Mormonism as a Restoration Daniel C. Peterson In his 1996 book
on The Rise of Christianity, the noted sociologist Rodney Stark
repeatedly uses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
as a model for understanding the growth of the early Christian
movement.1 The church, he has written elsewhere, represents
"that incredibly rare event: the rise of a new world religion";
the Latter-day Saints "stand on the threshold of becoming the
first major faith to appear on earth since the Prophet Mohammed
rode out of the desert."2 Early in the twentieth century, the
famous historian of antiquity Eduard Meyer took a year's leave
from the University of Berlin to study the Latter-day Saints in
Utah. "Mormonism . . . is not just another of countless sects,"
he concluded, "but a new revealed religion. What in the study of
other revealed religions can only be surmised after painful
research is here directly accessible in reliable witnesses.
Hence the origin and history of Mormonism possess great and
unusual value for the