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LDS doctrine holds that agency is an eternal principle, and that God has provided the way through the atonement of Jesus Christ whereby men and women can repent of their wrongful acts of commission or of omission, and come back into the path of receiving further light and knowledge through making right choices.
An 1842 portrait of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s.
Collectively, they are called the Latter Day Saint movement. The largest of these smaller groups is the Community of Christ, based in Independence, Missouri, followed by the Church of Jesus Christ, based in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Like the LDS Church, these faiths believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet and founder of their religion.
The LDS Church, the largest Mormon denomination, while acknowledging its differences with mainstream Christianity, often focuses on its commonalities, which are many, the most important of which is that Christ is the savior of the world and that he suffered for the world's sins so that the penitent can return to live in heaven.
The modern LDS Church does not use the cross or crucifix as a symbol of faith. Mormons generally view such symbols as emphasizing the death of Jesus rather than his life and resurrection. [43] The early LDS Church was more accepting of the symbol of the cross, but after the turn of the 20th century, an aversion to it developed in Mormon culture ...
In common with other Restorationist churches, the LDS Church teaches that a Great Apostasy occurred. It teaches that after the death of Jesus and the Twelve Apostles, the priesthood authority was lost and some important doctrinal teachings, including the text of the Bible, were changed from their original form, thus necessitating a restoration prior to the Second Coming.
The LDS Church becomes involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level [1] [2] [3] with over a dozen members of Congress having membership in the church in the early 2000s, [4] and about 80% of Utah state lawmakers identifying as LDS. [5] [6] [7] [8]
The LDS Church's priesthood is open to males only [47] [48] and from the mid-1800s until 1978 was not open to people of black African descent. [47] The LDS Church routinely gives its Aaronic priesthood to boys 11 years of age and older, while Community of Christ generally restricts its priesthood to adult men and women. [49]