Editing First Vision (section)

===Interpretation and use by the LDS Church===
According to the LDS Church, the vision teaches that God the Father and Jesus Christ are separate beings with glorified bodies of flesh and bone; that mankind was literally created in the image of God; that Satan is real but God infinitely greater; that God hears and answers prayer; that no other contemporary church had the fullness of Christ's gospel; and that revelation has not ceased.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Callister |first=Tad |date=November 2009 |title=Joseph Smith—Prophet of the Restoration |url=https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2009/11/joseph-smith-prophet-of-the-restoration.p4-p5,p7-p9?lang=eng#p10 }}</ref> In the 21st century, the vision features prominently in the Church's program of proselytism.<ref>{{harvnb|Widmer|2000|p=92}}</ref>

An official website of the LDS Church calls the First Vision "the greatest event in world history since the birth, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."<ref>{{citation |url=http://josephsmith.net/article/the-first-vision |title=The First Vision |date=9 September 2013 |work=JosephSmith.net |publisher=LDS Church }}</ref> In 1998, [[President of the Church (LDS Church)|church president]] [[Gordon B. Hinckley]] declared,
<blockquote>Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fullness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.<ref>{{Citation | title=What Are People Asking about Us? |author-link=Gordon B. Hinkley |first1=Gordon B. |last1=Hinkley |journal=Ensign |date=November 1998 |url=https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1998/11/what-are-people-asking-about-us |access-date=2012-04-26 }}</ref></blockquote> In 1961, Hinckley had gone further: "Either Joseph Smith talked with the Father and the Son or he did not. If he did not, we are engaged in a blasphemy."<ref>''[[Improvement Era]]'' (December 1961) p. 907. [[David O. McKay]], the ninth church president, also declared the First Vision to be the foundation of the faith. David O. McKay, ''Gospel Ideals'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1951) p. 19.</ref> Likewise, in a January 2007 interview conducted for the PBS documentary ''[[The Mormons (film)|The Mormons]]'', Hinckley said of the First Vision, "it's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world .... That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith."<ref>({{citation |contribution-url=https://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/hinckley.html |contribution=Interview: Gordon B. Hinckley |title=The Mormons |author=''[[Frontline (US TV series)|Frontline]]'' and ''[[American Experience]]'' |editor=[[Helen Whitney]] |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]|title-link=The Mormons (film) }}. The full quotation mentions the ultimate reality of Moroni and the Book of Mormon translated from the plates: "Well, it's either true or false. If it's false, we're engaged in a great fraud. If it's true, it's the most important thing in the world. Now, that's the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or true. And that's exactly where we stand, with a conviction in our hearts that it is true: that Joseph went into the [Sacred] Grove; that he saw the Father and the Son; that he talked with them; that Moroni came; that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates; that the priesthood was restored by those who held it anciently. That's our claim. That's where we stand, and that's where we fall, if we fall. But we don't. We just stand secure in that faith.</ref>

A 2012 Pew Research survey of self-identified members of the LDS Church asked how important believing that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ was to being a "good Mormon." 80% responded that it was essential, 13% responded that it was important but not essential, and 6% responded that it was either not too, or not at all essential.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/01/Mormons-in-America.pdf|title=Gregory Smith, "Mormons in America: Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society" Pew Research Center, page 13}}</ref>

====Historical usage====
[[File:Joseph F. Smith in the Sacred Grove.jpg|thumb|right|upright|LDS President [[Joseph F. Smith]] in the Sacred Grove in 1905, helping to establish the First Vision as a defining element of the theology of the LDS Church]]
The canonical First Vision story was not emphasized in the sermons of Smith's immediate successors, [[Brigham Young]] and [[John Taylor (Mormon)|John Taylor]], within the LDS Church. [[Hugh Nibley]] noted that although a "favorite theme of Brigham Young's was the tangible, personal nature of God," he "never illustrates [the theme] by any mention of the first vision."<ref>''[[Improvement Era]]'' (November 1961) p. 868.</ref> This is not to say that Young did not teach about the First Vision, since he clearly did on multiple occasions.<ref>E.g., ''[[Journal of Discourses]]'' '''12''': 68–69.{{full citation needed|date=November 2021}}</ref>

Taylor gave a complete account of the First Vision story in an 1850 letter written as he began missionary work in France,<ref>"[Smith's] mind was troubled, he saw contention instead of peace; and division instead of union; and when he reflected upon the multifarious creeds and professions there were in existence, he thought it impossible for all to be right, and if God taught one, He did not teach the others, 'for God is not the author of confusion.' In reading his bible, he was remarkably struck with the passage in James, 1st chapter, 5th verse, 'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.' Believing in the word of God, he retired into a grove, and called upon the Lord to give him wisdom in relation to this matter. While he was thus engaged, he was surrounded by a brilliant light, and two glorious personages presented themselves before him, who exactly resembled each other in features, and who gave him information upon the subjects which had previously agitated his mind. He was given to understand that the churches were all of them in error in regard to many things; and he was commanded not to go after them; and he received a promise that the 'fulness' of the gospel should at some future time be unfolded unto him: after which the vision withdrew, leaving his mind in a state of calmness and peace."

John Taylor, Letter to the Editor of the Interpreter Anglais et Français, Boulogne-sur-mer (25 June 1850).{{full citation needed|date=November 2012}}</ref> and he may have alluded to it in a discourse given in 1859.<ref>"What could the Lord do with such a pack of ignorant fools as we were? There was one man that had a little good sense, and a spark of faith in the promises of god and that was Joseph Smith-a backwoods man. He believed a certain portion of scripture which said—"If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who to all men liberally and upbraideth not." He was fool enough in the eyes of the world, and wise enough in the eyes of God and angels, and all true intelligence to go into a secret place to ask God for wisdom, believing that God would hear him. The Lord did hear him, and told him what to do." ''[[Deseret News]]'' (Weekly), December 28, 1859, p. 337</ref> Throughout the late 1870s and 1880s, Taylor made multiple, explicit references to the First Vision in his sermons, books and letters.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/mormonism-and-wikipedia-the-church-history-that-anyone-can-edit/|title=Mormonism and Wikipedia: The Church History That "Anyone Can Edit" &#124; The Interpreter Foundation|first=Roger|last=Nicholson|journal=Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-Day Saint Faith and Scholarship |date=September 14, 2012|volume=1 }}</ref> These included his 1886 letter to his family, one of his last major theological pronouncements in which he stated "God revealed Himself, as also the Lord Jesus Christ, unto his servant the Prophet Joseph Smith".<ref>[[B. H. Roberts]], ''The Life of John Taylor'' (Salt Lake City, Bookcraft, 1963) p. 394.</ref>

Three non-Mormon students of Mormonism, Douglas Davies, Kurt Widmer, and [[Jan Shipps]], agree that the church's emphasis on the First Vision was a "'late development', only gaining an influential status in LDS reflection late in the nineteenth century."<ref>"Historians have pondered the various phrases of this vision's evolution and tend to see its present form as a 'late development,' only gaining an influential status in LDS self-reflection late in the nineteenth century." {{citation |first1=Douglas J. |last1=Davies |title=An Introduction to Mormonism |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |page=136}}; {{harvnb|Widmer|2000|pp=92–107}}; {{harvnb|Shipps|1985|pp=30–32}}.</ref>  The first important visual representation of the First Vision was painted by the Danish convert [[C. C. A. Christensen]] sometime between 1869 and 1878; [[George Manwaring]], inspired by the artist, wrote a hymn about the First Vision ("Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning", later renamed "Joseph Smith's First Prayer"), first published in 1884.<ref>{{Harvnb|Allen|1980|pp=53–54}}.</ref>

Widmer states that it was primarily through "the post 1883 sermons of Latter-day Saint Apostle [[George Q. Cannon]] that the modern interpretation and significance of the First Vision in Mormonism began to take shape."<ref>{{harvnb|Widmer|2000|p=93}}; ''[[Journal of Discourses]]'' '''24''':340–41, 371–72. "The emergence of the First Vision is a syncretic approach to deal with past doctrinal inconsistencies on a broad scale. What it attempts to do is, in one giant sweep, gather all of the doctrinal inconsistencies, such as a plurality of Gods, God being an exalted man, the purpose of the Church, and the calling of Joseph Smith, and place it into an earlier time frame." Widmer,{{specify|date=April 2012}} p. 105.</ref> As the sympathetic but non-Mormon historian [[Jan Shipps]] has written, "When the first generation of leadership died off, leaving the community to be guided mainly by men who had not known Joseph, the First Vision emerged as a symbol that could keep the slain Mormon leader at center stage."<ref>{{harvnb|Shipps|1985|p=32}}.</ref> The centennial anniversary of the vision in 1920 "was a far cry from the almost total lack of reference to it just fifty years before."<ref>{{Harvnb|Allen|1980|p=57}}: "The Mutual Improvement Associations issued a special commemorative pamphlet, the vision was memorialized in music, verse and dramatic representations, and the church's official publication, the ''Improvement Era'', devoted almost the entire April issue to that event."</ref> By 1939, even [[George D. Pyper]], the Church's [[Sunday School (LDS Church)|Sunday School]] superintendent and manager of the [[Mormon Tabernacle Choir]], found it "surprising that none of the first song writers wrote intimately of the first vision."<ref>George D. Pyper, ''Stories of Latter-day Saint Hymns: Their Authors and Composers'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1939), 34. Pyper noted that [[Parley P. Pratt]]'s earlier "An Angel from on High" and "Hark Ye Mortals" "referred to [[Cumorah]] and the ''Book of Mormon''" rather than to the First Vision.</ref>

Church president [[Joseph F. Smith]] helped raise the First Vision to its modern status as a pillar of church theology. Largely through Joseph F. Smith's influence, Smith's 1838 account of the First Vision became part of the canon of the church in 1880 when the faith canonized Smith's [[Joseph Smith–History|early history]] as part of the [[Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism)|Pearl of Great Price]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Bitton|1994|p=86}} as quoted in {{Harvnb|Anderson|1996}}</ref> After [[plural marriage]] ended at the turn of the 20th century, [[Joseph F. Smith]] heavily promoted the First Vision, and it soon replaced polygamy in the minds of adherents as the main defining element of [[Mormonism]] and the source of the faith's perception of persecution by outsiders.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Flake|2004|pp=120–21}}.</ref> From 1905 to 1912, the story of the First Vision began to be incorporated into church histories, missionary tracts, and Sunday school lesson manuals.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Flake|first1=Kathleen|title=The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot|date=2005|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press}}</ref>  As a result, belief in the First Vision is now considered fundamental to the faith, second in importance only to belief in the divinity of Jesus.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Allen|1966|p=29}}.</ref>

In 1920, the LDS Church held a commemoration in the Sacred Grove to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the First Vision. At the 200th anniversary in 2020, a video recording of [[President of the Church (LDS Church)|church president]] [[Russell M. Nelson]] reading "[[The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Bicentennial Proclamation to the World]]" in the grove was released at the church's [[general Conference (LDS Church)|general conference]].