Southern Baptist Research Articles

Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptists in the Philippines

Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptists in the Philippines

Christian Doctrine and Free Church Ecclesiology: Recent Developments among Baptists in the Southern United States

AbstractThe main substance of this article is an extended review of a recent book by a Southern Baptist historical theologian, Malcolm Yarnell, entitled The Formation of Christian Doctrine, which aims to root the development of doctrine in a free-church ecclesiology. This review offers the opportunity to examine a spectrum of ecclesiologies that has recently emerged among Baptists in the Southern region of the United States of America. Four 'conservative' versions of ecclesiology are identified, which are named as 'Landmarkist', 'Reformed', 'Reformed-Ecumenical' and 'Conservative Localist'. Four 'moderate' versions are similarly identified, and named as 'Voluntarist', 'Catholic', 'Moderate Localist' and 'World-Baptist'. While these categories are not intended to be mutually exclusive, the typology is useful both in positioning Yarnell's particular thesis, and in making comparisons with recent Baptist ecclesiology in Great Britain, which has focussed on the concept of covenant. Yarnell's own appeal to covenant is unusual in Southern Baptist thinking, and means that he cannot be easily fitted into the typology suggested. Though he belongs most evidently to the group named here as 'Conservative Localists', and is overtly opposed to any concept of a visible, universal church except in an eschatological sense, it is suggested that his own arguments might be seen as tending towards a more 'universal' view of the reality of the church beyond its local manifestation. His own work thus offers the promise that present polarizations among Baptists in the southern United States might, in time, be overcome.

A JUST, FAIR, AND COMPASSIONATE IMMIGRATION POLICY

Since passing a resolution in 2006, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has repeatedly called for comprehensive immigration reform. The parameters of the plan to address the immigration problem rest on three broad pillars. One of these pillars would directly enhance the conditions and prosperity of the American workforce—namely, a program with multiple paths to legal status, including an expanded guest‐worker program. However, the two other pillars—a secure border, and enforcement of internal immigration laws—must be in place first, otherwise initiatives like an expanded guest worker program will not be bureaucratically or politically feasible.

A Nobel Prize is Out of Order: “American Idol” vs. Hypatia of Alexandria

A Nobel Prize is Out of Order: “American Idol” <i>vs.</i> Hypatia of Alexandria

Gracious submission: the Southern Baptist Convention's press portrayals of women

Among recent controversies surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination, have been statements on the role of women in society. With the 2004 election the SBC gained political influence due to its role in the re-election of President George W. Bush and ratification of 13 state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. This study examines the portrayals of women by the SBC's Baptist Press during the six-month period surrounding the 2004 election in order to determine how this religiously and politically powerful group depicts women and their role in the family, church, and society.

Reading the Baptist Schism of 2000: Kierkegaardian Hermeneutics and Religious Freedom

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) suffered a schism that was sparked by its revisions to the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM), a document that summarized religious beliefs of Southern Baptists. Conservative members of the denomination argued that revisions were necessary to bolster theological unity. However, many moderates and liberals claimed changes were excessively “fundamentalist” and threatened the denomination's core principles. This study utilizes Kierkegaard's concept of religious “freedom” to illuminate criticisms from moderates and liberals that the SBC used the BFM to formulate a creed, to restrict individuals' abilities to interpret the Bible, and to limit the autonomy of local churches.

The Reclamation of Theological Integrity: L. Russ Bush III and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989–1992

This paper seeks to argue that the life and work of L. Russ Bush III (1944–2008) made a significant contribution in the return of the Southern Baptist Convention to its theologically conservative heritage specifically in the early reformation of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary from theological liberalism. That is, through Bush's published works, his role as professor and academic dean at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his general and faithful involvement in the work of the Southern Baptist Convention and broader evangelicalism, Bush influenced many and witnessed the transformation of a seminary and the reformation of a denomination. This paper will show that Bush's efforts during 1989–1992 to reestablish the theological integrity of the seminary by reclaiming the seminary's longstanding confessional heritage served to maintain a standard that ultimately preserved the seminary and prepared the way for future exponential growth under the next administration.

Just As I Am Not: A Poet Visits the Billy Graham Library

Just As I Am Not:A Poet Visits the Billy Graham Library Michael McFee (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution In the beginning, Billy Graham was a raw, tall, dashing preacher, on fire for the Lord, burning to save souls one by one; then he became the leader of a worldwide Evangelistic Association, responsible not just for converting sinners but also for the enormous gospel machinery he'd set into motion. Billy Graham, 1966, photographed by Warren K. Leffler, from the U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Collections of the Library of Congress. [End Page 90] Music is in the very air at the Billy Graham Library. From the moment you leave the massive asphalt parking lot, hymns rise like a holy fog from the ground, through squat green speakers lining the sidewalks and crossing the grass, constantly piping "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" or "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." It's vaguely soothing and a bit spooky, as if you're standing above a choir in a cavern, or walking over lost souls stranded in subterranean purgatory on the outskirts of Charlotte, who lift up their heads and sing to us humans still on the surface of earth: Let every kindred, every tribe, on this terrestrial ball, to Him all majesty ascribe, and crown Him Lord of all! + Today is October 23, 2007, my mother-in-law's eightieth birthday. This day trip from Durham to the Library and back is her big gift. My wife and I have driven her here, a two-and-a-half hour trip on busy I-85; another gift is that my wife's youngest brother, an investment banker in the Queen City, "surprises" us on the entrance sidewalk, to his mother's delight. My mother-in-law belongs to a conservative Southern Baptist church, in which she and her husband (who died several years ago) raised their three children, none of whom are Baptists anymore. Through the decades, she has donated regularly to Christian organizations like Billy Graham's, so this is a pilgrimage for her, a visit to a sacred place: the home of the world's most famous and successful evangelist. + The first of the two buildings we enter, just past a split-rail fence, is the Graham Family Homeplace. That may conjure up humble dirt-floor log-cabin imagery, or—given that Billy's family ran a dairy—a simple farmstead; but in fact it's a solidly middle-class two-story house, moved here from a solidly middle-class Charlotte neighborhood a few miles away. The windows have trim black shutters, there are comfortable porches, and the gutters are in excellent shape (as a homeowner, you notice such things). Though only a few rooms are open to the public, you can peer into others, and if you're like me you think: Man, I wish I'd grown up in a place as nice as this. Wherever Billy's religious convictions came from, they didn't arise from privation. If the preacher-to-be wasn't privileged, he certainly wasn't suffering, either. His earliest origins on the dairy farm were likely more modest—like many non-urban Americans ninety years ago, he surely bathed in a washtub with his siblings, and used an outhouse—but once his family moved to this red brick neo-Colonial, [End Page 91] when he was nine years old, there was nothing rustic about where he lived during his adolescence. The Graham Homeplace is surprisingly bourgeois. + We exit the back door of the house, through a screened porch. The sky can't quite decide whether to rain or not, but the singers underfoot never hesitate, blessing our ankles: Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, how great Thou art! + The second building we enter—which looms behind the Homeplace like a shadow of the family's past, the hard work on the farm that made the fine house possible—is harder to fix in a phrase. On the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) website, it's described as a "barn-like structure" and a "dairy barn-styled library." It's not an...

Words about Recent Book: II. Historical-Theological Studies: Seminary in Crisis: The Strategic Response of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to the SBC Controversy

Words about Recent Book: II. Historical-Theological Studies: Seminary in Crisis: The Strategic Response of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to the SBC Controversy

Coverage of Terri Schiavo Controversy Not Found to Be Anti-Christian

As the nation watched, family fought over Terri Schiavo, brain-damaged woman in persistent vegetative state. Her husband wanted remove her feeding tube and allow her die, while her parents and siblings wanted it remain in place keep her alive. This dispute sparked nationwide legal, medical, political and religious debates. As the rhetoric increased in intensity, the media's coverage often became the focus of criticism. Many conservative evangelical Christians against removing Schiavo's feeding tube attacked the media for having liberal and bias. The American Family Association argued, When it comes spewing venom, however, columnists at The Washington Post and The New York Times are gold-medal winners1 Thus, they urged Christians to shrug off the rabid attacks of the media babblers who see Christians as the enemy.2 Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, attacked the Schiavo coverage of The New York Times for an that represented a full frontal assault on pro-life Christians.3The question thus raised is whether these accusations of media bias, especially an anti-Christian one, are accurate. This study explores the complaints of media bias made by some conservative evangelical Christians concerning the Terri Schiavo controversy by analyzing the coverage of The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today. This study also offers important implications for the coverage of the Schiavo case as well as about complaints of media bias.Religion News CoverageIn the inaugural issue of the Journal of Media and Religion, the editors discussed the status of research on religion and media, maintaining that it is and neglected but greatly important.4 Several studies have explored media coverage of religious issues or individuals, but many questions about this important area remain. Studies have demonstrated that the media generally focus on the values held by religious groups,5 that references God have changed over time6 and that fundamentalist Christians are negatively framed.7 Case studies of specific news stories have found that journalists propagate stereotypes,8 focus on hypocrisy of religious leaders9 and frame conflict as holy battle.10 Such depictions of religious individuals are important since negative press coverage of religious leaders leads decreases in the confidence in organized religion in public opinion polls.11Although scholars have analyzed media coverage of religion, such studies rarely include considerations of bias. Despite the growing body of research on media bias, it remains an understudied area.12 In studies on bias in newspaper coverage, scholars have considered media bias by examining how favorable newspaper coverage is toward certain group of people13 or in terms of sources quoted, particularly if there is an imbalance.14 This present study considers both aspects of bias. Despite the dearth of attention bias of religion coverage, such matters remain critically important religious individuals because churches and denominations are becoming increasing dependent on the mainstream media explain who they are others 15 and often it is through that secular coverage that people form their opinions about particular religious group.16MethodThis study examines the coverage of religious issues and individuals during the controversy surrounding Terri Schiavo and whether her feeding tube should be removed. The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today were chosen for analysis as nationally circulated publications and because the newspapers are frequently targeted by conservative evangelical Christians who accuse them of media bias.All pieces that mentioned Schiavo except for letters the editor were examined for 25-month period from April 1, 2003, until May 1, 2005. This period includes two years before and one month following Schiavo's death on March 31, 2005. …

Southern Baptist Zen

Southern Baptist Zen

Baptist Hymnody in the Northern United States: The Case of E. H. Johnson's Sursum Corda

Abstract: Northern and southern Baptists in the United States differed at the turn of the twentieth century. Through their hymnals, especially Sursum Corda edited by E. H. Johnson, they embraced a form of historicism that attempted to recover an earlier time in the church. Gregorian and Anglican chants served as vehicles of historicist interest as did the parts of the historic Mass and traditional English hymns prevalent in Johnson's book. Northern Baptists also leaned toward an ecclesiology that held the ‘church as sacrament’. Hymn texts in Johnson's Baptist hymnal form a bridge between two ecclesiological outlooks by employing a pastiche of sacramental texts and texts based on a memorialist understanding of the Eucharist. This essay employs an interdisciplinary approach to looking at American hymnody involving theology, history, musicology, and liturgics.

My Grandmother was a Cherokee, and My Grandpa Was a Southern Baptist Preacher

My Grandmother was a Cherokee, and My Grandpa Was a Southern Baptist Preacher

God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society. By Susan M. Shaw. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008. xiv + 301 pp. $40.00 cloth.

God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society. By Susan M. Shaw. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008. xiv + 301 pp. $40.00 cloth.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1859–2009, a Review Article

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1859–2009, a Review Article

An Alternative Politics: Texas Baptists and the Rise of the Christian Right, 1975-1985

Foy Dan Valentine. A native of East Texas, Valentine was among the most influential figures in shaping an independent political agenda for Texas Baptists throughout the 1970s and 1980s, a time when most Southern Baptists were becoming strongly identified with right-wing politics. Image courtesy of www.ChristianEthicsToday.com, which Valentine helped found in 1995. An Alternative Politics: Texas Baptists and the Rise ofthe Christian Right, 1975—1985 Blake A. Ellis* ON THE EVE OF THE 2OO4 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, NEWS COVERAGE focused on the importance of evangelical Christians to the electoral chances of the Republican candidate, George W. Bush. One Southern Baptist pastor summed up the feelings of many conservative Christians about the election: "I see it as a spiritual divide between true believers and seculars. I think we as a nation are more divided than we were before the Civil War . . . Those who pray a lot tend to vote Republican; those who don't tend to vote Democrat."1 One of the most basic facts in recent American political campaigns has been the strong Southern Baptist support for Republican candidates. The nation's largest Protestant denomination was heavily Democratic throughout much of the twentieth century, but a shift toward the GOP began in the late 1970s and grew stronger during the next two decades. During the 1980 presidential election, Southern Baptist pastors favored Republican Ronald Reagan over Democrat Jimmy Carter by a margin of 56 to 42 percent, which closely mirrored the national vote. In 1996, Southern Baptist ministers preferred Republican Bob Dole over Democrat Bill Clinton by a margin of 80 percent to 14 percent in an election easily * Blake A. Ellis is a native Arkansan who has also lived in Louisiana and Texas. He earned a Bachelor ofArts degree from Louisiana College and a Master ofArts degree in history from Baylor University. He is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in U.S. history at Rice University. He would like to thank John Boles and Kimberly Kellison for reading the article several times and offering helpful criticism. The fine archivists at the Texas Collection ofBaylor University were also instrumental in the research for diis article. Finally, this work would not have been possible widiout financial assistance from the Baylor Institute for Oral History, and the staff diere deserves immense credit for supporting diis project in a variety ofways. 1 David D. Kirkpatrick, "Batde Cry of Faithful Pits Believers Against Unbelievers," The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2004. For odier examples of such coverage, see Robert D. McFadden, "On die Final Sunday, Sermons Pulse widi die Power of Spiritual Suggestion," The New York Times, Nov. ? , 2004; Anne Saker, "Moral Values Propelled Bush; Views on Abortion, Marriage Echoed widi White Evangelicals," The News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C), Nov. 7, 2004; "Focus on Moral Values Tipped Vote for Bush," The Washington Times, Nov. 4, 2004. Vol. CXII, no. 4 Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril 2009 362Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril won by Clinton.2 The alliance between the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Republican Party is such an integral aspect of contemporary politics that observers might be forgiven for not knowing that it is a relatively recent political development. The increasing affinity of Southern Baptists for the Republican Party since 1 980 is part of a larger historical trend: the rise of the Christian Right as a force in American politics.3A recent proliferation of scholarly work on the origins of the movement has deepened our understanding of it. Most of these works have examined its religious and political impulses, attempting to explain how the movement came into existence and what its goals are for the United States. These works have demonstrated that the political involvement of religious conservadves was the result of deeply held religious beliefs about controversial social issues. Without question, the most important of these issues was abortion, which they stridently opposed. Opposition to gay rights, support for organized prayer in public schools, opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and concern about sex education also defined their agenda .4 Southern Baptists have been a crucial component of the Christian Right from its earliest days. Several books have addressed the importance of Southern Baptists to the growing power of...

God speaks to us, too: Southern Baptist women on church, home, and society

How can women find strength, courage, and motivation in a religious denomination that believes in the necessity of a wife's submission to her husband? In Speaks to Us, Too, Susan M. Shaw shows that Southern Baptist women are surprisingly more complex and rebellious than outside observers might think they are. She presents the views of more than 150 women, often using their own words, and finds in them an unshakable belief that God speaks as directly to them as to any pastor or denominational leader. Although these women respect their leaders and are influenced by them, ultimately they recognize that their beliefs and practices are determined by their own choices, and with God's guidance.

Section News

Abstract:For your convenience, this month's Section News PDF includes bookmarks for each section. After opening the PDF, select the “Bookmark” tab on the left side of your screen, and click on the name of the section you are interested in reading.American Ethnological Society (AES): Joanna Davidson, ed.Anthropology and Environment Section (A&amp;E): Laura Ogden, ed. “Integrating Cultural and Biological Diversity into Federal Environmental Policy,” by Rick SteppArcheology Division (AD): James M Skibo, ed. “AD at the SAA Meeting,” by Janet E Levy; “Employer Exposition,” by Terry MajewskiAssociation for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA): Jennifer E Coffman, ed.Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA): Shaka McGlotten, ed. “Martha Washington Goes to Anthropology, Part 1,” by Aimee CoxAssociation for Feminist Anthropology (AFA): Damla Isik and Jessica Smith, eds.Association for Latina and Latino Anthropologists (ALLA): Luis FB Plascencia, ed. “What's Identity Got to Do With It?” by Michael J MontoyaAssociation for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA): Elizabeth Krause and Mona Bhan, eds. “‘Birth Pangs” in Palestine and Iraq,” by Julie PeteetAssociation of Senior Anthropologists (ASA): Paul L Doughty, ed. “Anthropology Forgotten?” by J Anthony ParedesCentral States Anthropological Society (CSAS): Evelyn Dean‐Olmstead and Angela Glaros, eds.Council on Anthropology and Education (CAE): Steven Bialostok, ed. “What's New(s) in CAE,” by Teresa McCartyCouncil for Museum Anthropology (CMA): Joyce Herold, ed.Culture and Agriculture Section (C&amp;A): Ronald Rich, ed. “New Publication on People and Forests,” by Carol J Pierce ColferEvolutionary Anthropology Society (EAS): John P Ziker, ed. “2009 AAA Meeting: Wards, Sessions, Papers and Registration,” by John PattonGeneral Anthropology Division (GAD): Luke Eric Lassiter, ed. “Anthropological Observations on AAA Meetings, Part II,” by Peter J BrownMiddle East Section (MES): Emilio Spadola, ed. “Publication Announcement: Governing Gaza (2008),” by Ilana FeldmanNational Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA): Christine Miller, ed. “NAPA Occupational Therapy Interest Group Launches Field School,” by Gelya FrankNational Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA): Jenny Chio, ed. “Beyond the ‘Academic/Applied’ Binary in the Ethics Debate,” by Elan Abrell and Kaja TretjakSociety for Anthropological Sciences (SAS): Stephen Lyon, ed.Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC): Lloyd Miller, ed. “On Coprolites: From ‘Archaeology Matters’,” by Bob Muckle; “The President's Annual Report: Excerpts,” by Lloyd Miller and Ann KauppSociety for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC): Enoch H Page, ed.Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN): Rachel Black, ed. “Paradox, Disparity, Ethnography: Observations on the Spread of Diabetes in the Developing World,” by Amy Moran‐ThomasSociety for the Anthropology of North America (SANA): David Kamper, ed. “Where the Patient Experience Begins: Waiting Room Ethnography and the Art of Reception,” by Cynthia StrathmannSociety for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR): Jennifer Selby, ed. “Book Review: Brian M Howell's Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptists in the Philippines (Palgrave MacMillan 2008),” by Jon BialeckiSociety for the Anthropology of Work (SAW): Angela Jancius, ed. “SAW's Relevance in These Times,” by Ann Kingsolver; “The Anthropology of Freecycling,” by Angela JanciusSociety for Cultural Anthropology (SCA): Jean M Langford, ed.Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA): Jennifer Hubbert and Gordon Mathews, eds. “Anthropology and the Anaconda: China Post‐2008,” by Charlene MakleySociety for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA): Frederic W Gleach and Vilma Santiago‐Irizarry, eds.Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (SLACA): Annelou Ypeij, ed. “Back to Todos Santos Cuchumatán,” by Ellen SharpSociety of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA): David LR Houston, ed.Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA): James Stanlaw and Mark Peterson, ed. “Language and Social Justice: Report from the CfHR Task Group,” by Laura R Graham and Ana Celia ZentellaSociety for Medical Anthropology (SMA): Kathleen Ragsdale, ed. “Native Elder Mistreatment: A CBPR Approach,” by Lori L Jervis and the Shielding American Indian Elders Project TeamSociety for Psychological Anthropology (SPA): Jack R Friedman, ed. “Critical Neuroscience: A Conference Report,” by Suparna Choudhury and Jan SlabySociety for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology (SUNTA): Jayne Howell, ed. “Union Struggles in Urban Mexico: Oaxaca City Revisited,” by Jayne HowellSociety for Visual Anthropology (SVA): Wendy Dickinson, ed. “2008 SVA Lifetime Achievement Award: Karl Heider,” by Mary Strong; “2008 SVA Collier Prize: Joanna Scherer,” by Mary Strong

Conversion and Coercion in American Prisons

PMLA invites members of the association to submit letters, printed and double-spaced, that comment on articles in previous issues or on matters of general scholarly or critical interest. The editor reserves the right to reject or edit Forum contributions and offers the PMLA authors discussed in published letters an opportunity to reply. Submissions of more than one thousand words are not considered. The journal omits titles before persons' names and discourages endnotes and works-cited lists in the Forum. Letters should be addressed to PMLA Forum, Modern Language Association, 26 Broadway, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10004-1789.What obligations does literary scholarship have to its society, culture, and laws? The question arises in Tanya Erzen's “Religious Literacy in the Faith-Based Prison” (123.3 [2008]: 659–64). The problems with this account of Florida's Lawtey Correctional Institution and its religious-right rehabilitation program begin with the essay's title. One would take “religious literacy” to mean something like “competence in religious history and/or religious doctrine,” but in this essay it does not: for here “religious literacy” is a euphemism for total immersion in and complete acceptance of the Southern Baptist belief system. The author calls such brainwashing “religious self-knowledge” (660), though it seems aimed at the obliteration of any vestiges of selfhood. Even the phrase “faith-based prison” is a smokescreen: “faith,” a term that in our highly religious and religiously diverse culture has generally positive associations, here conceals the ugly truth that the only faith that counts at Lawtey is fundamentalist Christianity.

The Gospel According to Barbara Kingsolver: Brother Fowles and St. Francis of Assisi in The Poisonwood Bible

ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH Barbara Kingsolver's epic novel, The Poisonwood Bible, the character Brother Fowles articulates one of the author's major thematic points. Orleanna Price, wife of central character Nathan Price, is exasperated upon learning of the generosity and interdenominational cooperation of the other Protestant organizations working in the Congo mission fields (including the American Baptist Foreign Mission Service) while her own Southern Baptist Mission League has cut off even the tiny stipend the Prices had been receiving. After a moment's thought Fowles expresses his sympathy, noting that are Christians and then there are Christians. (1) His meaning is simple: there is a myriad of competing and sometimes contradictory interpretations of the Gospel vying for primacy with each claiming authority for itself. In this novel Kingsolver invites the reader compare and contemplate the authenticity of one particular (and not very appealing) brand of evangelical fundamentalism with Fowles's (and her) seemingly Franciscan version of Christianity. However, by the end of the novel the question that must be asked is whether her interpretation of the Gospel is in fact Christian, let alone Franciscan. The answer, I believe, ultimately is no. Kingsolver has described her novel as a allegory intended criticize European and American colonial and neocolonial intervention in Africa. (2) Through the alternating voices of her five central female characters, Kingsolver relates the gradual disintegration of the family of Reverend Nathan Price, a zealous, selfrighteous fundamentalist American Baptist preacher who in 1959 took his wife and four daughters from Georgia the jungle village of Kilanga in the soon-to-be-independent Belgian Congo on a oneyear mission convert primitive African heathens living in darkness. Recounting a year and a half of pestilence, disease, drought, floods, hunger, witchcraft, and finally the bloody political upheaval of Mobutu's American-supported coup and assassination of independence Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, the novel catalogues the ineptitude and arrogance of Price as he confronts and attempts change a people (and a culture) he does not understand and who do not particularly desire what he has offer. In the process Price and his religion become stinging metaphors for an equally inept and American foreign policy driven by a similar patronizing, self-righteous zeal and xenophobic loathing of competing political and socioeconomic ideologies. On more than one occasion Kingsolver has rejected the notion that her novel is antireligious, anti-Christian, or antimissionary. (3) Rather, while acknowledging that her central character is an arrogant proselytizer engaged in a form of religious activity that goes against her liberal principles, she quickly points Brother Fowles, whose role in the novel she says is to redeem both Christianity and the notion of mission ... represent Christian mission in a kinder voice. (4) At first glance Fowles indeed seems the epitome of a contemporary liberal Christian: he is open-minded and respectful of other systems of belief, recognizing they, too, contain valid expressions of God's revelation humankind; he does not proselytize, but rather engages in dialogue with the indigenous people among whom he lives; his ministry centers on advancing the work of the social Gospel, promoting such things as better health care, better nutrition (especially for infants), and better treatment of women in society; he approaches the scriptures with the tools, methods, and insights of modern biblical criticism; and he possesses a personal spirituality that is grounded in a near-mystical reverence for the natural world reminiscent (at least on the surface) of the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi. Yet, as admirable a character as Fowles is, a closer examination of his spirituality makes it difficult call him a Christian in any conventional sense. …