successor Brigham Young (1801-77), who shaped Utah into a model state (polygamy was abolished in 1890). The whole was expressed in lives of strenuous simplicity and aggressive missionary endeavour. The first Mormon missionaries reached England in 1837.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also called the Mormon church) was founded at Fayette, New York, on April 6, 1830, by Joseph Smith, Jr. Smith, the recipient of dreams and heavenly manifestations in the 1820s, dictated to scribes the translated text of a holy book he said had been engraved on gold plates by an American Indian historian about a.d. 400. The six-hundred-page Book of Mormon was published in the spring of 1830.
The Latter-day Saints church, as it is more accurately called, was intended to be a restoration of the primitive church established by Jesus and his apostles. God was a personal being, Jesus his literal son, and at the head of the church was a prophet, functioning under divine leadership and through an appointed, male, lay priesthood. The church accepted the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and revelations of the prophet as sacred Scriptures.
Missionaries preached throughout New England, the Old Northwest, Canada, and England, and within five years there were more than eight thousand converts. The religious beliefs of the Mormons and their attempts to institute a government in which the godly ruled, however, ran counter to the democratic pluralism of American society, and the Mormons experienced repeated difficulties with their neighbors. Mormon settlers were driven by hostile mobs, in succession, from New York to Ohio, to Missouri, and to Nauvoo in Illinois. In these moves, the Mormons lost most of their property, and many were killed or died from illness.
In Nauvoo Mormons established a well-planned city and began building a temple, the University of Nauvoo, and a number of mills and shops. But once more the Mormons had difficulties with their neighbors, and in 1844 a mob, including members of the state militia, stormed the jail where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were being held on the charge of inciting a riot and murdered them.
Within a few weeks, Brigham Young, leader of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was "sustained" as the new prophet. Under his leadership preparations were made for removal of the church to the Great Basin in western America. Nauvoo was abandoned in 1846. A pioneer company of 148 persons reached the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, where they made preparations for those to follow. About 2,000 wintered in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847-1848, and the remainder of some 16,000 exiles migrated to the Great Basin at a rate of about 3,000 per year. Meanwhile, the 30,000 or more converts in the eastern United States, Great Britain, and Scandinavia were arriving at a similar rate. By 1860 there were 40,000 Latter-day Saints in Utah; by 1900, more than 200,000.
Some believers who chose not to follow Brigham Young founded the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1860 in Amboy, Illinois, with Joseph Smith III as their president. Headquarters were later removed to Iowa and still later to Missouri, where a large auditorium and other facilities were built. There were approximately 220,000 members of the Reorganized Church in 1990.
The Utah Mormons colonized 350 settlements in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, and Idaho and established industries required for their relatively self-sufficient agricultural economy. Community growth and welfare were supported by a system of voluntary "consecrations" and tithing.
Although the Mormons had hoped to establish a state government, Congress instead set up Utah Territory (which included present-day Nevada). This meant that Mormon settlers had to deal with officers appointed by the president. Although Brigham Young was the first governor, most of the federal appointees were hostile to the Mormons, and few, from any point of view, were competent.
Because the Mormons failed to cooperate with the "outsiders," President James Buchanan, accusing them of being in "a state of substantial rebellion" in 1857, sent the U.S. Army to occupy the territory. The troops remained until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.
Federal appointees and visiting journalists complained of three problems: the attempt of the Mormons to control the political life of the territory at the expense of the non-Mormon minorities; exclusivist economic practices, which inhibited the activities of "outside" businessmen; and the practice of plural marriage, even if by only a small minority. Federal legislation was directed at each of these practices during the 1860s and into the 1880s, culminating in the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887. This act disincorporated the Mormon church, placed regulation of elections in the territory in the hands of a commission appointed by the U.S. president, disfranchised Mormon women (who had been given the vote in 1870), and required the seizure by the territorial marshal of all assets of the church, except chapels and burial grounds. After Mormon leaders agreed in 1890 to refrain from performing plural marriages, to disband the church's political party, and to disengage from church-supported business enterprises, Utah was granted statehood in 1896.
Mormon religious beliefs have continued in the twentieth century essentially as promulgated by Joseph Smith and his successors. A worldwide network of forty thousand voluntary (unpaid) missionaries, usually young people, has continued to preach the gospel in some 110 countries and make conversions. The membership of the church rose from 300,000 in 1900 to 700,000 in 1930, 3 million in 1970, and 7 million in 1990. Approximately half the membership is in the United States.
Mormons emphasize strong family life, the work ethic, education and group progress, and abstinence from tobacco, harmful drugs, and alcoholic beverages. The church operates Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah; Ricks College, in Rexburg, Idaho; Brigham Young University (Hawaii Branch), in Laie, Hawaii; and other educational institutions in New Zealand, Mexico, and elsewhere. The church operates Institutes of Religion adjacent to most universities where college-level training in religious subjects is given, and seminaries adjacent to high schools where early-hour instruction is offered.
The local congregation, called a ward, consists of five to six hundred members in a given part of a city or settlement and is run by an appointed unpaid bishop. From five to ten wards make up a stake, with an appointed, unpaid stake president. The central church of the Latter-day Saints church, still headquartered in Salt Lake City, is headed by a president or prophet, with two counselors. The governing board of the church consists of the Council of Twelve Apostles, assisted by a Council of Seventies who hold various administrative posts. The Women's Relief Society is directed by a president and two counselors.
The church operates a daily newspaper, the Deseret News, a network of television and radio stations, a large printing establishment, and other enterprises to assist in its programs.
Bibliography:
James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (1976); Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints (1958; paperback ed., 1966); Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: History of the Latter-day Saints (1979).
Author:
Leonard J. Arrington
See also Missionaries; Religion; Smith, Joseph; Young, Brigham.
Dansk (Danish)
n. - mormon (rel.)
Nederlands (Dutch)
mormoon, mormoons
Français (French)
n. - Mormon
adj. - mormon
Deutsch (German)
n. - Mormone
adj. - mormonisch
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (θρησκ.) Μορμόνος
adj. - των Μορμόνων
Português (Portuguese)
n. - mórmon (m)
adj. - mórmon
Русский (Russian)
мормон, многоженец
Español (Spanish)
n. - mormón
adj. - mormón, de la secta de los mormones
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - mormon
adj. - mormonsk
中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
摩门教徒, 一夫多妻主义者
中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 摩門教徒, 一夫多妻主義者
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - モルモン教徒, モルモン, 一夫多妻主義者
adj. - モルモン教の
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مورمون وهي طائفه دينيه منسوبه لمؤسسها (صفه) المورمونيه
If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.
To select your translation preferences click here.