Reformed Mormon Church

The Reformed Mormon Church was a short-lived religious organization established in Nauvoo by William Law in 1844, after his break with Joseph Smith over plural marriage and the prophet’s conduct. Led by Law as its president and patterned on the main church’s organization, it sought to reform Mormonism without accepting polygamy. Its challenge was quickly drawn into a wider conflict over religious authority, political power, and the right to expose church practices.

Formation and Break with Joseph Smith

Law was a longtime church member and had served as Joseph Smith’s trusted second counselor for more than two years. He was also sympathetic to Emma Smith, who had sought his support amid her distress over plural marriage. In January 1844, Law pleaded with Joseph to renounce the doctrine. Joseph said that God had commanded him to teach it and that he would be condemned if he disobeyed.

The disagreement became a rupture in April, when Law demanded that Joseph publicly acknowledge his behavior and cease what Law regarded as abuses. Joseph had him excommunicated. Law then declared Joseph a fallen prophet and, on May 12, established the Reformed Mormon Church. The new body rejected polygamy, the central practice Law sought to oppose, while retaining the organizational form of the church from which it had separated.

A Reforming Rival

Law’s aim was not simply to denounce Joseph or destroy the church. Fawn Brodie described him as hoping to bring about a reformation from within the Mormon tradition, and noted that he organized his church faithfully after the structure of the main body, with himself as president. That combination made the Reformed Mormon Church a rival institution: it challenged Joseph’s legitimacy while continuing to claim a place in the religious world he had built.

The account presents Law’s reforming purpose as a source of strength as well as a limitation. Rather than setting out only to condemn Joseph, he hoped to preserve and correct the church. His position drew force from his personal standing and integrity, but it also placed him in direct opposition to a leader who exercised immense religious and civic power in Nauvoo.

The Nauvoo Expositor and Public Conflict

Law’s wealth enabled him to buy a printing press. On June 7, 1844, the Reformed Mormon Church’s press issued the first and only edition of the Nauvoo Expositor, printing one thousand copies. Its leading editorial attacked Joseph’s practices, while the paper criticized his disregard for the separation of church and state, his accumulation of political power, and his financial dealings. Its central purpose was to expose the secret doctrine of plural marriage, and its editors promised further supporting affidavits.

The newspaper was not the church itself, but it became the most visible instrument of Law’s challenge. Joseph, acting as mayor, called the Nauvoo city council and declared the paper a public nuisance. On June 10, more than two hundred armed members of the Nauvoo Legion broke into the Expositor offices, smashed the press, scattered its type, and burned the wreckage. The publishers had little recourse in local courts: Joseph controlled Nauvoo’s government, and those involved in destroying the press were exonerated.

Dissolution and Significance

By the time the press was destroyed, Law had fled Nauvoo, fearing for his life. The Reformed Mormon Church withered and ultimately disappeared. Its brief existence therefore ended not through a gradual doctrinal settlement described in the account, but amid the escalating confrontation surrounding the newspaper and the authority of Joseph’s theocratic city government.

The organization’s significance lies in how it joined religious dissent to institutional and political criticism. Law opposed plural marriage, but the dispute also concerned who could define legitimate church authority and whether that authority could be publicly challenged. The church’s rapid disappearance, alongside the destruction of the paper that exposed its central grievance, underscores the precarious position of reform within a community where religious leadership also commanded civic power.