Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism (Culture and Society After Socialism) [Paperback]

Catherine Wanner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Culture and Society After Socialism | Publication Date: October 2007

After decades of official atheism, a religious renaissance swept through much of the former Soviet Union beginning in the late 1980s. The Calvinist-like austerity and fundamentalist ethos that had evolved among sequestered and frequently persecuted Soviet evangelicals gave way to a charismatic embrace of ecstatic experience, replete with a belief in faith healing. Catherine Wanner's historically informed ethnography, the first book on evangelism in the former Soviet Union, shows how once-marginal Ukrainian evangelical communities are now thriving and growing in social and political prominence. Many Soviet evangelicals relocated to the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union, expanding the spectrum of evangelicalism in the United States and altering religious life in Ukraine. Migration has created new transnational evangelical communities that are now asserting a new public role for religion in the resolution of numerous social problems.

Hundreds of American evangelical missionaries have engaged in "church planting" in Ukraine, which is today home to some of the most active and robust evangelical communities in all of Europe. Thanks to massive assistance from the West, Ukraine has become a hub for clerical and missionary training in Eurasia. Many Ukrainians travel as missionaries to Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union. In revealing the phenomenal transformation of religious life in a land once thought to be militantly godless, Wanner shows how formerly socialist countries experience evangelical revival. Communities of the Converted engages issues of migration, morality, secularization, and global evangelism, while highlighting how they have been shaped by socialism.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"In the course of the last century and a half, Ukraine has emerged as the major center of Protestantism in Eastern Europe; the mass emigration of Ukrainian Baptists and Pentecostals to the United States following the disintegration of the USSR made Ukrainian evangelism a truly international phenomenon. Communities of the Converted makes for stimulating reading-it is a fascinating example of research that combines history, anthropology, and the sociology of religion to discuss the experience of communities extending across different political cultures and religious and national traditions. Catherine Wanner discusses not only how religious communities adapted to changes in their political, cultural, and religious environment but also how they affected and changed that environment."-Serhii Pokhy, University of Alberta --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Catherine Wanner is Associate Professor of History and Anthropology at Penn State University. She is the author of Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine and coeditor of Reclaiming the Sacred: Community, Morality, and Religion after Communism. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 305 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (October 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801474027
• ISBN-13: 978-0801474026
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #986,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book about Ukrainian protestants, February 11, 2011

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Almelle (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism (Culture and Society After Socialism) (Paperback)

This is an academic book based on Catherine's long-term study of Ukrainian Protestants in the Ukraine, U.S., and elsewhere. Catherine writes a moving history of their oppression under the Soviets and their continued moral rigor in post-Soviet times -- often in direct contrast to what the Ukrainians see as more lax American evangelicals. She also discusses their international evangelical role after the fall of the Soviet Union.

This is a well-crafted book in the Anthropology of Christianity, and I feel like it gave me a clear picture of one part of Christianity that you don't hear much about. Wanner also does a good job analysing (see pp140-168 or so) what leads to conversion and how communities are part of conversion. I'd also recommend the index as a good source for further reading on post-Soviet religion. Great ethnography!