From one of the brightest of the new generation of Mormon-studies scholars comes a crisp, engaging account of the religion s history. The Wall Street Journal

With Mormonism on the nation s radar as never before, religious historian Matthew Bowman has written an essential book that pulls back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine. He recounts the church s origins and explains how the Mormon vision has evolved and with it the esteem in which Mormons have been held in the eyes of their countrymen. Admired on the one hand as...

Matthew Bowman explores the world of a neglected group of American Christians: the self-identified liberal evangelicals who began in late nineteenth-century New York to reconcile traditional evangelical spirituality with progressive views on social activism and theological questions. These evangelicals emphasized the importance of supernatural conversion experience, but also argued that scientific advances, new movements in art, and the decline in poverty created by a new industrial economy could facilitate encounters with Christ.

The Urban Pulpit chronicles the struggle of...