Evangelist (Latter Day Saints) - Early Latter Day Saint Movement

Early Latter Day Saint Movement

The first references to the term evangelist in Latter Day Saint theology were mainly consistent with how the term is used by Protestants and Catholics.

In 1833, Joseph Smith, Jr. introduced the new office of Patriarch, to which he ordained his father. The elder Smith was given the "keys of the patriarchal Priesthood over the kingdom of God on earth", the same power said to be held by the Biblical Patriarchs, which included the power to give blessings upon one's posterity. The elder Smith, however, was also called to give Patriarchal blessings to the fatherless within the church, and the church as a whole, a calling he passed onto his eldest surviving son Hyrum Smith prior to his death. Hyrum himself was killed in 1844 along with Joseph, resulting in a Succession crisis that broke the Latter Day Saint movement into several smaller denominations.

It is not known who first identified the term evangelist with the office of patriarch. However, in an 1835 church publication, W. W. Phelps stated,

"ho is not desirous of receiving a father's or an evangelist's blessing? Who can read the ancient patriarchal blessings, recorded in the bible, for the benefit of the church, without a heart filled with joy…?"

Joseph Smith also identified the term evangelist with the office of patriarch in 1839, stating that "an Evangelist is a Patriarch".

The necessity of an evangelist office in the church organization has been reinforced repeatedly, based on the passage in Ephesians 4:11, which states, "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers". In 1834, while writing what he called the "principles of salvation", prominent early Mormon co-founder Oliver Cowdery stated that:

"We do not believe that he ever had a church on earth without revealing himself to that church: consequently, there were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, in the same."

Joseph Smith echoed Cowdery's statement in 1842, in a letter to a Chicago newspaper editor outlining the church's basic beliefs. Smith said that his religion "believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church, viz: apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists".