tianity in the Pacific Islands, full-scale studies of their rolehave been lacking. Raeburn Lange’s monumental volumefills the lacuna for the nineteenth century. Island Ministersshows indigenous Protestant leaders on the way to fullyfledged ministerial rank because Protestant missions wereable to grant authority to people who had not gone throughtheological training programs modeled on European andAmerican norms. Catholic catechists had equivalent on-the-job training and had roles equivalent to their Protestantcounterparts. Still the requirement of celibacy and Romannorms for seminary education insured that their functionallyequivalent roles would never be formally incorporated intotheir church’s ordained offices. What is most impressive inLange’s work is the retrieval of the names of catechists andevangelists and the geographic details of their service.Equally commendable is Lange’s facility for telling localstories with an eye for the significant detail that illustrateslarger patterns. Because the book endeavors to tell the storyof every significant island and geographic area—from tinyatolls to the New Guinea mainland—some may accuse it of acertain superficiality. But there are few surveys of such abroad terrain anywhere that manage to convey as muchdetail or provide bibliographic resources of such depth asRaeburn’s does. At the very least, Island Ministers provides areliable outline on which later work can build. And it is amatter of no little urgency that the picture in each area befilled out by studies that will not only tell the story of localleaders, but preserve the archives and oral histories that areso rapidly disappearing. Only this sort of history will help uswith the still largely unexplored question of results of theintercultural dialogue that took place shaping the concretedimensions of Pacific Islanders’ understanding of the faiththey were embracing. They embraced it in no small measurebecause of the work of the generations of evangelists whosestories Raeburn tells.

William R. BurrowsNew York Theological Seminary

The Americas: USAIMMIGRATION AND RELIGION IN AMERICA:COMPARATIVE AND HISTORICAL PERSPEC-TIVES. Edited by Richard Alba, Albert J. Raboteau, and JoshDeWind. New York and London: New York University Press,2009. Pp. vi + 407. Paper, $26.00.

This book, the product of a Social Science ResearchCouncil working group, offers a collection of essays address-ing four comparative pairs of immigrant groups: Italians andMexicans, Japanese and Koreans, European Jews and ArabMuslims, and Haitians and Southern African-Americanswho migrated north. Historians and social scientists exam-ined each pair, and the resulting essays reveal both impor-tant parallels within the pairings and recurring motifsacross the project, as well as idiosyncrasies inherent in eachimmigrant population. The editors identify four overarching

themes: “the rise of theological discourses to assert the com-patibility of the group’s values with those of US society,” “theinvolvement of religious institutions in ethnic communitybuilding,” “connection to the homeland,” and “the pluralreligious environment of the United States, which has variedramifications for religions and for immigrants.” This seriesof essays will be of interest to many within the scholarlycommunity. It offers undergraduate teachers the basis for afascinating course in American religious history, andresearchers a fresh methodological approach to familiarmaterial, in addition to new directions for future projects.For those with a special interest in a single immigrant group,the chapters can be enjoyed individually, and this reason-ably priced volume is well worth acquiring even for just oneor two of its essays.

Miranda BennettUniversity of Houston

CONTEMPORARY MORMONISM: LATTER-DAYSAINTS IN MODERN AMERICA. By Claudia L.Bushman. Westport: Praeger, 2006. Pp. xiv + 242. $44.95.

Contemporary Mormonism is an overview of the lives andpractices of modern-day members of the Church of JesusChrist of Latter-Day Saints. Bushman, a professor of Ameri-can Studies at Columbia University and a practicingMormon, provides readers a glimpse into a variety of topics,including examinations of religious services and practices,discussions of class, race, and gender in Mormonism, andsummaries of important persons and events in the church’shistory. Combining historical survey with participant obser-vations and secondary sources from church authorities andother scholars, Bushman attempts to create an introductionthat is useful both to academics as well as Mormons. To dothis, she positions herself in a liminal space between herMormon and scholarly identities. Although she claims thisposition, she often leans toward the Mormon identity. Shesometimes uses insider terminology without explanation,which will leave non-Mormons confused. In addition, therewere several places where her analysis could use more criti-cal insight—for example, in her discussion of Mormon con-ceptions of family. Her rapid-fire approach to the beliefs andpractices of the church also works against providing signifi-cant depth with respect to the issues she covers. The workwould be well-suited to an undergraduate class on Mormon-ism, but scholars of Mormonism or American religion willwant to use Contemporary Mormonism as the beginning, notthe end, of an investigation into the lives of modernMormons.

Todd M. BrennemanFlorida State University

CAPITALISM AND CHRISTIANITY, AMERICANSTYLE. By William A. Connolly. Durham, NC: DukeUniversity Press, 2008. Pp. xvi + 174. Cloth, $84.95; paper,$23.95.

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This book is both a description of a problem and a pro-posal for a solution. Connolly identifies the problem byarguing that a convergence of “cowboy capitalism” and con-servative evangelical Christianity has created a “resonancemachine” that amplifies the messages of both these constitu-encies, whose common ground consists not of a shared creedbut rather of “affinities of spirituality.” Drawing on severaldisciplines, including his specialization of political science,theology, economics, philosophy, and even neuroscience, heanalyzes the contribution of “a cultural ethos of existentialresentment” to such crises as climate change, terrorism, andeconomic inequality. His proposed solution is to call uponthose of a “positive existential orientation” to look beyondtheir doctrinal differences—including those distinguishingtheist from atheist—and create a “positive resonancemachine” in support of “eco-egalitarian capitalism.” Con-nolly believes that differences in existential orientation orspiritual affinity are more significant than differences inreligious (or nonreligious) orientation, and he sees in thisthe foundation for new alliances in politics, economics, andthe media. His book is likely to find interested and sympa-thetic readers among those whose politics and temperamentalready place them securely in his camp, but it isunlikely—and does not seem intended—to persuade conserva-tive capitalists or evangelical Christians to adopt more mod-erate positions.

Miranda BennettUniversity of Houston

RELIGION AND PROFIT: MORAVIANS IN EARLYAMERICA. By Katherine Carté Engle. Philadelphia: Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Pp. 313; illustrations.Cloth, $39.95.

In this book, historian Engel explores a slice ofeighteenth-century American religious history to make amuch larger point about the interaction between theologyand economics, arguing that they affect one another incomplex and unexpected ways and cannot be studied inisolation from each other or from other historical factors. Herstory focuses on Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had apeculiar and significant role in the Moravian world. Sheweaves into the narrative the role of evangelical theologyand piety, the impact of international imperial politics, thenuances of race relations in a frontier community, and thedangers and opportunities offered by eighteenth-centurytravel and communication systems, and she deftly usesprimary sources to craft a compelling tale of the rise and fallof an unusual American town. Her analysis of howeighteenth-century Moravians lived out their faith in anincreasingly complex economic environment provides acounterweight to the familiar approaches of Weber andPerry Miller, and she addresses historiographical issues inextensive footnotes. In addition, this well-written book pro-vides a good general introduction to Moravian history. It isrecommended reading for students and scholars of Ameri-can religious history, economic history, or eighteenth-

century European or American history, and a recommendedacquisition for academic libraries supporting programs inthese areas.

Miranda BennettUniversity of Houston

THE FUTURE OF FAITH IN AMERICAN POLITICS:THE PUBLIC WITNESS OF THE EVANGELICALCENTER. By David P. Gushee. Waco, TX: Baylor UniversityPress, 2008. Pp. ix + 321. $24.95.

In The Future of Faith in American Politics, theologianDavid Gushee enters headlong into the lively world of politi-cal evangelicalism in the United States. Primarily, he advo-cates for a decisive change in the way American evangelicalsengage the larger culture and participate in the nation’spublic sphere. As a way of ameliorating the polarity engen-dered by figureheads such as Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo,Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, Gushee argues on behalf ofan emerging evangelical “center” that is socially and ecologi-cally conscious while maintaining traditionally conservativestances on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. More-over, he contends that this “center” provides a biblicallybased position that will, in fact, define the future of Ameri-can evangelical political engagement in the twenty-firstcentury. Transparent about his religious and political lean-ings, including his tenure with R. Sider’s Evangelicals forSocial Action, Gushee considers himself to be a member ofthis nascent class of evangelical moderates. Accordingly,there are moments where the narrative reads less like awork of rigorous scholarship and more like a personal mani-festo. Although published by a university press, Gushee’scasual prose and functionalist approach suggest an intendedaudience of mainly evangelical insiders who are, as he putsit, “looking for an alternative to the main voices that arebeing heard right now.” Nevertheless, Gushee’s breadth ofknowledge and meticulous research make it a worthwhileread for any person interested in the shifting relationshipbetween evangelicals and politics in modern America.

Jonathan W. OlsonFlorida State University

THE STRANGE CASE OF WILLIAM MUMLER:SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHER. By Louis Kaplan. Minneapo-lis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Pp. xxi + 264.$24.95.

In this delightful study, Kaplan skillfully combines thepresumably disparate fields of photography, the history ofscience, religious revivalism, and American culturalhistory through an insightful combination of essays,primary sources and illustrations on the controversialAmerican spirit photographer W. Mumler. Synthesizing thewave of American religious Spiritualism and the advent ofphotography in the middle of the nineteenth century,Mumler used photographs to demonstrate communicationwith spirits from another dimension. Although supportedby believers, Mumler the spirit photographer was

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denounced as an imposter by skeptics, and his trial in1869 became a national sensation that raised questionsregarding such fundamental issues as: faith and reason,spirits and technology, this world and the one to come.Kaplan brings these and other questions regarding religionand society to light by publishing a wonderful collection ofnewspaper sources from the era, part of Mumler’s ownmemoirs, an attack on Mumler by no less than P. T.Barnum, and the concluding comments of the trial prosecu-tor E. T. Gerry. These sources and the public debate ofthese issues are contextualized carefully through a broad,synthetic introduction and a thought-provoking conclusionas well as a wonderful series of illustrations. This is arevealing and enlightening study that will be of muchinterest to scholars and students of religious studies andphilosophy as well as those working on the history ofscience, communication studies, and American history andculture.

Scott UryThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

BEYOND THE SUFFERING: EMBRACING THELEGACY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SOUL CAREAND SPIRITUAL DIRECTION. By Robert W. Kellemenand Karole A. Edwards. Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerBooks, 2007. Pp. 256. $14.99.

This book takes as its premise the idea that African-American Christian history makes valuable contributionsto people of all races and cultures seeking ministerial andspiritual direction. Focusing upon African-American spiri-tual experience “from enslavement to emancipation,” anddrawing upon sources such as slave narratives, spirituals,sermons, and conversion stories, the authors depict AfricanAmericans not as victims, but as victors whose own Chris-tian “sufferology” can enhance contemporary ministry.Scholars investigating ongoing Black Church debates sur-rounding survivals, theology, or denominational develop-ment should look elsewhere: there is little criticalengagement here to satisfy historians. Ministers and semi-nary students, however, will find much of value. UsingAfrican-American Christians’ voices and words as a guide,the authors allow historical actors such as George Liele,Richard Allen, Janera Lee, and Harriet Tubman to addresstoday’s ministerial challenges. At each chapter’s end, thereader will find questions for reflection, reminiscent ofIgnatian spiritual exercises, which invite readers to reflectupon God’s power and presence in the stories presented.The authors’ approach is unapologetically Christian, andBible verses—taken authoritatively—pepper the prose. Chap-lains and sermon writers who serve marginalized popula-tions will benefit most from this text and its prolongedreflection on the themes of sustaining, healing, reconciling,and guiding, as historically embedded in the African-American church.

Jill PeterfesoUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

HOLY MAVERICKS: EVANGELICAL INNOVATORSAND THE SPIRITUAL MARKETPLACE. By ShayneLee and Phillip Luke Sinitiere. New York and London: NewYork University Press, 2009. Pp. viii + 199. $20.00.

This book presents five contemporary evangelicalinnovators—J. Osteen, T. D. Jakes, B. McLaren, P. White, andR. Warren (chapters two to six)—in the tradition of theeighteenth-century itinerant evangelist George Whitefield(chapter one). What binds the six protagonists together isthe thesis of this volume: that “evangelical innovators enjoylarger shares of the market than other religious suppliers byadapting to changing environments in a multiplicity of con-texts,” and that “spiritual suppliers thrive when they areeffective at marketing their message and resourceful ataddressing the existential needs and cultural tastes of poten-tial clients.” While the details in this book will be of interestto anyone who wishes to get “caught up” on these evangeli-cal “movers and shakers” (the authors write lucidly andengagingly), scholars will be most interested in the biblio-graphic essay at the end of the volume, in which Lee andSinitiere clarify their theoretical and methodologicalapproach amidst the long tradition of socioeconomic analy-sis in the study of religion. While Holy Mavericks does notadvance the discussion much in the latter domain, churchgrowth aficionados will certainly be interested in the datapresented, while religious and ecclesial conservatives willgain further ammunition for their criticisms of how thesesegments of contemporary evangelicalism are betraying thegospel instead. In short, this book should provoke muchdiscussion, even if the authors themselves remain practi-cally invisible as narrators of stories that are at the vanguardof North American Christianity.

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

DEFENSELESS CHRISTIANITY: ANABAPTISM FORA NONVIOLENT CHURCH. Gerald J. Mast and J. DennyWeaver. Telford, PA: Cascadia, and Scottdale, PA: HeraldPress, 2009. Pp. 119. Paper, $12.95.

Mennonites are searching for an identity, and, unfortu-nately, this term is complicated by historical, ethnic, theologi-cal, ethical and even political implications. In an age of globalChristianity, it is not easy to establish a universally accept-able definition. Perhaps motivated by a desire to side-step theissue, some advocate for the less restrictive and even moreambiguous term “Anabaptist.” Mast and Weaver, both estab-lished and authentic Mennonite voices, offer a new model todefine Anabaptism in both its historical and contemporarycontexts. Although admitting that some sixteenth-centuryAnabaptists were not pacifists, the authors offer an apologeticfor defining Anabaptism as “ecclesial defenseless Christian-ity.” For Mast and Weaver, the good news is the message ofpeace, and peace is the essence of the new creation. Radicaldiscipleship, separation from the world, peace advocacy andeven the very definition of the believers’ church all radiatefrom the nonviolent core. This paradigm redefines (or reaf-

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firms) one’s understanding of God and his action in humanhistory. Mast and Weaver even suggest that the atonementshould be reconsidered in view of this nonviolent understand-ing of the Christian message. Their work deserves to be read,not only by those who claim Anabaptist identity, but by allwho consider that Christ’s instructions to bear one’s crossand to love one’s enemies must be taken seriously. Not allMennonites will agree with the thesis of this modest book, butit deserves space in any academic collection that supportscourses on Mennonite studies, Christianity in general, orreligion in society.

Donald Dean SmeetonEastern Mennonite University

PROTESTANT EMPIRE: RELIGION AND THEMAKING OF THE BRITISH ATLANTIC WORLD. ByCarla Gardina Pestana. Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl-vania Press, 2009. Pp. 275. $39.95.

Pestana’s book describes the transatlantic developmentof Protestant traditions within the British Empire from 1500to the early decades of the nineteenth century. Pestana arguesthat a transatlantic perspective elucidates world-changinghistorical processes that are less apparent in specializedstudies of British and American religious history. Specifi-cally, she discerns three processes that shaped the BritishAtlantic world: the circulation of people and ideas beyondtheir indigenous borders; the transplantation of religiousinstitutions and ideologies into new environments; and thenegotiation of religious identity seen in the hybrid religioustraditions created through encounters between peoples.Tracing these transatlantic processes, Pestana describes theways in which British Protestantism transformed throughencounters with European Catholics, Native Americans, andWest Africans. She argues that a transatlantic Anglophonespiritual culture traces back to the mid-seventeenth century,as evidenced in the Atlantic-wide phenomena of anti-Catholicism, the puritanization of Christianity, increasingsectarian diversity, witch-hunts, and the hardening of asso-ciations made between one’s faith and political allegiance.This shared religious culture became explicit in the mid-eighteenth century, through the correspondence of revival-ists across the Atlantic, and the widespread expansion ofreligious institutions in the American colonies. Pestana’snarrative is clear and engaging, though lightly footnoted andsometimes leaving the reader wanting more documentation.Pestana’s book will be of interest to students of British andAmerican religious history, Christian sectarianism, Chris-tian missions, and African-American religion.

James BroucekFlorida State University

GOD’S STRANGE WORK: WILLIAM MILLER ANDTHE END OF THE WORLD. By David L. Rowe. GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 2008. Pp. xii + 249; plates. Paper, $24.00.

Rowe has given us the first critical biography of WilliamMiller (1782-1849), father of Adventism. Though this is a

biography and not a study of Adventism, it illumines theAmerican evangelical obsession with the end-times. Rowetakes us through the particular mix of Baptist populism,deist rationalism, and evangelical pietism that led Miller toread his Bible intensely and find in it a clear end-timescheme revealed by a rational God who orders every part ofthe Biblical account so that even an uneducated laypersoncan understand it. Particularly revelatory are the importantcontribution to Miller’s thought of sentimentalism (Advent-ism is usually treated in rationalist categories) and thetension between Miller’s anti-Finneyite/antimission sympa-thies and his willingness to capitalize on his message’sability to convert people. Rowe does tend to assume readershave prior knowledge of Adventist history, so this feels atpoints like an insider account. However, he uses psychologi-cal, economic, political, and other contextualizing insights togreat effect. He also does not hesitate to call Miller out onsuch culpable traits as his passivity as leader and hisfudging, in the face of opposition and prophetic setbacks, ofearlier teachings. In the end, this has the feel of a historiog-raphy in progress—definitive in the sense not of articulatingairtight interpretive formulations, but rather of being themost probing exploration of Miller to date.

Chris R. ArmstrongBethel Seminary, St Paul, MN

THE FIRE SPREADS: HOLINESS AND PENTECOS-TALISM IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH. By RandallStephens. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UniversityPress, 2008. Pp. ix + 393. $27.95.

Randall Stephens’s The Fire Spreads offers a nuancedsocial and historical examination of the interrelated Holi-ness and Pentecostal movements in the US South. As bothmovements were exogenous to the US South, each experi-enced a unique historical trajectory as it entered the geo-graphical borders of a region whose social and politicaldistinction shaped and was shaped by major issues in South-ern history, including slavery, abolitionism, the Civil War,and redemption. Holiness perfectionism migrated south viathe teachings of northern adherents of the northern-basedHoliness movement, and Pentecostalism arrived via theCalifornia-based Azusa Street Revival. Making effective useof periodical literature, Stephens challenges the notion thatHoliness adherents were predominantly oral; rather, like“earlier revivals in America, the holiness revival wasinvented by the press.” Holiness publications were alsouseful in Randall’s examination of premillenialism, a doc-trine emphasizing the second coming of Jesus. SouthernPentecostalism, like its Holiness predecessor, was domi-nated by itinerants. Its emphasis on egalitarianismenhanced its appeal among blacks and women. The earlyinterracial nature of the Pentecostal movement notwith-standing, black and white Pentecostals separated. Over time,many Southern Pentecostals lost some of their externalmarks of distinction in terms of dress, but many still lookforward to the second coming. With its focus on the South,

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Stephens’s work highlights the significance of “place” in thestudy of religion and its inextricable intersection with thesocial and political developments in a given location, a char-acteristic that students and scholars of Southern and reli-gious history will appreciate.

Karen Kossie-ChernyshevTexas Southern University

AMERICA AND THE CHALLENGES OF RELIGIOUSDIVERSITY. By Robert Wuthnow. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 391. Cloth, $52.00; paper,$22.95.

The “challenge” that lies at the center of Wuthnow’sbook is the confrontation between America’s religious andcultural diversity and its historical Christian heritage.Wuthnow argues that America was founded on a tensionbetween a desire to embrace religious diversity while func-tioning within a broadly Christian framework and tradition.Wuthnow is interested in how the “new diversity,” whichhas been brought about by new waves of immigrants fromHindu, Muslim, and Buddhist backgrounds, has challengedthe Christian foundations of the American religious land-scape. Drawing on surveys and interviews, Wuthnow tries tounderstand how ordinary Christian Americans have cometo terms with this ever-expanding religious landscape.Wuthnow argues that there have been three broad stances ofresponding to the new religious diversity. Spiritual shoppersbelieve that all religions have equally valid truth claims anddo not privilege Christianity over other religions. Christianinclusivism considers that Christianity “represents a supe-rior claim on divine truth,” but that other religions also havecertain degrees of truth. Christian exclusivists reject thetruth claims of non-Christian religions. Wuthnow probeshow different congregations and theological traditions havecontributed to these three modes of responding to religiousdiversity. Wuthnow’s book is a clear exposition of the stateof belief and practice with regards to views on religiousdiversity in America, and an impassioned call for increasingreligious tolerance. One hopes that for his next project,Wuthnow can explore the question of religious diversity ofnon-Christians.

Albert WuUniversity of California, Berkeley

South AsiaTHE RAMAYANA

�¯ ¯ OF VALMIKI: AN EPIC OF

ANCIENT INDIA. VOLUME VI: YUDDHAKANDA� �

¯ .Translation and annotation by Robert P. Goldman, Sally J.Sutherland Goldman, and Barend A. van Nooten. Introduc-tion by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.Pp. xviii + 1655. $150.00.

This extraordinary testament to high-level Indic trans-lation and philology commenced in the late 1970s when

Robert Goldman, who proposed to Princeton UniversityPress that the Ramayana

�¯ ¯ , one of the two great Sanskrit

epics, receive a new multivolume annotated translation,assigned the Yuddhakanda

� � �, the longest of the Ramayana s

�’¯ ¯

seven books, to Professor Van Nooten. In the early 1990s,however, this responsibility shifted to Robert and SallyGoldman. The encomiums that can be expressed about thisvolume are endless—one can comment at length about thehigh quality of the translation, the incisiveness of the intro-duction, the understanding of the epic, the quality of thewriting, the authors’ comprehension of the critical editionand the manuscripts on which it was produced (in Baroda inthe early 1970s), and the erudition of the annotations. TheGoldmans note in their introduction that this is an exampleof “quest literature in which a hero sets out on a dangerousmission, accomplishes it despite obstacles and trials, andreturns triumphant.” The mission, to rescue Rama’s wifeSıta from her imprisonment in Lanka� ¯ by the ten-headeddemon Ravana

�¯ , is accomplished with epic bloodshed, and

fulfills Rama’s mission as an avatara, a “descent” of the greatdeity Visnu

� �. Only one complaint can be leveled against this

volume: it is so long that the publishers would have beenbetter advised to place it in two volumes. The number ofpages mentioned above is not a typo. It’s very heavy to lift,and the notes, more than a thousand pages in length, wouldbe more inviting if they could be accessed in a parallelvolume. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that this volume willstand for a very long time as the epitome of studies on theYuddhakanda

� �¯ , indeed of the Ramayana

�¯ ¯ itself.

Frederick M. SmithUniversity of Iowa

GROWING UP: HINDU AND BUDDHIST INITIA-TION RITUALS AMONG NEWAR CHILDREN INBHAKTAPUR, NEPAL. By Niels Gutschow and AxelMichaels. With a film on DVA by Christian Bau. Ethno-Indology: Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals, 6.General editor Axel Michaels. Wiesbaden: HarrassowitzVerlag, 2008. Pp. 307 + DVD. Cloth, $84.00.

This well-produced book consists of thickly describedrituals performed in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal. Theauthors, well known for their linguistically and ethnographi-cally responsible studies in other areas of Newari life (anddeath), describe the importance of the social and geographi-cal topographies of these rituals, the ritual specialists (brah-mans, irrespective of whether the ritual is Hindu orBuddhist, and several lineages of Tantric priests), thesupport staff of potters, painters, astrologers, and femalehelpers (and their interrelations), and the various sponsorsof these life-cycle rituals. One facet of these childhood ritualsthat is beautifully captured here is the importance of localconfigurations, for example, the similarities and differencesbetween the Buddhist and Hindu initiation rituals for youngboys. In spite of the initiation of the Buddhist boys intomonasticism and Hindu boys into the life of Vedic students,in fact they do not become monks or Vedic students, but

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