Click to join the conversation with over 500,000 Pentecostal believers and scholars
| PentecostalTheology.com
152
Book Reviews
Melani McAlister,The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of Amer-
ican Evangelicals(New York,NY: Oxford University Press, 2018). 408 pp. $29.95
hardcover.
People tend to understand American evangelicals as religious fundamentalists and patriotic nationalists. While it is true that their very existence emerged through a uniquely American history, politics, and culture, this understanding is narrowly flawed. Melani McAlister proves through her book,The Kingdom of God Has No Borders, that one can understand the history of American evangel- icalism only through “recontexutalizing that history on international terrain” (3). The author develops her claim through exploring the construction of post- war, “new” organizational networks, the body politics of sharing in the expe- rience of persecution, and the public use of emotions to form transnational Christian bonds. Through these sections, McAlister analyses the complexities of howAmericanevangelicalsnegotiatedglobalengagementthatcrossedpolit- ical and ethnic boundaries and simultaneously defined their own domestic faith (4).
The author highlights how American evangelical presence in the global church carries political and cultural implications that beckon acknowledge- ment and response. McAlister retraces historical and political events from the last 50 years that locate American evangelical involvement globally with spe- cific focus on Africa and the Middle East.The author sharply demonstrates that if anyone is to truly understand the inner workings of American evangelicalism they must look beyond US borders to discover a larger, globalized history and an entangled, internationalized religious identity. McAlister closes her argu- ment by further problematizing the irony of “internationally” invested Ameri- can evangelicals who supported and elected a presidential candidate who was “America First” (17). It is quite the contradiction.
McAlister’s descriptions and analysis come together like a multidimensional matrix of events, personalities, religious and political motivations, and broader cultural contexts. Her research illuminates the complexity of international pol- itics, human rights history and religious identity building, all with American evangelicals in the center. She is well versed in global evangelical culture and development, especially shown in Chapter 5’s detailed description of the Lau- sanne Movement (85). Her knowledge of American foreign policy and interna- tional affairs provides a complex transnational backdrop for thick description of global evangelical boundary crossing. McAlister’s research and intricacy of the subject matter is impressive.
A valuable theme emerges from the diversity of McAlister’s case studies and the wealth of her research. She claims that the actions and involvement of
PNEUMA
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15700747-04101004
1
Book Reviews
153
American evangelicals are never apolitical. The author references church work in Sudan (236), relational ties in Uganda (249) and Short-Term Teams in Egypt (278). In each case, she outlines the political implications of relationship build- ing and resourcetransfer. In essence, McAlister is calling American evangelicals to recognize their political and economic power in such relationships and take responsibility for their behavior and commitments. Clearly, American evan- gelicals have influence in the everyday lives of the Christians with whom they are claiming solidarity. They must find charitable ways to take ownership and responsibility for their power.
One of the author’s exciting contributions is her departure from the nor- mal international affairs discourse to include the role of emotions in solidify- ing relational connections and identity (13). This insight is new and valuable because emotion is embodied in any religious experience, and specifically in the American evangelical experience. Yet, the author falls short of reaching her intended goal by neglecting to name the emotions that frame public dis- course. McAlister does not clearly articulate what the concrete “emotions” are that led American evangelicals to form borderless bonds. In one case, when the author relates her participant observation experience with Elmbrook Church in South Sudan she presents many cultural, political and religious issues (236). This description, along with the other chapters in this section, lacks an identi- fication of the tangible emotions that would help the reader understand how, according to McAlister’s purpose, the transnational networks and global body politics are held together.
What her attempt does foster, however, is an acknowledgement that emo- tions play a significant role in the forming of social and political alliances. If anything, this insight is one that international affairs and the social sciences must explore at increasing depth. For if religion in a globalized world is a ral- lying point among many, how can scholars claim to understand emotional processes that go unnamed? McAlister notes that it is the “experience” of reli- gion and identity that forms cohesive social groups (5). In sociology of religion, the study of “lived religion” forms the basis for understanding religious move- ments. What are the specific emotions that evangelicals experience in Uganda, the Congo, America, Egypt and Iraq? McAlister’s case studies demonstrate that whatever the emotions are, they carry enough force and unifying clarity to consolidate diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds into a shared evangelical identity.
Perhaps McAlister, and the social sciences in general, can learn from the extensive work of T.M. Luhrmann. Her book When God Talks Back, explores “how God becomes real to modern people” through their minds and emo- tions (Luhrmann, Alfred A Knopf, 2012, xix). Luhrmann’s cutting-edge research,
PNEUMA 41 (2019) 111–185
2
154
Book Reviews
grounded in participant observation with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship and her background in psychological anthropology, can provide a model and language for further study along the lines McAlister begins to define. Luhr- mann’s work is a starting point for the social sciences and the humanities to engage the unseen emotional realities that evangelicals use to construct iden- tity, meaning, and community. An articulate study of American evangelical emotions is essential to understanding the internal processes that enable them to cross boundaries of difference. Emotions in public discourse have the power to foster kinship and family-like bonds amongst global evangelicals that can withstand human suffering, political revolutions and global atrocities.
McAlister’s contribution is an extensive, in-depth, and relevant account of American evangelicals engaged in international life. She explores the major institutional and relational developments of the past fifty years that act as a foundation for the present. McAlister details the American evangelical expe- rience that has been defined by the suffering and persecution of evangelicals outside their own borders (289). The author rightly asserts that if anyone wants to understand the history of American evangelicals in life, politics, and interna- tional affairs, one must analyze their interconnectedness and enmeshed reali- ties from a holistic global history.
Allison Kach
Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts [email protected]
PNEUMA 41 (2019) 111–185
3
