A Report on the History of Mormonism

A Report on the History of Mormonism, 1820–2026

Major events, claimed revelations, institutional changes, and controversies

Updated Aug 18, 2026

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Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary
2. Scope, Sources, and Terminology
3. Origins and Founding, 1820s to 1830
4. Expansion, Conflict, and Nauvoo, 1831 to 1844
5. Succession, Western Migration, and Federal Confrontation, 1844 to 1904
6. Consolidation, Correlation, and Social Conflict, 1904 to 2000
7. Global Church and Contemporary Controversies, 2000 to 2026
8. Major Revelations and Doctrinal Turning Points
   1. Foundational Narratives, 1820 to 1830
   2. Kirtland and Missouri Revelations, 1831 to 1839
   3. Nauvoo Revelations and Ritual Innovation, 1840 to 1844
   4. Canon, Manifestos, and Modern Revelation, 1844 to 2026
9. Editorial Conclusion
10. Comparative Event and Criticism Tables
11. Timeline, Membership Chart, and Source Guide
12. Numbered References

Executive Summary

The movement now represented principally by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began within the religious, economic, and folk-magical culture of the early nineteenth-century northeastern United States. Before the publication of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith participated in treasure-seeking ventures and used a seer stone. In 1826 he appeared before a New York justice in a proceeding connected with “glass looking.” Surviving records establish that the proceeding occurred, although the precise legal disposition remains disputed because the documentary record is incomplete and later accounts conflict. These activities became the subject of some of the earliest published criticism of Smith, including A. W. Benton’s 1831 account, E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed in 1834, and William D. Purple’s 1877 recollection. ¹

Smith later reported that he experienced a vision of divine personages in 1820 and angelic visits beginning in 1823, received metal plates in 1827, and dictated the Book of Mormon principally during 1829. The first edition went on sale in Palmyra, New York, on Mar 26, 1830. The Church of Christ was organized on Apr 6, 1830. Several surviving accounts of Smith’s first vision differ in wording, emphasis, the number and identity of heavenly beings described, and the circumstances emphasized. Those variations, and the limited public prominence of the vision in the movement’s earliest years, became central subjects in twentieth-century historical debate. ²

The church’s first fourteen years included rapid missionary expansion, communal economic experiments, construction of the Kirtland Temple, conflict over land and political power in Missouri, the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society, expulsion from Missouri after the 1838 conflict, the founding of Nauvoo, the introduction of new temple rituals and plural marriage, and the creation of a secretive political body called the Council of Fifty. In June 1844, the Nauvoo City Council declared the Nauvoo Expositor a nuisance and destroyed its press after the paper accused Smith and other leaders of plural marriage, authoritarian government, and doctrinal innovation. Smith was arrested and killed by a mob at Carthage Jail on Jun 27, 1844. ³

Smith’s death produced competing succession claims. Most Nauvoo Saints eventually followed Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve, while other groups followed Sidney Rigdon, James J. Strang, Lyman Wight, Alpheus Cutler, or, later, Joseph Smith III. The Young-led body migrated west beginning in 1846 and reached the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. It created settlements across the interior West, governed Utah Territory through a closely connected religious and political leadership, publicly announced plural marriage in 1852, fought the federal government over territorial authority and marriage law, and experienced internal and external violence during the Utah War era, including the Mountain Meadows Massacre of September 1857. ⁴

Federal antipolygamy legislation, court rulings, property confiscation, and disfranchisement placed the institutional church under increasing pressure. The Supreme Court’s 1879 Reynolds v. United States decision rejected a religious-duty defense to a federal bigamy conviction. President Wilford Woodruff issued the 1890 Manifesto advising members against marriages prohibited by national law. Some plural marriages nevertheless continued, particularly outside the United States, until stronger administrative enforcement followed the 1904 “Second Manifesto.” Utah became a state on Jan 4, 1896. The seating of Apostle Reed Smoot in the United States Senate generated a four-year investigation into continuing plural marriage, temple obligations, and the church’s political influence. ⁵

During the twentieth century, the church developed a centralized administrative structure, an international missionary system, welfare and educational programs, and a standardized curriculum and organizational system generally called correlation. It also faced sustained controversy over the exclusion of Black members of African ancestry from priesthood ordination and temple ordinances. The restriction was publicly articulated under Brigham Young in 1852, although Black men including Elijah Able had been ordained during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Civil-rights organizations and scholars challenged the policy and the racial theories used to defend it. On Jun 8, 1978, the First Presidency announced a revelation extending priesthood and temple eligibility without regard to race. The church now disavows past theories that Black people were cursed, less valiant in a premortal existence, or divinely assigned an inferior status. ⁶

Late twentieth-century controversies included the church’s campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, the excommunication of ERA activist Sonia Johnson, the Mark Hofmann document forgeries and bombings, disputes over control of historical scholarship, and the 1993 disciplinary actions known as the September Six. The same period brought large-scale international growth, temple construction, professionalization of historical archives, and the emergence of “New Mormon History,” which applied documentary and academic methods to disputed episodes such as plural marriage, race, finances, hierarchy, and Mountain Meadows. ⁷

In the twenty-first century, the most prominent public disputes have concerned same-sex marriage and LGBTQ membership policies, the treatment of difficult historical subjects, church finances, abuse-reporting procedures, and institutional transparency. The church supported California Proposition 8 in 2008, adopted a policy in 2015 classifying members in same-sex marriages as apostates and restricting the baptism of their children, and reversed those specific provisions in 2019. It began publishing Gospel Topics Essays addressing seer stones, plural marriage, race, DNA, and the Book of Abraham during the 2010s. A former Ensign Peak Advisors employee filed an IRS whistleblower complaint in 2019. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission found that the church and Ensign Peak had used shell limited-liability companies to file misleading investment disclosures; the entities settled without admitting or denying the findings and paid $5 million in penalties. ⁸

The Associated Press published a 2022 investigation of the church’s abuse help line and an Arizona case in which bishops did not report a member’s confessed sexual abuse of his children. The church disputed elements of the reporting and stated that its policies direct leaders to stop abuse, assist victims, and comply with applicable reporting law. On Jul 30, 2026, the Arizona Supreme Court reinstated summary judgment for the church defendants, holding that courts must defer to a church’s understanding of confession under the state reporting exception; the plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration on August 12. ^{9 10}

On Mar 5, 2024, Community of Christ transferred the Kirtland Temple, Nauvoo properties, manuscripts, and artifacts to the LDS Church for $192.5 million. Russell M. Nelson died on Sep 27, 2025. Dallin H. Oaks became the eighteenth president of the church on Oct 14, 2025, and was formally sustained in general conference on Apr 4, 2026. As of Dec 31, 2025, the church reported 17,887,212 members, 32,046 congregations, 451 missions, and 204 operating temples, while distinguishing neither regular attendance nor self-identification from the administrative membership total. ¹¹

Scope, Sources, and Terminology

This report uses “Mormon history” in the broad historical sense for the movement founded by Joseph Smith and for the largest institutional descendant, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other successor bodies are identified by name where succession, property, or doctrine requires the distinction. “Church” without qualification generally refers to the Utah-based LDS Church after the succession crisis.

For historical method, this document treats the Book of Mormon as nineteenth-century religious literature and reports claims of ancient origin as claims made by Joseph Smith, witnesses, and later institutions. It does not use the book’s narrative as an independently verified history of the ancient Americas.

A “major event” here is an event widely treated as a turning point in primary-source collections, institutional histories, academic monographs, legal histories, or public controversies. The selection includes organizational founding, migration, scripture production, armed conflict, succession, plural marriage, statehood, racial restrictions, administrative correlation, global growth, gender and sexuality disputes, financial regulation, abuse-reporting litigation, major archival developments, and presidential succession.

The report distinguishes four kinds of claims:

Type of claim	Treatment in this report
Documented historical act	Reported as an event when supported by contemporary records, legal records, institutional minutes, correspondence, newspapers, or later documentary editions.
Religious experience or revelation	Reported as what a participant said occurred, without historical adjudication of supernatural causation.
Contemporary accusation	Attributed to the person or publication that made it. An accusation is not treated as established merely because it was printed.
Later criticism	Identified by author, publication, date, and the documentary, legal, scientific, or historiographical issue it placed into the record.

The primary institutional repositories used here include the Joseph Smith Papers, the Church History Library, official church historical essays and statements, United States Senate records, Supreme Court materials, state archives, National Park Service histories, and contemporary newspapers. The Joseph Smith Papers provide images, transcriptions, provenance, and editorial introductions for revelations, minutes, court records, correspondence, histories, financial records, and Egyptian materials. ¹²

The principal academic and critical works cited are included because they introduced documents, reconstructed contested episodes, or altered the public and scholarly record. Inclusion does not indicate endorsement of an author’s conclusions. Likewise, an official institutional source is used for its records and stated position, not as the sole authority on events in which the institution had a direct interest.

No finite report can list every tract, newspaper editorial, sermon, memoir, lawsuit, or scholarly disagreement produced during two centuries. “Notable criticism” here means a first or influential published criticism, a work introducing material evidence, a government or court finding, a prominent contemporary dissenting publication, or a later study widely cited in scholarship and public history.

Origins and Founding, 1820s to 1830

Treasure seeking and folk practices, approximately 1820 to 1827.

Joseph Smith grew up in western New York during a period in which some residents combined Christian belief with divining rods, seer stones, ritual searches for buried treasure, and stories of enchanted guardians. Surviving agreements and later testimony show that Smith used a stone to assist treasure-seeking groups and in 1825 worked with Josiah Stowell in a search near Harmony, Pennsylvania. The enterprise did not locate the expected Spanish mine, and Smith later married Emma Hale, whose father, Isaac Hale, had objected to the treasure-seeking activity. The LDS Church now acknowledges Smith’s use of seer stones and places that practice within the folk culture of the period. ¹³

The 1826 proceeding.

On Mar 20, 1826, Smith appeared before Justice Albert Neely in South Bainbridge, New York, after a complaint connected with his use of a stone and his employment by Stowell. A surviving justice-of-the-peace docket entry records the examination and fees. Later accounts describe Smith as charged under a New York statute covering “disorderly persons,” including those pretending to discover lost goods through occult means. The surviving materials do not produce a universally accepted answer as to whether he was convicted, found guilty without formal judgment, discharged, or otherwise disposed of after examination. ¹⁴

The proceeding entered print through critics. A. W. Benton’s 1831 letter, published in the evangelical periodical The Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate, referred to Smith’s examination and presented it as evidence that his later religious career developed from money digging. E. D. Howe’s 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed, published in Painesville, Ohio, printed affidavits concerning the Smith family’s reputation and treasure seeking. William D. Purple published a detailed reminiscence in the Chenango Union on May 2, 1877, describing the hearing from memory. In the twentieth century, Wesley P. Walters located additional court-related documents and argued that they confirmed an adverse legal proceeding; legal historian Gordon A. Madsen later argued that the evidence did not establish a conventional criminal conviction. The factual value of the controversy is that it documented Smith’s participation in stone-assisted treasure searching and produced competing reconstructions of an incomplete legal record. ¹⁵

The First Vision accounts.

Smith’s canonical 1838 history dates his first vision to the spring of 1820, when he said he prayed near his family’s home and saw two personages who told him not to join the existing churches. His earliest surviving firsthand account was written in 1832. Other accounts date from 1835, 1838, and 1842, with additional retellings recorded by listeners. They differ in length and emphasis. The 1832 text emphasizes personal forgiveness and describes “the Lord”; the 1835 account describes one personage followed by another and mentions angels; the 1838 version explicitly identifies the Father and the Son and situates the experience amid denominational conflict. The church’s official essay presents the accounts as complementary descriptions directed to different audiences. ¹⁶

James B. Allen’s article “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought in autumn 1966, documented that the vision was not a prominent part of the church’s earliest public message and that its institutional importance expanded later in the nineteenth century. Wesley P. Walters’s “New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival,” published in the Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society in fall 1967 and reprinted in Dialogue in 1969, argued that contemporary denominational records did not support the large 1820 Palmyra revival setting described in the 1838 history. Later historians identified religious activity in the wider region and debated how narrowly “vicinity” and “excitement” should be understood. The publications’ factual significance lay in directing attention to the date of the surviving accounts, their textual variations, and contemporary revival records. ¹⁷

Moroni, the plates, and the translation narrative.

Smith stated that an angel later identified as Moroni appeared beginning on the night of September 21–22, 1823, and told him of an ancient record buried in a hill. He said he obtained the plates on Sep 22, 1827. Emma Smith, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and others served at different times as scribes or supporters. The translation process used interpreters described as the “Urim and Thummim” and at times a seer stone placed in a hat to exclude light. The church’s contemporary historical material acknowledges that the plates were often covered or absent from immediate view while Smith dictated. ¹⁸

In 1828 Martin Harris took 116 manuscript pages to show family members, and the pages disappeared. Smith did not reproduce the lost text. Translation resumed, chiefly with Oliver Cowdery, from April through June 1829. Eleven witnesses later signed statements printed in the Book of Mormon: three said an angel showed them the plates, while eight said Smith showed and permitted them to handle the plates. The statements were presented as collective certificates, and no surviving copy bears all the original signatures in the witnesses’ own hands. Several witnesses later left or were excommunicated from the church, but none is known to have formally withdrawn the published testimony. ¹⁹

Early printed criticism of the Book of Mormon.

Alexander Campbell published “Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon” in the Millennial Harbinger in February 1831. He argued that the book reflected contemporary Protestant disputes and nineteenth-century concerns rather than an ancient American setting. E. D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed in 1834 promoted the theory that the book derived from a manuscript by Solomon Spalding, mediated through Sidney Rigdon. Later document research weakened the specific Spalding-manuscript theory, but Howe’s book preserved affidavits and became the first full-length anti-Mormon publication. ²⁰

Church leader and historian B. H. Roberts prepared studies in the early 1920s examining parallels with Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews, nineteenth-century American ideas, internal narrative problems, and the intellectual capacity Joseph Smith might have possessed. Roberts did not publish the studies during his lifetime. They appeared in 1985 as Studies of the Book of Mormon, edited by Brigham D. Madsen and published by the University of Illinois Press. Their factual significance is that a senior church authority privately catalogued naturalistic and literary challenges to the book several decades before they became routine subjects of open LDS historical discussion. Scholars continue to disagree about whether Roberts was testing arguments for apologetic preparation or expressing personal doubt. ²¹

Yale archaeologist Michael D. Coe published “Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View” in Dialogue in 1973. Coe stated that mainstream New World archaeology had not produced evidence confirming the civilizations, crops, animals, metallurgy, writing systems, or events described in traditional Book of Mormon geography. Anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy’s “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics,” published in American Apocrypha by Signature Books in 2002, argued that Native American genetic ancestry did not support the older widespread LDS identification of Indigenous Americans as principally descended from Israelites. The church’s later DNA essay states that the majority of Native American ancestry identified to date is Asian, but argues that population bottlenecks, genetic drift, intermarriage, and a potentially small migrating population prevent DNA from decisively proving or disproving Book of Mormon historicity. The Book of Mormon introduction was revised in 2006 from describing Lamanites as the “principal ancestors” to saying they were “among the ancestors” of American Indians. ²²

Publication and organization.

Egbert B. Grandin printed the first edition in Palmyra. Copies were advertised for sale on Mar 26, 1830. On Apr 6, 1830, Smith, Cowdery, and other believers met to organize the Church of Christ. No contemporaneous minutes of the founding meeting survive, but later minutes, revelations, and participant accounts identify the date and describe the ordination or recognition of Smith and Cowdery as elders, administration of the sacrament, confirmations, and the reception of new members. ²³

Expansion, Conflict, and Nauvoo, 1831 to 1844

Kirtland and the gathering to Ohio.

Missionaries traveling to Indian Territory converted Sidney Rigdon and many members of his restorationist congregations in northeastern Ohio during late 1830. Smith moved to Kirtland in early 1831. Kirtland became the principal administrative center, while Independence, Missouri, was identified by revelation as the center place of Zion. Church members attempted forms of economic consecration, organized church-owned businesses, published revelations, created priesthood offices, formed the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1835, and dedicated the Kirtland Temple in March 1836. ²⁴

Criticism in Ohio concerned concentrated religious authority, communal property, unpaid debt, revelations, and Smith’s claims to supernatural gifts. Former members Ezra Booth and Doctor Philastus Hurlbut supplied some of the earliest extended dissenting testimony. Booth’s letters appeared in the Ohio Star in 1831 and accused Smith of failed revelation and manipulation. Hurlbut collected statements later printed by E. D. Howe in Mormonism Unvailed. The publications are historically valuable as early dissenting sources but require comparison with legal, financial, and church records because they were produced during open conflict with Smith and his followers. ²⁵

Zion’s Camp and the first Missouri expulsion.

Latter-day Saints gathering in Jackson County, Missouri, clashed with older settlers over religion, abolition fears, voting strength, land, commerce, and the Saints’ expressed expectation that the area had a divine destiny. Violence in 1833 destroyed the church printing office and expelled the Saints from Jackson County. In 1834 Smith led a paramilitary relief expedition known as Zion’s Camp from Ohio to Missouri. The expedition did not restore the expelled members to their land and was disbanded after negotiations and a cholera outbreak. Many future church leaders, including Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, participated. ²⁶

Missouri newspapers and citizens’ committees portrayed the Saints as a unified political bloc hostile to local institutions; Latter-day Saint petitions portrayed the expulsions as organized mob violence and a denial of constitutional rights. The factual record supports both rapid bloc settlement and illegal collective violence against the religious minority. The controversy’s importance lies in the recurring interaction of religious gathering, local electoral power, extralegal expulsion, and the inability or unwillingness of state authorities to restore confiscated property. ²⁷

The Egyptian papyri and Book of Abraham.

In July 1835 Smith and associates purchased four Egyptian mummies and papyrus scrolls from traveling exhibitor Michael Chandler. Smith and his clerks created Egyptian alphabet and grammar documents and manuscripts of a text later called the Book of Abraham. Portions were published with facsimiles in the Nauvoo newspaper Times and Seasons in March 1842. The text was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price in 1880. ²⁸

After surviving papyrus fragments were returned to the church in 1967, Egyptologists identified the extant materials as ordinary Ptolemaic-era funerary texts, including a Book of Breathings, rather than an autograph written by Abraham. The church’s historical essay acknowledges that characters on the surviving fragments do not translate into the Book of Abraham’s English text and that the fragments date many centuries after Abraham’s presumed lifetime. It presents possible explanations including a lost portion of the scrolls or a revelatory process in which the papyri served as a catalyst. The controversy’s factual core consists of the manuscripts, the juxtaposition of Egyptian characters and English text in some working papers, the date and genre of the extant papyri, and disagreement over what Smith meant by “translation.” ²⁹

The Kirtland Safety Society and schism.

The Kirtland Safety Society was organized in late 1836 during a national period of speculative credit expansion. Ohio denied its bank charter, so it operated through a reorganized joint-stock structure. Its notes circulated, but the institution suspended payments and failed amid the Panic of 1837, inadequate capitalization, withdrawals, note redemption demands, and broader local economic contraction. Smith and Sidney Rigdon faced civil litigation and were found to have violated Ohio banking law. ³⁰

Dissenters including Warren Parrish accused Smith and Rigdon of mismanagement, deception, and using religious influence to promote the institution. Church defenders attributed the failure to national panic, hostile note redemption, internal betrayal, and insufficient capital. The collapse contributed to a large Kirtland schism in which several senior leaders left or were excommunicated. Its factual significance was the conversion of economic losses into an institutional legitimacy crisis and the effective end of Kirtland as church headquarters. ³¹

Plural marriage begins.

Evidence places Smith’s first plural relationship with Fanny Alger in Kirtland during the mid-1830s, although surviving sources disagree over whether it was understood at the time as a marriage and no contemporaneous marriage record survives. Oliver Cowdery referred to the relationship in an 1838 letter as a “dirty, nasty, filthy affair,” while later participants and family traditions described a marriage or sealing. Cowdery’s dispute with Smith included other administrative and financial issues, and he was excommunicated in 1838. ³²

In Nauvoo, Smith entered plural sealings with women who varied in age and marital status. The church’s official essay states that careful estimates place the number between thirty and forty and that the youngest, Helen Mar Kimball, was sealed several months before her fifteenth birthday. Some women were already civilly married to other men. The records do not establish sexual relations in every sealing; testimony and later statements indicate conjugal relationships in at least some. Emma Smith knew of and temporarily accepted some sealings but opposed plural marriage at other times. ³³

Todd Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, published by Signature Books in 1997, reconstructed the lives of thirty-three women whom he concluded had been married or sealed to Smith. The book centered the women’s own correspondence, affidavits, family records, and later testimony. Its factual contribution was to replace lists of names with biographical and documentary treatment of the women, including their ages, existing marriages, family pressures, and later lives. ³⁴

The 1838 Missouri conflict.

After leaving Kirtland, Smith and other leaders concentrated in Caldwell and Daviess Counties, Missouri. Electoral violence at Gallatin on Aug 6, 1838, escalating armed confrontations, expulsions of non-Mormon residents from some settlements, destruction and looting by both sides, and inflammatory rhetoric produced a civil conflict often called the Mormon War. The Latter-day Saint militant organization known as the Danites operated during the crisis. Apostle David W. Patten and Missouri militia member Samuel Bogart’s forces fought at Crooked River on October 25. ³⁵

On October 27, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued an order directing that the Mormons be “exterminated or driven from the State” if necessary for public peace. On October 30, a militia group killed seventeen Latter-day Saint men and boys at Hawn’s Mill. Smith and other leaders surrendered, were subjected to a military hearing, and were imprisoned through the winter, Smith principally at Liberty Jail. Most Missouri Saints fled to Illinois. Missouri rescinded the extermination order in 1976. ³⁶

Contemporary Missouri critics accused church leaders of treason, arson, theft, political domination, and organizing the Danites. Latter-day Saint accounts documented killings, beatings, rape allegations, property seizure, forced disarmament, and mass expulsion. Later scholarship rejected simple descriptions of the conflict as either an unprovoked persecution or a Mormon rebellion. The documented record includes unlawful violence by Mormon combatants and far larger state-supported displacement and collective punishment of the Mormon population. ³⁷

Nauvoo’s creation and charter.

Illinois officials initially welcomed the refugees. The Saints purchased land at Commerce, renamed it Nauvoo, drained swamps, and built a city that became one of Illinois’s largest communities. The Illinois legislature granted a broad municipal charter in December 1840. It authorized a city council, courts, a university, and the Nauvoo Legion militia. Smith became mayor, chief justice of the municipal court, lieutenant general of the Legion, church president, and later a candidate for president of the United States. The concentration of religious, civil, military, and judicial authority became a central source of outside opposition. ³⁸

D. Michael Quinn’s The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, published by Signature Books in 1994, used council minutes, diaries, correspondence, and administrative records to describe the development of overlapping ecclesiastical, economic, judicial, and political authority under Smith and Brigham Young. Quinn argued that some later official histories regularized a more improvised institutional development. The book’s documentary significance was its detailed reconstruction of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, anointed councils, Nauvoo municipal power, and the Council of Fifty. ³⁹

Temple rites, Freemasonry, and women’s organization.

The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo was organized in March 1842 with Emma Smith as president. Smith introduced baptisms for the dead, a temple endowment, eternal and plural sealings, and an elite “Anointed Quorum.” He became a Freemason in March 1842 shortly before presenting the full Nauvoo endowment. The endowment and Masonry share signs, tokens, clothing forms, dramatic instruction, and ritual structure, while differing in theological purpose and narrative content. Critics treated the parallels as evidence of borrowing; church writers described Masonry as a cultural form adapted to a revealed theological system. The historical issue is not the existence of parallels, which is documented, but their meaning and the degree of dependence. ⁴⁰

The Council of Fifty and presidential campaign.

In March 1844 Smith organized the Council of Fifty, a confidential body intended to plan political governance, assist western or international relocation, and prepare a form of theocratic government identified in the minutes as the “Kingdom of God.” The council accepted Smith as a prophetic and political leader while also discussing constitutional principles and religious liberty. Smith’s presidential platform called for federal protection of minority rights, prison reform, territorial expansion, and the compensated end of slavery. The council’s secrecy and its theocratic vocabulary later became evidence for critics who described Nauvoo as incompatible with republican government. Publication of the council minutes through the Joseph Smith Papers supplied the full surviving record for direct study. ⁴¹

The Nauvoo Expositor and Smith’s death.

William Law, Wilson Law, Charles Ivins, Francis and Chauncey Higbee, Robert Foster, and associates published the only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor on Jun 7, 1844. The paper accused Smith of secretly practicing plural marriage, teaching multiple gods, combining church and state power, manipulating courts, and exercising authoritarian control. Several allegations were based on matters now established by church records, including plural marriage, Smith’s new theological teachings, and the Council of Fifty. Other language reflected personal, political, and legal conflicts between the publishers and Smith. ⁴²

On June 10 the Nauvoo City Council declared the newspaper a public nuisance. Acting on Smith’s order as mayor, the city marshal and posse removed the press, scattered type, and burned remaining printed sheets. The action did not destroy the building, but it suppressed a newspaper through municipal force. Illinois authorities charged Smith and others with riot; after Smith declared martial law and called out the Legion, he was charged with treason. Smith and his brother Hyrum surrendered and were jailed at Carthage. An armed mob killed both men on Jun 27, 1844; fellow prisoner John Taylor was wounded, and Willard Richards survived. ⁴³

Contemporary critics treated destruction of the press as proof of despotism and a direct attack on freedom of the press. Nauvoo officials argued that inflammatory publications could be suppressed as nuisances under common-law principles and the city charter. Later legal histories generally distinguish between the city’s possible authority to abate a nuisance and the destruction of a press without a conventional judicial proceeding. The action triggered the immediate legal sequence that placed Smith at Carthage, although responsibility for his death rested with the extrajudicial mob that attacked the jail. ⁴⁴

Fawn M. Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1945, presented the first widely influential non-devotional biography of Smith. It treated him as an inventive religious leader rather than a prophet and used psychological reconstruction to explain his actions. The work brought plural marriage, treasure seeking, political ambition, and disputed documents to a national readership. Reviewers and later historians criticized Brodie for assigning motives not demonstrable from the sources and for relying on speculative psychological interpretation. Its lasting factual importance was the integration of many neglected or minimized episodes into a continuous biography that later historians had to confirm, revise, or rebut. ⁴⁵

Succession, Western Migration, and Federal Confrontation, 1844 to 1904

The succession crisis.

Smith had assigned different kinds of authority to the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, the Council of Fifty, the Nauvoo high council, his brother Hyrum, and other individuals. Hyrum died with him, and no universally accepted written succession rule settled the question. Sidney Rigdon proposed becoming a guardian for the church. Brigham Young argued that the Quorum of the Twelve held all necessary governing keys. On Aug 8, 1844, a Nauvoo congregation sustained the Twelve’s leadership. In December 1847 the Twelve reorganized the First Presidency with Young as president. ⁴⁶

James J. Strang produced a letter he said Smith had written appointing him and attracted prominent followers, including witnesses Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and John Whitmer for varying periods. Lyman Wight led a colony to Texas. Sidney Rigdon established a separate organization. Alpheus Cutler formed another body. In 1860 a midwestern organization called Joseph Smith III to lead what became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now Community of Christ. These successions explain why “Mormon history” after 1844 is not the history of a single institution. ⁴⁷

The Nauvoo exodus.

Conflict with neighboring communities continued after Smith’s death. Illinois repealed the Nauvoo charter in January 1845. Mob attacks burned outlying Mormon settlements. Church leaders negotiated an evacuation and began crossing the Mississippi River in February 1846. Camps and settlements stretched across Iowa, with Winter Quarters established near present-day Omaha. Disease, exposure, poor sanitation, and food shortages caused many deaths. ⁴⁸

The Mormon Battalion and the western trail.

During the Mexican-American War, the United States Army recruited approximately five hundred Latter-day Saint men into the Mormon Battalion. Their pay supported migrating families, and their march from Iowa to California became one of the longest infantry marches in United States military history. Young’s advance company left Winter Quarters in April 1847 and entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24. Migration continued by wagon, handcart, rail, and ship for decades. ⁴⁹

The handcart system, used principally from 1856 through 1860, lowered costs by having emigrants pull supplies in carts. The Willie and Martin companies left late in 1856, encountered severe winter storms, and suffered hundreds of deaths before rescue parties reached them. Later criticism focused on late departure, inadequate supplies, optimistic instructions, and the degree to which leaders pressured emigrants to continue. Survivor narratives also record extensive rescue work by Utah settlements. The episode became both a story of preventable administrative failure and a central institutional memory of sacrifice and rescue. ⁵⁰

Settlement and Indigenous displacement.

LDS settlers established hundreds of communities in present-day Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Colorado, and northern Mexico. Settlement brought irrigation, roads, livestock, farming, missions, and permanent towns. It also occupied Indigenous lands and disrupted hunting, gathering, water use, and trade. Relations with Ute, Paiute, Goshute, Shoshone, and other peoples ranged from trade, intermarriage, missions, and negotiated coexistence to enslavement, forced removal, military campaigns, and massacres. ⁵¹

Church rhetoric sometimes identified Indigenous peoples as Lamanites and envisioned their conversion and incorporation. Utah territorial law permitted forms of Indigenous servitude and the purchase of captives, including children, under stated provisions for education and guardianship. Historians have documented that such arrangements could operate as coercive labor and family separation. The factual controversy concerns the difference between the humanitarian language used by settlers and the material effects of colonization and custodial labor on Native communities. ⁵²

Territorial government and theocracy accusations.

Congress created Utah Territory in 1850 and appointed Young governor. Senior church officers occupied many territorial, probate, militia, and local positions. The territorial legislature adopted laws that strengthened probate courts and local control. Federal appointees who clashed with territorial officials reported that ecclesiastical authority overrode federal law. Latter-day Saint leaders argued that hostile or corrupt appointees misunderstood local conditions and attacked religious self-government. ⁵³

Public announcement of plural marriage.

Apostle Orson Pratt publicly announced the church’s practice of plural marriage in Salt Lake City on Aug 29, 1852. The church published Smith’s July 1843 plural-marriage revelation as Doctrine and Covenants section 132. Estimates vary by time and place, but plural marriage involved a minority of Utah men and a larger percentage of women because each plural household required multiple women. It affected inheritance, household labor, marital choice, divorce, child-rearing, and women’s legal position. ⁵⁴

Criticism came from Protestant missionaries, territorial officials, women’s-rights campaigners, former members, newspapers, and Congress. Critics described plural marriage as coercive, degrading to women, incompatible with republican family government, and a cover for sexual privilege. Defenders cited biblical precedents, religious liberty, women’s consent, family support, and a revealed obligation. Women within the system left sharply different accounts: some defended it publicly and described spiritual conviction or cooperative households; others described jealousy, abandonment, economic hardship, secrecy, or pressure. ⁵⁵

The Utah War.

President James Buchanan removed Young as governor in 1857 and sent an army escort with new territorial officials after receiving reports of rebellion and obstruction of federal courts. Utah leaders declared martial law, mobilized the militia, evacuated northern settlements, burned Fort Bridger and supply facilities, and harassed the army’s logistics while avoiding a major pitched battle. Negotiations produced a federal pardon for most participants and the peaceful entry of the army into the territory in 1858. Alfred Cumming replaced Young as governor. ⁵⁶

Federal officials described the conflict as suppression of rebellion. Utah leaders described the army’s approach as a threatened repetition of Missouri and Illinois expulsions. The resulting wartime atmosphere, sermons about apostasy, militia mobilization, and fear of invasion formed the immediate background to Mountain Meadows, though they do not by themselves establish who authorized that massacre. ⁵⁷

The Mountain Meadows Massacre.

In September 1857 the Baker-Fancher emigrant wagon train camped at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah while traveling to California. Local Mormon militiamen and some Native participants attacked the train, maintained a siege, offered a false promise of safe conduct, and on September 11 killed approximately 120 emigrants after separating adults and older children into groups. Seventeen young children were spared. Local leaders attempted to attribute the massacre principally to Indigenous attackers. ⁵⁸

John D. Lee was the only participant executed, after a second trial, in 1877. Evidence establishes planning and participation by local militia leaders, including Isaac C. Haight, William H. Dame, and Lee. Historians have found no surviving document proving that Brigham Young ordered the massacre. Young’s letter directing local leaders not to interfere with emigrant trains arrived after the killings, but critics have examined his inflammatory rhetoric, military orders, Indigenous policy, and the delayed investigation. The LDS Church now states that local church and militia leaders bore responsibility and condemns both the massacre and the subsequent concealment. ⁵⁹

Juanita Brooks’s The Mountain Meadows Massacre, first published by Stanford University Press in 1950, documented Mormon participation and the concealment at a time when the subject was often omitted or blamed primarily on Native people. Brooks attributed the event to local leadership acting within “war hysteria” and placed responsibility above Lee alone. Later works, including Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets and Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard’s Massacre at Mountain Meadows, disagreed over Young’s degree of responsibility while expanding the documentary record. Brooks’s work was the principal turning point that made institutional participation a settled part of serious historical treatment. ⁶⁰

Federal antipolygamy laws.

Congress passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in 1862, the Poland Act in 1874, the Edmunds Act in 1882, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887. These measures criminalized plural marriage or unlawful cohabitation, restricted church property, restructured Utah courts, disfranchised polygamists, abolished the territorial women’s vote, and authorized seizure of church assets beyond a statutory limit. Federal marshals conducted raids, and many church leaders went into hiding or imprisonment. ⁶¹

In Reynolds v. United States, decided Jan 6, 1879, the Supreme Court affirmed George Reynolds’s bigamy conviction. The Court distinguished protected religious belief from conduct subject to generally applicable criminal law and rejected the claim that a religious command excused bigamy. The decision became a central precedent in American free-exercise jurisprudence. Critics of the ruling argued that it narrowed religious liberty and relied on racialized and civilizational descriptions of polygamy; supporters treated it as necessary to prevent religious obligation from nullifying criminal law. ⁶²

The 1890 Manifesto.

After the Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s power to dissolve the church corporation and seize property, President Wilford Woodruff issued a statement dated Sep 24, 1890. It denied that plural marriages were being authorized in violation of law and announced his intention to submit to those laws and advise members to do the same. General conference accepted the statement on October 6. It later became Official Declaration 1. ⁶³

The Manifesto did not instantly terminate all plural unions or new sealings. Existing families continued, and some apostles or authorized agents performed new plural marriages in Mexico, Canada, or at sea. Documentation of post-Manifesto marriages became a central issue in the Reed Smoot hearings. Church leaders distinguished between marriages inside the United States, marriages outside federal jurisdiction, and later unauthorized conduct, but their statements were not always consistent. The historical significance of the controversy is that the end of plural marriage was an extended administrative process rather than a single-day cessation. ⁶⁴

Utah statehood.

Congress passed an enabling act in 1894 after church leaders’ accommodation with national political parties, the Manifesto, and constitutional assurances prohibiting plural marriage. Utah entered the Union on Jan 4, 1896. Women’s suffrage, first enacted territorially in 1870 and removed by the Edmunds-Tucker Act, was restored in the state constitution. ⁶⁵

B. H. Roberts and Reed Smoot. In 1899 the House of Representatives refused to seat B. H. Roberts, a church general authority elected from Utah, because he continued to live with plural wives. In 1903 the Utah legislature elected Apostle Reed Smoot to the Senate. Smoot was monogamous, but opponents argued that an apostle was bound to an organization that continued plural marriages and exercised improper political authority. The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections conducted hearings from 1904 through 1906, taking testimony from President Joseph F. Smith, apostles, former members, and federal officials. ⁶⁶

The hearings established that some plural marriages had occurred after 1890 and that several senior leaders continued cohabiting with plural wives. Joseph F. Smith testified that he continued family relationships and children with existing wives but had performed no new plural marriage. In April 1904 he issued the “Second Manifesto,” threatening excommunication for anyone entering or performing a new plural marriage. The Senate declined to expel Smoot in February 1907. The episode accelerated disciplinary enforcement and helped separate the institutional church from polygamist fundamentalist movements that rejected the prohibition. ⁶⁷

Consolidation, Correlation, and Social Conflict, 1904 to 2000

Administrative Americanization.

After the Smoot hearings, church leaders increasingly presented the institution as loyal to the United States, monogamous, family-centered, economically modern, and compatible with national party politics. Church members entered both major parties, while leaders retained the practice of issuing moral and political guidance on selected questions. Temple construction resumed outside Utah, including the Laie Hawaii Temple in 1919, the first completed outside the continental United States after the nineteenth-century migration. ⁶⁸

Historical professionalization and criticism.

The early twentieth century produced defensive church histories, anti-Mormon exposés, and increasingly documentary scholarship. B. H. Roberts’s Comprehensive History of the Church, Andrew Jenson’s biographical and historical compilations, and later Leonard J. Arrington’s economic history expanded the documentary base. Fawn Brodie’s 1945 biography and Juanita Brooks’s 1950 Mountain Meadows study challenged devotional narratives. Arrington’s Great Basin Kingdom, published by Harvard University Press in 1958, analyzed Mormon economic institutions through secular historical methods. These works helped create the field later called New Mormon History, which included believing, former-member, and non-LDS scholars.

The factual controversy was frequently about access and method rather than a single event. Critics said institutional histories omitted plural marriage, violence, financial reversals, internal dissent, and changes in doctrine. Church leaders and devotional historians objected when scholars treated revelation only as a human historical claim or inferred motives from incomplete sources. The establishment of a professional Church Historical Department under Arrington in 1972 briefly expanded scholarly access and publication, while later administrative reorganization moved much research to Brigham Young University and restricted some materials.

The welfare program.

During the Great Depression, church leaders developed a coordinated welfare system intended to assist members through work, production, storehouses, farms, and local ecclesiastical assessment rather than unrestricted cash relief. The formal Church Security Program was announced in 1936 and later renamed the welfare program. It became a lasting element of the church’s public identity and humanitarian administration. ⁶⁹

Criticism concerned the extent to which the program could substitute for government relief, the pressure placed on recipients to work, local leaders’ discretion, and later public claims about charitable spending. The historical record also shows cooperation with government programs and professional social services rather than a complete institutional rejection of public welfare.

The racial priesthood and temple restriction.

Black men including Elijah Able, Q. Walker Lewis, and possibly others were ordained during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. The church states that no reliable evidence shows Smith instituted a general prohibition. Brigham Young publicly announced in 1852 that Black men of African ancestry could not be ordained. Over time the restriction was also applied to temple endowment and sealing ordinances for Black men and women. ⁷⁰

Leaders offered varying explanations. These included the biblical curse of Cain, the curse placed on Canaan, a supposed lack of premortal valiance, or a future divine timetable. A 1949 First Presidency statement described the restriction as doctrinal rather than merely administrative. A 1969 statement affirmed that change would require revelation. These explanations were not uniform, and questions of ancestry produced inconsistent decisions in Brazil, South Africa, the Pacific, and racially mixed populations. ⁷¹

Lowry Nelson, a Latter-day Saint sociologist, criticized the policy in private correspondence with the First Presidency in 1947 and in a public article in The Nation in 1952. Civil-rights organizations protested the restriction, including NAACP demonstrations around the 1965 general conference. Student and athletic protests targeted Brigham Young University during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The criticisms’ factual importance was to force public clarification that the restriction was an institutional policy, not merely a local custom, and to challenge its scriptural and historical rationales. ⁷²

Lester E. Bush Jr. published “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview” in Dialogue in spring 1973. Drawing on nineteenth-century sermons, ordination records, policy statements, and changing explanations, Bush argued that the restriction originated under Brigham Young rather than in a documented revelation to Joseph Smith. The article’s 219 footnotes assembled a historical record that later closely resembled major conclusions in the church’s own 2013 essay. ⁷³

President Spencer W. Kimball studied the question, discussed it with counselors and apostles, and prayed with the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in the Salt Lake Temple on Jun 1, 1978. The church publicly announced on June 8 that priesthood ordination and temple blessings were available to all worthy members without regard to race or color. General conference accepted the revelation on September 30, and the announcement became Official Declaration 2. ⁷⁴

The church’s current historical essay disavows theories that Black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, that Black people were less valiant before birth, that interracial marriage is sinful, or that people of any race are inherently inferior. It does not identify a revelation establishing the original restriction and does not offer a divine reason for its duration. Critics continue to ask for a formal institutional apology; the church has issued repudiations of racism but has not adopted a comprehensive apology for the restriction itself. ⁷⁵

Correlation and centralization.

Rapid growth after the Second World War created overlapping auxiliary organizations, separate magazines, independent fundraising, and inconsistent curricula. Church leaders expanded priesthood correlation in the 1960s and 1970s. Curriculum production, budgets, buildings, welfare, missionary administration, and auxiliary programs were increasingly standardized under central departments and priesthood supervision. The Sunday School, Relief Society, Primary, and youth organizations lost much of their former independent financial and publishing authority. ⁷⁶

Supporters described correlation as necessary for doctrinal consistency and global administration. Historians and internal critics described it as a transfer of authority from locally led, often women-directed auxiliaries to a male priesthood bureaucracy, and as a cause of simplified or repetitive historical instruction. The documentary significance is visible in centralized manuals, consolidated magazines, uniform meeting schedules, and common budgeting systems. ⁷⁷

Global missionary and temple expansion.

Church membership passed one million in 1947 and expanded rapidly in Latin America, Europe, the Pacific, Africa, and Asia during the second half of the century. Translation, standardized buildings, local leadership development, seminary and institute programs, and smaller temples supported this expansion. Official membership totals count baptized members retained on administrative records and do not measure weekly attendance, belief, or self-identification. ⁷⁸

Criticism of internationalization has focused on cultural Americanization, limited local autonomy, the translation of Utah-derived curriculum into very different societies, and the gap between reported membership and active participation. Institutional reforms, including area presidencies, locally recruited missionaries, and smaller temples, were responses to practical problems of distance and scale rather than acknowledgments of any single criticism.

The Equal Rights Amendment.

The LDS Church publicly opposed the proposed federal Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s, arguing that its language could disrupt legal protections based on sex and affect family law. Church leaders encouraged members to participate in state ratification debates, and Latter-day Saint women were prominent in anti-ERA organizations. ⁷⁹

Sonia Johnson, a Virginia Latter-day Saint and founder of Mormons for ERA, accused church leaders of using ecclesiastical networks to direct a political campaign and of silencing women who disagreed. She testified before a United States Senate subcommittee in 1978, spoke publicly across the country, and published criticism of church political involvement. A local church court excommunicated her in December 1979 on grounds that included public opposition to church leadership, rather than simply her support for the amendment. The disciplinary action became a national controversy over dissent, women’s authority, and the boundary between political disagreement and ecclesiastical disloyalty. ⁸⁰

The Mark Hofmann forgeries and bombings.

During the early 1980s, document dealer Mark Hofmann sold or donated purported early Mormon documents to collectors, scholars, and the church. These included the “Anthon transcript,” the “Joseph Smith III blessing,” and the “Salamander Letter,” which appeared to describe the guardian of the Book of Mormon plates as a salamander rather than an angel. Church officials acquired some documents, and senior leaders publicly discussed the Salamander Letter while historians debated its implications. ⁸¹

Facing exposure of his financial fraud, Hofmann constructed bombs that killed document collector Steven Christensen and Kathy Sheets on Oct 15, 1985. A third bomb exploded in Hofmann’s car the next day. Forensic investigation established that many documents were sophisticated forgeries. Hofmann pleaded guilty to murder and fraud in 1987. Richard E. Turley Jr.’s Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case, published by the University of Illinois Press in 1992, reconstructed church officials’ purchases and contacts with Hofmann. Critics argued that leaders’ desire to acquire potentially damaging documents encouraged secrecy and insufficient authentication; the church argued that officials were among many institutions and experts deceived by a skilled forger. ⁸²

Historical dissent and the September Six.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, church officials expressed concern about public criticism by scholars, feminists, and independent theologians. The Strengthening Church Members Committee, established to collect publicly available statements viewed as threatening to the church, became controversial after its existence was publicly acknowledged in 1992. ⁸³

In September 1993, six writers and scholars faced local disciplinary councils: Lavina Fielding Anderson, Avraham Gileadi, Maxine Hanks, D. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano, and Lynne Kanavel Whitesides. Five were excommunicated and Whitesides was disfellowshipped; Gileadi was later rebaptized after his excommunication was formally reversed. Their writings addressed feminism, ecclesiastical authority, history, abuse of power, and independent scriptural interpretation. Church officials maintained that discipline was local and based on conduct and apostasy, while critics saw a coordinated institutional effort to restrict scholarship and feminist theology. ⁸⁴

The Family Proclamation and sexuality.

In September 1995 President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It defined marriage as between a man and a woman, described gender as an eternal characteristic, assigned complementary parental responsibilities, and warned of consequences from family disintegration. It became a central source for church participation in same-sex-marriage litigation and legislation. Critics focused on its treatment of gender roles, LGBTQ relationships, and the absence of women from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve that issued it. The document has not been added to the church’s formal scriptural canon. ⁸⁵

Global Church and Contemporary Controversies, 2000 to 2026

Temple expansion and administrative change.

Gordon B. Hinckley’s presidency brought an accelerated program of smaller temples and the completion of the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Thomas S. Monson succeeded him in 2008. Russell M. Nelson became president in January 2018 and announced numerous administrative changes, including a two-hour Sunday meeting schedule, restructured home and visiting teaching under “ministering,” integrated youth programs, revised temple presentations, and an emphasis on using the church’s full name rather than “Mormon” as an institutional label. ⁸⁶

Criticism of the naming policy focused on its reversal of earlier public campaigns such as “I’m a Mormon” and the cost of rebranding websites, choirs, and institutional materials. The policy itself did not prohibit historians from using “Mormon” for the wider historical tradition, but official style guidance requested the full institutional name in contemporary reporting.

California Proposition 8.

In 2008 the church joined a coalition supporting California Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to recognize only marriage between a man and a woman. Church leaders asked California members to contribute time and money, organize voters, and participate in the campaign. The measure passed on Nov 4, 2008, before later being invalidated through federal litigation. ⁸⁷

Opponents criticized the institutional mobilization, the scale of member donations, claims made in campaign advertising, and effects on LGBTQ members. Protests occurred at temples and church facilities. California’s Fair Political Practices Commission later imposed a fine for late reporting of nonmonetary campaign contributions. The church stated that it had complied after identifying reporting errors and defended participation as lawful religious political speech. ⁸⁸

Gospel Topics Essays and historical disclosure.

Beginning in 2013, the church published a series of unsigned but institutionally approved Gospel Topics Essays addressing First Vision accounts, Book of Mormon translation, DNA, plural marriage, race and priesthood, violence, women and priesthood, deification, and the Book of Abraham. The essays acknowledged seer-stone translation, Smith’s numerous plural wives, his sealing to a fourteen-year-old, post-Manifesto marriages, the absence of a known revelation initiating the racial ban, and the non-Abrahamic translation of the surviving Egyptian fragments. ⁸⁹

Critics said the essays were difficult to locate, lacked named authors, and qualified admissions through apologetic possibilities. Supporters described them as the clearest official treatment yet of subjects previously dispersed across specialist literature. Their factual significance is that disputed subjects long documented by historians became part of the church’s authorized online curriculum and are now cited in official teaching materials.

The November 2015 LGBTQ policy and 2019 reversal.

In November 2015 revisions to the church’s leadership handbook classified members in same-sex marriages as apostates subject to mandatory disciplinary proceedings. Children living with a parent in a same-sex relationship generally could not receive a name and blessing or baptism until age eighteen, after disavowing same-sex cohabitation and obtaining First Presidency approval. Church leaders characterized the provisions as protecting children from conflict between household practices and church teachings. ⁹⁰

Members, former members, LGBTQ organizations, and some mental-health professionals criticized the policy as collective punishment of children and as intensifying stigma. Public mass-resignation events followed. In April 2019 the First Presidency announced that same-sex marriage would no longer be defined as apostasy for disciplinary purposes and that children of LGBTQ parents could be blessed and baptized with parental permission. Same-sex sexual relationships remained contrary to church law of chastity. The reversal’s factual importance was the withdrawal, after approximately three and a half years, of the two provisions that had generated the strongest criticism. ⁹¹

Women’s ordination activism.

Ordain Women, founded in 2013, publicly requested that church leaders consider ordaining women. Its participants attended or attempted to attend the male-only general priesthood session and published personal profiles. Founder Kate Kelly was excommunicated by her local leaders in June 2014 for conduct characterized as apostasy. Critics described the action as punishment for asking a doctrinal question and organizing women; church statements distinguished private questioning from public pressure against established doctrine. The church did not ordain women but expanded women’s visibility in general conference committees, councils, and some ordinance functions. ⁹²

Financial reserves and Ensign Peak.

Ensign Peak Advisors was created in 1997 to manage church investments. On Nov 21, 2019, former Ensign Peak portfolio manager David Nielsen submitted an IRS whistleblower complaint alleging that the church had accumulated approximately $100 billion in tax-exempt assets, had not used the reserve for sufficient charitable purposes, and had directed money to support commercial enterprises. The Washington Post disclosed the complaint on December 16–17, 2019. The figure was an allegation based on Nielsen’s access and calculations, not an IRS judgment. The church said it maintained reserves for future needs and did not publicly discuss detailed transactions. ⁹³

On Feb 21, 2023, the SEC issued an administrative order finding that the church and Ensign Peak had created thirteen shell LLCs to file Forms 13F from 1997 through 2019 in ways that obscured Ensign Peak’s control and the size of the church’s public-equity portfolio. The order found that nominal business managers signed filings that misstated the LLCs’ investment discretion and locations. Ensign Peak agreed to a $4 million penalty and the church to a $1 million penalty. ⁹⁴

The church stated that it had sought and relied on legal counsel, believed the filings included all required securities, ended the structure after learning of SEC concerns in 2019, cooperated with the investigation, and considered the matter closed. The SEC order stated that senior church leadership received information about Ensign Peak and approved the reporting approach after concerns were raised. The controversy’s established factual result is a federal securities-law settlement over disclosure practices; the IRS has not publicly issued a comparable ruling adopting Nielsen’s broader tax allegations. ⁹⁵

D. Michael Quinn’s The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power examined church finances from the nineteenth century through 2010 and argued that secrecy, centralized corporate control, and institutional investment were recurring features rather than recent developments. Published by Signature Books, the work assembled corporate, property, commercial, and leadership records. Its factual contribution was a long historical chronology against which the Ensign Peak disclosures could be compared. ⁹⁶

Abuse reporting and the Arizona litigation.

In August 2022 Associated Press reporter Michael Rezendes published an investigation based on an Arizona case and approximately 12,000 pages of records from other litigation. Paul Adams had confessed to an LDS bishop in 2010 that he sexually abused his daughter. Two bishops learned of abuse over time but did not report it to police; Adams continued abusing children and distributed recordings before federal authorities arrested him in 2017. He died by suicide in custody. ⁹⁷

The AP reported that the church’s abuse help line, created in 1995, connected local leaders with personnel and attorneys and that a written protocol instructed help-line workers not to direct leaders themselves to report without legal counsel. The report quoted litigants who argued that the system prioritized institutional confidentiality. Church officials said the AP account contained timeline and factual errors, that bishops had urged Adams and his wife to report, and that Arizona law permitted clergy not to disclose confidential confession information. The church stated that its handbook requires leaders to stop abuse, care for victims, and comply with law. ⁹⁸

In 2023 an Arizona court accepted clergy-penitent privilege arguments and dismissed the victims’ civil action. In July 2025 the Arizona Court of Appeals revived major portions of the case, holding that a jury needed to consider whether all relevant communications were privileged and whether reporting exceptions applied. Further review remained active in the Arizona Supreme Court during 2026. The controversy concerns both the legal scope of Arizona’s clergy exception and the church’s policy choice to route bishops through a legal help line rather than require reporting in every jurisdiction. ⁹⁹

On Jul 30, 2026, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the First Amendment required courts to defer to a church’s own understanding of what counts as confession and when confidentiality is reasonable and necessary within that religion. The court reversed the appellate ruling and reinstated summary judgment for the church defendants. The plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration on August 12, so the docket was still active as of August 18. ¹⁴³

The ruling settled the church defendants’ position for the moment, but it did not erase the underlying documented sequence: bishops learned of abuse through ecclesiastical communications, did not report it, and the abuse continued until law enforcement intervened years later. The legal holding concerned Arizona’s reporting exception, clergy privilege, and constitutional limits on judicial evaluation of doctrine. The moral and policy dispute over whether clergy should report confessed child abuse remains separate from the court’s interpretation of existing law. ¹⁴⁴

The Joseph Smith Papers and archival publication.

The multivolume Joseph Smith Papers project published high-resolution images, transcripts, source notes, and historical introductions for Smith’s papers and related records. The project included early histories, financial documents, court proceedings, revelations, Council of Fifty minutes, and the Egyptian papyri and language manuscripts. Its publication changed the evidentiary environment by making many contested sources directly accessible rather than dependent on quotations selected by church defenders or critics. ^{100 101}

Critics have debated editorial framing, institutional sponsorship, and continuing restrictions on records outside the project’s defined scope. The documentary images and provenance information nevertheless permit readers to separate original text from later transcription, editorial explanation, and polemical quotation.

The Kirtland Temple acquisition.

On Mar 5, 2024, Community of Christ transferred the Kirtland Temple, several Nauvoo buildings, manuscripts, and artifacts to the LDS Church. The package included the Smith Family Homestead, Mansion House, Red Brick Store, Nauvoo House, Joseph Smith’s Bible used in his Bible revision, the original Liberty Jail door, and other records and objects. The agreed price was $192.5 million. Both churches committed to preservation, and the historic properties reopened for free public tours on March 25. ¹⁰²

Community of Christ described the sale as part of a plan to fund its future mission and finances. Members and historians expressed both support and grief because Community of Christ had cared for the Kirtland Temple for generations and interpreted it through a different Restoration tradition. The John Whitmer Historical Association noted the “strong and varied emotions” produced by the transfer. The event placed many of the movement’s most important shared properties and documents under the control of its largest denomination. ¹⁰³

Nelson’s death and Oaks’s succession.

Russell M. Nelson died on Sep 27, 2025, at age 101. Dallin H. Oaks, the senior apostle, was set apart as the eighteenth president of the church on Oct 14, 2025. He selected counselors for a new First Presidency and was sustained by members during the Apr 4, 2026, general conference session. ¹⁰⁴

Status at the end of 2025.

The church’s April 2026 statistical report listed 17,887,212 members, 3,695 stakes, 488 districts, 32,046 wards and branches, 451 missions, 78,596 full-time teaching missionaries, 31,613 senior service missionaries, 4,518 young service missionaries, 204 operating temples, seven temples under renovation, and 172 announced or under construction as of Dec 31, 2025. These are institutional administrative figures. They should not be read as direct measurements of attendance, belief, or the number of people who identify themselves as Latter-day Saints in surveys. ¹⁰⁵

Major Revelations and Doctrinal Turning Points

Latter-day Saint history uses the word revelation for several different kinds of material. Some texts were dictated in the voice of God and canonized. Some were visions recorded later. Some were sermons, institutional declarations, or policy changes described by leaders as revelatory but never added to the canon. The distinctions matter. This section identifies the major examples, dates the surviving record, and notes where later memory, textual revision, or reversal became controversial.

Foundational Narratives, 1820 to 1830

The First Vision, dated by Joseph Smith to 1820.

Smith’s earliest surviving firsthand account was written in 1832, twelve years after the event as he later dated it. It emphasizes a personal search for forgiveness and describes seeing “the Lord.” The 1835 account mentions one personage followed by another and the appearance of angels. The 1838 history explicitly identifies the Father and the Son and makes denominational conflict central. The church treats the accounts as complementary. Historians treat their dates, wording, and changing public prominence as evidence that the narrative developed in presentation over time, regardless of how one judges the claimed experience itself. ¹⁰⁶

Moroni, the plates, and the recovery narrative, 1823 to 1827.

Smith said an angel appeared on the night of September 21–22, 1823, disclosed the location of an ancient record, and required annual visits before Smith obtained the plates on Sep 22, 1827. The angel was called Nephi in some early printed accounts and Moroni in others; Moroni became standard. The history of the claim rests on Smith’s later narratives, testimony from family and associates, and the witness statements printed in the Book of Mormon. None of those records independently verifies an ancient source. ¹⁰⁷

The lost manuscript revelations, 1828.

After Martin Harris lost the first 116 manuscript pages, Smith dictated revelations now published as Doctrine and Covenants sections 3 and 10. They interpreted the loss as disobedience, warned that enemies might alter the manuscript, and instructed Smith not to reproduce the same text. Historically, these revelations document how a failed production episode was absorbed into the emerging sacred narrative. ¹⁰⁸

Priesthood restoration accounts, 1829 and later.

Smith and Oliver Cowdery later said that John the Baptist ordained them on May 15, 1829, and that Peter, James, and John subsequently conferred higher authority. The date of the first claim is comparatively clear in later accounts. The higher-priesthood event has no securely established contemporary date or location. The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants contains the earliest surviving clear statement that Peter, James, and John appeared and conferred priesthood keys. That documentary gap does not prove the event did or did not occur, but it is central to the historical question of when the restoration narrative took its mature form. ¹⁰⁹

Witnesses and the coming book, 1829.

A revelation now designated section 17 promised that three witnesses would see the plates and other sacred objects. The printed testimony says an angel displayed the plates to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris; a second statement says eight men handled plates shown by Smith. The certificates became part of every standard edition. They are testimony within the movement’s founding publication, not archaeological authentication of its narrative. ¹¹⁰

Church organization and authority, 1830.

Texts now published as sections 20 and 21 supplied an institutional history, baptismal rules, sacramental prayers, officer duties, and recognition of Smith as “seer,” translator, prophet, and apostle. The organization on Apr 6, 1830, transformed a book-producing circle into a church with offices, ordinances, discipline, and a claimed channel for continuing revelation. No original minutes of the organizational meeting survive. ¹¹¹

Kirtland and Missouri Revelations, 1831 to 1839

The law of the church and consecration, 1831.

The revelation now called section 42 joined moral rules to an economic order. Members were instructed to consecrate property through the bishop, receive stewardships suited to family needs, and use surpluses for the poor and the institutional work of Zion. Implementation varied and never produced a single permanent communal system. Later church teaching retained consecration as a covenant while replacing the early deeds and storehouse structure with tithing and other programs. ¹¹²

“Remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support.” ¹¹³

The surviving deeds and administrative records show that consecration involved real property and legal instruments, not only a spiritual metaphor. Its failures and revisions became an early test of whether a revelation’s authority depended on successful implementation.

Independence identified as Zion, 1831.

A July 1831 revelation identified Independence, Missouri, as the “center place” of Zion and designated a temple site. This claim drove migration, land purchase, publishing, and conflict with existing residents. The Saints’ expulsion from Jackson County in 1833 left an enduring contradiction between a geographically specific revelation and the institution’s inability to possess the site. Later Latter-day Saint practice expanded “Zion” into a worldwide religious community without formally canceling the Missouri designation. ¹¹⁴

The Vision and degrees of glory, 1832.

Smith and Sidney Rigdon reported a shared vision on Feb 16, 1832. The text now known as section 76 described celestial, terrestrial, and telestial glories and reserved permanent perdition for a narrow category. It sharply departed from the simple heaven-or-hell scheme common in much American Protestant preaching. Some early converts resisted it because its broad salvation seemed too generous. ¹¹⁵

“The glory of the telestial, which surpasses all understanding.” ¹¹⁶

Its importance was not only theological. “The Vision” showed Smith’s revelations moving beyond immediate commands into a large cosmology that could reorganize how followers understood judgment, salvation, and hierarchy in the next life.

Priesthood, temple, and gathering, 1832.

Section 84 linked priesthood authority, temple building, missionary obligation, and the gathering of Israel. Section 88, dictated in stages in December 1832 and January 1833, called for a “school of the prophets,” described cosmic law and resurrection, and commanded the Saints to establish a house of learning and worship. Together these texts supplied the program for Kirtland’s temple-centered institutional life. ¹¹⁷

The Word of Wisdom, 1833.

Section 89 arose after questions about tobacco use in the School of the Prophets. It advised against wine, strong drink, tobacco, and “hot drinks,” while commending grains, fruits, herbs, and limited meat. The opening described the instruction as a principle with promise and “not by commandment or constraint.” Compliance was uneven for decades. By the early twentieth century, abstention from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea became a firm worthiness expectation, while the food provisions received less consistent enforcement. ¹¹⁸

“Not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom.” ¹¹⁹

The controversy is a clear example of administrative development: a text that expressly denied immediate compulsory status later became a boundary marker for temple admission.

Failure in Missouri interpreted through revelation, 1833 to 1834.

Sections 101 and 105 explained the loss of Zion through persecution, disunity, and the Saints’ insufficient preparation. Section 105 disbanded Zion’s Camp without restoring the expelled population and postponed redemption of the land. The texts preserved the original promise by relocating failure to human conduct and future timing. ¹²⁰

Kirtland temple visions, 1836.

After the temple dedication, Smith and Cowdery recorded a vision dated Apr 3, 1836. They reported an appearance of Jesus Christ followed by Moses, Elias, and Elijah, each conveying authority associated with gathering, the gospel of Abraham, and sealing. The record became section 110 only in the Utah church’s 1876 Doctrine and Covenants. It was not a prominent public source during Smith’s lifetime, even though later LDS temple theology made it central. ¹²¹

The celestial kingdom and salvation for the unbaptized dead, 1836.

A January 21 vision showed Smith his deceased brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom and declared that people who died without knowledge of the gospel could inherit that kingdom if they would have accepted it. The text later became section 137. In 1976 it was canonized with Joseph F. Smith’s 1918 vision and then moved into the Doctrine and Covenants. ¹²²

Far West, tithing, and the church’s name, 1838.

Section 115 gave the institutional name “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” and called for another temple at Far West. Sections 119 and 120 established a tithing system and a council to direct the funds. The contemporary meaning of tithing in these texts and later definitions of income became subjects of administrative interpretation, while the abandoned Far West temple site joined Independence as a visible reminder that some building commands were never completed. ¹²³

Liberty Jail letters, 1839.

Smith’s March 1839 prison letters combined lament, political petitioning, rebuke, and theological reflection. Later editors excerpted portions into sections 121 through 123. The famous counsel that priesthood influence should operate by persuasion, patience, gentleness, and love came from a letter produced while Smith was imprisoned after the Missouri conflict. Its later canonization often obscured the original document’s immediate legal and political setting. ¹²⁴

Nauvoo Revelations and Ritual Innovation, 1840 to 1844

Baptism for the dead, 1840 to 1842.

Smith publicly introduced proxy baptism for deceased people in 1840. Early baptisms occurred in the Mississippi River without standardized recordkeeping or restrictions by sex. Later letters now published as sections 127 and 128 required recorders and linked earthly ordinances to heavenly records. The practice connected salvation for the dead to temple construction, genealogy, and an expanding sealing theology. ¹²⁵

The Nauvoo temple revelation, 1841.

Section 124 commanded construction of a temple and Nauvoo House, appointed officers, promised restored ordinances, and warned of consequences for failing to build. The text also named Hyrum Smith as patriarch and associate president. Because Smith was killed and most Saints left before the temple’s full completion, leaders rushed to administer ordinances during the winter of 1845–1846 before abandoning Nauvoo. ¹²⁶

The endowment, 1842.

On May 4 and 5, 1842, Smith introduced an endowment ceremony to a small group in the upper room of his Nauvoo store. The ritual used washing, anointing, instruction, signs, tokens, clothing, and a dramatic passage toward God’s presence. Smith had become a Freemason weeks earlier, and the endowment shared recognizable forms with Masonry. No public dictated revelation gives the ceremony’s full script. Believers describe a revealed ordinance expressed through available ritual language; critics see extensive borrowing joined to Smith’s developing theology. ¹²⁷

Eternal marriage and plural marriage, 1843.

The Jul 12, 1843 revelation now published as section 132 joined eternal sealing, exaltation, patriarchal authority, and plural marriage. Evidence shows that Smith had entered plural relationships before the text was written. The revelation addressed Emma Smith directly, instructed her to accept the wives “given” to her husband, and used threats of destruction against disobedience. Those features, along with young wives, already-married women, secrecy, and unequal authority, make it one of the most controversial documents in the LDS canon. ¹²⁸

The church now acknowledges that Smith was sealed to roughly thirty to forty women and that the youngest was several months short of fifteen. It also distinguishes sealings from proven sexual relationships in every case. Historical evidence supports conjugal relations in at least some marriages, while the record remains incomplete for others. ¹²⁹

The King Follett discourse, 1844.

In a funeral sermon on Apr 7, 1844, Smith taught that God had once been as humans are, that human spirits or intelligences were not created from nothing, and that people could learn to become gods. Four listeners made notes, but no verbatim transcript exists. Later editors combined the accounts, sometimes creating a smoother and more certain text than any one reporter recorded. The sermon powerfully shaped LDS exaltation theology without itself becoming canon. ¹³⁰

“You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves.” ¹³¹

The discourse captures a basic problem in Mormon doctrinal history: some of the movement’s most influential teachings survive in reconstructed sermon notes rather than in a canonized revelation.

Canon, Manifestos, and Modern Revelation, 1844 to 2026

The canon after Joseph Smith.

The Utah church’s 1876 Doctrine and Covenants added twenty-six sections, including several texts that had not appeared in earlier editions. The Pearl of Great Price, including the Book of Abraham and selections from Smith’s Bible revision and history, was canonized in 1880. The Lectures on Faith, printed as the “Doctrine” portion of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, were removed in 1921. These editorial decisions show that Mormon canon was assembled, expanded, and narrowed through institutional action rather than arriving as a fixed collection. ¹³²

The 1890 Manifesto.

Wilford Woodruff issued a statement advising Latter-day Saints against marriages forbidden by national law. The church accepted it in conference as authoritative and later printed it as Official Declaration 1. It did not include the text of an underlying revelation, and it did not immediately end every church-authorized plural marriage. New marriages continued for a time, especially outside the United States, until the 1904 Second Manifesto and later discipline made the prohibition enforceable. ¹³³

“My advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law.” ¹³⁴

The gap between the public 1890 statement and post-Manifesto marriages became a central subject of the Reed Smoot hearings and remains the clearest case in which institutional survival, legal pressure, claimed revelation, and gradual enforcement cannot be separated.

The 1918 vision of the redemption of the dead.

Joseph F. Smith recorded a vision dated Oct 3, 1918, describing Christ organizing missionary work among spirits rather than personally preaching to the wicked dead. Church leaders accepted the text that month. The membership canonized it in 1976, and it became section 138 in the 1981 edition. Its late canonization shows that a text could function as authoritative teaching for decades before formal inclusion in the standard works. ¹³⁵

The 1978 revelation ending the racial restriction. Spencer W. Kimball and other senior leaders described a revelatory experience in the Salt Lake Temple on Jun 1, 1978. The First Presidency announced on June 8 that priesthood ordination and temple blessings were available without regard to race. The announcement, not a transcript of the revelation itself, became Official Declaration 2. ¹³⁶

“Every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood.” ¹³⁷

The revelation ended the restriction but did not explain why it began. The church’s current essay says its records offer no clear insight into the policy’s origin and disavows earlier theories about curses, premortal conduct, or racial inferiority. That leaves an unresolved institutional question: a policy defended for generations as divinely grounded was removed by revelation without a disclosed revelation establishing it. ¹³⁸

The Family Proclamation, 1995.

The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve issued “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” on Sep 23, 1995. It described marriage as between a man and a woman, gender as eternal, and family roles as divinely ordered. Leaders have repeatedly treated it as authoritative and revelatory, but it has not been presented to the membership for canonization. It later supplied doctrinal language for political and legal campaigns involving same-sex marriage and gender. ¹³⁹

The 2015 and 2019 LGBTQ policy changes.

A 2015 handbook revision classified members in same-sex marriages as apostates and generally withheld naming, blessing, and baptism from their minor children. In 2016, Russell M. Nelson said the apostles had sustained what was revealed to Thomas S. Monson. In April 2019, the First Presidency reversed the children’s restrictions and removed same-sex marriage from the automatic-apostasy category, also describing the change within a framework of continuing revelation. Nelson later called both adjustments policies motivated by love. The sequence remains controversial because two opposed administrative rules were each placed inside a revelatory process within three and a half years. ¹⁴⁰

The bicentennial proclamation, 2020.

The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve issued “The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” during the April 2020 general conference. It restated the church’s claims about the First Vision, priesthood restoration, the Book of Mormon, and continuing revelation. Like the Family Proclamation, it is a formal declaration rather than canonized scripture. ¹⁴¹

“The promised Restoration goes forward through continuing revelation.” ¹⁴²

What counts as revelation now.

The LDS canon has received no newly numbered revelatory section since sections 137 and 138 were added in the twentieth century. Modern leaders more often present revelation through conference teaching, proclamations, handbooks, temple revisions, organizational changes, and unified decisions of the First Presidency and Twelve. That model allows administrative flexibility, but it also makes the boundary between doctrine, policy, inspiration, and revelation harder to identify from the public record.

Editorial Conclusion

Mormon history is not a simple line from revelation to fulfillment. It is a record of claims, texts, institutions, migrations, legal conflicts, revised policies, human loyalty, coercion, violence, reform, and survival. Some early revelations generated durable institutions. Others promised places or outcomes the church never obtained. Some practices were defended as divine and later abandoned. Some of the most influential teachings were never canonized, while some canonized texts were little known for decades.

The controversies are not marginal stains around an otherwise complete story. They often mark the points where power became visible: who could define revelation, control property, authorize marriage, limit priesthood and temple access, punish dissent, direct political action, manage wealth, or decide whether abuse should be reported. A documentary history can’t decide whether God spoke. It can show when people said He spoke, what records survive, who gained authority, who paid the cost, and how the institution later retold the event.

Comparative Event and Criticism Tables

The table below condenses the principal turning points and the publications or proceedings that placed their controversies into the historical record.

Treasure seeking and Smith’s court appearance.
Date: 1825–1826
Key actors: Joseph Smith, Josiah Stowell, Albert Neely
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Smith’s religious claims developed from paid “glass looking” and money digging
Publication and date: A. W. Benton, Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate, 1831; E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, 1834; William D. Purple, Chenango Union, May 2, 1877
Factual significance: Established the documentary connection between Smith, seer-stone use, treasure seeking, and an 1826 legal examination; disposition remains disputed. ¹⁴⁵

First Vision.
Date: Reported as 1820; accounts written 1832–1842
Key actors: Joseph Smith, scribes and later narrators
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Multiple accounts differ, and the story had limited early public prominence
Publication and date: James B. Allen, Dialogue, autumn 1966; Wesley P. Walters, BETS, fall 1967
Factual significance: Focused scholarship on account chronology, textual variation, and revival records. ¹⁴⁶

Book of Mormon translation and publication.
Date: 1827–1830
Key actors: Smith, Emma Smith, Harris, Cowdery, Whitmer, Grandin
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Modern authorship, dependence on contemporary debates, absence of archaeological corroboration
Publication and date: Alexander Campbell, Millennial Harbinger, February 1831; Howe, 1834; Coe, Dialogue, 1973
Factual significance: Created literary, source, and archaeology-based lines of criticism that remain distinct from supernatural claims. ¹⁴⁷

Book of Mormon ancestry claims.
Date: 1830 onward; DNA dispute prominent after 2000
Key actors: LDS leaders, Indigenous peoples, population geneticists
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Native American DNA is principally Asian rather than demonstrably ancient Israelite
Publication and date: Thomas W. Murphy in American Apocrypha, Signature Books, 2002
Factual significance: Contributed to debate over limited geography and preceded the 2006 wording change from “principal ancestors” to “among the ancestors.” ¹⁴⁸

Church organization.
Date: Apr 6, 1830
Key actors: Smith, Cowdery, Whitmer and Smith families
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Legality, authority, and later reconstruction of the founding meeting
Publication and date: Contemporary revelations and later participant accounts
Factual significance: No original minutes survive; later records consistently identify the date and basic actions. ¹⁴⁹

Jackson County expulsion.
Date: 1833
Key actors: Missouri settlers, LDS settlers, local officials
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Mormon bloc settlement and abolition fears versus organized persecution and property seizure
Publication and date: Citizens’ resolutions, Mormon petitions, contemporary newspapers
Factual significance: Documents both political tension and illegal collective expulsion. ¹⁵⁰

Book of Abraham.
Date: 1835–1842; papyri returned 1967
Key actors: Smith, Chandler, LDS clerks, Egyptologists
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Extant papyri are funerary texts and do not translate into the English Book of Abraham
Publication and date: Egyptological assessments; church Gospel Topics Essay, 2014/2016 presentation
Factual significance: Established the date and genre of surviving papyri and shifted debate to missing-scroll or revelatory-catalyst models. ¹⁵¹

Kirtland Safety Society.
Date: 1836–1837
Key actors: Smith, Rigdon, Parrish, investors
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Illegal banking, mismanagement, religious promotion of risky notes
Publication and date: Dissenting letters, civil suits, Ohio court records
Factual significance: Linked financial failure to the Kirtland schism and documented operation without a bank charter. ¹⁵²

Early plural marriage.
Date: Mid-1830s–1844
Key actors: Smith, Emma Smith, Fanny Alger, plural wives
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Secrecy, consent, polyandrous sealings, young age, denial in public
Publication and date: Oliver Cowdery letter, 1838; Nauvoo Expositor, 1844; Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness, 1997
Factual significance: Established the scope and biographical circumstances of Smith’s plural sealings. ¹⁵³

Missouri War and expulsion.
Date: 1838–1839
Key actors: Smith, Boggs, Missouri militia, Danites
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Mormon militancy and property attacks versus state-backed extermination and expulsion
Publication and date: Missouri records, Mormon petitions, military testimony
Factual significance: Documents violence by both sides and state-authorized removal of the Mormon population. ¹⁵⁴

Nauvoo political authority.
Date: 1840–1844
Key actors: Smith, Illinois legislature, city council, Council of Fifty
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Consolidation of religious, civil, military, and judicial power
Publication and date: Nauvoo Expositor, Jun 7, 1844; Quinn, Origins of Power, 1994
Factual significance: Documented the institutional overlap underlying accusations of theocracy. ¹⁵⁵

Destruction of the Expositor.
Date: Jun 10, 1844
Key actors: Smith, Nauvoo City Council, William Law and associates
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Illegal suppression of a newspaper and abuse of municipal power
Publication and date: Nauvoo Expositor; city council minutes; Illinois legal records
Factual significance: Triggered riot and treason proceedings immediately preceding Smith’s death. ¹⁵⁶

Succession crisis.
Date: 1844–1860
Key actors: Young, Rigdon, Strang, Smith III, Twelve
Principal contemporary or later criticism: No single clear succession rule; competing claims to Smith’s authority
Publication and date: Conference minutes, letters, later denominational records; Quinn, 1994
Factual significance: Produced multiple continuing churches and established senior-apostle succession in the Young-led body. ¹⁵⁷

Western migration.
Date: 1846–1860s
Key actors: Young, pioneer companies, Mormon Battalion, handcart emigrants
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Late departures, inadequate handcart preparation, centralized migration authority
Publication and date: Survivor accounts and administrative records
Factual significance: Documented both organized rescue and avoidable logistical failures. ¹⁵⁸

Utah territorial rule.
Date: 1850s
Key actors: Young, territorial legislature, federal appointees
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Theocratic government, weak federal courts, church-directed politics
Publication and date: Federal reports and territorial records
Factual significance: Defined the jurisdictional conflict that produced the Utah War. ¹⁵⁹

Mountain Meadows.
Date: September 1857
Key actors: Southern Utah militia, Haight, Dame, Lee, emigrants
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Local church and militia responsibility, concealment, disputed role of Young
Publication and date: Juanita Brooks, Stanford University Press, 1950; later documentary histories
Factual significance: Made Mormon militia participation and concealment central to established history. ¹⁶⁰

Federal antipolygamy campaign.
Date: 1862–1890
Key actors: Congress, federal courts, church leaders
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Whether religious liberty protected plural marriage
Publication and date: Reynolds v. United States, 1879; federal statutes
Factual significance: Established the belief-conduct distinction and permitted criminal enforcement. ¹⁶¹

Manifesto.
Date: 1890
Key actors: Woodruff, apostles, federal officials
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Public cessation statement contrasted with later plural marriages
Publication and date: Official Declaration 1; evidence in Smoot hearings
Factual significance: Established that abandonment occurred incrementally and required later disciplinary enforcement. ¹⁶²

Reed Smoot hearings.
Date: 1904–1907
Key actors: Smoot, Joseph F. Smith, Senate committee
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Continuing polygamy, temple oaths, political influence
Publication and date: United States Senate hearings
Factual significance: Produced sworn national testimony and prompted the Second Manifesto. ¹⁶³

Priesthood and temple restriction.
Date: Publicly stated 1852–1978
Key actors: Young, later presidents, Black members
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Racial exclusion lacked a documented founding revelation and relied on changing theories
Publication and date: Lowry Nelson, The Nation, 1952; Lester Bush, Dialogue, 1973; NAACP protests, 1965
Factual significance: Reconstructed the restriction’s nineteenth-century development and challenged its rationales. ¹⁶⁴

Revelation ending restriction.
Date: June 1978
Key actors: Spencer W. Kimball, First Presidency, Twelve
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Questions about prior teachings, apology, and residual racial doctrine
Publication and date: Official Declaration 2; later Race and the Priesthood essay
Factual significance: Ended the restriction and led to official disavowal of earlier racial theories. ¹⁶⁵

Correlation.
Date: Mainly 1960s–1980s
Key actors: First Presidency, Twelve, church departments
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Centralization and reduction of auxiliary and local autonomy
Publication and date: Administrative histories and correlation studies
Factual significance: Explains standardized curriculum, budgets, magazines, and global programs. ¹⁶⁶

ERA campaign.
Date: 1970s–1982
Key actors: Church leadership, Sonia Johnson, members for and against ERA
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Institutional direction of political activity and discipline of feminist dissent
Publication and date: Johnson’s Senate testimony and public speeches; disciplinary proceeding, 1979
Factual significance: Made gender authority and political mobilization national controversies. ¹⁶⁷

Hofmann forgeries and murders.
Date: 1980–1987
Key actors: Hofmann, church officials, collectors, victims
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Secret acquisition, weak authentication, possible suppression of documents
Publication and date: Criminal investigation; Turley, Victims, 1992
Factual significance: Established that several sensational early Mormon documents were modern forgeries. ¹⁶⁸

September Six.
Date: September 1993
Key actors: Anderson, Gileadi, Hanks, Quinn, Toscano, Whitesides
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Discipline of historians, feminists, and theologians
Publication and date: Dialogue, newspapers, disciplinary records
Factual significance: Became the central modern case concerning boundaries of LDS intellectual dissent. ¹⁶⁹

Proposition 8.
Date: 2008
Key actors: LDS Church, California members, campaign coalitions
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Institutional mobilization against same-sex marriage and campaign disclosure
Publication and date: Church statements; Los Angeles Times; FPPC proceeding
Factual significance: Documented extensive lawful participation and a reporting violation resolved by fine. ¹⁷⁰

November policy.
Date: 2015–2019
Key actors: First Presidency, local leaders, LGBTQ families
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Apostasy classification and restrictions on children
Publication and date: Handbook revision; church announcements; national media
Factual significance: Policy was adopted in 2015 and its principal disputed provisions withdrawn in 2019. ¹⁷¹

Ensign Peak disclosure.
Date: 2019–2023
Key actors: David Nielsen, Ensign Peak, First Presidency, SEC
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Size and use of reserves; misleading securities filings
Publication and date: Nielsen IRS complaint, 2019; SEC order, Feb 21, 2023
Factual significance: Produced a $5 million settlement and formal federal findings concerning shell-company reporting. ¹⁷²

Abuse help line and Arizona case.
Date: 2022–2026
Key actors: Adams family, bishops, church attorneys, AP, Arizona courts
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Failure to report abuse, clergy privilege, legal-risk orientation of help line
Publication and date: AP investigation, Aug 4, 2022; church response, Aug 17, 2022; court rulings
Factual significance: Exposed help-line procedures and generated continuing litigation over reporting exceptions. ¹⁷³

Kirtland transfer.
Date: Mar 5, 2024
Key actors: LDS Church, Community of Christ
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Loss of Community of Christ stewardship and concentration of historical properties
Publication and date: Joint statement and institutional FAQs
Factual significance: Transferred the temple, Nauvoo sites, manuscripts, and artifacts for $192.5 million. ¹⁷⁴

Oaks succession.
Date: 2025–2026
Key actors: Nelson, Oaks, First Presidency, Twelve
Principal contemporary or later criticism: Ordinary questions about gerontocratic seniority and centralized succession
Publication and date: Official announcements
Factual significance: Installed Oaks as eighteenth president following the established senior-apostle process. ¹⁷⁵

A second comparison separates criticism by evidentiary type.

Contemporary religious polemic. Representative critic or institution: Alexander Campbell Work or proceeding: “Delusions,” Millennial Harbinger
Date: 1831 What it added to the record: Early content-based argument that the Book of Mormon reflected contemporary theology. ¹⁷⁶

Affidavit compilation. Representative critic or institution: E. D. Howe Work or proceeding: Mormonism Unvailed
Date: 1834 What it added to the record: Early witness statements about Smith family reputation, treasure seeking, and origin theories. ¹⁷⁷

Internal dissenting newspaper. Representative critic or institution: William Law and associates Work or proceeding: Nauvoo Expositor
Date: 1844 What it added to the record: Publicly alleged plural marriage and political concentration immediately before the press destruction. ¹⁷⁸

Biography. Representative critic or institution: Fawn M. Brodie Work or proceeding: No Man Knows My History, Knopf
Date: 1945 What it added to the record: Integrated treasure seeking, plural marriage, politics, and naturalistic interpretation into a national biography. ¹⁷⁹

Documentary regional history. Representative critic or institution: Juanita Brooks Work or proceeding: The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Stanford University Press
Date: 1950 What it added to the record: Established local Mormon militia responsibility and concealment. ¹⁸⁰

Institutional-intellectual history. Representative critic or institution: James B. Allen Work or proceeding: “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’,” Dialogue
Date: 1966 What it added to the record: Traced the later growth of the First Vision’s prominence. ¹⁸¹

Revival-record analysis. Representative critic or institution: Wesley P. Walters Work or proceeding: “New Light on Mormon Origins,” BETS
Date: 1967 What it added to the record: Compared the canonical chronology with contemporary revival records. ¹⁸²

Race-policy documentary study. Representative critic or institution: Lester E. Bush Jr. Work or proceeding: “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine,” Dialogue
Date: 1973 What it added to the record: Reconstructed the restriction as a development under Brigham Young and catalogued changing rationales. ¹⁸³

Archaeological assessment. Representative critic or institution: Michael D. Coe Work or proceeding: “Mormons and Archaeology,” Dialogue
Date: 1973 What it added to the record: Compared Book of Mormon material claims with mainstream archaeology. ¹⁸⁴

Internal historical study, posthumously published. Representative critic or institution: B. H. Roberts Work or proceeding: Studies of the Book of Mormon, University of Illinois Press
Date: Studies in 1920s; published 1985 What it added to the record: Catalogued literary, historical, and authorship problems from within senior church leadership. ¹⁸⁵

Hierarchical history. Representative critic or institution: D. Michael Quinn Work or proceeding: The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, Signature Books
Date: 1994 What it added to the record: Reconstructed overlapping ecclesiastical, political, military, and economic authority. ¹⁸⁶

Women-centered plural-marriage history. Representative critic or institution: Todd Compton Work or proceeding: In Sacred Loneliness, Signature Books
Date: 1997 What it added to the record: Reconstructed plural wives’ lives and documentary circumstances. ¹⁸⁷

Genetic criticism. Representative critic or institution: Thomas W. Murphy Work or proceeding: “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics,” American Apocrypha
Date: 2002 What it added to the record: Applied population genetics to older Israelite-ancestry claims. ¹⁸⁸

Investigative journalism. Representative critic or institution: Michael Rezendes, Associated Press Work or proceeding: Arizona abuse investigation
Date: 2022 What it added to the record: Published help-line procedures and sealed-litigation evidence concerning unreported abuse. ¹⁸⁹

Federal regulatory finding. Representative critic or institution: Securities and Exchange Commission Work or proceeding: Administrative order 34-96951
Date: 2023 What it added to the record: Made formal findings concerning shell LLCs and misleading Forms 13F. ¹⁹⁰

Timeline, Membership Chart, and Source Guide

Year	Major turning point
1820	Joseph Smith later dates First Vision to spring 1820
1825	Smith works in Josiah Stowell treasure search
1826	South Bainbridge glass-looking proceeding
1827	Smith reports receiving the plates
1830	Book of Mormon published
1831	Church gathering shifts to Ohio and Missouri
1833	Saints expelled from Jackson County
1834	Zion's Camp
1835	Egyptian papyri acquired
1836	Kirtland Temple dedicated
1837	Safety Society fails
1838	Missouri War
1839	Refugees establish Nauvoo
1842	Relief Society organized
1844	Council of Fifty organized
1846	Nauvoo exodus begins
1847	Brigham Young company reaches Salt Lake Valley
1850	Utah Territory created
1852	Plural marriage publicly announced
1857	Utah War
1879	Reynolds v. United States
1887	Edmunds-Tucker Act
1890	Manifesto
1896	Utah statehood
1904	Reed Smoot hearings
1936	Church welfare program formally announced
1945	Brodie publishes No Man Knows My History
1950	Brooks publishes Mountain Meadows study
1960s	Correlation expands
1973	Bush race-history article
1978	Priesthood and temple restriction ends
1979	Sonia Johnson excommunicated
1985	Hofmann bombings expose forgery network
1993	September Six disciplinary actions
1995	Family Proclamation issued
2008	Church supports California Proposition 8
2013	Gospel Topics Essays begin appearing
2015	Same-sex-couple and children policy adopted
2019	Policy provisions reversed
2022	AP abuse help-line investigation
2023	SEC settlement
2024	Kirtland Temple and historic collections transferred
2025	Russell M. Nelson dies
2026	Oaks sustained in general conference

The following chart uses selected official administrative snapshots rather than an annual attendance series. The categorical spacing does not represent equal time intervals, and the values are reported membership, not active participation. The church reports six founding members in 1830, one million members by 1947, 17,509,781 at the end of 2024, and 17,887,212 at the end of 2025. ¹⁹¹

Year	Reported membership
1830	6
1947	1,000,000
2024	17,509,781
2025	17,887,212

The most useful primary and documentary collections for checking individual claims are:

Source collection	Coverage and use
Joseph Smith Papers	Original and early copies of Smith’s histories, revelations, court documents, financial papers, correspondence, Nauvoo records, Council of Fifty minutes, and Egyptian manuscripts. 192
Church History Library	Conference records, institutional minutes, manuscript collections, newspapers, journals, photographs, and research guides. 193
Gospel Topics Essays	Current official treatments of translation, First Vision accounts, plural marriage, race, DNA, violence, women and priesthood, and the Book of Abraham. 194
United States Senate, Reed Smoot proceedings	Sworn testimony concerning plural marriage, political influence, leadership conduct, and temple-related allegations. 195
Supreme Court and federal legal records	Primary legal history of antipolygamy enforcement, especially Reynolds v. United States. 196
Missouri and Utah public records	State orders, territorial and statehood records, militia material, legislation, and property history. 197
National Park Service trail histories	Migration routes, pioneer companies, handcarts, and federal-era western context. 198
SEC administrative order	Primary federal findings and settlement terms regarding Ensign Peak investment disclosures. 199
Arizona court filings	Continuing primary legal record concerning clergy privilege and abuse-reporting duties. 200
Community of Christ–LDS joint transfer statement	Primary documentation of the 2024 Kirtland and Nauvoo property and manuscript transfer. 201

The principal interpretive and critical works used as documentary landmarks are:

E. D. Howe. Work: Mormonism Unvailed Publisher or journal: Painesville, Ohio
Date: 1834 Main documentary subject: Early affidavits, treasure seeking, and Book of Mormon origin theories. ²⁰²

Fawn M. Brodie. Work: No Man Knows My History Publisher or journal: Alfred A. Knopf
Date: 1945 Main documentary subject: Non-devotional biography of Joseph Smith. ²⁰³

Juanita Brooks. Work: The Mountain Meadows Massacre Publisher or journal: Stanford University Press
Date: 1950 Main documentary subject: Militia responsibility and concealment at Mountain Meadows. ²⁰⁴

James B. Allen. Work: “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’” Publisher or journal: Dialogue
Date: 1966 Main documentary subject: Development of the vision’s institutional prominence. ²⁰⁵

Wesley P. Walters. Work: “New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival” Publisher or journal: Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society
Date: 1967 Main documentary subject: Revival chronology and the 1838 First Vision account. ²⁰⁶

Lester E. Bush Jr.. Work: “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine” Publisher or journal: Dialogue
Date: 1973 Main documentary subject: Historical origin and changing defenses of the racial restriction. ²⁰⁷

Michael D. Coe. Work: “Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View” Publisher or journal: Dialogue
Date: 1973 Main documentary subject: Archaeological evaluation of Book of Mormon claims. ²⁰⁸

B. H. Roberts, edited by Brigham D. Madsen. Work: Studies of the Book of Mormon Publisher or journal: University of Illinois Press
Date: 1985 Main documentary subject: Internal examination of authorship, parallels, and historical problems. ²⁰⁹

Richard E. Turley Jr.. Work: Victims Publisher or journal: University of Illinois Press
Date: 1992 Main documentary subject: LDS Church dealings with Mark Hofmann and the forgery investigation. ²¹⁰

D. Michael Quinn. Work: The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power Publisher or journal: Signature Books
Date: 1994 Main documentary subject: Development of hierarchy and theocratic institutions. ²¹¹

Todd Compton. Work: In Sacred Loneliness Publisher or journal: Signature Books
Date: 1997 Main documentary subject: Biographies and records of Joseph Smith’s plural wives. ²¹²

Thomas W. Murphy. Work: “Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics” Publisher or journal: In American Apocrypha, Signature Books
Date: 2002 Main documentary subject: Population genetics and Indigenous ancestry claims. ²¹³

D. Michael Quinn. Work: The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power Publisher or journal: Signature Books
Date: 2017 Main documentary subject: Long-term institutional finance and corporate administration. ²¹⁴

Across the full chronology, the recurring documentary pattern is observable without resolving religious truth claims: institutional growth produced new administrative powers; those powers generated dissent, litigation, journalism, or scholarship; later access to minutes, court papers, diaries, financial records, and scientific evidence altered how the event was publicly described. The record now available through official archives, legal repositories, independent scholarship, and critical publications is far broader than at any earlier point in the movement’s history.

Numbered References

1. “Docket Entry, 20 March 1826 [State of New York v. JS–A]”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to State of New York v. JS–B and State of New York v. JS–C”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Agreement of Josiah Stowell and Others, 1 November 1825”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Reminiscence of William D. Purple, 28 April 1877 [State of New York v. JS–A]”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

2. “Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 1, Part 2 Introduction”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Organizing the Church of Christ”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Accounts of the First Vision”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “First Vision Accounts”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Allen, James B. “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in Mormon Thought”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 29–45.

3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Kirtland Safety Society”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Mormon-Missouri War of 1838”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Revised Minutes, 17 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mayor's Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Resolution, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Succession of Church Leadership”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; National Park Service. “Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; National Park Service. “History and Culture: Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Brink of War 48447228”. Smithsonian Magazine. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Brigham Young”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

5. “Reynolds v. United States”. Oyez. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage After the Manifesto”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Utah Division of Archives and Records Service. “Utahs Road to Statehood the Finish Line”. November 10, 2021.; United States Senate. “091reedsmoot Expulsion”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

6. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Priesthood and Temple Restriction”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Revelations in the Summer of 1978”. Church History, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Bush, Lester E., Jr. “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68.; “How the NAACP Brass and Top Mormon Leaders Got on Friendly Terms and Plan to Work Together in the Future”. The Salt Lake Tribune. May 16, 2018.

7. “Sonia Johnson Papers, 1958–1983”. Archives West. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Shades of Gray Sonia Johnsons Life Through Letters and Autobiography”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Hofmann Mark.shtml”. Utah Education Network. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Hofmann Forgeries”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The September Six and the Lost Generation of Mormon Studies”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mountain Meadows Massacre”. Google Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.

8. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Same Sex Marriage and Proposition 8”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “La Xpm 2008 Nov 17 Na Mormons17 Story”. Los Angeles Times. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Love Motivated Policy Changes Toward LGBT Parents Children”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mormon Church Repeals Baptism Ban for Children of Gay Parents”. PBS NewsHour. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Gospel Topics Essays”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mormon Church Has Misled Members on $100 Billion Tax-Exempt Investment Fund, Whistleblower Alleges”. The Washington Post. December 16, 2019.; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “SEC Charges The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Its Investment Management Company for Disclosure Failures”. February 21, 2023.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Church Issues Statement on SEC Settlement”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.

9. Arizona Judicial Branch. “Arizona Supreme Court, Doe et al. v. The Corporation et al., case CV-25-0213-PR”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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11. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joint Statement Responsibility and Ownership of Sacred Sites and Historic Documents Transfer to Church of Jesus Christ”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Frequently Asked Questions Clarify the Transfer of Sacred Sites and Historic Documents”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “President Russell M Nelson Memorial”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “President Oaks New First Presidency”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Solemn Assembly April 2026 General Conference”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “2025 Statistical Report”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.

12. “Introduction to Documents Volume 1 July 1828 June”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Documents Volume 15 16 May 28 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Book of Abraham and Egyptian Material”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts Volume Now Available”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

13. “Agreement of Josiah Stowell and Others, 1 November 1825”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Treasure Seeking”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Seer Stones - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

14. “Docket Entry, 20 March 1826 [State of New York v. JS–A]”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to State of New York v. JS–B and State of New York v. JS–C”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joseph Smith's 1826 Trial”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Joseph Smith's 1826 Trial”. BYU Studies. Accessed August 18, 2026.

15. “Mormonism Unvailed”. Internet Archive. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Reminiscence of William D. Purple, 28 April 1877 [State of New York v. JS–A]”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Joseph Smith and the 1826 Trial”. BYU Studies. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Joseph Smith's 1826 Trial: The Legal Setting”. JSTOR. Accessed August 18, 2026.

16. “Accounts of the First Vision”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Joseph Smith Papers: Primary Accounts of First Vision”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “History, circa Summer 1832”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Joseph Smith Papers, History, circa Summer 1832”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “First Vision Accounts”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

17. Allen, James B. “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in Mormon Thought”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 29–45.; “The Significance of Joseph Smith S First Vision in”. Scholarly Publishing Collective. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Walters, Wesley P. “New Light on Mormon Origins from Palmyra (N.Y.) Revival”. Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 10, no. 4 (Fall 1967): 227–44.; “New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Anderson, Richard Lloyd. “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy on the First Vision Setting: The Pivotal 1818 Palmyra Camp Meeting”. Exploring the First Vision ed. Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2012), 91–169.

18. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Book of Mormon Translation”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Seer Stones - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 1, Part 2 Introduction”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

19. “Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 1, Part 2 Introduction”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Lesson 6”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

20. “Alexander Campbell's Delusions”. Abilene Christian University. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Campbell, Alexander. “Delusions”. The Millennial Harbinger 2, no. 2 (February 7, 1831): 85–96.; “Mormonism Unvailed”. Internet Archive. Accessed August 18, 2026.

21. “Studies of the Book of Mormon”. Amazon. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Studies of the Book of Mormon”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “B H Roberts and the Book of Mormon Studies of the Book of Mormon”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “B. H. Roberts's Studies of the Book of Mormon”. Scholarly Publishing Collective. Accessed August 18, 2026.

22. “Mormons and Archaeology an Outside View”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mormons and Archaeology an Outside View”. Scholarly Publishing Collective. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Simply Implausible DNA and a Mesoamerican Setting for the Book of Mormon”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Thomas W Murphy Argues That DNA Evidence for Native Americans Renders Bom Historicity Implausible”. B. H. Roberts Foundation. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Book of Mormon and DNA Studies”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

23. “Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 1, Part 2 Introduction”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Organizing the Church of Christ”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Revelation 6 April 1830 Dc”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Founding Meeting of the Church of Christ”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

24. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Kirtland Ohio”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Church History”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.

25. “Mormonism Unvailed”. Internet Archive. Accessed August 18, 2026.

26. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Zion's Camp (Camp of Israel)”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Chapter Sixteen: Missouri Persecutions and Expulsion”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

27. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Mormon-Missouri War of 1838”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Extermination Order”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

28. “Book of Abraham and Egyptian Material”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to Book of Abraham Manuscripts Circa July Circa November”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Book of Abraham Excerpt and Facsimile 2 15 March 1842 Abraham 219”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “R4 Table of Contents”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

29. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts Volume Now Available”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to Revelations and Translations Volume”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to Egyptian Papyri Circa 300 100 Bc”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

30. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Kirtland Safety Society”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society”. BYU Studies. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Introduction to the Kirtland Safety Society”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

31. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Kirtland Safety Society”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Kirtland Ohio”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

32. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Fanny Alger”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

33. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joseph Smith and Plural Marriage”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

34. “In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith”. Amazon. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith”. Internet Archive. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Lonely No More Todd M Compton in Sacred Loneliness the Documents”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.

35. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Mormon-Missouri War of 1838”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Chapter Sixteen: Missouri Persecutions and Expulsion”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

36. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Extermination Order”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “From High Hopes to Despair: The Missouri Period, 1831–39”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Mormon-Missouri War of 1838”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

37. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Mormon-Missouri War of 1838”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

38. “Documents Volume 15 16 May 28 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Alexander, Thomas G. “Review: D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power”. Mormon Studies Review 6, no. 1 (2019), article 24.

39. “The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power”. Google Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Review of The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, by D. Michael Quinn”. Cambridge University Press. Accessed August 18, 2026.

40. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

41. “Documents Volume 15 16 May 28 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power”. Signature Books. Accessed August 18, 2026.

42. “Revised Minutes, 17 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mayor's Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Order to Destroy Nauvoo Expositor Press”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

43. “Revised Minutes, 17 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mayor's Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Resolution, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

44. “Mayor's Order to Nauvoo City Marshal, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Resolution, 10 June 1844”. The Joseph Smith Papers. Accessed August 18, 2026.

45. “No Man Knows My History”. Wikipedia. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Reconsidering No Man Knows My History”. University Press of Colorado. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “No Man Knows My Psychology Fawn Brodie Joseph Smith and Psychoanalysis”. BYU Studies. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Brodie Revisited a Reappraisal No Man Knows My History by Faun Brodie”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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55. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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61. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879)”. Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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67. United States Senate. “091reedsmoot Expulsion”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage After the Manifesto”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

68. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “United States of America”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

69. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Welfare Programs”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Chapter Thirty Nine”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Great Depression”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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71. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Priesthood and Temple Restriction”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

72. “How the NAACP Brass and Top Mormon Leaders Got on Friendly Terms and Plan to Work Together in the Future”. The Salt Lake Tribune. May 16, 2018.

73. Bush, Lester E., Jr. “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68.; “Mormonism S Negro Doctrine an Historical Overview”. Scholarly Publishing Collective. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Bush, Lester E., Jr. “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68.; “Looking Back Looking Forward Mormonisms Negro Doctrine Forty Five Years Later”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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81. “Hofmann Mark.shtml”. Utah Education Network. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Hofmann Forgeries”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “The Mark Hofmann Case a Basic Chronology”. BYU Studies. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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84. “The September Six and the Lost Generation of Mormon Studies”. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. Accessed August 18, 2026.; Hermanson, Katrina M. “The September Six: Deployments and Disruptions of the Secular/Religious Binary in Latter-day Saints Rhetoric”. Arizona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5 (2016): 47–63.; “Conversation How September 1993”. The Salt Lake Tribune. September 18, 2023.

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86. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “100 Announcements and Changes in the Church Since President Nelson Became Prophet”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.

87. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Same Sex Marriage and Proposition 8”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “California and Same Sex Marriage”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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89. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Gospel Topics Essays”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Book of Mormon and DNA Studies”. Accessed August 18, 2026.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”. Accessed August 18, 2026.

90. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Love Motivated Policy Changes Toward LGBT Parents Children”. Newsroom, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed August 18, 2026.; “Mormon Church Repeals Baptism Ban for Children of Gay Parents”. PBS NewsHour. Accessed August 18, 2026.

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