Owners and Managers of the RLDS Church

For my Grandparents (who lived in the first half of the 20th Century) this was simply God's Church. My Parents (who lived in the last half of the 20th Century) also believed this, but were beginning to wonder, as it transformed itself into the Community of Christ.

To explain this, I have to go back to the Church's beginnings, to the LDS church that was formed by Joseph Smith early in the 19th Century. This ended when Joseph Smith was killed by a mob in 1844. The Church then had no other leaders who could hold the Church together.

Many of them followed Brigham Young across the Rocky Mountains, with the intention of leaving the US entirely. They became successful in what would later become the State of Utah.

Meanwhile, back in Illinois, a group of Farmers, who had been members of the LDS Church, reorganized themselves as the RLDS church, They had money, but they needed a leader. Back in Nauvoo, Illinois, there was Emma Smith the wife of Joseph Smith, with three of his sons, who had been young boys when their father died, and had been mostly ignored by him, as he attended to his other interests. (He planed on running for the President of the US.)

Emma had remarried a man with no religious interests. She was left with Joseph's property (mainly Real Estate) but also his debts, which were extensive. And her sons were growing up, and marrying local women, with no way of supporting them. What to do?

Help came from the RLDS Church who employed all her sons, except Fredrick, who died in 1862, and David, who spent his life in a insane asylum. Especially Joseph Smith III, the oldest son, who became the Church leader. This was how the Church acquired its owners (Farmers in Northern Illinois) and its leader, JSIII.

JSIII considered the Church his Church, and greatly increased its membership. Farming, which had been the dominate industry, became less important, as the US industrialized. This was the situation at the beginning of the 20th Century. There were two Mormon churches, with the LDS Church in the West being much larger.

The LDS Church, which had been an empire, adapted to industrialization easily, but this was a problem for the RLDS Church, who had weak leadership. Eventually (late in the 20th Century) it became the Community of Christ,

This was stressful for RLDS Church members, and many of them left.