The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spent the previous few weeks in a second of each mourning and transition. On Sept. 28, 2025, a capturing and arson at a Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Michigan killed 4 other people and wounded 8 extra. What’s extra, Russell M. Nelson, president of the church, died the day prior to at age 101. In keeping with protocol, his function will possibly be stuffed by way of Dallin H. Oaks, the longest-serving of the church’s peak leaders.
The following president will inherit management of a spiritual establishment this is each deeply American and an increasing number of world – range at odds with how it’s usually represented in mainstream media, from “The Secret Life of Mormon Wives” to “The Book of Mormon” Broadway musical.
As a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, I analysis Latter-day Saints communities throughout america, specifically Latina immigrants and younger adults. When presenting my analysis, I’ve spotted that many of us nonetheless intently affiliate the church with Utah, the place its headquarters are positioned.
The Latter-day Saints temple in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was once devoted in 2000.
Parallelepiped09/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The church has performed a pivotal function in Utah’s historical past and tradition. Lately, despite the fact that, simplest 42% of its citizens are participants. The stereotype of Latter-day Saints as most commonly white, conservative American citizens is simply one of the long-standing misconceptions about LDS communities and ideology.
Many of us are stunned to be told there are colourful congregations a long way from the American West’s “Mormon Corridor.” There are religious Latter-day Saints in all places from Ghana and the United Arab Emirates to Russia and mainland China.
International expansion
Joseph Smith based The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in upstate New York in 1830 and in an instant despatched missionaries to evangelise alongside the frontier. The primary out of the country missionaries traveled to England in 1837.
In a while after International Conflict II, church leaders overhauled their missionary option to build up the collection of world missions. This technique ended in expansion around the globe, particularly in Central The usa, South The usa and the Pacific Islands.
Lately, the church has over 17.5 million participants, in step with church data. A majority reside out of doors the U.S., unfold throughout greater than 160 nations.
A method the church and researchers monitor this world expansion is by way of development of latest temples.Those structures, used no longer for weekly worship however particular ceremonies like weddings, had been as soon as virtually solely positioned in america. Lately, they exist in dozens of nations, from Argentina to Tonga.
All over Nelson’s presidency, which started in 2018, he introduced 200 new temples, greater than any of his predecessors. Temples are a bodily and symbolic illustration of the church’s dedication to being a world faith, even if cultural tensions stay.
Two missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stroll throughout the Missionary Coaching Heart in Provo, Utah, in 2008.
AP Photograph/George Frey
Amongst U.S. participants, demographics also are transferring. Seventy-two p.c of American participants are white, down from 85% in 2007, in step with the Pew Analysis Heart. Rising numbers of Latinos – 12% of U.S. participants – have performed a vital function maintaining congregations around the nation.
There are congregations in each U.S. state, together with the small neighborhood of Grand Blanc, Michigan, website online of the tragic capturing. Suspect Thomas Jacob Sanford, who was once fatally shot by way of police, had long past on a contemporary tirade towards Latter-day Saints all over a dialog with an area political candidate.
Within the following days, an American member of the church raised loads of 1000’s of bucks for Sanford’s circle of relatives.
Rising pains
Regardless of the church’s range, its institutional foundations stay firmly rooted in america. The highest management our bodies are nonetheless composed virtually totally of white males, and maximum are American-born.
Because the church continues to develop, questions rise up about how neatly the norms of a Utah-based church are compatible the realities of participants in Manila or Mexico Town, Bangalore or Berlin. How a lot room is there, even in U.S. congregations, for native cultural expressions of religion?
Latino Latter-day Saints and participants in Latin The usa, as an example, have confronted pushback towards cultural traditions that had been observed as distinctly “not LDS,” reminiscent of making altars and giving choices all over Dia de los Muertos. In 2021, the church introduced a Spanish-language marketing campaign the use of Day of the Useless imagery to extend hobby amongst Latinos. Many participants had been satisfied to look this illustration. Nonetheless, some ladies I spoke with stated that an emphasis on whiteness and American nationalism, in addition to anti-immigrant rhetoric they’d heard from different participants, deterred them from totally celebrating their cultures.
Other folks attend the twice-annual convention of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 6, 2024, in Salt Lake Town.
AP Photograph/Rick Bowmer
Even aesthetic main points, like musical kinds, steadily mirror a distinctly American style. The standardized hymnal, as an example, accommodates patriotic songs like “America the Beautiful.” This emphasis on American tradition can really feel particularly out of sync in puts in nations with top club charges that experience histories of U.S. army or political interventions.
Expectancies about clothes and bodily look, too, have precipitated questions on illustration, belonging and authority. It was once simplest in 2024, as an example, that the church presented participants in humid spaces sleeveless variations of the sacred clothes Latter-day Saints put on underneath clothes as a reminder in their religion.
Traditionally, the church considered tattoos as taboo – a contravention of the sanctity of the frame. Many portions of the arena have 1000’s of years of sacred tattooing traditions – together with Oceania, which has top charges of church club.
Trade forward?
Amongst many demanding situations, the following president of the church will navigate find out how to lead a world church from its American headquarters – a church that remains to be misunderstood and stereotyped, from time to time to the purpose of violence.
The temple in Laie, Hawaii, opened within the early 1900s, making it one of the most church’s oldest.
Kaveh/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The collection of Latter-day Saints continues to develop in lots of portions of the arena, however this expansion brings a better want for cultural sensitivity. The church, traditionally very uniform in its efforts to standardize Latter-day Saints historical past, artwork and teachings, is discovering that tougher to care for when congregations span dozens of nations, languages, customs and histories.
Organizing the church like an organization, with a top-down decision-making procedure, too can make it tough to handle painful racial histories and the desires of marginalized teams, like LGBTQ+ participants.
The transition in management gives a chance no longer just for the church however for the wider public to higher perceive the multifaceted, world nature of Latter-day Saints’ lives as of late.
