Customer Reviews

Culture and Christianity: The Dialectics of Transformation (Contributions to the Study of Anthropology)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are lots of books about Christianity, but startlingly few ethnographic studies, let alone comparative ethnographic studies. This unusual little volume by a group of anthropologists describes the Christian life as it is lived by ordinary believers in a wide range of societies among whom these scholars lived while doing anthropolofical field research. Why do Catholics on the Micronesian island of Tobi resist Protestantism although they converted to Catholicism in a matter of days? Why is the book of Revelation so important in Jamaica? How are Chinese churches in California organized? How does politics get mixed up with religion in small-town Italy? What's with processions in Spain? And so on.

I have used the book (and continue to use it) as a text in a course I teach on the ethnography of Christanity and am impressed at how good a discussion each of these excellent brief essays can stimulate. If the publisher hadn't priced this volume to mildew in a warehouse, this would be a major textbook for College courses on Christianity.