Monday, Apr. 21, 1980

Church of Latter Day Splits

Scions of Smith and Young enjoy a schismatic Mormon birthday

In the Finger Lakes region of New York, Spencer Kimball, 85, president of the Mormon Church, joined 400 worshipers in the tiny town of Fayette (pop. 250). There they dedicated an exact replica of the rude cabin where, 150 years ago last week, Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. and six followers founded a new church.

Smith started with the belief that true Christianity, corrupted for 18 centuries, would be restored by his "Latter Day Saints." The most substantial result is a 4.3 million-member church based in Salt Lake City, created by Smith's successor Brigham Young and famed both for prosperity and for two practices that it eventually discarded: polygamy and a ban on blacks in church offices.

The little-known remnant of Smith's movement is the 221,000-member Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Independence, Mo., which Smith designated his "Zion" in 1831. Fifteen years later, after Smith was murdered, many Mormons followed the dynamic Young on a famous trek to Utah, where they flourished. The Reorganized Church developed from those, including the prophet's widow Emma, who stayed behind, contending that Young was a usurper. The one true spiritual heir to Smith, they believed, was his diffident oldest son, Joseph III.

The practice of polygamy was also at issue. Young claimed that Smith, following private revelations, both preached and practiced polygamy. Smith's widow pointed out that her husband's Book of Mormon denounced plural marriage. The Reorganized Church has always been against the practice, though most historians believe Smith secretly took between 27 and 50 wives, including some women married to other men.

Despite the common heritage, the Reorganized Saints say they are not Mormons. Wallace B. Smith, 51, the fifth direct descendant of the prophet to be president, says the Utah Mormons developed "a whole new theology, which is not orthodox Christianity." The basic disagreements are the Mormon beliefs that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate gods with the first two inhabiting human bodies, and that male church members may become gods themselves in the afterlife. The Reorganized Church believes in a spiritual Trinity and denies that men become gods. But the Missouri sect is far from Protestant. Among other things, it has the wrong Bible. Besides Smith's Book of Mormon and later revelations to church presidents, it uses Smith's own "inspired" Bible, which includes a prediction of his prophethood.

The Reorganized Church marked the sesquicentennial in strict isolation from its larger competitor. Some 18,000 cheerful Reorganized Saints from 34 nations flocked to the domed Auditorium in Independence and sang such special hymns as We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet. On the site, eight blocks from the Harry Truman Library, they expect Christ to return and establish his kingdom.

Naturally, it rankles a bit with the heirs of those who stayed in Missouri that the followers of Young have done so well. "The Mormons," says Richard Howard, chief historian of the Reorganized Church, "have deliberately chosen a theocratic system which moves with the efficiency of an army. It marches people in the same direction, to one drummer."

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