Restorationism

===Latter Day Saint movement===
{{Main|Latter Day Saint movement|Restoration (Latter Day Saints)}}
Adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement believe that founder [[Joseph Smith]] was a [[prophet]] of God, chosen to restore the primitive, apostolic church established by Jesus. Like other restorationist groups, members believe that the church and priesthood established by Jesus were [[Great Apostasy (Latter Day Saints)|withdrawn from the Earth]] after the end of the apostolic age and before the [[First Council of Nicaea]] in 325. Unlike other reformers, who based their movements on their own interpretations of the Bible, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery held that they were visited by John the Baptist to receive the Aaronic Priesthood. This restoration authorized members to receive [[revelation#Latter Day Saint movement|revelation]] from God in order to restore the original apostolic organization lost after the events of the New Testament.<ref name=Bushman>{{cite book |last=Bushman |first=Richard | author-link=Richard Bushman |year=2008 |series=[[Very Short Introductions]]|title=Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-531030-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6m059lR04IoC|page=20}}</ref> According to Allen and Hughes, "[n]o group used the language of 'restoration' more consistently and more effectively than did the [Latter Day Saints] ... early Mormons seemed obsessed with restoring the ancient church of God."<ref name="Allen & Hughes 1988"/>{{Rp|94}}

[[File:Joseph Smith, Jr. portrait owned by Joseph Smith III.jpg|150px|right|thumb|Joseph Smith]]

According to Smith, God [[First Vision|appeared to him]] in 1820, instructing him that the creeds of the churches of the day were corrupted.<ref>{{lds|Joseph Smith - History|jsh|1|19}}</ref> In addition to restoring the primitive church, Smith claimed to receive new and ongoing revelations. In 1830, he published ''[[The Book of Mormon]]'', with [[Book of Mormon witnesses|he and witnesses]] declaring to be a translation through divine means from the [[Golden Plates]] he obtained from [[angel Moroni|an angel]].{{cn|date=April 2024}} The largest and most well known church in the Latter Day Saint movement is [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church), followed by [[Community of Christ]] (formerly RLDS), and dozens of [[List of denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement|other denominations]].{{cn|date=April 2024}} Members of the LDS Church believe that, in addition to Smith being the first prophet appointed by Jesus in the "latter days", every subsequent [[Apostle (Latter Day Saints)|apostle]] and [[President of the Church (LDS Church)|church president]] also serves in the capacity of [[prophet, seer and revelator]].{{cn|date=April 2024}}

Some among the [[Churches of Christ]] have attributed the restorationist character of the Latter Day Saints movement to the influence of [[Sidney Rigdon]], who was associated with the Campbell movement in Ohio but left it and became a close friend of Joseph Smith.<ref name="Allen & Hughes 1988"/>{{Rp|95}}<ref name="Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Mormonism">{{cite encyclopedia|editor1-first=Douglas Allen |editor1-last=Foster|editor2-first=Anthony L. |editor2-last=Dunnavant|editor3-first=Paul M. |editor3-last=Blowers|editor4-first=D. Newell |editor4-last=Williams|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement|publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company]]|date=2004|isbn=9780802838988|entry=Mormonism|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Encyclopedia_of_the_Stone_Campbell_M/-3UtqrX56rgC?hl=en&gbpv=1 |via=[[Google Book]]}}</ref>{{rp|544,545}}  Neither the Mormons nor the early Restoration Movement leaders invented the idea of "restoration"; it was a popular theme of the time that had developed independently of both, and Mormonism and the Restoration Movement represent different expressions of that common theme.<ref name="Allen & Hughes 1988"/>{{Rp|95}}<ref name="Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Mormonism"/>{{Rp|544,545}} The two groups had very different approaches to the restoration ideal.<ref name="Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Mormonism"/>{{Rp|545}} The Campbell movement combined it with Enlightenment rationalism, "precluding emotionalism, spiritualism, or any other phenomena that could not be sustained by rational appeals to the biblical text."<ref name="Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Mormonism"/>{{Rp|545}} The Latter Day Saints combined it with "the spirit of nineteenth-century Romanticism" and, as a result, "never sought to recover the forms and structures of the ancient church as ends in themselves" but "sought to restore the golden age, recorded in both Old Testament and New Testament, when God broke into human history and communed directly with humankind."<ref name="Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement: Mormonism"/>{{Rp|545}} Mormons gave priority to current revelation.{{cn|date=April 2024}} Primitive observances of "appointed times" like Sabbath were secondary to [[Revelation (Latter Day Saints)|continuing revelation]], similarly to the [[Progressive revelation (Christianity)|progressive revelation]] held by some non-restorationist Christian theologians.{{cn|date=April 2024}}

The "[[Great Apostasy]]", or loss of the original church Jesus established, has been cited with historical evidence of changes in Christian doctrine over time, scriptures prophesying of a coming apostasy before the last days (particularly {{bibleverse|2 Thessalonians|2:1-3}}, {{bibleverse|2 Timothy|4:3-4}} and {{bibleverse|Amos|8:11-12}}) and corruption within the early churches that led to the necessity of the [[Protestant Reformation]], which is seen as an important step towards the development of protected freedoms and speech required for a full restoration to be possible.<ref name = GA2>{{Cite book | last = Talmage | first = James E. | author-link = James E. Talmage | title = The Great Apostasy | publisher = [[Deseret News]] | year = 1909 | url =https://archive.org/details/greatapostasycon00atalm/page/156/mode/1up?view=theater|via=[[Internet Archive]] | page=156|isbn = 0-87579-843-8}}</ref>