Origins.

The Mormon church, formally called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was the most successful of the dozens of new sects and communitarian movements that emerged in nineteenth-century America. Formed in rural New York with about thirty members in 1830, by the end of the twentieth century the church boasted over nine million members worldwide. The founder and prophet of the Mormon church was a young man of humble origins named Joseph Smith. Raised in an area of New York known for its frequent revivals and religious experimentation, Smith, like many of his day, felt bewildered by the array of competing religious claims. Uncertain of which church offered the truth, he prayed for guidance. According to his account, written years later, God responded to his entreaty, instructing him to join no church since all were flawed. Instead Smith was to await further instruction about a mission...