The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Latter-day Saints S 263

ent Christian denominations. That left the young Smith confused. At the age of 14 he received a rev elation from G OD the Father and J ESUS that cleared up his confusion. He learned that all varieties of Christianity then being practiced were wrong. In 1827 Smith claimed that he had discovered, with the help of an ANGEL named Moroni, gold plates near his father’s farm. The gold plates dis appeared, but several witnesses claimed to have seen them before they disappeared. With the help of special instruments, Smith translated the writ ings on the plates into English. The result was the Book of Mormon. Smith published the book in 1830. In the same year he officially organized what would become the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat ter-day Saints. Smith and his followers moved from New York to Ohio and later to Missouri. Eventually they founded the town of Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi River. In Nauvoo Smith taught things that disturbed more conservative Mormons. He taught that a man could have more than one wife, that human beings who practiced Mormon teachings would become divine, and that those who had died without knowing the truth could be saved if family members were baptized on their behalf. Smith’s teachings aroused opposition among non-Mormons. Indeed, persecution had driven the community from Ohio and Missouri. In 1844 Smith was killed by a mob after being imprisoned in Car thage, Illinois. He is buried in Nauvoo. After Smith’s death, the community split. Most Latter-day Saints followed Brigham Young, leader of the governing body of the church at the time Smith died. He and his followers continued to accept the teachings and practices that Smith had begun in Nauvoo. In 1846 they moved to Utah. They became the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other community members rejected the Nauvoo teachings. The largest group of dissent ers insisted that Smith’s descendants should lead the community. (In this they somewhat resemble Shi’ite Muslims [ see S HI ’ ITE I SLAM ], who insist that descendants of the prophet M UHAMMAD should lead the Islamic community.) As a result, they followed Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III. They made their

he went to India. There he became the B UDDHA and taught Buddhist DHARMA . There are indeed some similarities between Taoism and B UDDHISM ; for example, the Sanskrit word for the Buddha’s teachings, “dharma,” was first translated into Chi nese as “Tao.” But the story also bears witness to the antagonistic relations of the two religions. Sim ilarly, Taoist accounts like the C HUANG - TZU dispute the A NALECTS OF C ONFUCIUS , which show Lao Tan to be Confucius’s respected teacher. In the Taoist writings, Confucius comes off as a fool who is too dull to understand Lao Tan’s teachings. In time, notions of Lao-tzu’s longevity gave way to the idea that he was immortal. Beginning in the second century C . E ., the Chinese state estab lished sacrifices to Lao-tzu. Some Chinese treated him as a savior to whom they could pray for help. Others made him into the physical embodiment of an eternal principle that continually incarnated itself to advise the Chinese kings. Religious lead ers known as the Celestial Masters saw themselves as Lao-tzu’s representatives on Earth. The faithful have dedicated a large number of shrines to Lao tzu in these forms. Further reading: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Livia Kohn, God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth (Ann Arbor: Center for the Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998); Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue, eds., Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). Latter-day Saints People who practice an Amer ican offshoot of C HRISTIANITY . They are popularly called Mormons. HISTORY The Latter-day Saints trace their history back to a prophet named Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–44). Smith lived in upstate New York along the banks of the Erie Canal. This was at the time of the Second Great Awakening in American religious life. People in the area enthusiastically supported many differ