Introduction

In the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith entered a grove of trees and petitioned God for forgiveness of sin as well as clarity concerning which of all the Christian sects vying for claim to Christ’s “true church” he should join. He reported ¹ that in response to this petition, he saw a vision in which God the Father and God the Son appeared to him bodily, addressed him by name, and commanded him not to join any church, “for they were all wrong” (JSH 1:19). This marked the beginning not only of Smith’s institutional break from Christianity as it took form in the early 1800s, but also his theological break from prevalent Christian conceptions of God. In the 24 years between this “first vision” and his death at the hands of a mob, Smith experienced additional visions, introduced new scripture (including an entirely novel corpus of scripture, The Book of Mormon, that claims ancient origins), and recorded numerous revelations on how to structure and expand the newly formed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Interspersed throughout these revelations are doctrinal developments that build on the theological foundations of that first vision. These include distinctive views concerning God’s nature, God’s relationship to creation, God’s plan of salvation for the human species, the nature of the afterlife, and a poignant view of ideal human social and political life.