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Language and the Internationalization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

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Handbook of the Changing World Language Map

Abstract

Following the New Testament admonition to “teach all nations” (Matthew 28: 19, KJV), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an active proselytizing program to spread the good news about Jesus Christ and the restoration of his Church in modern times. Presently, over half of the membership of the Church is outside of the United States, which not only raises questions regarding the maintenance of doctrinal consistency, but also the spread of gospel ideas to non-English speakers and non-European cultural groups. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the ways in which the Church has engaged with issues related to language. In doing so, attention is given to matters pertaining to the language training of Church missionaries, the translation process of Latter-day Saint scriptures, Church materials, and General Conference talks, and the creation of language-based congregations. The ways in which the Church utilizes the Internet and social media to proselytize to non-Mormons and to control its image are also discussed.

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Correspondence to Daniel H. Olsen .

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Olsen, D.H., Otterstrom, S.M. (2019). Language and the Internationalization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In: Brunn, S., Kehrein, R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_67-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_67-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73400-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73400-2

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