The Restoration That Fractured

Latter-day Saint missionaries frequently present Christian denominational diversity as evidence of a universal apostasy. Yet Joseph Smith’s own restoration fragmented into competing churches, rival prophets, and incompatible claims of divine authority.

One of the most familiar arguments in Latter-day Saint missionary teaching concerns the divisions within Christianity.

Christians possess the same Bible, the argument goes, yet they are divided into Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and numerous other traditions. Their doctrines, sacraments, and systems of government often conflict. This confusion supposedly demonstrates that Christ’s original Church disappeared, priesthood authority was lost, and a complete restoration became necessary.

Joseph Smith’s official history presents his religious search in precisely these terms. He described a “war of words and tumult of opinions” among competing denominations and said that he went into the woods to ask God which church was right. According to the account later canonized by the LDS Church, he was told to join none of them.

This remains central to the Latter-day Saint message of the Restoration. The current edition of Preach My Gospel teaches that after the apostles died, there was a widespread falling away, priesthood authority disappeared, doctrines and ordinances were changed, and the Church established by Christ was no longer present on the earth. Attempts to reform Christianity eventually produced many churches, but because divine authority had supposedly been lost, Christianity needed more than reformation. It needed restoration through a new prophet.

There is, however, a serious historical problem with using denominational diversity in this way.

The movement founded by Joseph Smith did not eliminate religious fragmentation. It reproduced it.

Several restorationist groups separated from Smith while he was still alive. After his death in 1844, the movement entered a succession crisis because Smith had not announced a clear plan identifying who should replace him. Rival leaders appealed to different offices, priesthood claims, family relationships, revelations, private statements, and alleged appointments.

The result was not one unmistakable restored church moving forward under a successor recognized by all. It was a growing family of competing churches, each claiming in some sense to preserve, complete, correct, or recover the restoration begun by Joseph Smith.

Mormonism did not abolish denominationalism.

It recreated it on a compressed timeline.

The LDS Argument from Christian Division

It is important to represent the Latter-day Saint argument accurately.

The LDS Church does not merely teach that Christians have occasionally disagreed. It teaches that after the deaths of Christ’s apostles, the Church lost the priesthood authority required to govern the Church and administer saving ordinances. Doctrine was distorted, revelation through authorized prophets ceased, ordinances were changed, and no existing Christian body retained the fullness of Christ’s Church.

The current LDS missionary manual states that after the apostles died, God withdrew priesthood authority and that “the Church that Jesus had established was no longer on the earth.” It then connects the Christian reform movements with the organization of many churches while insisting that restoration—not merely reform—was required.

This is more than an observation about ordinary human disagreement. It is an exclusive ecclesiastical claim. Christian diversity is presented as part of the evidence that the original Church disappeared and that a supernatural restoration through Joseph Smith was necessary.

That makes the history of Smith’s own movement directly relevant.

If denominational diversity demonstrates that a religious tradition lacks dependable divine guidance, what should be concluded when the restored movement itself divides over prophets, priesthood, revelation, ordinances, marriage, scripture, and succession?

Division Began Before Joseph Smith Died

The fragmentation of the Latter Day Saint movement did not begin decades after Joseph Smith’s death.

Following the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society in 1837, some believers in Kirtland rejected Smith’s continued leadership while retaining faith in the Book of Mormon and the general claim that God had restored the ancient gospel. They organized a separate church.

The LDS Church’s own historical account acknowledges that “several small groups” separated from Smith during his lifetime. These groups continued to accept parts of the restoration while rejecting Joseph Smith’s later leadership or developments within the movement.

This matters because the earliest fragmentation cannot be blamed entirely on the absence of a living prophet. Joseph Smith was still alive, still issuing revelations, and still claiming divine authority when restorationist dissent began.

The much larger crisis, however, came after his death.

Joseph Smith Left No Clear Succession Plan

Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed at Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844. Joseph was only thirty-eight years old.

His death removed more than the administrative head of a church. It removed the charismatic center of the entire movement—the prophet who produced revelations, introduced ordinances, revised organizational structures, and claimed continuing access to divine instruction.

Who, then, possessed his authority?

The official LDS Church History Topics essay makes a remarkably important admission:

“Joseph Smith was still relatively young when he died, and he had not announced a clear plan for succession.”

Many believers had apparently expected Hyrum Smith to succeed his brother, but Hyrum was killed alongside Joseph. In the resulting uncertainty, church members advocated several possible leaders, including Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, William Marks, Joseph Smith III, and others.

This does not mean Joseph had done nothing that could later be used to support a succession claim. He had distributed responsibilities among several councils, offices, family members, and trusted associates.

That was precisely the problem.

Different claimants could appeal to different aspects of Smith’s evolving organization. There was no single succession procedure that all informed Latter Day Saints recognized as unquestionably binding.

Competing Claims to Divine Authority

Sidney Rigdon and the First Presidency

Sidney Rigdon had served as Joseph Smith’s counselor and was the surviving member of the First Presidency. Following Smith’s death, Rigdon returned to Nauvoo and proposed that he serve as a “guardian” for the Church.

His claim was not absurd or frivolous. The First Presidency had governed the Church under Joseph Smith, and Rigdon had occupied one of its highest offices. From his perspective, a surviving member of that presidency had a plausible right to provide continued leadership.

Brigham Young and the apostles rejected Rigdon’s proposal.

Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve

Brigham Young argued that Joseph Smith had entrusted the necessary priesthood keys, temple ordinances, and governing responsibilities to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The Twelve possessed substantial grounds for their claim. An instruction now contained in Doctrine and Covenants 107 described the Twelve as a quorum equal in authority to the First Presidency. Joseph had also expanded the apostles’ administrative responsibilities in Nauvoo and introduced most of them to temple ordinances, plural marriage, and plans for the movement’s future.

Several apostles later testified that Smith had privately transferred the burden of leading the Church to the Twelve shortly before his death. These recollections strengthened the apostles’ case, although they did not amount to a public revelation naming Brigham Young personally as Smith’s successor.

At an assembly held in Nauvoo on August 8, 1844, the gathered Saints overwhelmingly sustained the Twelve as the Church’s governing authority. Many later remembered Young speaking or appearing in a manner that reminded them of Joseph Smith, an experience that came to be described as the “mantle” of Joseph falling upon Brigham.

Most Nauvoo Latter-day Saints eventually followed Young and the apostles. The Twelve governed collectively until 1847, when Young reorganized the First Presidency with himself as president.

That vote established the dominant succession tradition.

It did not establish universal agreement.

Joseph Smith III and Lineal Succession

Other Latter Day Saints believed leadership should remain within Joseph Smith’s family.

Joseph Smith III was only eleven when his father died, so he was not immediately capable of leading a major religious movement. Nevertheless, some believers maintained that Joseph Smith had indicated that one of his sons would eventually succeed him.

In 1860, Joseph Smith III accepted leadership of the movement that became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now known as Community of Christ.

This church rejected Brigham Young’s authority and the practice of plural marriage. Historically, its members also disputed whether polygamy genuinely belonged to Joseph Smith’s teachings, although modern Community of Christ scholarship has become more willing to acknowledge the historical evidence connecting Smith with the practice.

Community of Christ’s own historical account states that after Joseph Smith’s death, the movement was left without a clear leader and fractured into numerous factions. It identifies polygamy as one of the especially divisive questions and records Joseph Smith III’s acceptance of leadership in 1860.

The Utah church and the Reorganized church therefore did not merely disagree about minor administrative details. They represented rival answers to a foundational question:

Who inherited Joseph Smith’s prophetic authority?

James Strang and Other Successors

James J. Strang also claimed to be Joseph Smith’s designated successor, appealing to a document presented as a letter of appointment from Smith. Strang attracted several prominent converts and organized a significant movement of his own.

The authenticity of his appointment letter was disputed, but Strang’s ability to gather followers demonstrates how unsettled the succession question remained.

Other believers followed Sidney Rigdon, Alpheus Cutler, William Bickerton, Granville Hedrick, David Whitmer, and additional restorationist leaders. Some movements disappeared. Others survived and divided again.

Even the LDS Church’s official history acknowledges that Rigdon, Strang, and other figures formed separate movements after the August 1844 decision, each drawing away some members.

The Modern Succession System Developed Gradually

Modern Latter-day Saints may assume that the Church has always possessed the automatic succession procedure it follows today: when the president dies, the First Presidency dissolves, leadership returns to the Twelve, and the senior apostle becomes the next president.

Historically, that system developed over time.

After Brigham Young’s death, later apostles continued to debate when the First Presidency should be reorganized and how apostolic seniority should be calculated. Age, date of calling, date of ordination, and continuous service all played roles at different points.

In 1861, Brigham Young clarified that seniority would be determined by date of ordination. In 1875, he added continuous apostolic service as a consideration. In 1900, the Twelve further specified that seniority should be based on continuous service within the Quorum of the Twelve itself.

The length of time between a president’s death and the reorganization of the First Presidency also changed. After the deaths of Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, the timing and procedures were not identical. The practice of formally setting apart a new president by the laying on of hands did not begin until 1898.

According to the LDS Church’s own historical essay, the protocols for sustaining a new president, reorganizing the First Presidency, and setting the president apart developed into their present pattern only by the mid-twentieth century.

The modern procedure may now be predictable, but its later stability should not be projected backward onto 1844.

The first succession was contested because Joseph Smith had not clearly established a procedure capable of commanding universal recognition.

How Many Latter Day Saint Denominations Exist?

The number depends heavily on how one defines a denomination.

Should an independent congregation count? What about a movement consisting of only a few families? Should extinct organizations be included? Should a renamed or reorganized body be counted more than once? The same methodological problems complicate popular claims about the total number of Protestant denominations.

For that reason, it is better not to insist on one magical figure.

Steven L. Shields’s encyclopedic study Divergent Paths of the Restoration documents the numerous organizations that have emerged from the Smith–Rigdon movement. Its publisher describes the tradition as having produced hundreds of offshoots and competing denominations.

This broad description includes large churches, small organizations, independent communities, internet-based groups, short-lived movements, and historical bodies that no longer exist. It should not be misrepresented as meaning that hundreds of large Latter Day Saint denominations are all currently operating on equal terms.

The precise total is less important than the undisputed historical reality:

The restoration produced numerous competing churches.

Among the better-known branches are:

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, deriving its succession through Brigham Young and the Twelve;

• Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church, initially led by Joseph Smith III;

• the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints associated with James Strang;

• the Church of Jesus Christ, commonly called the Bickertonite church;

• the Church of Christ headquartered at the Temple Lot in Independence;

• the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints associated with Alpheus Cutler;

• the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints;

• and multiple fundamentalist organizations preserving different versions of plural marriage and early Utah Mormonism.

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These churches have disagreed over more than personalities and administrative preferences. Their disputes have concerned revelation, scripture, priesthood succession, the nature of God, plural marriage, temple worship, prophetic authority, women’s ordination, and which later developments genuinely belong to Joseph Smith’s restoration.

One Church Contains Nearly All Latter Day Saint Membership

The Salt Lake City–based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is overwhelmingly larger than every other branch.

Its official worldwide statistics currently report 17,887,212 members. Community of Christ describes itself as having approximately 250,000 members in more than sixty nations. Most other Latter Day Saint organizations are dramatically smaller.

Using the organizations’ reported figures, the Utah-based LDS Church appears to represent roughly 98 percent of nominal membership within the worldwide Latter Day Saint movement, although the exact percentage depends on which smaller bodies are included and how their membership is counted.

That statistic requires two qualifications.

First, different churches use different membership standards. Nominal membership is not the same as regular attendance, active participation, or personal belief.

Second, numerical dominance does not establish theological legitimacy.

If the largest body must be presumed to represent the authentic continuation of a religious movement, then Latter-day Saints could hardly dismiss Roman Catholic claims simply by pointing to the existence of smaller Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is much larger than any individual Protestant denomination.

Size can reveal which succession claim became historically dominant.

It cannot by itself prove which claimant possessed divine authority.

What the Fragmentation Does—and Does Not—Prove

The existence of Latter Day Saint denominations does not, by itself, prove that every Mormon claim is false.

Religious movements can divide even when many participants possess sincere faith. Human ambition, cultural differences, political pressures, geography, personality conflicts, and genuine theological disagreement can all produce institutional separation.

Christian divisions should not be dismissed or treated as unimportant. Christ prayed for the unity of his disciples, and Christian schism is a tragedy.

The stronger argument is narrower and more precise:

Denominational diversity cannot consistently be used as proof that divine authority disappeared from Christianity when the supposed restoration of that authority produced its own competing denominations.

If division necessarily proves apostasy, Mormonism condemns itself.

If division does not necessarily prove apostasy, then Latter-day Saints cannot point to Christian denominations as though their mere existence proves the disappearance of Christ’s Church.

Either way, the simplistic argument fails.

“But the Other Groups Are Tiny”

A Latter-day Saint may respond that the Utah church contains nearly all people within the broader movement, while most restorationist alternatives are very small.

That is true, but it does not resolve the logical problem.

A Christian could make the same argument about numerous tiny Protestant or independent churches. If small restorationist bodies are dismissed because the dominant LDS organization is larger, then merely counting Christian denominations becomes even less meaningful.

More importantly, truth is not decided by majority vote.

Latter-day Saints themselves reject the idea that the size, age, or cultural dominance of Catholicism automatically proves Roman Catholic claims. They therefore cannot use the numerical success of the Brighamite succession as proof that Brigham Young was Joseph Smith’s rightful heir.

The question remains historical and theological:

What public, unambiguous revelation given before Joseph Smith’s death named Brigham Young personally as the next president of the Church?

The official LDS historical account does not identify such a revelation. Instead, it argues that Smith had entrusted important responsibilities, priesthood keys, and temple ordinances to the Twelve; that the gathered Saints sustained them; and that many believers regarded their spiritual experiences as confirmation of the apostles’ authority.

Those considerations provide the strongest case for the Brighamite succession from within Latter-day Saint assumptions. They do not erase the original ambiguity or change the official historical admission that Smith had not announced a clear succession plan.

“But Brigham Young Held the Priesthood Keys”

This is the standard LDS answer, but it is also the answer of one branch in the dispute.

Brigham Young’s followers believed that the keys remained with the Twelve. Rigdon’s followers emphasized his place within the First Presidency. Supporters of Joseph Smith III emphasized family succession and statements concerning Smith’s sons. Strang’s followers appealed to prophetic appointment. Other groups emphasized alternative offices, councils, revelations, or understandings of the original church.

To say, “Brigham Young had the keys,” is therefore not a neutral historical conclusion accepted by every early Latter Day Saint. It is the theological judgment of the tradition that followed Brigham Young.

That does not automatically make the conclusion false.

It does mean that the conclusion cannot simply be assumed when the very question under examination is which claimant possessed legitimate authority.

The Difference Between Christian and Mormon Division

Latter-day Saints may object that Christianity has been divided for much longer and on a much larger scale.

That is correct in one sense.

Christianity is nearly two thousand years old. It has spread across continents and passed through numerous languages, empires, governments, cultures, persecutions, intellectual movements, political conflicts, and reformations. Its institutional history is therefore vastly more extensive than that of Mormonism.

But that comparison makes Mormon fragmentation more striking, not less.

Joseph Smith organized his church in 1830. Restorationist divisions appeared during his lifetime, and the movement entered a major succession crisis only fourteen years after its formal organization.

The restored priesthood, living prophets, new scriptures, continuing revelation, temple ordinances, and renewed apostolic offices did not prevent disputes over the identity of the true church. They did not even produce an uncontested answer to the immediate question of who should lead after the founding prophet died…

Christian denominational diversity developed across centuries of global history.

Mormon denominational diversity emerged almost immediately within a comparatively small and closely connected movement centered on a single founding prophet.

The Argument Cuts Both Ways

The history creates a profound irony.

Joseph Smith’s story begins with confusion over competing churches. The answer attributed to God was not that Smith should carefully distinguish truth from error within Christianity, but that none of the existing churches possessed the fullness of the true faith.

Smith then founded a new church that produced competing denominations of its own.

Some followed apostles. Some followed counselors. Some followed Smith’s son. Some followed an alleged written appointment. Some defended plural marriage. Others denounced it. Some retained Nauvoo theology. Others moved toward traditional Trinitarian Christianity. Some accepted later LDS presidents as prophets. Others considered those same leaders apostates.

Each branch could tell its own version of the Great Apostasy.

The Utah Saints believed other claimants had rejected the apostles and priesthood keys. The Reorganized tradition argued that Brigham Young had corrupted the original church. Fundamentalist groups later accused the Utah church of abandoning Joseph Smith and Brigham Young by discontinuing plural marriage. Still newer restorationist bodies arose to recover what they believed earlier restorations had lost.

The pattern came to resemble the very phenomenon Joseph Smith claimed his restoration was needed to overcome.

Final Verdict: The Restoration Did Not Solve Denominationalism

Christians should be honest about their divisions. Some disagreements concern secondary matters; others involve serious questions of doctrine, authority, sacraments, and ecclesiology. Not every denomination can be correct about every disputed issue.

But Christian division does not prove that Christ abandoned his Church, that priesthood authority vanished from the earth, or that the entire Christian world waited eighteen centuries for Joseph Smith to restore the gospel.

The history of Mormonism demonstrates why that conclusion does not follow.

Joseph Smith’s movement divided during his lifetime. At his death, it lacked a succession procedure sufficiently clear to command universal recognition. Rival leaders appealed to competing claims of presidential, apostolic, hereditary, written, and prophetic authority. The resulting movements continued dividing over doctrine and policy.

Today, the Utah-based LDS Church is unquestionably the dominant branch of the Latter Day Saint movement. It is not, however, the only church claiming descent from Joseph Smith’s restoration.

That fact does not automatically disprove Mormonism…

But it does expose the inconsistency of using denominational diversity as a weapon against historic Christianity.

If many churches prove that Christ’s authority was lost, then the restoration failed its own test.

If many churches do not prove that divine authority was lost, then Mormonism’s argument from Christian division collapses.

The restoration did not end denominationalism.

It merely began another denominational family.

Sources:

• Joseph Smith—History 1, especially verses 5–20, in The Pearl of Great Price.

• Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, 2023 edition, chapter 3, lesson 1.

• “Succession of Church Leadership,” Church History Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• “Other Latter Day Saint Movements,” Church History Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• “History,” Community of Christ.

• Steven L. Shields, Divergent Paths of the Restoration: An Encyclopedia of the Smith–Rigdon Movement, fifth edition.

• Worldwide membership statistics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• Community of Christ membership information.