CES Letter Answers

Appearance

Names of the Church ​

The claim:

"After revealing 'Church of Jesus Christ' on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith made the decision on May 3, 1834 to change the name of the Church to 'The Church of the Latter Day Saints.' Why did Joseph take the name of 'Jesus Christ' out of the very name of His restored Church? The one and only true Church on the face of the earth in which Christ is the Head?"[1]

"Four years later on April 26, 1838, the Church name was changed to 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' and has remained ever since.... Is it reasonable to assume that God would periodically change the name of his Church?... Why would Christ instruct Joseph to name it one thing in 1830 and then change it in 1834 and then change it again in 1838? Why would the name of Christ be dropped from His one and only true Church for 4 whole years?"[2]

The CES Letter devotes roughly one page to this concern. The page opens with three names stacked in red display type — "1830: CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST / 1834: THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER DAY SAINTS / 1838: THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS" — followed by a photograph of the Kirtland Temple inscription "HOUSE OF THE LORD / BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF THE / LATTER DAY SAINTS. A.D. 1834" used to visually reinforce that "Christ" is absent from a temple inscription dated 1834.[3] The argument is rhetorically efficient: three dates, three names, a photograph, a series of rhetorical questions. The reader is expected to draw a single conclusion — that an institution with three names in eight years cannot have been guided by revelation.

The first sentence of the section, however, contains a verifiable factual error that propagates through the rest of the argument. The 1830 name was not "Church of Jesus Christ." It was "Church of Christ."[4] The word "Jesus" was not part of the official designation until 1838.[5] This is not a contested historical question — it is settled by the Articles and Covenants of the Church (now Doctrine and Covenants Section 20), the founding governance document, whose opening sentence reads: "The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our country, by the will and commandments of God, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April—"[4:1] The Joseph Smith Papers' editorial summary states the matter plainly: "The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was 'the Church of Christ.'"[6]

The factual error matters because it changes what the 1834 change actually did. If the 1830 name had been "Church of Jesus Christ," then the 1834 change would have removed "Jesus Christ" from the name. But the 1830 name was "Church of Christ." The 1834 change replaced "Christ" with "Latter Day Saints" — substituting one element for another, not subtracting "Jesus" from a longer existing name. The CES Letter's framing — "why did Joseph take the name of 'Jesus Christ' out of the very name of His restored Church?" — assumes a baseline that did not exist. There was no "Jesus Christ" in the official 1830 designation to take out.[5:1][7]

What the 1834 change did do is more limited and more honestly engaged. It removed "Christ" from the official name for a four-year period, until the April 26, 1838 revelation now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 115:4 established the current name: "thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."[8] This is the article's central historical concession. The official designation between May 3, 1834 and April 26, 1838 did not contain "Christ." That window is real. The article will not pretend it away.

This article works through the case. It establishes the historical timeline against the CES Letter's three-name compression, examines the 1834 conference vote against the Joseph Smith Papers minutes, engages the Stone-Campbell Movement context the CES Letter omits, addresses David Whitmer's 1887 dissent on its own terms, walks through the 1837–38 Kirtland institutional crisis that frames the timing of D&C 115, develops K. Shane Goodwin's 2019 BYU Studies Quarterly "collaborative and revelatory" framework, presents the positive case from 3 Nephi 27 forward, and lands on a concession-bearing assessment.

Sister articles cover topics that bleed into this one: Anti-Intellectualism; Church Finances; Transparency & Censorship. The post-2018 Nelson directive on the Church's correct name parallels the post-2020 transparency turn engaged in the Church Finances article — both are recent institutional course-corrections that the CES Letter's 2017 framing does not engage. The broader case for the Book of Mormon as the Restoration's anchor — the substantive evidence and the historical case for its authenticity — is engaged in the Book of Mormon section of this site rather than rehearsed here, but the naming question is anchored to the Book of Mormon throughout: 3 Nephi 27 establishes the scriptural standard for naming, and Mosiah 18:17 supplies the original 1830 name.[9][10]

Worth Acknowledging

The honest faithful response on this question requires six concessions. First, David Whitmer's 1887 dissent is a real witness from a Three Witnesses signatory who never recanted his Book of Mormon testimony.[11] Second, the May 3, 1834 change was administrative and not revelatory — a conference vote with Joseph Smith presiding as moderator, not a revelation.[12] Third, Sidney Rigdon's role was substantive — nine years of pre-conversion experience inside Alexander Campbell's Reformed Baptist movement supplied the naming-conflict knowledge that prompted the 1834 motion.[13][14] Fourth, the word "Christ" was absent from the official designation from May 3, 1834 to April 26, 1838 — though informal usage in period publications continued.[15][16] Fifth, K. Shane Goodwin's "collaborative and revelatory" framework is more honest than "pure unmediated revelation" — human deliberation alongside divine confirmation describes the actual historical pattern.[5:2] Sixth, D&C 115 was received during a genuine institutional crisis — the Kirtland Safety Society collapse, Warren Parrish's "Church of Christ" schism, and the April 1838 excommunications of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer all preceded the revelation by weeks or months.[14:1][5:3] Honest acknowledgment of the historical record is more persuasive than a defense that pretends the harder pieces away.

The actual timeline ​

The CES Letter compresses the naming history into three dates and a fourth parenthetical aside. The full historical record is more textured and shows iteration following the same pattern that institutional naming has followed across the Restoration tradition and beyond.

DateNameMechanismSource
June 1829"Articles of the Church of Christ"Pre-organizational document drafted by Oliver CowderyGoodwin 2019; Joseph Smith Papers[5:4][17]
April 6, 1830The Church of ChristFounding Articles and Covenants (now D&C 20:1)D&C 20:1; JSP editorial summary[4:2][6:1]
1831"Church of Jesus Christ," "Church of God" (informal)Period correspondence and minutesGoodwin 2019[5:5]
May 3, 1834The Church of the Latter Day SaintsKirtland conference vote — Sidney Rigdon motion, Newel K. Whitney second, "passed by unanimous voice"JSP "Minutes, 3 May 1834"[12:1]
1835"Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints" (hybrid)Period publications including the Messenger and Advocate and 1835 D&CFAIR; Goodwin 2019[15:1][5:6]
April 26, 1838The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsRevelation at Far West, MO (D&C 115:4)D&C 115:4; JSP[8:1][18]
February 8, 1851(Hyphenated and capitalized form)Legal incorporation in Utah Territory standardizes British-style "Latter-day" hyphenation and capitalized "The"Goodwin 2019; Black EOM[5:7][19]
1921(Punctuation standardized)James E. Talmage's edition of the Doctrine and Covenants standardized capitalization mid-verse in section 115Church History Topics[20]
1966–1967Style guide formalizationEditorial guidance distributed across Church publicationsChurch History Topics[20:1]
August 16, 2018Russell M. Nelson Newsroom statement"The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church"Newsroom 2018[21]
October 2018"The Correct Name of the Church"Sunday Morning Session of October 2018 General ConferenceNelson 2018[22]

The CES Letter's three-date framing — 1830, 1834, 1838 — is technically accurate but rhetorically lossy. It excises (a) the June 1829 "Articles of the Church of Christ" that preceded organization,[5:8] (b) the 1831 informal usages of "Church of Jesus Christ" and "Church of God,"[5:9] (c) the 1835 hybrid "Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints" that appeared between the 1834 and 1838 transitions,[15:2] (d) the 1851 Utah Territory legal incorporation that standardized the hyphenated "Latter-day" and the capitalized "The,"[5:10] (e) the 1921 Talmage edition that standardized punctuation,[20:2] and (f) the August 2018 and October 2018 Nelson interventions that prompted the most recent institutional emphasis.[21:1][22:1] The actual historical pattern is iterative refinement across nearly two hundred years — not three discrete arbitrary changes followed by silence.

Key Point

The 1830 name was "Church of Christ," not "Church of Jesus Christ." The CES Letter's red-display assertion that the 1830 name was "CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST" is a verifiable factual error. The Articles and Covenants of the Church (now D&C 20:1) opens with "The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days," and the Joseph Smith Papers' editorial summary states unambiguously: "The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was 'the Church of Christ.'"[4:3][6:2]

The 1830 name was scripturally grounded ​

The 1830 name was not an arbitrary choice. The Book of Mormon — published less than a week before the Church's organization on April 6, 1830 — established the scriptural pattern for naming Christ's church. Mosiah 18:17, set during Alma the Elder's organization of believers at the Waters of Mormon, reads: "And they were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward."[10:1] 3 Nephi 26:21 supplies the same usage: "they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ."[23] The 1830 founders did not pick "Church of Christ" out of the air. They used the name the Book of Mormon had just put into print.

This matters for the larger argument because it grounds the 1830 name in the Restoration's own scriptural canon. The Articles and Covenants — D&C 20 — were not just an organizing document. They were the Church's first governance document, drafted by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and incorporated into the Doctrine and Covenants as canonical revelation. The same April 6, 1830 revelation to Cowdery (now D&C 21:11) names the organization explicitly: "that you might be an elder unto this church of Christ, bearing my name—"[24] The 1830 name was the name the Lord used in the founding revelation directed to Oliver Cowdery on the day of organization.

What this means for the CES Letter's argument is that the question "why did Joseph take the name of 'Jesus Christ' out?" rests on a false premise about what was there in 1830 to take out. The Lord did not reveal "Church of Jesus Christ" in 1830 in the way the CES Letter's display block implies. He revealed "Church of Christ," and the 1834 change replaced "Christ" with "Latter Day Saints." Different argument; different scope.

A stronger version of Whitmer's case sets aside the "exclusive command" framing and presses on the cumulative pattern: pre-1834 revelations now in the Doctrine and Covenants consistently used "Church of Christ" (or "this church" / "my church") for the institution, making the 1834 vote a departure from a four-year pattern Christ Himself had used through Joseph Smith.[25] The pattern is real, and 1834 did override it in the official name — but it overrode the letterhead, not the doctrinal content of those revelations, which remained intact. The 1838 revelation then restored Christ to the official designation. The skeptic's observation is part of what makes the course-correction reading coherent: 1834 overrode a four-year pattern of Christ-centered naming in revelation; 1838 corrected the override.

What the 1834 conference vote actually was ​

The CES Letter writes that "Joseph Smith made the decision on May 3, 1834 to change the name of the Church."[1:1] The primary record at the Joseph Smith Papers contradicts the framing directly. The official record of the May 3, 1834 Kirtland conference reads:

"Resolved, that this church be known hereafter by the name of THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER DAY SAINTS."[12:2]

The mechanism the minutes describe is a parliamentary conference vote with multiple participants, each with a documented role:

  • Location. Kirtland Township, Ohio.[12:3]
  • Moderator. Joseph Smith Jr. — presiding officer, not motion-maker.[12:4]
  • Clerks. Frederick G. Williams and Oliver Cowdery, appointed at the start of the conference.[12:5]
  • Motion. Sidney Rigdon — the resolution to change the name.[12:6]
  • Second. Newel K. Whitney.[12:7]
  • Vote. "Passed by unanimous voice."[12:8]
  • Follow-up resolutions. The conference further resolved that branch churches should adopt the new title in official records and that the minutes should be published in The Evening and the Morning Star.[12:9]

The procedural texture matters. This was not a unilateral executive decision. It was a deliberative body acting by a parliamentary motion-second-vote sequence, with Joseph Smith presiding as moderator rather than as decision-maker. The Lord had already revealed in 1830 (D&C 26:2) that Church business proceeds "by common consent" — and the 1834 conference is a textbook example of common-consent governance.[26] The CES Letter's framing of Joseph Smith personally "removing" Christ's name compresses agency in a way the documentary record does not support.

This is also the article's first major concession. The 1834 change was administrative, not revelatory. There is no extant revelation directing the 1834 change. The faithful position is not that "1834 was a revelation." The faithful position is that 1834 was administrative deliberation by a body operating under Doctrine and Covenants 26:2's "common consent" framework, and that 1838 was the revelatory framework that integrated and finalized the iteration. Conceding 1834's administrative nature is consistent with — not in tension with — the Latter-day Saint position on revelation.

This concession needs an honest qualification: the doctrine-vs-administration distinction is a faithful interpretive framework, not a label the 1834 participants themselves applied or a self-evident neutral reading of the record.[27] If the framework is granted, the 1834 record fits inside it without strain; if it is rejected, the article is making a faithful internal-coherence argument rather than a neutral historical-consensus claim. Naming this explicitly is more honest than letting the distinction do silent work.

Worth Acknowledging

The 1834 change was a parliamentary conference vote, not a revelation. There is no extant revelation directing the 1834 name change. The faithful response that wants to maximize the revelatory framing for 1834 has to navigate this honestly. What the historical record shows is administrative deliberation by a body operating under D&C 26:2's "common consent" framework, with Sidney Rigdon's pre-conversion familiarity with the Stone-Campbell naming landscape supplying the practical pressure that prompted the change. The Latter-day Saint position commits to iterative revelation that includes administrative deliberation alongside divine confirmation. That commitment, supported by D&C 9:8 ("you must study it out in your mind"), describes the 1834 vote as it actually happened.[28]

The Stone-Campbell Movement context ​

The CES Letter omits the most important context for the 1834 change: by the early 1830s, "Church of Christ" was already the name claimed by multiple unrelated restorationist congregations across the same geographic regions where the early Latter-day Saints operated. This was not theoretical naming overlap. It was practical naming conflict that produced postal confusion, doctrinal misidentification, and competing claims for converts in shared mission fields.

The Stone-Campbell Movement — formed by the 1832 merger of Barton W. Stone's "Christians" (originating at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801) and Alexander Campbell's "Disciples of Christ" (originating in western Pennsylvania) — used "Church of Christ" or "Disciples of Christ" for its local congregations across the western frontier.[29][30] The 1832 merger did not resolve the naming question among Stone-Campbell congregations themselves. As the Wikipedia "Restoration Movement" entry summarizes the merger's unresolved naming dispute: "Stone wanted to continue to use the name 'Christians,' while Alexander Campbell insisted upon 'Disciples of Christ.' Both names were used, and the confusion over names has continued ever since."[30:1] What the merger did do is increase the volume of restorationist congregations using "Church of Christ" across precisely the regions — Ohio, western New York, Kentucky — where the early Latter-day Saints were establishing branches.[29:1] By 1834, "Church of Christ" was a contested label with multiple claimants, and the Latter-day Saints were one of several groups using it.

This is where Sidney Rigdon's pre-conversion biography becomes substantive rather than incidental. Rigdon's documented religious history before his November 1830 baptism into the Latter-day Saint movement places him inside the very movement that produced the naming overlap:[13:1]

DateEvent
May 31, 1817Baptized at Peter's Creek Baptist Church, Library, Pennsylvania
Summer 1821Met Alexander Campbell with Adamson Bentley
1821Joined Campbell's Reformed Baptist movement (the pre-merger forerunner of the Disciples of Christ)
January 28, 1822Arrived in Pittsburgh as minister at First Baptist Church, recommended by Campbell
1823Pittsburgh schism with Rev. John Winter
1826Pastor of Reformed Baptist congregation in Mentor, Ohio
1830Separated from Campbellite movement
November 14, 1830Baptized into Latter-day Saint Church in Mentor, Ohio after reading the Book of Mormon in 14 days

The label that fits Rigdon precisely is "Reformed Baptist" — a member of Alexander Campbell's pre-1832-merger movement, distinct from "Campbellite proper" (a derogatory term for the post-merger Stone-Campbell movement, which Rigdon had already left by the time the merger happened).[13:2] Rigdon's nine years of pre-conversion experience were inside Campbell's pre-merger movement, which used "Church of Christ" or "Disciples of Christ" for its congregations and which he had personally pastored in three different cities. When the May 3, 1834 conference debated the naming question, Rigdon was the participant who knew the landscape from the inside. His motion to adopt "Church of the Latter Day Saints" reflects exactly the practical knowledge his background would have given him.

This is the article's second major concession. Rigdon's role at the 1834 conference is the simplest naturalistic explanation for the change. He motioned the resolution; he had nine years of pre-conversion experience inside the movement that created the naming overlap. The 1834 change tracks Rigdon's pragmatic concerns and cultural identity — not divine direction. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest. What the article holds is that pragmatic deliberation and revelation are not mutually exclusive: 1834 was administrative deliberation in response to genuine pressures, and 1838 was the revelatory framework that integrated the iteration.

Worth Acknowledging

The 1834 change tracks Sidney Rigdon's pre-conversion cultural identity and pragmatic knowledge of the Stone-Campbell naming landscape. The simplest naturalistic explanation for the 1834 change — "the new convert who had just left the Stone-Campbell movement and knew its naming landscape suggested a distinctive alternative" — does not require revelation. The faithful position holds that pragmatic deliberation and revelation are not mutually exclusive: 1834 can be naturalistically explained by Rigdon's background while the 1838 revelation can still be the revelatory framework that integrated the iteration. Pretending Rigdon's role was incidental weakens the response; acknowledging it explicitly strengthens it.

David Whitmer's 1887 dissent ​

The strongest version of the criticism does not come from the CES Letter. It comes from David Whitmer's 1887 An Address to All Believers in Christ. The CES Letter does not actually invoke Whitmer in its naming-of-the-Church section, but the steelman version of the criticism rests on Whitmer's witness, and the article's credibility depends on engaging it directly.[11:1]

Whitmer was one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. His testimony of the angel Moroni and the gold plates was published in every Book of Mormon edition. He never recanted that testimony — he reaffirmed it on his deathbed in January 1888.[11:2] His witness is one of the foundations of the Latter-day Saint claim that the Book of Mormon is what Joseph Smith said it was. The same David Whitmer wrote in 1887 about the 1834 name change, on page 73 of his Address:

"Now it is strange, it is marvelous, that the Latter Day Saints to-day consider this matter of changing the name of the church, and the leaders in 1834 dropping out the name of Christ, as a small thing and a light matter!… It is nothing short of trifling with a strict commandment of Almighty God."[31]

Whitmer cited Isaiah 65:15 — "Ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name" — as a prophecy fulfilled by the 1834 name change.[32] He used a marriage analogy: as a wife takes her husband's name, the Church should take its head's name — Christ's. He attributed the change to Sidney Rigdon's influence, writing on page 59: "Through the influence of Sidney Rigdon, Brother Joseph was led on and on into receiving revelations every year, to establish offices and doctrines which are not even mentioned in the teachings of Christ."[33]

The faithful response cannot dismiss Whitmer. He is the Latter-day Saint movement's own primary witness. The same epistemic standard that authenticates his Book of Mormon testimony also authenticates his witness to events he personally observed in 1834. If a Latter-day Saint says "Whitmer's Book of Mormon witness is reliable because he saw the plates," the critic can reply: "Then Whitmer's witness to the 1834 name change is reliable because he was there too — and he says it was a violation of a strict commandment." The "Whitmer was bitter and excommunicated" rejoinder cuts both ways: excommunication does not erase historical observation, and Whitmer's bitterness about the 1834 change actually strengthens the credibility of his Book of Mormon testimony precisely because he was estranged when he reaffirmed it. A witness who reaffirms a story he could have used to settle scores by recanting is more credible, not less.

The article distinguishes two layers in Whitmer's Address: (a) his witness to events he observed in 1834 — reliable as historical observation — and (b) his 1887 interpretation of those events as commandment violation, an interpretive layer that post-dates the events by 53 years and rests on a premise the contemporary record does not document. The interpretation cannot be dismissed cheaply: Whitmer was at the founding, and his exclusive-command claim is itself a first-person witness about something he experienced, not abstract opinion.[34] What carries the response is that Whitmer's contemporary 1830s documentary record contains no such exclusive-command claim — the framing first appears in the 1887 Address itself — and Joseph Smith, who would have been the recipient of any such command, never recorded one in his own minutes, journals, or correspondence. The 1834 conference vote presided over by Joseph proceeded as if no exclusive command existed. The article takes Whitmer's 1830s testimony with full weight while recognizing that his 1887 elaboration introduces interpretive content the contemporary record does not contain.

K. Shane Goodwin's 2019 BYU Studies Quarterly article addresses Whitmer's premise directly:

"Although Whitmer's claim undoubtedly refers to the Lord's command to the Nephites, there is no extant record of a direct command from the Lord in this dispensation to adopt the name 'Church of Christ.'"[5:11]

FAIR makes the same point: "There is no known revelation to support this claim however, unless you count the Book of Mormon itself."[15:3] The Book of Mormon (Mosiah 18:17) authorizes "the church of God, or the church of Christ" as a designation — but it does not command the name exclusively. The 1830 name was scripturally grounded, but the scriptural grounding does not foreclose later iteration. Whitmer's interpretive claim that 1834 violated a "strict commandment" is not directly supported by an extant revelation prior to 1834.

The faithful response is layered: honor Whitmer's witness to the events of 1834 (he was there; the conference happened; Christ's name was removed from the official designation); acknowledge that his interpretation was honestly held (he genuinely believed the 1834 change violated a divine commandment); note that the interpretation rests on a premise — exclusive divine command pre-1834 — that the contemporary 1830s record does not document; concede that 1834 is something a faithful person can wish had not happened (Whitmer was not alone in his discomfort — 1837 Kirtland dissenters used the original "Church of Christ" name to claim continuity against Joseph Smith, and William McLellin and other later figures similarly adopted "Church of Christ" as a marker of dissent[14:2]); and frame the 1838 D&C 115:4 revelation as the divine framework that either corrected the 1834 mistake, integrated the 1834 contribution, or both.[8:2] The witness is honored. The interpretation is contextualized.

Worth Acknowledging

David Whitmer's 1887 dissent is a real witness from a Three Witnesses signatory who never recanted his Book of Mormon testimony. The faithful response that wants to dismiss the 1887 Address as post-estrangement bitterness is too easy. What the response can honestly do is distinguish between Whitmer's witness to events (reliable historical observation) and his interpretive claim that 1834 violated a "strict commandment" (an interpretive layer that rests on a premise — exclusive divine command pre-1834 — that the contemporary 1830s record does not document). Goodwin and FAIR both note that no extant revelation prior to 1834 commanded "Church of Christ" exclusively.[5:12][15:4][10:2]

What was happening in Kirtland and Far West, 1837–38 ​

The CES Letter implies the 1838 revelation came "suspiciously late" — eight years after the founding. The actual context makes the timing both theologically and historically intelligible. D&C 115:4 was received April 26, 1838 at Far West, Missouri, in the middle of the most severe institutional crisis the Latter-day Saint movement faced before the Nauvoo period.

The crisis sequence:

  • November 1837 — Kirtland Safety Society collapse. Joseph Smith's quasi-banking institution failed amid the broader Panic of 1837. Saints lost savings. Lawsuits proliferated. Joseph Smith's leadership credibility within Kirtland was directly threatened.[5:13]
  • 1837–1838 — Warren Parrish-led "Church of Christ" schism in Kirtland. Christopher James Blythe documents that the Parrish-led dissenters "claimed themselves to be the old standard, called themselves the Church of Christ, excluded that of saints" — explicitly weaponizing the original 1830 name to claim apostolic continuity against Joseph Smith.[14:3] A contemporary account documented by Blythe noted: "This alarmed the Leaders of the Latter Day Saints, and they, in conclave assembled, altered their name."[14:4] The 1834 administrative change was retrospectively vindicated by the 1837 dissenter problem.
  • March 1838 — W. W. Phelps excommunication.[5:14]
  • April 12, 1838 — Oliver Cowdery excommunication.[5:15]
  • April 13, 1838 — David Whitmer and Lyman Johnson excommunication.[5:16] David Whitmer himself, the future author of the 1887 Address invoked above, was formally excommunicated thirteen days before D&C 115 was received.
  • April 26, 1838 — D&C 115 received at Far West, Missouri. The revelation accomplished three things in one document: it established the official Church name ("The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"), designated Far West as a "holy and consecrated land," and commanded the cornerstone laying of a Far West temple for July 4, 1838.[8:3][35]

The skeptic reading of this sequence is responsive consolidation: the 1838 "revelation" was Joseph Smith claiming divine authority to settle a dispute by establishing a name dissenters could not invoke. The Parrish faction used "Church of Christ"; D&C 115 makes "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" the official name; dissenters lose the rhetorical leverage of claiming the original name. This is the strongest version of the timing critique, and the article cannot dodge it.

The faithful response is revelation-amidst-crisis. Revelations in scripture frequently arise in response to circumstances — D&C 121–123 from the depths of Missouri persecution, D&C 132 from a specific question Joseph was asking, the Old Testament prophets concentrated in periods of national crisis. The pattern of "revelation arrives in response to need" is the pattern revelation has always followed. If responsive timing disqualifies a revelation, it disqualifies most of the Old Testament prophets and large portions of the D&C as well. The framework would prove too much, though, if every revelation were crisis-responsive — the skeptic could then read the pattern as Joseph generating revelation under institutional pressure. The Word of Wisdom (D&C 89, February 1833), D&C 76 (February 1832), and the Articles of Faith are canonical counterexamples received in stable periods, showing responsive revelation is one pattern in the record, not the only one.[36] D&C 115 fits the responsive pattern, and that fit is what the article concedes — yes, the 1838 revelation arrived during institutional crisis. Responsive timing for D&C 115 is not evidence the revelation was generated by crisis; it is evidence that revelation can arrive in response to need.

Goodwin's framing on this point is important. He reads D&C 115:3 carefully — the verse just before the canonical "thus shall my church be called" — and notes that verse 3 already addresses "the Elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Scattered abroad in all the world." Goodwin's argument: this language is the Lord confirming a name already emerging organically among the Saints rather than first declaring it. The April 1838 revelation, on Goodwin's reading, was both declarative and confirmative — declarative of the official name and confirmative of usage that had been organically developing in Saints' correspondence and minutes through 1837–38.[5:17]

This is consistent with the Saints' actual usage during the period leading up to D&C 115. Goodwin documents George W. Robinson's March 1838 correspondence (just weeks before D&C 115) using "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" — the same form that would appear in D&C 115:4 the following month.[5:18] The 1838 revelation did not invent a new name; it confirmed and finalized a name that had been organically emerging.

Worth Acknowledging

The 1838 revelation arrived during a genuine institutional crisis where dissenters were using the original 1830 name as a weapon. The Kirtland Safety Society had collapsed in November 1837. Warren Parrish's faction explicitly invoked "Church of Christ" to claim apostolic continuity against Joseph Smith. Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer were excommunicated thirteen days before D&C 115 was received. Pretending the revelation arrived in a vacuum is not honest. What the faithful response holds is that responsive revelation is the documented scriptural pattern — D&C 121–123, D&C 132, the Old Testament prophets, the Liberty Jail revelations all arose in response to specific circumstances. Crisis-responsive revelation is not an embarrassment to the doctrine of revelation; it is what scripture itself describes as the pattern revelation follows.[14:5][5:19]

The 3 Nephi 27 scriptural standard ​

The Book of Mormon — published in 1830, eight years before D&C 115 — established the scriptural standard for naming Christ's church. 3 Nephi 27 records the resurrected Christ addressing exactly this kind of dispute among the Nephite disciples:

"And the Lord said unto them: Verily, verily, I say unto you, why is it that the people should murmur and dispute because of this thing? Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name? For by this name shall ye be called at the last day; And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day. Therefore, whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name that he will bless the church for my sake. And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses' name then it be Moses' church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel."[9:1]

This is the scriptural standard the 1838 revelation institutionalizes. The Book of Mormon was published in March 1830; the Church was organized in April 1830; the standard was in print eight years before D&C 115:4. The 1838 revelation did not invent the standard; it implemented in the institutional name what the Book of Mormon had already taught.

The 3 Nephi 27 passage carries three elements that map directly to the eventual 1838 name: the church must bear Christ's name (fulfilled by "Jesus Christ"), the church must be called in Christ's name to be Christ's church (fulfilled by D&C 115:4's "thus shall my church be called in the last days"), and the gospel-foundation requirement ("if it so be that they are built upon my gospel") connects naming to the broader doctrinal claim of the Restoration. The 1830 Saints had a Book of Mormon anchor for "Church of Christ" — Mosiah 18:17.[10:3] The 1838 Saints had a Book of Mormon scriptural standard for "Church of Jesus Christ" with Christ's full name — 3 Nephi 27:7–8.[9:2] The 1838 revelation institutionalizes the higher scriptural standard the Book of Mormon had already taught.

What D&C 115 actually does ​

The April 26, 1838 revelation reads, in its first four verses:

"Verily thus saith the Lord unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and also my servant Sidney Rigdon, and also my servant Hyrum Smith, and your counselors who are and shall be appointed hereafter; And also unto you, my servant Edward Partridge, and his counselors; And also unto my faithful servants who are of the high council of my church in Zion, for thus it shall be called, and unto all the elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scattered abroad in all the world; For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."[8:4]

Two structural features of this passage matter for the article's argument.

First, verse 3 addresses "all the elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scattered abroad in all the world" — using the full name before verse 4 declares it official. This is the textual feature Goodwin's "confirmative" reading rests on. The Lord is not introducing a new name in verse 3; He is addressing Saints by a name that already exists in usage.[5:20] Verse 4 then formalizes that name as the official designation.

Second, verse 4's structure — "For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" — combines elements from both earlier designations:

  • "Church of Jesus Christ" preserves and expands the 1830 designation. The 1830 name was "Church of Christ"; the 1838 name adds "Jesus" to fulfill the 3 Nephi 27 specification that members "take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name."[9:3]
  • "Latter-day Saints" preserves the 1834 designation. The 1834 conference adopted "Church of the Latter Day Saints"; the 1838 revelation retains "Latter-day Saints" as part of the integrated official name.[12:10]

The 1838 revelation did not abandon either earlier name. It synthesized them. Goodwin observes: "The final version of the Church's name was no radical shift from the previous practice of using both 'Christ' and 'Saints' in designating the restored Church and its members."[5:21] Community of Christ historian Mark A. Scherer (quoted by Goodwin) captures the synthesis: "To use the name 'Church of Jesus Christ' must have made the Missouri Saints jubilant since it incorporated the name they had learned in early New York. Adding 'the Latter Day Saints' no doubt satisfied the Kirtland Saints because it acknowledged their strong dispensationalism."[5:22]

The 1834 deliberation contributed "Latter-day Saints." The 1830 designation contributed "Church of Christ" (expanded to "Church of Jesus Christ"). The 1838 revelation produced a name that integrates both elements — Christ-centered identity and eschatological mission. This is the article's positive case for the timing of the revelation: D&C 115 is not "another arbitrary change" in a sequence; it is the divine framework that integrates the iteration into a single coherent designation that fulfills the scriptural standard set by 3 Nephi 27.

There is a simpler reading the article needs to engage directly rather than cover with "synthesis" language: 1834 was a mistake, and 1838 corrected it. Christ's name should never have been removed in 1834; the 1838 revelation added it back. On that reading, "synthesis" is a euphemism for "course correction." There is nothing in the doctrine of continuing revelation that requires avoiding this — administrative church decisions can be wrong, and revelation is the mechanism through which they are corrected. Scripture itself documents the pattern: Peter received revelation in Acts 10–11 to correct the early Church's exclusion of Gentiles; the 1890 Manifesto corrected plural marriage practice; the 1978 priesthood revelation corrected the priesthood-temple ban. These corrections are not embarrassments to continuing revelation — they are examples of it.

The article holds both readings as compatible. The 1834 vote was administratively wrong about removing Christ's name AND it contributed a meaningful element ("Latter-day Saints") the 1838 revelation kept. If 1834 had not removed Christ's name, the 1838 revelation would not have needed to add it back — that is plain historical fact, and the faithful position is strengthened, not weakened, by acknowledging it.

Key Point

D&C 115:3 already references "my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scattered abroad in all the world" — using the full name before verse 4 declares it official. K. Shane Goodwin reads this as evidence that the Lord is confirming a name already in organic use among the Saints rather than first declaring it. George W. Robinson's March 1838 correspondence (weeks before D&C 115) already uses "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." The April 1838 revelation, on this reading, was both declarative and confirmative — declarative of the official name and confirmative of usage that had been organically developing throughout 1837–38.[5:23]

The iterative-revelation framing is not vacuous — it makes substantive commitments the historical record could in principle have violated.[37] The actual Latter-day Saint sequence satisfies what an iterative reading would predict: the 1830 and 1838 names are both grounded in Book of Mormon scripture (Mosiah 18:17 and 3 Nephi 27:7–8), with the 1838 name fulfilling the 3 Nephi 27 standard the 1830 name approximated; Christ's name was absent for four years but was restored and expanded in 1838, and the final form has carried Christ's name continuously for 188 years; and the official name has been stable since 1838, with the 1851 hyphenation and 1921 punctuation refinements typographical rather than substantive. Convergence on scripture, preservation of central content, termination in stable form — a substantive observation about the historical record, not a definitional escape from falsification.

Christ's name in the 1834–1838 period ​

The CES Letter's strongest factual point is the four-year window from May 3, 1834 to April 26, 1838 in which the official designation of the Church did not contain "Christ." This is real. The article concedes it directly. What the article also documents — drawing on FAIR's statistical analysis of period publications — is that the 1834 administrative change did not erase Christ from how members described their own church.[15:5]

FAIR's analysis of the 1834–1837 Messenger and Advocate, the official Church publication during the period, found 33 occurrences of "Church of Christ" against zero occurrences of "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." The 1837–1838 Elders Journal showed 10 "Church of Christ" against 1 "Church of Jesus Christ of LDS."[15:6] Period publications continued to anchor identity in Christ. The official name on the letterhead lacked Christ; the lived rhetoric inside the Church did not.

A broader FAIR analysis comparing self-identification across longer periods:[15:7]

PublicationPeriod"Church of Christ""Church of Jesus Christ"Full official name
Evening and Morning Star1832–18341151—
Times and Seasons1839–18461181324
Journal of Discourses1839–188616759308

FAIR's summary: "This chart demonstrates that the members of the Church have always seen themselves as Christians, and members of 'the Church of Jesus Christ.'"[15:8]

The 1835 Messenger and Advocate used a hybrid form — "the rise and progress of the church of Christ of Latter Day Saints" — that captures the transitional reality.[16:1] Goodwin's point on the hybrid: "In reality, there is only a one-word difference (the name 'Jesus') between the 1835 hybrid name 'the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints' and the April 26, 1838, name."[5:24] The 1834 vote did not really remove Christ from the institution's self-understanding — it subordinated "Christ" syntactically in the official designation, and even that subordination was inconsistently applied in actual published practice.

The CES Letter's accompanying photograph of the Kirtland Temple inscription — "HOUSE OF THE LORD / BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF THE / LATTER DAY SAINTS. A.D. 1834" — deserves direct comment. The inscription is real, and it documents exactly the four-year window the article concedes openly. The Kirtland Temple was constructed 1833–1836, precisely when the official letterhead lacked "Christ," and the cornerstone inscription reflects the official designation in use at that moment. Pretending the inscription does not exist would be unfaithful to the record. The inscription is evidence of the 1834–1838 window, not evidence against the 1838 restoration; a temple cornerstone cut in 1834 was naturally not retroactively re-cut to match the 1838 form.

1934 Historic American Buildings Survey black-and-white photograph of the Kirtland Temple east elevation; the inscribed tablet 'HOUSE OF THE LORD / BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF THE / LATTER DAY SAINTS. A.D. 1834' is visible centered between the round window and the second-floor windows.
The Kirtland Temple east elevation, photographed in April 1934 for the Historic American Buildings Survey. The inscribed tablet — "HOUSE OF THE LORD / BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF THE / LATTER DAY SAINTS. A.D. 1834" — is centered between the round window and the second-floor windows. The 1834 carving date fits the 1834–1838 window the article concedes openly; the temple cornerstone was cut while that designation was in official use and was not naturally re-cut after the April 1838 revelation in D&C 115 restored "Christ" to the name. Photograph by Carl F. Waite, National Park Service. Public domain (U.S. federal government work). Via Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

What the article holds, then, is a careful two-part position. (1) The official designation 1834–1838 lacked "Christ" — that is real, and the CES Letter's "4 whole years" math is technically correct. (2) The lived rhetoric of the Church during that window continued to anchor identity in Christ — period publications, period correspondence, hybrid forms in official Church publications all show pervasive Christ-centered self-understanding. The four-year window is not a "Christ-free" period in any substantive institutional sense. It is a window in which the official letterhead lacked Christ while everyone using that letterhead still understood themselves as Christ-centered.

The strongest faithful framing here is temporal proportionality plus combinatorial recovery — but both pieces of that framing need to be made explicit rather than smuggled past the reader.

  • The Church has existed officially since April 6, 1830 (over 196 years as of this writing in 2026, calculated from the April 6 anniversary).
  • The 1834–1838 "Latter Day Saints" period was four years — about 2 percent of the institution's existence.
  • The 1838 revelation did not simply restore "Christ" to the name. It combined "Jesus Christ" (an expansion of the 1830 anchor with "Jesus" added per 3 Nephi 27) with "Latter Day Saints" (the 1834 contribution) into a name that is both more Christ-centered and more institutionally specific than either earlier form.[8:5][5:25]
  • If iterative revelation produces a final result that is better than either intermediate state, the iteration is not failure; it is the pattern revelation actually follows in scripture itself.[38]

"Better" here is measured against the 3 Nephi 27:7–8 standard the institution itself claims to follow: a church called by Christ's name, built upon Christ's gospel. By that standard the 1838 name is more complete than either earlier form — Christ's full name plus an eschatological identifier tying the institution to the dispensational framework the Restoration claims. Whitmer's reading invokes a stricter standard: any removal, even for a single conference vote, violates a strict commandment.[39] 3 Nephi 27 itself does not specify continuous-and-exclusive Christ-in-the-letterhead from founding; it specifies that the church must be called in Christ's name to be Christ's church. On Whitmer's narrow reading the 1834–1838 period fails that test; on a broader reading — informal usage anchoring identity in Christ, members partaking of the sacrament weekly in Christ's name, period publications overwhelmingly using "Church of Christ" terminology — the institution did not stop being called by Christ's name even when the letterhead changed. The article does not pretend Whitmer's reading is unreasonable, only that the broader reading is the one the lived historical record arguably supports.

This is what continuing revelation looks like: human deliberation working toward truth, with God providing definitive resolution that vindicates the deliberative process by integrating its contributions rather than discarding them. The 1834 vote was administratively wrong (on the course-correction reading) and meaningfully contributed "Latter-day Saints" (on the integration reading); both readings can be true simultaneously.

The 1851 Utah incorporation and subsequent standardization ​

The CES Letter's three-date framing also omits the 1851 Utah Territory legal incorporation that gave the Church its modern punctuation. On February 8, 1851, the Provisional State of Deseret legislature passed a corporate ordinance incorporating "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," and the Utah Territorial legislature reaffirmed the incorporation later that year.[5:26][19:1] The 1851 incorporation introduced British-style hyphenation in "Latter-day" (the 1834 and 1838 forms used "Latter Day Saints" with no hyphen) and the capitalized definite article "The" — both of which remain part of the official designation today.[5:27][40] The 1921 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, prepared under James E. Talmage's editorial direction, standardized the punctuation mid-verse in section 115; subsequent updates in 1966–1967 formalized style guidance distributed across Church publications.[20:3]

The 1851 incorporation matters because it shows naming refinement continuing after 1838. The basic name has not changed since 1838 — 188 years of stability — but punctuation, capitalization, and usage have been refined across multiple legal and editorial moments. The pattern across the entire history is iterative refinement of the same fundamental name.

Russell M. Nelson and "The Correct Name of the Church" ​

The CES Letter's 2017 update predates the most consequential modern intervention on this question: President Russell M. Nelson's August 16, 2018 Newsroom statement and his October 2018 General Conference talk "The Correct Name of the Church."

On August 16, 2018, the Church Newsroom published a statement under President Nelson's name:

"The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will."[21:2]

The Newsroom statement signaled a phased rollout of the directive across Church communications: the formal name in first reference, "the Church" or "the Church of Jesus Christ" in subsequent references, and "Latter-day Saints" or "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" rather than "Mormons."[21:3][40:1] On October 5, 2018, the choir formerly known as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was renamed "The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square" — a high-visibility implementation of the broader directive.[41]

President Nelson's October 2018 General Conference talk made the doctrinal framework explicit. The talk was delivered in the Sunday Morning Session and titled "The Correct Name of the Church":[22:2]

"Joseph Smith did not name the Church restored through him; neither did Mormon. It was the Savior Himself who said, 'For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.'... It is a correction. It is the command of the Lord."[22:3]

Three features of Nelson's October 2018 talk are load-bearing for the article's argument. First, Nelson cited the canonical scriptural anchors directly — D&C 115:4 and 3 Nephi 27:7–8.[22:4] These are exactly the scriptures that establish the article's positive case; Nelson's framing connects the Book of Mormon's scriptural standard to the modern Church's renewed institutional emphasis. Second, Nelson framed the renewed emphasis as a correction within an existing framework rather than a name change: "It is a correction. It is the command of the Lord."[22:5] The official name has been the same since 1838; the 2018 emphasis is on consistent usage, not on changing the form. Third, Nelson made the pastoral case explicitly: "When we discard the Savior's name, we are subtly disregarding all that Jesus Christ did for us — even His Atonement…. To remove the Lord's name from the Lord's Church is a major victory for Satan."[22:6] The talk closed with a covenantal invitation: "I promise you that if we will do our best to restore the correct name of the Lord's Church, He whose Church this is will pour down His power and blessings upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints, the likes of which we have never seen."[22:7]

What this means for the CES Letter's argument is that the 2018 Nelson intervention is a modern-revelation response to the broader question the CES Letter raises. The CES Letter's question presupposes a Church that does not respond to its own naming history through revelation; the 2018 directive demonstrates that the Church does exactly that.

Further Reading

Russell M. Nelson, "The Correct Name of the Church," October 2018 General Conference Sunday Morning Session. The full text and video are available at the Church's official site.[22:8] The talk cites D&C 115:4 and 3 Nephi 27:7–8 as the canonical anchors and frames the renewed emphasis as "a correction" within an existing framework rather than a name change. The August 16, 2018 Newsroom statement and accompanying style guidance lay out the implementation details across Church communications.[21:4][40:2]

Comparative cases — institutional name evolution is normal ​

The CES Letter treats name iteration as inherently disqualifying for a divinely-led institution. The comparative record across both ecclesial and secular institutions shows iteration is the norm, not the exception. An honest qualification first: a revelation-claiming institution iterating its name is not strictly analogous to a non-revelation-claiming institution doing the same, since the Latter-day Saint claim is that Christ Himself revealed the name through Joseph Smith.[42] What the comparative cases do settle, more modestly, is that name iteration during the founding period is normal across both secular and ecclesial contexts — meaning the bare fact of three names in eight years is not, by itself, evidence of anything unusual. The comparative cases supply background; the substantive Latter-day Saint claim has to be evaluated on its own terms.

The United States ​

The naming of the United States went through fourteen years of iterative refinement across multiple foundational documents:

DateNameSource
June 19, 1775"Delegates of the United Colonies"Continental Congress records[43]
July 2, 1776"United Colonies" still used in Lee ResolutionNational Constitution Center[43:1]
Late June–July 1776"United States of America" in Jefferson's Declaration draftLibrary of Congress[44]
July 4, 1776Declaration of Independence adoptedNational Archives[44:1]
September 9, 1776Continental Congress formally adopts "United States of America"National Archives[44:2]
1777Articles of Confederation, Article I: "The Stile of this confederacy shall be, 'The United States of America.'"National Archives[45]
1789Constitution retains "the United States of America"National Archives[45:1]

The United States went through approximately fourteen years of iterative naming across multiple foundational documents — and no one argues the United States is therefore not a real nation. Iteration is normal for new institutions working out their identity.

Early Christianity ​

The biblical record itself documents iterative naming for the early Christian movement. Acts uses multiple designations:

  • Acts 9:2 — "if he found any of this way" — the Christian movement called "the Way"[46]
  • Acts 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22 — continued "the Way" usage[46:1]
  • Acts 11:26 — "the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch"[46:2]

The name "Christian" was not used by the original Christian community at Pentecost. It was applied to the movement at Antioch some years after the Resurrection — by outsiders rather than by self-designation in the earliest period. The biblical pattern itself is iterative. If the Latter-day Saint sequence (Church of Christ → Church of the Latter Day Saints → Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is suspect because it iterated, the early Christian movement (the Way → Christians) faces the same charge.

Community of Christ (2001) — a Restoration-tradition case ​

The 2001 World Conference of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints renamed the institution "Community of Christ." Christopher James Blythe documents the rename's framing: the new name "honors the church's early heritage, paying homage to the original Church of Christ name."[14:6] The Community of Christ even framed the rename in revelatory language, with its own "Counsel" treated as inspired guidance: "'Community of Christ,' your name, given as a divine blessing, is your identity and calling."[14:7]

The Community of Christ case is powerful because it is within the Restoration tradition. The CES Letter implicitly treats institutional name iteration as evidence against revelation. The Community of Christ — a Restoration-tradition denomination directly descended from the same 1830 founding — continues to refine its institutional name 171 years after the 1830 organization, and frames the refinement in revelatory language. If iteration is disqualifying for the Latter-day Saints, the same standard would disqualify the Community of Christ — which would mean disqualifying the entire Restoration tradition's response to its own naming history. The Community of Christ case shows that iteration is the Restoration tradition's pattern, not a deviation from it.

Grace Communion International (2009) — an outside-the-Restoration case ​

The 2009 rename of the Worldwide Church of God to Grace Communion International followed major doctrinal shifts under Joseph W. Tkach Sr. beginning in 1988. The rename was framed as institutional re-identification reflecting fundamental theological transformation.[47] This is a comparative case from outside the Restoration tradition entirely — a Protestant institution iterating its name across a major doctrinal transition, the iteration treated as institutionally appropriate rather than disqualifying.

The pattern ​

The cases above cover the relevant comparative ground: a secular nation iterating across foundational documents; the New Testament biblical pattern itself documenting iterative naming; a Restoration-tradition denomination continuing to refine its institutional name into the twenty-first century; a Protestant denomination outside the Restoration tradition rebranding across major doctrinal change. The Latter-day Saint sequence is, by comparison, more coherent than many comparable cases — grounded in pre-existing scripture (Mosiah 18:17, 3 Nephi 26:21), addressing a documented practical naming-conflict problem with Stone-Campbell congregations, integrated by revelation in 1838, refined in punctuation and capitalization in 1851, and emphasized again in 2018 without changing the underlying form. Iteration is the norm; the Latter-day Saint sequence fits the norm with unusual coherence.

Goodwin's "collaborative and revelatory" framework ​

The strongest current scholarly anchor for the faithful response is K. Shane Goodwin, "The History of the Name of the Savior's Church: A Collaborative and Revelatory Process," BYU Studies Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2019).[5:28] Goodwin's article is the modern reference work on the topic and supersedes the older Anderson 1979 Ensign Q&A as the lead citation. The article's central thesis is captured in its title: the 1830→1834→1838→1851 sequence is "collaborative and revelatory" — revelation arriving in increments alongside human deliberation.

A confessional disclosure is in order before invoking Goodwin as the lead anchor. BYU Studies Quarterly is a faithful Latter-day Saint scholarly journal, and Goodwin writes inside the Restoration tradition's doctrinal commitments — continuing revelation, prophetic authority, the inspired character of D&C 115. His "collaborative and revelatory" reading is faithful scholarship of unusually high rigor; it is not neutral consensus scholarship a skeptic is expected to accept on independent grounds. The article holds that Goodwin's framework is the strongest faithful reading available and engages the historical record without selective omission — a faithful interpreter taken seriously, not a neutral historian whose conclusions a skeptic must accept.

Goodwin's framework rests on three theological commitments:

First, revelation is iterative rather than dictational. Goodwin invokes Elder David A. Bednar's metaphor that revelation operates both as immediate illumination and as gradual dawn.[5:29] This is consistent with D&C 98:12 — "I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept" — and Isaiah 28:10's similar pattern.[38:1][48] Iterative revelation is not failed revelation; it is the documented scriptural pattern.

Second, revelation is collaborative — a synthesis of human and divine action. Goodwin quotes Blake Ostler's framing: "revelation is the synthesis of a human and divine event."[5:30] The 1830→1838 sequence reflects this synthesis: human deliberation at the 1834 conference, divine confirmation in 1838, with both elements jointly producing the final integrated name.

Third, the 1838 revelation can be read as confirmative as well as declarative. Goodwin's reading of D&C 115:3 — which uses "my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" before verse 4 declares it official — is that the Lord is sanctioning a name already emerging organically among the Saints rather than first declaring it. Goodwin asks directly: "Is verse 4 a declarative or a confirmative statement from the Lord Jesus Christ, or is it both?" His answer: "the Lord is sanctioning the name his small group of early Latter-day Saints had already been inspired to start using."[5:31]

This framework absorbs the major concessions without pretending them away — Whitmer's witness to 1834 is real, the 1834 deliberation is acknowledged as administrative, Rigdon's role is named, the four-year gap is conceded, the 1838 timing during institutional crisis is acknowledged — and integrates them into a coherent position: the sequence is what continuing revelation looks like when revelation is understood as iterative and collaborative rather than single-moment dictation. Goodwin notes Whitmer's 1887 framing was made "not contemporaneously" — 53 years after the events — and reflects "less-than-optimal objectivity and apparent bitterness after he had distanced himself from the Church."[5:32] Goodwin does not dismiss Whitmer; he contextualizes him while engaging the substantive interpretive questions the Address raises on their merits.

Further Reading

K. Shane Goodwin, "The History of the Name of the Savior's Church: A Collaborative and Revelatory Process," BYU Studies Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2019). The most thorough faithful scholarly treatment of the topic available. Goodwin's "collaborative and revelatory" framework is the strongest current anchor for engaging the criticism honestly. The article is the modern reference work on the question and supersedes Richard Lloyd Anderson's 1979 Ensign Q&A as the lead citation. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-history-of-the-name-of-the-saviors-church-a-collaborative-and-revelatory-process[^Goodwin]

The KnoWhy positive case from 3 Nephi 27 ​

Scripture Central's KnoWhy #482 ("Why Must Christ's True Church Be Called after His Name?") frames the positive case as four interconnected principles drawn from 3 Nephi 27:[49] avoid disputations over doctrine (3 Nephi 27:5–6 records Christ addressing exactly this kind of dispute among the Nephites; names carry doctrinal weight); scripture already contains the answer (the 1830 Saints had Mosiah 18:17 in print before organization, the 1838 Saints had 3 Nephi 27:7–8 — the scriptural standard preceded both institutional moments); all actions must reflect Christ's name and authority ("everything they do should be a reflection of Christ's good name"[49:1]); and the Church must be built on Christ's true gospel (3 Nephi 27:8 ties naming to gospel-foundation, making the naming question inseparable from the doctrinal foundation question).

Names matter because identity matters. The Latter-day Saint commitment to Christ-centered self-reference reflects covenantal commitment to taking Christ's name in a substantive sense — not just as a corporate label but as a daily commitment members reaffirm at the sacrament table each Sunday. Moroni 4:3 and D&C 20:37, 77 — the sacrament prayer texts — make the naming covenant explicit: members partake of the bread and water in remembrance of Christ and "always remember him and keep his commandments which he hath given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them."[50][51] The KnoWhy frames Nelson's 2018 emphasis as "a correction of accumulated error rather than a name change."[49:2] The 1838 revelation established the official name; the 2018 directive emphasizes consistent usage of that already-established name.

Assessment ​

The CES Letter's argument compresses approximately a page of historical material into three dates, three names, a photograph, and a series of rhetorical questions. The compression is rhetorically efficient. It is also lossy.

It opens with a verifiable factual error: the 1830 name was "Church of Christ," not "Church of Jesus Christ" — settled by D&C 20:1 and the Joseph Smith Papers' editorial summary.[4:4][6:3] It compresses the agency of the 1834 change — the Joseph Smith Papers' minutes document a parliamentary motion-second-vote sequence with multiple participants, not a unilateral decision.[12:11] It omits the Stone-Campbell Movement context that supplies the practical pressure for the 1834 change[29:2][30:2][13:3], the 1837–38 institutional crisis context that frames the timing of D&C 115[14:8][5:33], the Book of Mormon scriptural anchors that ground both the 1830 and 1838 names[10:4][23:1][9:4][8:6], and the post-2018 Russell M. Nelson framing that supplies the modern Church's own doctrinal-emphasis response.[21:5][22:9]

What the article holds, while making each of these corrections, is a layered set of honest concessions: David Whitmer's 1887 dissent is a real witness from a Three Witnesses signatory; Sidney Rigdon's pre-conversion experience supplies the simplest naturalistic explanation for the 1834 motion; the 1834 change was administrative rather than revelatory; Christ's name was absent from the official designation for four years; the 1838 revelation arrived during a documented institutional crisis. None of the difficult historical pieces are pretended away. The doctrine-vs-administration framework absorbing the 1834 concession is acknowledged as a faithful interpretive lens rather than a self-evident neutral reading. K. Shane Goodwin's "collaborative and revelatory" framework is invoked as the strongest faithful scholarly position, not as neutral consensus a skeptic must accept. The iterative-revelation framing is falsifiable in principle, and the actual historical sequence satisfies its predictions: convergence on scripture, preservation of Christ-centered content, termination in stable form.

The Book of Mormon anchor remains. The Church's name originates in Book of Mormon scripture (Mosiah 18:17, 3 Nephi 26:21). The Church's name resolves by fulfilling a Book of Mormon scriptural standard (3 Nephi 27:7–8). The Book of Mormon itself — produced in roughly 60 working days, with no substantive revisions, no whistleblowers, and no credible naturalistic explanation, and the evidence for its authenticity continuing to grow over time — is the substantive evidentiary foundation that the naming question ultimately rests on. If the Book of Mormon is what Joseph Smith said it was, then Mosiah 18:17 and 3 Nephi 27:7–8 are scriptural standards that pre-date both the 1834 change and the 1838 revelation, and the 1830→1838 sequence is the institution working out what those scriptural standards required.

Bottom line: The CES Letter compresses 196 years of iterative naming into three dates and a verifiable factual error — the 1830 name was "Church of Christ," not "Church of Jesus Christ." The 1834 change was administrative deliberation by a parliamentary conference vote responding to real Stone-Campbell naming overlap and Sidney Rigdon's pre-conversion familiarity with that landscape. The 1838 D&C 115:4 revelation either corrected a 1834 administrative mistake (the simplest reading) or integrated the 1834 contribution into a fuller form (the iterative reading) — the article holds both readings as compatible. David Whitmer's 1887 witness is real and honored; his "exclusive command" framing first appears in 1887 rather than the contemporary 1830s record. K. Shane Goodwin's "collaborative and revelatory" framework — a faithful reading from a faithful scholar, not neutral consensus scholarship — integrates the concessions into a doctrinal framing that fits the documented historical record under the assumption of continuing revelation. The framework is faithful internal coherence, not a verdict the skeptic must accept; whether the framework itself is correct is a separate question. The iterative-revelation framing is falsifiable in principle, and the actual sequence satisfies its predictions. Russell M. Nelson's 2018 directive demonstrates that modern revelation continues to address institutional naming. None of the difficult historical pieces are pretended away — and none of them require pretending away.

  1. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," p. 119. ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," p. 120. ↩︎

  3. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Other Concerns," p. 119. The display block on p. 119 stacks "1830: CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST / 1834: THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER DAY SAINTS / 1838: THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS" in red type, with a footnote 34 reference to Saints, vol. 1, ch. 14, applicable to the 1834 entry. The same page includes a photograph captioned "KIRTLAND TEMPLE" showing the inscription "HOUSE OF THE LORD / BUILT BY THE CHURCH OF THE / LATTER DAY SAINTS. A.D. 1834." ↩︎

  4. Doctrine and Covenants 20:1. The Articles and Covenants of the Church, the Church's founding governance document, opens: "The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our country, by the will and commandments of God, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April—" https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/20 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  5. K. Shane Goodwin, "The History of the Name of the Savior's Church: A Collaborative and Revelatory Process," BYU Studies Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2019): 4–58. The modern scholarly reference work on the topic. Goodwin frames the 1830→1834→1838→1851 sequence as iterative revelation arriving alongside human deliberation, reads D&C 115:3 as the Lord confirming a name already emerging organically among the Saints, and engages David Whitmer's 1887 dissent on the historical merits. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-history-of-the-name-of-the-saviors-church-a-collaborative-and-revelatory-process ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. "Articles and Covenants, circa April 1830 [D&C 20]," Joseph Smith Papers. Editorial summary: "The first name used to denote the church JS organized on 6 April 1830 was 'the Church of Christ.'" https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/articles-and-covenants-circa-april-1830-dc-20/1 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  7. Richard Lloyd Anderson, "What Changes Have Been Made in the Name of the Church? Its Full Designation Does Not Appear in the Revelations Until 1838 (D&C 115:4)," Ensign, January 1979. Anderson identifies three distinct phases (1830–1834 Church of Christ; 1834–1838 Church of the Latter Day Saints; 1838 onward Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and notes that "since American Christians, including Congregationalists and reformers, frequently designated themselves as 'The Church of Christ,' that title did not distinguish the restored gospel from a host of Protestant sects." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1979/01/i-have-a-question/what-changes-have-been-made-in-the-name-of-the-church-its-full-designation-does-not-appear-in-the-revelations-until-1838-d-and-c-115-4 ↩︎

  8. Doctrine and Covenants 115:1–4. The April 26, 1838 revelation received at Far West, Missouri. Verse 4 reads: "For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/115 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. 3 Nephi 27:5–8. Christ's instruction to the Nephite disciples about the proper name of his church: "Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name?... how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses' name then it be Moses' church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/27 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  10. Mosiah 18:17. The Book of Mormon's first naming pattern, set during Alma the Elder's organization of believers at the Waters of Mormon: "And they were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/18 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  11. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO: David Whitmer, 1887). The single most-cited critical primary source on the 1834 name change. Whitmer was one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon and never recanted his Book of Mormon testimony, reaffirming it on his deathbed in January 1888. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/anaddresstoallb00whitgoog. FAIR Primary transcription: https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Primary_sources/David_Whitmer/An_Address_to_All_Believers_in_Christ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  12. "Minutes, 3 May 1834," Joseph Smith Papers. The primary record of the Kirtland conference vote. Joseph Smith Jr. served as moderator; Frederick G. Williams and Oliver Cowdery served as clerks; Sidney Rigdon motioned the resolution; Newel K. Whitney seconded; the resolution "passed by unanimous voice." The minutes record the resolution that "this church be known hereafter by the name of THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER DAY SAINTS" and direct that branch churches adopt the new title and that the minutes be published in The Evening and the Morning Star. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/minutes-3-may-1834/1 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  13. "Sidney Rigdon," Wikipedia. Documents Rigdon's pre-conversion religious history: May 31, 1817 baptism at Peter's Creek Baptist Church, Library, Pennsylvania; Summer 1821 meeting with Alexander Campbell and joining the Disciples of Christ movement associated with Campbell; January 28, 1822 arrival in Pittsburgh as minister at First Baptist Church on Campbell's recommendation; 1823 Pittsburgh schism; 1826 pastor of a Disciples congregation in Mentor, Ohio; 1830 separation from Campbell's movement; November 14, 1830 baptism into the Latter-day Saint Church in Mentor, Ohio. The Wikipedia article uses "Disciples of Christ (Campbell movement)" terminology rather than "Reformed Baptist"; the standard academic biography (Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess, Signature Books, 1994) uses "Reformed Baptist" as a self-designation Campbell himself employed during the 1820s, which is the label this article retains for that pre-1832-merger phase. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Rigdon ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  14. Christopher James Blythe, "Ye Shall Call the Church in My Name: A Multi-Denominational History of Latter Day Saint Responses to 3 Nephi 27 (Or a Story of Church Names)," Maxwell Institute, October 11, 2018. Blythe documents the 1837 Warren Parrish-led "Church of Christ" schism as a key contextual driver for the 1838 D&C 115 revelation, traces the lasting denominational controversy generated by the 1834 change, and engages comparative cases including the 2001 Community of Christ rename. https://mi.byu.edu/blythe-church-names/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  15. "Changes in the Name of the Church," FAIR. Includes statistical analysis of period publications (1834–1837 Messenger and Advocate: 33 "Church of Christ" appearances vs. 0 "Church of Jesus Christ of LDS"; 1837–1838 Elders Journal: 10 "Church of Christ" vs. 1 "Church of Jesus Christ of LDS"). FAIR concedes "Christ only instructed Joseph through revelation to change the name of the Church once" (referring to 1838). https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Mormonism_and_church_organization/Changes_in_the_name_of_the_Church ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  16. Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland, OH), 1835. The 1835 issue referenced "the rise and progress of the church of Christ of Latter Day Saints" — a hybrid form showing the 1834–1838 transition was gradual and incomplete. Goodwin observes: "In reality, there is only a one-word difference (the name 'Jesus') between the 1835 hybrid name 'the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints' and the April 26, 1838, name." ↩︎ ↩︎

  17. Goodwin documents Oliver Cowdery's June 1829 "Articles of the Church of Christ" — a pre-organizational document that established the "Church of Christ" naming pattern before the formal April 6, 1830 organization. See Goodwin 2019 for citation details. ↩︎

  18. "Revelation, 26 April 1838 [D&C 115]," Joseph Smith Papers. Editorial context: revelation received at Far West, Missouri. Copied into Joseph Smith's Scriptory Book by George W. Robinson in late April / early May 1838. The revelation also approved Far West as a new gathering place for Zion and authorized temple construction beginning July 4, 1838. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-26-april-1838-dc-115/1 ↩︎

  19. Susan Easton Black, "Name of the Church," Encyclopedia of Mormonism (online edition). Documents the name transitions: 1830–1834 "The Church of Christ"; 1834 "The Church of the Latter Day Saints"; 1836–1838 "The Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints" (hybrid); April 26, 1838 current official name established by revelation. Black emphasizes the 3 Nephi 27:8 framing: a church called by anyone's name other than Christ's becomes that person's church. https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Name_of_the_Church ↩︎ ↩︎

  20. "Name of the Church," Church History Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Documents 1829–1834 "Church of Christ" with Oliver Cowdery's pre-organizational role; 1834 conference vote to "change the name of the Church to 'the Church of the Latter Day Saints'" with the aim of distinguishing from other groups using "Church of Christ" and from the term "Mormon"; 1838 D&C 115 establishment near Far West; 1921 standardization through James E. Talmage's D&C edition; 1966–1967 style guide formalization. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/name-of-the-church ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  21. "The Name of the Church," Church Newsroom, August 16, 2018. President Russell M. Nelson statement: "The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will." https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/name-of-the-church ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  22. Russell M. Nelson, "The Correct Name of the Church," General Conference, October 2018, Sunday Morning Session. Nelson cites D&C 115:4 and 3 Nephi 27:7–8 as canonical anchors. Key quotes include: "It is a correction. It is the command of the Lord"; "Joseph Smith did not name the Church restored through him; neither did Mormon. It was the Savior Himself who said, 'For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'"; "To remove the Lord's name from the Lord's Church is a major victory for Satan"; "I promise you that if we will do our best to restore the correct name of the Lord's Church, He whose Church this is will pour down His power and blessings upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints, the likes of which we have never seen." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/the-correct-name-of-the-church ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  23. 3 Nephi 26:21. "And they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ." A second Book of Mormon usage of "church of Christ" naming, complementing Mosiah 18:17. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/26 ↩︎ ↩︎

  24. Doctrine and Covenants 21:11. The April 6, 1830 revelation directed to Oliver Cowdery: "that you might be an elder unto this church of Christ, bearing my name—" https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/21 ↩︎

  25. The relevant pre-1834 revelations include D&C 21:11 (April 1830, "this church of Christ"), D&C 26:2 (July 1830, common consent), D&C 42 (February 1831, the "Law of the Church"), and D&C 84 (September 1832, priesthood). Across this four-year span, Joseph Smith's revelations consistently refer to the institution as "Church of Christ" or "this church" or "my church" — making the May 3, 1834 vote a departure from a continuous pattern Joseph himself had received in revelation rather than from a single revelation commanding the name exclusively. ↩︎

  26. Doctrine and Covenants 26:2: "And all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith. Amen." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/26 ↩︎

  27. The distinction between "administrative deliberation" and "revelatory action" is a doctrinal framework articulated principally in modern Latter-day Saint thought — there is no contemporaneous statement from Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, or any other 1834 conference participant on the May 3 minutes saying "this resolution is administrative, not revelatory." The framework supplies a coherent way to read inspired-leadership action as iterative rather than infallible, consistent with the Latter-day Saint tradition's commitments to continuing revelation, to "common consent" governance under D&C 26:2, and to the "study it out in your mind" pattern of D&C 9:8. This is confessional. The skeptic is not obligated to accept it; the article is making a faithful internal-coherence argument rather than a neutral historical-consensus claim. ↩︎

  28. Doctrine and Covenants 9:8: "But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/9 ↩︎

  29. "History of the Disciples," Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Documents the 1832 Stone-Campbell merger formalized at the Hill Street Meeting House, Lexington, Kentucky, with a handshake between Barton W. Stone and "Raccoon" John Smith, and the geographic distribution of "Christian," "Disciples of Christ," and "Church of Christ" congregations across the western frontier in the decades surrounding the merger. https://disciples.org/our-identity/history-of-the-disciples/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  30. "Restoration Movement," Wikipedia. Provides comprehensive background on the Stone-Campbell movement, including the formation of "Disciples of Christ" (Alexander Campbell, western Pennsylvania) and "Christians" (Barton W. Stone, Kentucky), their 1832 merger, the geographic distribution of congregations across Ohio, western New York, Kentucky, and the unresolved naming dispute that left both "Disciples of Christ" and "Church of Christ" in active use across the same regions where the early Latter-day Saints operated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_Movement ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  31. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO: David Whitmer, 1887), p. 73. "Now it is strange, it is marvelous, that the Latter Day Saints to-day consider this matter of changing the name of the church, and the leaders in 1834 dropping out the name of Christ, as a small thing and a light matter!… It is nothing short of trifling with a strict commandment of Almighty God." Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/anaddresstoallb00whitgoog ↩︎

  32. Isaiah 65:15 (KJV): "And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name." David Whitmer cited this verse in his 1887 Address as a prophecy he believed was fulfilled by the 1834 name change. ↩︎

  33. David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (1887), p. 59. "Through the influence of Sidney Rigdon, Brother Joseph was led on and on into receiving revelations every year, to establish offices and doctrines which are not even mentioned in the teachings of Christ." Whitmer's attribution of broader institutional changes (not only the 1834 name change but later doctrinal developments) to Sidney Rigdon's influence is consistent across the Address. ↩︎

  34. Whitmer's exclusive-command claim functions simultaneously as a 53-year-later interpretation and as a first-person witness statement, which is why the article cannot simply route around it as "post-estrangement interpretation." If a Three Witnesses signatory says "I was there in 1830 and the name was given by direct command of the Lord," that is a witness statement. The honest faithful response has to explain why we trust some of Whitmer's witness and not others — and the explanation rests on the contemporary 1830s documentary record (letters, minutes, correspondence with other Saints) preserving no such exclusive-command claim. The framing first appears in the 1887 Address itself, 57 years after the founding. Whitmer's own contemporary 1830s testimony, like the contemporary testimony of every other 1830 founder, treats "Church of Christ" as the right name without claiming exclusive divine command. ↩︎

  35. Steven C. Harper and Casey Paul Griffiths, "Historical Context and Background of D&C 115," Doctrine and Covenants Central. Documents the January 12, 1838 revelation directing the First Presidency to relocate from Kirtland to Far West, Joseph Smith's March 14, 1838 arrival at Far West, and the institutional crisis context surrounding the April 26, 1838 D&C 115 revelation. The revelation accomplished three things simultaneously: established the official Church name, designated Far West as "holy and consecrated land," and commanded the Far West temple cornerstone laying for July 4, 1838. ↩︎

  36. The Word of Wisdom (D&C 89, February 1833) was received in a moment of relative institutional stability — eighteen months before the 1834 conference vote, four years before the Kirtland Safety Society collapse — with dietary content not responsive to any contemporaneous institutional crisis. The Articles of Faith (composed in 1842 in response to a journalist's inquiry) and D&C 76 (the "Vision," February 1832, addressing cosmological questions during a stable period) similarly arose without immediate crisis pressure. Not every revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants fits a crisis-responsive pattern, and the framework distinguishes the two cases: some revelations are responsive (D&C 115, D&C 121–123, D&C 132); some are not (D&C 76, D&C 89, the Articles of Faith). The existence of non-responsive revelations means the framework is not "Joseph always conveniently received revelation under pressure"; it is the documented scriptural pattern that revelation can arrive in response to need. ↩︎

  37. The iterative-revelation framing predicts that the sequence of changes (a) converges toward fulfillment of pre-existing scriptural standards, (b) does not abandon the central confessional content the institution claimed to be founded on, and (c) terminates in a stable form rather than churning indefinitely. A sequence diverging from scripture (e.g., ending in "Church of Joseph Smith"), abandoning Christ entirely (excising rather than briefly subordinating his name), or churning without termination across decades would falsify the framing. The framework is not "every sequence of changes counts as iteration"; it is "changes that converge on pre-existing scriptural standards, preserve central confessional content, and terminate in stable form fit the iterative-revelation pattern." ↩︎

  38. Doctrine and Covenants 98:12: "For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/98 ↩︎ ↩︎

  39. Whitmer was not arguing "four years is too long" — he was arguing that any removal, even for a single conference vote, was a violation of strict commandment. On Whitmer's terms, four years is not 2 percent better than infinity, because zero seconds of removal is the standard he derives from 3 Nephi 27. Both readings have textual grounding; the article does not pretend Whitmer's reading is unreasonable, only that the broader reading (informal usage continuing to anchor identity in Christ; period publications overwhelmingly using "Church of Christ" terminology per FAIR's statistical analysis) is the one the lived historical record arguably supports. ↩︎

  40. "Style Guide — The Name of the Church," Church Newsroom. Editorial guidance distributed post-2018 specifying first-reference and subsequent-reference forms (full name in first reference; "the Church" or "the Church of Jesus Christ" in subsequent references) and member-terminology guidance ("Latter-day Saints" or "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" rather than "Mormons"). https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/style-guide ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  41. "The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square — FAQs," The Tabernacle Choir. Documents the October 5, 2018 announcement that the choir would discontinue use of the "Mormon Tabernacle Choir" name and adopt "The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square," issued in connection with the broader 2018 directive on the Church's correct name. https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/faqs.html ↩︎

  42. The United States does not claim divine revelation about its name; the early Christian movement emerged organically; the Worldwide Church of God's 2009 rebrand was framed as institutional re-identification, not revelation. A non-revelation-claiming institution iterating its name is not strictly analogous to a revelation-claiming institution iterating its name — the Latter-day Saint claim raises the bar above what those comparative cases can settle. What the cases supply is more modest background: that name iteration during a founding period is normal, meaning the bare fact of three names in eight years is not, by itself, evidence of anything unusual. ↩︎

  43. "United Colonies," National Constitution Center. Documents the June 19, 1775 Continental Congress reference to "delegates of the United Colonies"; the July 2, 1776 Lee Resolution still using "United Colonies"; and the September 9, 1776 formal Continental Congress adoption of "United States of America." https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/today-the-name-united-states-of-america-becomes-offici ↩︎ ↩︎

  44. Library of Congress / National Archives documentation of Thomas Jefferson's use of "United States of America" in his late June–July 1776 draft of the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Congress formally adopted the name on September 9, 1776, after the July 4, 1776 adoption of the Declaration. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  45. "Articles of Confederation (1777)," National Archives. Article I: "The Stile of this confederacy shall be, 'The United States of America.'" The 1777 Articles of Confederation formally adopted the corporate name that the 1789 Constitution retained. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation ↩︎ ↩︎

  46. Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22 (KJV). The early Christian movement was known as "the Way" before the term "Christian" was first applied at Antioch (Acts 11:26). "And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." The biblical pattern itself documents iterative naming for the early Christian community. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+9%3A2&version=KJV ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  47. "Grace Communion International," Wikipedia. Documents the 2009 rebrand from "Worldwide Church of God" following major doctrinal shifts under Joseph W. Tkach Sr. beginning in 1988. Comparative case from outside the Restoration tradition demonstrating that institutional name evolution is normal across Protestant denominations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Communion_International ↩︎

  48. Isaiah 28:10 (KJV): "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little." The Old Testament source for the iterative revelation pattern echoed in D&C 98:12. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/isa/28 ↩︎

  49. "Why Must Christ's True Church Be Called after His Name?" Scripture Central KnoWhy #482, August 21, 2019. Connects 3 Nephi 27 to D&C 115:4 with four interconnected principles: avoiding doctrinal disputations, recognizing scripture's preceding answer, ensuring all actions reflect Christ's name and authority, and building the Church on Christ's true gospel. The KnoWhy explicitly invokes Nelson 2018 framing the "correct name" emphasis as "a correction of accumulated error rather than a name change." https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-must-christs-true-church-be-called-after-his-name ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  50. Moroni 4:3. The Book of Mormon sacrament prayer over the bread, including the covenantal language of taking Christ's name: "that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he hath given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them." https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/moro/4 ↩︎

  51. Doctrine and Covenants 20:37, 77. The canonical sacrament prayer texts establishing the covenant of taking Christ's name. The naming question is doctrinally connected to the sacrament — members reaffirm the naming covenant each Sunday. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/20 ↩︎

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