Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:53, 25 May 2003

Mormon is a colloquial term that originated in the 1830s as a reference (sometimes pejoratively) to people who believe that The Book of Mormon is divine scripture or who are members of the Mormon religion or one its splinter groups--either The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or one of the many smaller organizations that separated themselves from that Church. According to Church theology, the term is derived ultimately from the name of one of the prophets in The Book of Mormon by whose hand the history of the Nephites was preserved.

The term has been used widely within the Church, as evidenced by: the name of the Church's most prestigious choir "the Mormon Tabernacle Choir"; the names of several Church songs, such as "I'm a Mormon Boy"; and the tagline, "From the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Mormons", which appeared at the end of a series of short television infomercials produced by the Church in the late 1970's. However, as early as 1979 Church leaders began discouraging use of the term due to concerns at least in part that the term "Mormon Church" was being used to the exclusion of the Church's official name, which is believed to have been decreed by God (see for example ). In 2001, the Church issued an official statement regarding the name of the Church and the use of the term "Mormon" in the media (see ). It encourages use of the official name of the Church or, as an abbreviated form, "the Church" or "the Church of Jesus Christ", and advises that the term "Mormon" or "Mormon Fundamentalist" is not properly applied to other religious groups, especially those now practicing polygamy. Notwithstanding, the Church has since acquired and set up a website at http://mormon.org intended for non-Mormons looking for more information.

Despite the Church's discouragement of "Mormon" some scholars feel it is useful to collectively describe all those groups which derive from Joseph Smith. Sometimes "Restoration Churches" is used for this purpose instead, but that can lead to confusion since there is an entirely different group of Christian churches (those derived from the Campbellites or Stone-Campbell churches, for example, the Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ) which are also called Restoration Churches.

Some scholars (e.g. Melton, in his Encyclopedia of American Religion) subdivide the Mormons into "Utah Mormons" and "Missouri Mormons". The Missouri Mormons are those Mormons who did not travel westward to Utah, and the organizations formed from them (the RLDS, Strangites, Temple Lot, etc.), while the Utah Mormons are those who did travel westward to Utah, and the organizations formed from them (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the various polygamy-practising groups who are separated from the Church). This nomenclature is not common within the Church and the use of Mormons or Mormon Fundamentalists in refering to organizations or groups outside of the Church is a grave misunderstanding of Mormon theology, in particular the principal of continuous revelation and Priesthood authority.

According to the theology of the Church, Mormon was a prophet who lived in the Americas circa 400 A.D. Faced with the destruction of his people, the Nephites, by a rival tribe known as the Lamanites, Mormon compiled a history of his people on plates of gold. This history, which was an abridgement of more extensive records, was passed on to Mormon's son, Moroni, who buried them in order to prevent them from being destroyed by the Lamanites. Latter-day Saints believe that the location of the plates was later revealed to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni and translated into English by divine assistance. This translation is published as The Book of Mormon.

External links

• The entire canonical scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is available at http://scriptures.lds.org.

Official information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons): http://mormon.org