Customer Reviews

The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South

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

 

 

This is that rare scholarly book and is engaging and lively. The author has clearly taken unusual pains to write the story, as well as communicate the facts. The book is also authoritative and is taking its place as the definitiave source on this topic.

Correction: The book may list at 400 plus pages but the content ends at 282.

This is a thorough study of the Holiness and Pentecostal movements in the South. Starting from just before the Civil War the author carries the reader on up to today. Very detailed and informative. Extremely readable.

My only issue resides in the fact that the author slides in some of his personal views on the Pentecostal movement. Some of his comments are negative and subjective which doesn't fit too well in an academic book. His personal thoughts on some of the more "interesting" aspects of present day Pentecostalism should have been put into a "Reflections" chapter similar to what Mark Noll did in one of his books on the history of Evangelicalism.

All in all this is still a very good book for every church historian to have.

I have one last thing to say. In the book the author calls Kenneth Copeland a self-help guru. That really makes no sense. Copeland is firmly in the Word of Faith theology, for better or ill, and isn't the least bit self-helpish. I wonder if the author meant to say Joel Osteen instead of Kenneth Copeland.