Category: Latter-day Saint History

Learn more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including historical findings about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and more.

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Latter-day Saint Arts

How Did Early Christians Portray Jesus

3rd-century ceiling fresco from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus depicting Jesus as the Good Shepherd with short hair and a lamb on his shoulders.

Long before Latter-day Saint portrayals of Jesus Christ emerged, the earliest Christian depictions of Jesus did not show a bearded man with long hair, but rather a clean-shaven youth, a miracle worker, or the Good Shepherd draped in Greco-Roman attire. Rather than capturing photographic realism, early believers adapted classical artistic motifs to make bold theological claims about Christ’s divine role, power, and saving mission. Over time, shifting creeds, imperial politics, and medieval legends transformed these early symbolic depictions into the majestic, bearded visual tradition recognized around the world today. In this interview, Mark D. Ellison explores these artistic origins and explains how historical evidence and early artwork shape our understanding of how early Christians portrayed Jesus, drawing from the chapters by all the contributors to Picturing Christ: Daniel Becerra, Matthew Grey, Mark Ellison, and Jennifer Champoux.

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Hymns Latter-day Saint Arts

How Can Using Alternate Hymn Tunes Enrich Latter-day Saint Worship?

Physical copy of the Sing a New Song hymnal featuring alternate LDS hymn tunes.

Treating hymn texts and musical tunes as distinct elements allows worshipers to experience sacred poetry in an entirely new light. Historically, early Latter-day Saints frequently paired texts with different melodies, a tradition that Sing a New Song expands by matching over 700 historical tunes—ranging from Shaker melodies to German chorales and classical themes—with familiar Latter-day Saint lyrics. These alternate settings offer ward choirs, soloists, and devotional singers a practical way to break out of “auto-pilot” singing and uncover fresh doctrinal insights. In this interview, hymnologist and BYU music theory professor Brent Yorgason shares the decades-long process of creating these new matches and offers practical guidance for integrating them into worship.

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20th Century Latter-day Saint History

Why Did Ernest Wilkinson Try to Build an LDS Junior College Program?

Photograph of the Ricks College campus in Rexburg around 1960 during Ernest Wilkinson’s junior college expansion initiative.

Former BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson envisioned a network of LDS junior colleges across the West to protect students from secularism while preserving Brigham Young University’s tight-knit community. During the 1950s and 1960s, Wilkinson purchased several properties across the western United States, tried reclaiming state-owned Utah campuses, and spent six years fighting to relocate Ricks College to Idaho Falls. However, rising churchwide budgetary demands, local pushback, and opposition from leaders like Boyd K. Packer ultimately defeated the plan. In this interview, historian Gary J. Bergera explores the rise and fall of Wilkinson’s unfulfilled educational vision.

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Latter-day Saint History Theology

What Was the Law of Adoption?

Sepia engraving of the Nauvoo Temple with branching rays symbolizing the law of adoption in early Latter-day Saint sealings.

The 19th-century law of adoption was a short-lived Latter-day Saint temple ritual in which church members were sealed as children to people other than their parents. Between 1846 and 1894, thousands of men and women were ceremonially sealed—not just to biological parents, but often to prominent leaders such as Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. President Wilford Woodruff ended the practice in 1894, counseling members to be sealed to their biological parents. In this interview, historian Jonathan Stapley explains what the law of adoption was, why it mattered, and how its legacy continues to influence modern sealing practices today.

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Latter-day Saint Arts

How Have Latter-day Saints Portrayed Jesus Christ?

C. C. A. Christensen's Christ and His Disciples in the New World, an early piece of Latter-day Saint art of Jesus.

Latter-day Saint artwork of Jesus has evolved dramatically, shifting from early efforts to portray Jesus by artists like C. C. A. Christensen, to a reluctance to paint the Savior, and finally to a vibrant embrace of globally diverse portrayals. While mid-century artists like Arnold Friberg were instructed to obscure Christ, the late twentieth century sparked a realistic visual resurgence. Today, recognizable works like Del Parson’s Christ in a Red Robe share space with a new wave of culturally informed artwork depicting Jesus across various ethnicities and efforts to portray him in history-informed ways. In this interview, Jennifer Champoux explores the history, myths, and modern evolution behind these images.

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19th Century Latter-day Saint History

Who Was Orson Pratt?

Late-life portrait of Orson Pratt, early Latter-day Saint apostle and theologian.

Orson Pratt was an original Latter-day Saint apostle and prolific theologian whose intellectual contributions helped shape the modern Church. Despite his foundational role in organizing the scriptures and coining the term “First Vision,” Pratt frequently clashed with leadership. He was briefly excommunicated over conflicts regarding plural marriage in Nauvoo, yet ironically became the practice’s foremost public defender. His fierce independence also sparked a decades-long conflict with Brigham Young over theology, race, slavery, and history. In this post, Chad L. Nielsen explores Pratt’s enduring legacy and complex role in early Latter-day Saint history. 

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Latter-day Saint History Temples

How Was the Nauvoo Temple Financed?

A detail of Hermann J. Meyer's "Nauvoo (Mississippi)," including a depiction of the Nauvoo Temple.

The original Nauvoo Temple was financed through the grassroots sacrifices of early Latter-day Saints, who paid tithing in property, goods, and labor to avoid the crushing debt that Joseph Smith and the Church incurred during the Kirtland era. Because cash was scarce, men donated one out of every ten days to physically work on the building, while women spearheaded independent initiatives like a penny fund for glass and nails. The massive undertaking even drew crucial, often-overlooked financial support from converts in Great Britain. In this interview, historian Elizabeth Kuehn explores the meticulous tithing records that drove the temple’s construction.

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19th Century

What is the Deseret Alphabet?

Examples of the Deseret Alphabet form nineteenth-century Utah, including a coin, Book of Mormon, key, and Wilford Woodruff journal excerpt

The Deseret Alphabet was an experimental phonetic writing system created by 19th-century Latter-day Saint settlers to simplify English spelling, expand literacy, and express spiritual ideals. Developed collaboratively by Brigham Young, George D. Watt, and university regents using Isaac Pitman’s shorthand framework, its unconventional characters unexpectedly preserved a phonetic time capsule—capturing original Utah accents and period pronunciations. Although official publishing stalled after just four books, the script endures today through Unicode and artistic revival. In this interview, Ryan K. Shosted and N. E. Davis explore the history, dialect preservation, and modern resurgence of this unique script.

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International

What Was the Third Convention?

Future Mexican LDS Third Convention leader Abel Páez with Isaías Juárez and J. Reuben Clark, Jr.

The Third Convention was a decade-long schism in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning in 1936, in which nearly a third of Mexican Latter-day Saints rejected American authority to demand an indigenous mission president. Rather than a theological rebellion, this split stemmed from growing national identity and local leadership missteps. Remarkably, the separated Saints remained fiercely loyal to core Church doctrines until a historic 1946 visit by President George Albert Smith healed the rift through careful cultural diplomacy. This provided a learning experience for Church leaders during the development of Global Mormonism. In this interview, Aidan Caplan and Tristan Caplan draw on newly translated documents to explore the origins and legacy of this movement.

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Joseph Smith

What Caused Emma Smith’s Legal Battles Over Joseph Smith’s Estate?

Sketch of the steamboat Maid of Iowa, representing the massive financial debts central to the Emma Smith legal battles.

Emma Smith’s legal battles over Joseph’s estate stemmed from a desperate struggle for her family’s financial survival rather than a dramatic feud with Brigham Young. Joseph Smith’s assets were deeply tangled between personal and Church property, which triggered a crisis that was exacerbated for Emma by nineteenth-century coverture laws that stripped women of property rights. To protect her children, Emma clashed with Church agents like William Clayton and Almon Babbitt, ultimately losing her Nauvoo land claims to a federal steamboat debt. In this interview, Jeffrey Mahas untangles the surprising antagonists and tragic financial losses that fractured Emma’s relationship with the Utah Saints.

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