What's a Mormon smile

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Joseph Smith, Founder of the Church of Jesus�and the Latter-day Saints

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Q.� Vest

A.� Yup. All Mormons - members of the Church of Jesus and the Latter-day Saints - tend to dress rather conventionally, sober suit, white shirt, dark tie and vest. The shape of the vest showing through the shirt is in a smiley shape.

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Q. That's it

A.� Yes. But I expect you'd like to know all about their history, wouldn't you

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Q.� Yes please, but go easy on the religious doctrine.

A.� My pleasure. The founder was Joseph Smith (1805-1844). In 1820, young Joseph Smith, praying in a grove of trees in western New York, asked God which church he should join. He received a vision from God and Jesus.

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Q.� Saying what

A.� He was called into Their service. Then in 1823, he was visited by an angel named Moroni who told him about an ancient Hebrew text that had been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native-American historian in the Fourth Century, related the story of Jewish people who lived in America in ancient times.

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Q.� Gold plates Like Moses' stone tablets

A.� Apparently. In Smith's own words: 'These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long, and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole.

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'The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, and much skill in the art of engraving. With the records was found a curious instrument, which the ancients called Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rims of a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God.'

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Q.� What did he do with this information

A.� Over the next six years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text, and in 1830 The Book of Mormon was published. Smith then founded the Church of Christ, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Fayette, New York. The religion rapidly gained converts and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.

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Q.� But was this new religion accepted

A.� The religion gained many converts, but enemies, too. Mormonism proclaimed the restoration of the primitive Christian church: it viewed the various Christian denominations as having strayed from the true faith. Mormons are millennialists: they believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which will usher in a 1,000-year period of peace under his rule. They also practised collective ownership and took several wives.

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Q.� And what happened to Smith

A.� Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered in a jail cell by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois, on 27 June, 1844. He was succeeded by Brigham Young, but the persecutions went on - so the church members went on a great exodus in July, 1847, to Utah, where Salt Lake City was founded. President James Buchanan removed Young, who had more than 20 wives, from his position as governor, and sent troops to Utah to establish federal law. Polygamy was stopped by 1890 and six years later, the territory of Utah was granted statehood.

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Q.� Do Mormons still practise polygamy

A.� Officially, no, but as a recent court case shows, it still goes on.

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Q.� Details please!

A.� Tom Green, 52, who has five wives and 29 children, went on trial for bigamy and failing to provide child support. Green, who lives with his family in caravans outside Salt Lake City, told the court: 'It's about building a family. If it was only about sex, we wouldn't have had the children.' His wives Cari, Linda, Hanna, LeeAnn and Shirley agreed.

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Q.� And today

A.� The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has nearly 10 million members. About half live in the United States. All polygamists are excommunicated.

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By Steve Cunningham

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