List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement
This article is about the Latter-day Saint (Mormon)
Further information: Mormon cosmology
Further information: Mormon cosmology
This list of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement provides a listing of churches that form a part of the Latter Day Saint movement—sometimes collectively referred to as Restorationism orMormonism—whether still extant or not. A member of any of these sects is properly referred to as a Latter Day Saint in the general sense, regardless of the particular church to which he or she may belong (or belonged). While this list is far from complete, it currently incorporates all of the major known sects within the movement, past or present.
The Latter Day Saint movement includes:
- The original church within this movement, founded in April 1830 in New York by Joseph Smith, Jr., was the Church of Christ, which was later named the Church of the Latter Day Saints. It was renamed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1838, which remained its official name until Smith's death in 1844. This organization subsequently splintered into several different sects, each of which claims to be the legitimate continuation of this original church, and most of which dispute the right of other sects within the movement to claim this distinction.
- The largest denomination within the contemporary movement is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church or, colloquially, Mormon church) with 14 million members. It is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and uses the term Latter-day Saints to describe itself and its members (note the hyphenation and variation in capitalization usage).
- The second-largest denomination is the Community of Christ (first named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from 1872–2001), a Missouri-based, 250,000-member denomination. Though members of this church have traditionally been called Latter Day Saints (without the hyphen), the Community of Christ has more recently stated that it rejects the use of the term Saints as a designation for its members in any official reference or publication.[1]
- Other sects within the movement either formed around various would-be successors to Joseph Smith, Jr., or else broke from sects that did. These, together with the two sects listed above, are detailed in the table of denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement, below.
The term Mormonism is often used as a collective description of the movement and especially of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; however, many other Latter Day Saint sects are opposed to the use of this term, as they consider it to be derogatory and connected to the polygamy once practiced by the Utah church.[2] These other groups tend to prefer the termsRestorationist or Latter Day Saint.
Though a few minuscule factions broke with Smith's organization during his lifetime, he retained the allegiance of the vast majority of Latter Day Saints until his murder in June 1844. Following Smith's death, his movement experienced a profound leadership crisis which led to a schism within his church. The largest group followed Brigham Young, settling in what would become theUtah Territory (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The second-largest faction coalesced around Joseph Smith III, eldest son of Joseph Smith, Jr. (the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), currently headquartered in Independence, Missouri. Other would-be leaders included the senior surviving member of the First Presidency, Sidney Rigdon, the newly-baptized James Strang from Wisconsin, and Alpheus Cutler, one of the Council of Fifty. Each of these men still retains a following as of 2010—however tiny it may be in some cases—and all of their organizations have experienced further schisms.[3][4][5] Other claimants such asGranville Hedrick, William Bickerton and Charles Thompson, among others, later emerged to start still other factions, some of which have further subdivided.
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