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What can traditional Christians learn from Mormons?

Lots. First, their missionary zeal puts any evangelical denomination I know of to shame. At the critical juncture from adolescence into young adulthood, college and career, when so many denominations lose their young people or fear losing their young people, Mormonism demands that the males give two years of their life to going out and missionizing.

Our perception is that cold calling, knocking on doors, by Mormon missionaries achieves very little. However, the missionary enterprise causes those who participate in it to appropriate the faith in a new way. If you're out on the firing line 10 hours a day, being rejected as you present the restored gospel, you appropriate it in your heart, because you have sold out for it, you have given your all.

See today's related stories on Mormonism, "A Peacemaker in Provo | How one Pentecostal pastor taught his congregation to love Mormons," "The Mormon-Evangelical Divide," and "Mormons, Evangelicals Tangle Over Web Site"

Mormon America: The Power and the Promise is available at Worthy Books and other book retailers.

A review of the Ostlings' book, Mormon America, was recently published in Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture. The review was written by two practicing Mormons.

Ostling's cover story on Mormonism, "Kingdom Come," from the August 4, 1997 of Time magazine, is available online.

HarperCollins's page on Mormon America includes an excerpt, a description, and blurbs.

The New York Times called Mormon America "a long overdue primer on one of the fastest-growing religions in the world" and the Ostlings "diligent referees of [Mormon] fights past and present."

For more on Mormonism and Evangelical-Mormon relations, see our June 15, 1998 cover story, "Mormons on the Rise | Southern Baptists Take Up the Mormon Challenge."

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February 7 2000, Vol. 44, No. 2