This is Mormon Stories, I'm John DeLin.

Today we're going to be discussing a brief history of the community of Christ,

otherwise known as the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ about six.

And today we have with us John Hamer is going to be guiding us through this very important topic.

John Hamer is the editor of John Whitmer Books and the president-elect of the John Whitmer Historical Association.

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, John Whitmer was founded 40 years ago by members of the reorganized Church now the community of Christ.

John Whitmer is like the Mormon History Association, except that it studies all the churches besides the LDS Church,

the community of Christ, the Stringites, the FLDS Church, and the leg.

John is a historian whose own research focuses on this topic.

He co-edited a volume entitled Scattering of the Saints, Skism Within Mormonism, along with Nool Bringers, is that right John?

And that's right, yes.

And he is currently working on a history of the Stringite Church.

John is also a map maker and he's produced maps for dozens of Mormon history books, including the first two volumes of the LDS Church's

Joseph Smith papers.

John's ancestors joined the Mormon movement in 1833, seven generations ago, and he was raised LDS, but he was never endowed to not serve a mission and has not been a member as an adult.

Nevertheless, he is an active participant in Mormon culture, both in the historians community and in the blogger knuckle, where he's a columnist on by common consent.

John Hamer, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Thank you, John. I'm so excited that you have restarted Mormon stories.

This has been such an important, I think, venue for people, and I know I've enjoyed them, and I know I've been very excited that it's coming back.

Oh, well, thank you very much. It's my pleasure, and I'm honored to have you with us.

So, John, maybe I'll just set up a little bit of context on why I felt like this was such an important conversation to have and to bring to the listening audience.

I have to admit that for many, many years, I didn't think much of the reorganized church. As I was taught about the reorganized church in seminary and high school,

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