Prophecy and sacred texts provide the medium and the message that together helped to forge Mormonism's doctrines of deity, humanity and the relationship between the two. Although very early Mormonism viewed God much as other Protestants did, it also developed the idea that God had undergone a process of progression and that, through special rituals and ways of life, human beings could also undergo a process of transformation or apotheosis to become gods in the next world. In this chapter I explore core doctrines that work together to bring this about, paying special attention to ideas of God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, covenant and deification as well as sin, salvation and the various levels of heaven. Each is related to the others in the overall quest for religious understanding that culminates in exaltation.

CREDAL SHADOW

Although there have been numerous lists of LDS doctrines and principles, the closest the Latter-day Saints come to possessing a creed is in two sets of texts, the document called the ‘Articles of Faith’ and a text in the Doctrine and Covenants; here I consider each but with an emphasis upon the first because it has assumed a greater distinctive identity over the years.

Originating in 1842 as a direct response to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, the Articles of Faith underwent various changes before its inclusion in the Pearl of Great Price in 1880 (Whittaker 1992: 67–9; cf. ‘The Wentworth Letter’, EM, 1992: 1750–5).