Are Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons the Same? How the Two Religions Differ

No. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons belong to two separate religions with no historical link. Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Joseph Smith organized in New York in 1830. Jehovah’s Witnesses grew out of a Bible class that Charles Taze Russell started near Pittsburgh in 1870.

The two have a few things in common: both began in 19th-century America, both reject the Trinity, and both do organized missionary work. They disagree on nearly everything else, including who Jesus is, which books are Scripture, what happens at death and what heaven is like.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-day Saints side by side

Are Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons related?

No. The two movements started forty years apart in different states, and neither came from the other.

The Latter-day Saint story begins in western New York. Joseph Smith wrote that “early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty” he went into the woods to pray and saw “two Personages,” God the Father and Jesus Christ. He said an angel named Moroni later told him of a book “written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent.” Smith published it as the Book of Mormon in 1830, and he organized the church on April 6 of that year. “Mormon” is a nickname taken from that book. The church asks people to use its full name, or “Latter-day Saints” for its members, and not “Mormons” or “LDS.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses trace their modern beginning to 1870, when Charles Taze Russell and a few friends in Pittsburgh and Allegheny formed a class to study the Bible. Russell had been stirred by a Second Adventist preacher, Jonas Wendell. In July 1879 he began publishing Zion’s Watch Tower, the magazine now called The Watchtower. His followers were known as Bible Students until 1931, when they took the name Jehovah’s Witnesses. Witnesses do not call Russell their founder. Their official site says: “Since Jesus is the Founder of Christianity, we view him as the founder of our organization.”

What do they believe about God?

Jehovah’s Witnesses worship “the one true and Almighty God, the Creator, whose name is Jehovah.” They hold that the Father alone is Almighty God, and they say “there is no Scriptural basis for the Trinity doctrine.”

Latter-day Saints believe in three divine beings, which they call the Godhead. Their first Article of Faith reads: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” They teach that the three are separate beings who are “one in purpose and doctrine.” A revelation recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants says: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit” (D&C 130:22). The church also teaches that every person is a spirit child of “heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.” Latter-day Saints pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ and do not pray to Heavenly Mother.

Both groups therefore reject the Trinity, but in opposite directions. Witnesses say only the Father is Almighty God: the Son is a created being and the holy spirit is a force. Latter-day Saints say the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all divine but are three distinct beings.

Who is Jesus to Jehovah’s Witnesses and to Latter-day Saints?

Witnesses honor Jesus as “our Savior and as the Son of God,” but they believe “Jesus is not Almighty God.” They teach that he was “God’s first creation and the only one created directly by him,” and they read Colossians 1:15, “the firstborn of every creature,” in that sense. They also teach that Michael the archangel “is evidently a name given to Jesus before and after his life on earth.” Their reasoning starts from 1 Thessalonians 4:16, which says the Lord will descend “with the voice of the archangel.” Witnesses pray in Jesus’ name, but they write: “we do not worship Jesus, as we do not believe that he is Almighty God.”

That view shows in their translation of John 1:1. The King James Version reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The New World Translation, published by the Witnesses, ends the verse “and the Word was a god.”

Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer. “The Living Christ,” a declaration issued in 2000 by the church’s First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, calls him “the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Messiah of the New” and says that “under the direction of His Father, He was the creator of the earth.” It also calls him “the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh.” The name Jehovah marks a clear difference between the two faiths. Witnesses use it for the Father alone; Latter-day Saints use it for Jesus before his birth.

Is the Holy Spirit a person?

Witnesses say no. They define the holy spirit as “God’s power in action, his active force,” and argue that the Bible calls it God’s “hands” or “fingers,” which shows “that the holy spirit is not a person.” Latter-day Saints say yes. The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead, a “personage of Spirit” without a physical body.

Which scriptures do they use?

Jehovah’s Witnesses base their beliefs “on all 66” books of the Bible and add no other scripture. They prefer their own New World Translation, which puts the name Jehovah back, they say, “in the thousands of places where it existed in the original text.” The committee that produced it has stayed anonymous. Direction for Witnesses worldwide comes from the Governing Body, “a small group of mature Christians who serve at our world headquarters.”

Latter-day Saints accept four books of scripture. Their eighth Article of Faith says: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” The Doctrine and Covenants collects revelations, most of them received through Joseph Smith, and the Pearl of Great Price holds other writings of his, including his account of the First Vision and the Articles of Faith. The ninth Article adds that God “will yet reveal many great and important things,” so the church believes revelation continues through its prophets today. The King James Version is its official English Bible.

How is a person saved?

Both groups teach that salvation comes through Jesus and requires obedience, but they describe the steps differently.

Witnesses teach that “deliverance from sin and death is possible through the ransom sacrifice of Jesus.” To benefit from it, “people must not only exercise faith in Jesus but also change their course of life and get baptized.” They add that a person’s works prove that faith is alive, but that salvation “cannot be earned” and comes through “the undeserved kindness of God.”

Latter-day Saints name four first steps in their fourth Article of Faith: faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, “Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins,” and the laying on of hands “for the gift of the Holy Ghost.” The Book of Mormon puts grace and effort together: “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). Temple ordinances go further. The church teaches that marriage in the temple “is a requirement for obtaining the highest degree of celestial glory,” which Latter-day Saints call exaltation.

What happens after death?

Witnesses teach that “people who die pass out of existence” and “do not suffer in a fiery hell of torment.” They cite Ecclesiastes 9:5: “the dead know not any thing.” Their hope lies in a resurrection, in which God “will bring billions back from death.” A limited number, 144,000, will be raised “to life in heaven to rule with Jesus” (Revelation 7:4 and 14:1 give the number). The rest of the faithful will live forever “in an earthly paradise.” Those who refuse to learn God’s ways after they are raised “will be destroyed forever with no hope of a resurrection.”

Latter-day Saints teach that the spirit lives on after death. The righteous wait for the resurrection in “paradise,” and those “who did not know the gospel or who were wicked” wait in “spirit prison,” where they can still accept the gospel. Church members are baptized in temples on behalf of the dead, a practice the church connects with 1 Corinthians 15:29, “what shall they do which are baptized for the dead.” The church says a proxy baptism takes effect only if the dead person accepts it.

After the resurrection and judgment, Latter-day Saints expect three kingdoms of glory, which they compare to Paul’s words about “one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars” (1 Corinthians 15:41). The celestial kingdom is with God the Father and Christ. The terrestrial kingdom is for honorable people who “receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father.” The telestial kingdom is for those who “received not the gospel of Christ,” after they are redeemed from spirit prison. Only the “sons of perdition,” who “deny the Son after the Father has revealed him,” go into “everlasting punishment” with the devil (D&C 76:43–44).

How do their worship and rules differ?

Witnesses meet twice a week in Kingdom Halls. Their meetings are open to the public, and “no collections are ever taken.” Congregations are led by elders who “do not form a clergy class” and are unpaid, and Witnesses do not practice tithing. They keep one religious observance a year, the Memorial of Christ’s death. They do not celebrate Christmas or Easter, which they say are “rooted in the worship of gods other than Jehovah,” or birthdays. They refuse blood transfusions, citing the command to “abstain from blood” in Acts 15, and they take no part in war. A Witness who keeps committing a serious sin and does not repent is “removed from the congregation,” which Witnesses used to call disfellowshipping. Other Witnesses then stop socializing with that person, though family life in the same household continues.

Latter-day Saints meet every Sunday for sacrament meeting, where they take bread and water in remembrance of Christ. Temples are used for baptisms for the dead, marriages and other ordinances. Members give a tithe of one tenth of their income and keep the Word of Wisdom, which forbids alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee. The church celebrates Christmas and Easter. Young men who serve full-time missions usually serve for 24 months, and young women for 18.

The membership figures are counted differently. The Witnesses count only people who preach and report it. The Latter-day Saint figure counts everyone on the church’s membership records.

How do both differ from mainstream Christianity?

The main difference is the Trinity. The Nicene Creed, which Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestant churches accept, says the Son is “Begotten, not made; Being of one substance with the Father,” and that the Holy Ghost “with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.” Witnesses reject that teaching because they believe the Son is created. Latter-day Saints reject it because they believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are separate beings. Joseph Smith wrote that in the First Vision he was told that the churches’ creeds “were an abomination in his sight.”

Scripture is another difference. Protestant Bibles have 66 books and Catholic Bibles 73, but no mainstream church adds modern revelation to the Bible. Witnesses use the Protestant 66 books; Latter-day Saints add three more books of scripture.

The afterlife is a third. The Catholic Church teaches that after death each person receives judgment “in his immortal soul,” leading to heaven, “immediately or after an appropriate purification,” or to hell. The Westminster Confession, a Reformed Protestant standard, says the wicked “shall be cast into eternal torments.” Witnesses deny that the soul survives death and that anyone suffers forever. Latter-day Saints believe the spirit survives, but they reserve everlasting punishment for the sons of perdition.

Both groups call themselves Christians. The Witnesses answer “Yes,” and the Latter-day Saints answer “Yes! Definitely.” Neither group accepts the Nicene Creed, the historic statement of the Trinity. In 2001 the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that baptism conferred by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not valid.

Related reading

• Where Jehovah’s Witnesses came from
• What Jehovah’s Witnesses believe about Jesus
• Latter-day Saint and mainstream Christian beliefs compared
• What Latter-day Saints believe about Jesus Christ