Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite)

Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite) belongs to the Latter Day Saint movement family of churches.

Governance: hierarchical.

The Latter Day Saint body that followed James J. Strang to Wisconsin and Beaver Island — and still keeps his church at Voree.

Heritage

After Joseph Smith's death in 1844, James J. Strang produced a letter he presented as Smith's appointment of him as successor, and gathered followers at Voree, Wisconsin and later on Beaver Island, Michigan, where he was crowned king of his community and assassinated in 1856. A small continuing body, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), maintains its congregation at Voree.

Theological family

Latter Day Saint by self-description on Strang's distinctive terms, including the seventh-day Sabbath and Strang's additional scripture, the Book of the Law of the Lord. Trinitarian bodies differ with Latter Day Saint movement churches over authority and Scripture; the disagreement is recorded, not adjudicated.

Who decides what

The church has operated without a prophet-president since Strang's death, led by its remaining priesthood and congregation.

What a first-time visitor would find

Sabbath worship at Voree on the seventh day, in a small congregation conscious of its history.

What it has always cared about

The most vivid single episode in Latter Day Saint schism history — a crowned king on an American island — held in living memory by the body itself.

Its gift to the wider church

Its survival gives historians of American religion a continuing witness to the succession crisis of 1844 that no archive alone could supply.

Commonly confused with

With the LDS Church (Salt Lake City), which rejected Strang's claim; the shared name misleads.

Range of views inside it

With so small a body, the question does not arise.

A note from the mapmakers: This record is deliberately minimal: the body is very small and its published record thin. No US congregation count is published for it in RCMS 2020, and none is offered here. Nothing may be asserted beyond what the church itself publishes; sentences drawn from this record yield to the church's own materials.

Sources: Scattering of the Saints: Schism within Mormonism (Newell G. Bringhurst and John C. Hamer, eds., John Whitmer Books) · Encyclopedia of American Religions (J. Gordon Melton, Gale)

Where Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite) churches are on the map

1 Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite) congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.

More of the Latter Day Saint movement story · Find these churches on the map