Mormons are followers of a religious confession founded in 1830 by the preacher Joseph Smith. The great majority of the followers of the movement adheres to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days, but some minorities follow other churches. All followers of murmurism believe in Jesus, but reject some principles of Christianity, such as the dogma of the Trinity. They also follow a very rigid morality and, in politics, they are mostly lined up on the conservative front. After Smith’s death, which took place in 1844, a part of the Mormoni moved to the West, founding the city of Salt Lake City, which still constitutes a sort of capital of confession today. Mormonism is currently present in numerous other countries, including Italy.
Who are the Mormoni: origins and foundation
The Mormoni are the followers of a religious confession founded in the United States in 1830. They owe their name to the fact that their sacred text is the “Book of Mormon. Tale written on tables at the hands of Mormon taken from Nefi’s tables” (original title The Book of Mormon: an account Written by the hand of Mormon Upon Plates Taken from the audience of Nephi). The book is also known as “another testament of Jesus Christ”. The confession was founded by a preacher, Joseph Smith, who claimed to have received a divine revelation.
Most of the Mormoni is brought together in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days (The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), which has about 17,000,000 faithful and is often identified with the murmurism tout court. However, there are also other Mormon churches, less numerous. One of the best known is the community of Christ, called up to 2002 “reorganized church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days” (Re organization Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), which has 250,000 adepts.
About half of the Mormoni lives in the United States, especially in Utah and California. The “capital” of murmurism is Salt Lake City. In the United States, the Mormoni constitute the fourth religious confession by number of faithful, but the movement is also present in many other countries, including ours: there are about 25,000 Italian Mormones and in 2019 they inaugurated their temple in Rome.
What the murmons believe and how they live
The Mormoni consider themselves Christians, but are not recognized as such by the other confessions of Christianity, including the Catholic one, because they do not accept some fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion. First of all, they refuse the principle of the Trinity, believing that the Father and Son are two distinct people, united by a common will, the Holy Spirit. They also believe that revelation is a continuous process and do not consider original sin truthful. They believe in the second coming of Christ and are millennialists, because they await the “regeneration” of human beings. They recognize the sacrament of baptism, but believe that it must take place after the age of eight years of age and that they must be administered by completely immersing the person to be baptized in the water.
Mormons are also known because they follow a very rigorous ethics. They give 10% of what they earn their church and observe a bitter lifestyle, keeping away from everything that consider vice. In addition, they follow a conservative moral on some “hot” themes of the political debate, such as marriage between people of the same sex, abortion, euthanasia. Consequently, in politics they are sided in the majority on the conservative front. In the United States, about two thirds of the Mormoni support the Republican Party.
In the past, the murmils practiced polygamy but, unlike what is believed, the vast majority of the followers of the movement has ceased to practice it since the end of the nineteenth century, moving on to monogamy. There are still some churches that admit polygamous families, but have few followers. The best known is the “fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days” (The FundaMentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), based in Utah, which has between 6,000 and 10,000 faithful.
The story of Joseph Smith, the man who founded murmurism
Mormonism was founded in 1830 in New York by Joseph Smith, an American preacher of Irish origins, who was 24 years old at the time.
Smith had published the “Book of Mormon”, which he said contained the revelation, engraved on gold tables, made in ancient times by the prophet Mormon. The book tells the arrival of Middle Eastern peoples on the American continent and tells how, after the Resurrection, Jesus visited the communities allocated there. Smith claimed to have only translated the book, never critics believe that it is the author, also because the text presents some historical errors that exclude could trace the ancient era (for example, he mentions the horses several times, which in ancient times on the American continent were extinct and would have been reintroduced only in modern times, following the Colombian exchange).
The fact is that, on the basis of his ideas, on April 6, 1830 Smith and some followers founded a new religious confession, originally called the Church of Christ. The following year Smith moved to Ohio, where he organized the first temple of the new I believe. In 1834 he assumed the confession assumed the name of the church of the saints of the last few days and, four years later, the definitive one of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days.
Smith was killed in 1844, while he was in prison, and after his death the movement divided. A part of the followers moved to the West, which had not yet been completely colonized by the white population, under the guidance of Brigham Young. In 1851 the group founded the city of Salt Lake City, which attracted followers from the United States and other countries. Young wanted to constitute a theocratic state, but, after a conflict with federal troops, he was forced to recognize the authority of the Washington government. The community, however, rooted in Utah. Other Mormoni remained in the Midwest and founded other churches, who believed in the ideas of Joseph Smith but did not recognize themselves in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints of the last few days.
Today murmurism is expanding, especially in the United States, and some famous people have emerged from the inside of the movement. Among them the writer Stephenie Morgan Meyer, known for creating the saga of Twilightand the politician Mitt Romney, who in 2012 was candidate of the Republican Party in the American presidential elections and was defeated by Barack Obama.
