In The Faith - A Chronicle of the Christian Faith

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 12 million adherents worldwide and is preparing to celebrate the bicentennial year of its founder’s birth.

NEW YORK —To loyal Mormons, Joseph Smith Jr. was an American prophet whose creed is preparing for Christ’s Second Coming. To skeptics, he was a reprobate impostor, if a remarkably successful one.

Now as Smith’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepares to celebrate the bicentennial year of his birth (Dec. 23, 1805), the occasion will certainly renew debates over one of America’s most important, and woolliest, religious careers.

Smith was hounded out of New York, Ohio, and Missouri; tarred and feathered, jailed, and accused of serious crimes. He repeatedly alienated close associates.

In Illinois, he ruled a theocratic city-state as prophet, mayor, chief judge, and commander of a 5,000-man militia. In 1844, he was secretly anointed an earthly king while campaigning for the US presidency. When Smith had officers pillage an opposition newspaper, he was arrested and then murdered by a mob.

Smith’s prophethood was founded upon his report that, in 1827, an angel gave him golden plates inscribed in an unknown language and buried near Palmyra, N.Y. The plates told the history of Indians’ ancient ancestors, who had migrated from Israel and were visited by Jesus. Smith said God miraculously empowered him to understand the language and dictate the Book of Mormon, after which the angel retrieved the plates.

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Filed under: History