It took a long time for a quintessentially American church to go global. In April 1853 Hosea Stout and two other Mormon missionaries stepped off a boat in Hong Kong. They expected immediate success: Their church’s apostles had promised they would learn Chinese “quicker than any one who has learned it hitherto.” Excited, they began talking with people on the street and rented venues for meetings.

Things went downhill. Local papers ran stories about Mormon polygamy. Several meetings failed to attract anyone. As for Chinese-language...