Davis County Cooperative Society
| Latter Day Church of Christ | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Restorationist |
| Orientation | Latter Day Saint movement |
| Theology | Mormon fundamentalism |
| Polity | Hierarchical |
| Leader | Paul Elden Kingston |
| Associations | Davis County Cooperative Society Inc. |
| Headquarters | Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Founder | Ortell Kingston (Elden Kingston was founder of the Davis County Cooperative Society) |
| Origin | January 1, 1935 Bountiful, Utah |
| Separated from | Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints |
| Members | 3,500 |
The Latter Day Church of Christ is a Mormon fundamentalist denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, and is referred by News Articles as the Kingston Clan, the Kingston Group, and is a part of The Order, or the Davis County Cooperative, and The Co-op Society. There are approximately 3,500 members of this group.
The church was created in 1978 by Ortell Kingston, the then leader of the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc., a cooperative organized as a United Order on January 1, 1935 and incorporated in 1941 as a legal cooperative. The Latter Day Church of Christ is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 1926, Charles W. Kingston became disenchanted with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) because of its abandonment of plural marriage. Kingston began preaching polygamy amongst fellow members of the LDS Church as well as distributing pamphlets and the book, Laman Manasseh Victorious: A Message of Salvation and Redemption to His People Israel, First to Ephraim and Manasseh, which he had co-written. This eventually resulted in his excommunication from the LDS Church in 1929. By 1935, following the excommunication from the LDS Church, they moved to Bountiful one family at a time with the intention to live United Order as defined by Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants. On February 7, 1941, the community founded by Charles Elden Kingston officially declared themselves the Davis County Cooperative Society Inc. The corporation produces goods and services that are used by members, and sold or traded to other cooperatives and to the public. Seeing the need for a church within the Cooperative, in 1977, Ortell Kingston began to file for legal recognition of church later organized as The Latter Day Church of Christ.
Over the decades, the Cooperative has maintained extreme secrecy while developing an extensive cooperative system with assets at an unconfirmed value of over $150 million. Their secrecy comes from a fear of arrest for living plural marriage, which originated in 1959-1960 when being investigated by the Davis County Grand Jury, which they claim was organized by LDS Apostles Mark E. Peterson & Spencer W. Kimball.
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