Interreligious Relations
The history of the Church has been a story of interreligious engagement from its beginnings in 1820, when Joseph Smith pondered the “many hundreds of different denominations” while a youth in upstate New York. Early Latter-day Saints formed an identity distinct from surrounding Protestant Christian denominations that defied traditional categories of Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Christianity.
During the period of European colonization, European observers often invoked the word and concept of “religion” to refer to a belief system considered sophisticated and ordered, whereas irreligion encompassed disordered beliefs often labeled “superstition.” Distinctive Latter-day Saint beliefs in the 1830s and 1840s clashed with common associations of “religion,” and critics sometimes insisted that the Church did not constitute a religion. Strenuous debates in public forums frequently treated Latter-day Saints as irreligious outsiders, and for much of the 19th century, Latter-day Saints tried to defend their beliefs through missionary work, publications, and public lectures.
Like other religious minorities in the United States and Europe, Latter-day Saints espoused beliefs and customs that tested the boundaries of the more dominant society’s norms of religious liberties and toleration. In response to periodic attacks from fellow Christians, Latter-day Saints were at times polemical and defensive. During periods of intense antagonism and vigilante violence against Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith declared both that the Church was “the true church of God” and that “one of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from where it may.”
Under Joseph Smith’s leadership in Nauvoo, the city council passed an ordinance “that the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Episcopalians, Universalists, Unitarians, Mohammedans [Muslims], and all other religious sects and denominations whatever, shall have free toleration and equal privileges in this city.” Joseph taught the key to toleration was love—for enemies as well as friends. “If it has been demonstrated,” he said in 1842, “that I have been willing to die for a Mormon, I am bold to declare before heaven that I am just as ready to die for a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or any other denomination. It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul.”
At the turn of the 20th century, interreligious encounters between Latter-day Saints and people espousing a variety of traditions often arose from missionary activity. This engagement with varieties of religious traditions often allowed missionaries to become multilingual and develop appreciation for world cultures. By expanding their study and skill in arts, sciences, and intercultural cooperation, Latter-day Saint returned missionaries were educational resources for improving interreligious relations. In the 20th century, missionary training expanded to include classes on languages and world religions, which kept a steady discussion alive among Church leaders about missionary contacts with other religious leaders.
By the 1960s and 1970s, mission presidents supplied regular reports of effective and ineffective exchanges between missionaries and people of various religious backgrounds. A growing humanitarian effort in Pacific and European nations instructed Church leaders on meaningful opportunities to collaborate with religious groups. In 1978, the First Presidency released a statement on God’s love of all people, which affirmed that the “great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”
Since the late 20th century, the Church and its members steadily increased their cooperation with religious organizations around the world, launching collaborations in welfare, humanitarian aid, urban renewal projects, and safeguarding religious freedom. In 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball urged members of the Church to “not be reticent in doing their part” where solutions to “practical problems require cooperative action with those not of our faith.” Together with other Christian organizations, the Church joined in bringing aid to people affected by disasters in China, Central America, Armenia, Japan, Iran, Chile, and Greece. In 1985, the Church raised millions of dollars through a collective fast on behalf of hungered people in Africa and Ethiopia and worked with Catholic services to deliver food.
In the early 2000s, formal interfaith and interreligious collaborations increased alongside the Church’s expansion across the globe. Especially through humanitarian organizations, such as Islamic Relief USA, Salvation Army, and El Minuto de Dios (Catholic), the Church combined efforts to bring food, supplies, and relief in disaster areas. Scores of local and regional interreligious events have brought Latter-day Saints and people of other religions together to celebrate diversity with music, sermons, and forums. Between 2008 and 2023, senior Church leaders joined international conferences sponsored by the Vatican, G20 Interfaith Forum, World Parliament of Religions, World Meeting of Families, European Union, and others.