Mormonism Research Paper

It was 1820 when Mormonism was born. Joseph Smith, Jr. was a religion man who founded the Mormon Church. Born on December 23, 1805 to Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith who were poor and uneducated farmers. Many Americans persecuted Smith, Jr. but he was also accepted by many as well. Smith has been regarded as one of the most controversial men of our time because of his different way of teaching. Joseph Smith and his followers were driven out of numerous states because of the persecution they received from their fellow Americans. Joseph Smith had a successor who led the church after the death of Smith, Brigham Young. Young led the Mormons to Utah where they have been settled ever since.
It all started with a fourteen year old boy, Joseph Smith, who was visited by God the Father and God the Son. Smith was praying for guidance in a forest in western New York when the two beings revealed themselves and told him not to join any churches because all the other churches were false (Bushman 56). They told him, Joseph, that he would start the true church of God. This encounter was called the “First Vision.” The events of the morning marked the beginning of the restoration of the Gospel (Bushman 56) . Three years later when Joseph would be seventeen years old, he was visited yet again by an angel. The angel, Moroni, told Joseph that he was chosen by God and that God had work for Joseph that would result in opposition (Bushman 62). The angel said that the “fullness of the everlasting Gospel” was engraved on golden plates written in ancient hieroglyphs (Bushman 62). The angel said these plates were buried in hill located nearby where Joseph would pray. Joseph would be the one to translate the tablets and he was responsible for bringing ...

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...For Mormonism only being over 200 years old, it already has over 10,000,000 followers. But with every religion come the non-believers, and the non-believers and ex-Mormons believe that Smith was a fraud. There was also a sense of fear of Mormon take over and power. There was fear that Mormons were trying to undermine the American institution of marriage. Americans persecuted the Mormons because they believed that if the Mormons gained too much power that polygamy would be allowed and monogamy would no longer exist. Bushman is a believer who wrote the book for other believers to read, but there is little effort on Bushman’s part to fling Smith in a flawless light. Instead, Bushman sees the controversial issues of Mormonism with polygamy, and Bushman tries to provide information and explain Joseph Smith’s notions in a way that is acceptable by the Mormons’ terms.