Abstract
Although its adherents regard it as a restoration of ancient Christianity, Mormonism holds a number of distinctive doctrines and practices, among them belief in a scripture supplemental to the Bible, known as the Book of Mormon. The founder, Joseph Smith, claimed revelation, angelic visitations and direct authority from God and wrote scripture. He announced new doctrines; his single greatest theological departure was to state that God was of the same order of being as humans. Mormon beliefs are partly a theology but just as much a sense of history. Their convictions about what has happened and is happening are as important as their doctrine.
