Robert Eric Frykenberg

Book Review: The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and IndiaThe Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India. By van der VeerPeter. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2014. Pp. xi, 282.

This study in comparative sociology, driven by “anthropological theory” and fashionable tropes of “discourse analysis,” makes vast and sweeping historical claims about complexities of Indian and Chinese cultures. In so doing, it attempts to refute the notion that elements of modernity within these cultures are imitations derived from the West. Rather, it argues that ancient traditions of these societies have been transformed in distinctive and unique ways. Peter van der Veer, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, in Göttingen, and distinguished professor at Utrecht University, begins by exploring how, out of nineteenth-century imperial history, Western concepts of spirituality and secularity, as also of religion and magic, were utilized to epitomize traditions of China and India. He then attempts to show how modern notions of religion and magic were grafted into the respective nation-making projects of nationalist intellectuals within China and India in ways that were quite distinctive. Thus, while religion played a central role within nationalisms of India, religion was viewed as such an obstacle to progress in China that it had to be strictly controlled and marginalized. In pursuit of this argument, van der Veer addresses different understandings of art, compares yoga with qi gong, looks at concepts of secularism and of conversion within Christian histories, differentiates between constructions of religion in India and campaigns against superstition in China, and juxtaposes Muslim Kashmir and Muslim Xinjiang. As a prominent champion of comparative studies in religion and society, the author stresses the importance of deeper understandings of what is spiritual and what is secular within these two major civilizations. In pursuing this theme, where ideology can parade in the garb of theory, veracity is ever and always seen as conditional and contingent, if not contrived. Comparative analysis of culture ends in intellectual construction and invention. The “conditional idea” is made to represent “real presences” in a house of cards that is largely abstract. Thus, despite sometimes brilliant insights, forays grounded in actual historical events reveal little about those events that has not already been known for some time. What may be new within this study lies in the way already-known events can be remolded. Vocabulary for such analysis, borrowed from current fashions of literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology, invokes the lineage of Max Weber and genuflects before the rhetoric of Edward Said and his disciples. Interactions between four select concepts—religion and magic, secularity and spirituality—are connected, defined, and then redefined in respect to relations of power within imperial and national institutions. Yet, for scholars interested in the history of Christian missions, there is not much new to be learned from such rhetorical exercises, however dazzling they may seem. —Robert Eric Frykenberg

75 / £52; paperback

Since the late 1970s, charismatic Christianity, represented by the new Pentecostals, has emerged as the representative face of Christianity in Africa. Ruth Marshall’s book is important because much of what is happening in sub-Saharan Africa, as far as this new Christianity is concerned, has been inspired by developments in Nigeria (p. 2). The focus of the study is aptly captured by the introduction, in which Marshall notes that the “Born-Again” movement, as she refers to the revival, “has as its principal aim a project of individual and collective renewal and regeneration through a process of conversion based on the idiom of new birth” (pp. 2–3). After an elaborate introduction, the rest of the study is spread across six chapters, plus the conclusion and a very important appendix consisting of a testimony from an insider that helps to further place the study in its appropriate context. This is a sociological study that takes seriously the religious orientation of the new Pentecostals (chap. 1). Marshall therefore rightly locates the attraction of the movement in its Born-Again program, which, for those who embrace it, constitutes a rupture with their individual and collective pasts (chap. 2). The movement, she points out, arises as a religious form in response to what is seen as a spiritual crisis (p. 52). Consequently, Born-Again religion, as Marshall successfully demonstrates in the rest of the book, forms an alternative form of piety that responds to the manifold crises that have made Nigeria a veritable laughingstock in the eyes of the world. Yet, the existence of this revivalist form of Pentecostalism brings fresh hope. Within the spiritually and physically precarious African environment, it delivers—in the words of its adherents— “spiritual empowerment for personal and collective progress” and “the possibility of controlling untrammeled powers through individual faith and prayer” (p. 65). In an African world believed to be filled with benevolent and malevolent spiritual powers, the Born-Again churches have attracted much support, including within the political arena, because of their offer of religious power of the Christian kind. The strong connection that they make between the sacred and secular realms of life, which is seen for instance in the transactional interpretations of tithes and offerings, involves religious interpretations and practices that resonate with traditional religious ideas. This movement takes a very practical orientation to salvation (p. 177) and thus, as many Nigerian films reveal, takes supernatural evil seriously. The Born-Again project discussed in this book therefore attempts a religious response to supernatural evil in terms that connect with local religious sensibilities (p. 187). Political Spiritualities is a wellresearched and well-written book. Its language and vocabulary, however, will be challenging for average readers and even some graduate students, who may find it difficult to appreciate the general arguments of the author. —J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

24.95 / £16.95.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 32, No. 1 C faith, as Lamin Sanneh has commented, transcends “ethnic, national, and cultural barriers” and moves beyond “patterns developed in Europe.” Christian faith is not bound by or restricted to any one culture. It is bound by no single sacred language-in-text, as is Islam within Arabic; nor by any one sacred blood or earth, or language-in-genome, as is Aryan and Brahmanical or Sanskriti and Vedic lore as embodied in ideologies of Hindutva. No one culture is sacred. Yet all cultures can become sacred, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much their essentials are transformed so as to reflect everlasting verities that are truly sacred. What happened among Āvarna and Adivāsi communities in India can therefore be seen as manifold instances of the “indigenous discovery of Christianity” rather than mere instances in the “[Western] Christian discovery of indigenous societies.”1 What follows is a paradigm for understanding Christian movements in India. Some kinds of communities have been much more open to the Gospel and to conversion than others. Missionaries from abroad may have brought initial impetus and new technologies for transmitting new knowledge, both scriptural and scientific, but it was local agents who then took ownership of the Christian message, translating it into indigenously attractive idioms. Only then, and only after a period of incubation and after acculturation of the Gospel message, did explosions of spiritual and social energy turn communities to the new faith. Even so, such developments were uneven, and wholesale transformations occurred among only some Āvarna and Adivāsi peoples.

Book Review: We Began at Tranquebar. Vol. 1: SPCK, the Danish-Halle Mission, and Anglican Episcopacy in India (1706–1843); Vol. 2: The Origin and Development of Anglican-CSI Episcopacy in India (1813–1947)

international Bulletin of missionary research, Vol. 31, no. 2 foundational concepts of demographic research, including a discussion of numbers in the Bible, mathematical formulas incalculatingdemographicdata, a historical overview of demographic research, and detailed descriptions of various approaches to describing populations. Particular attention is given tounderstandingandmeasuringreligious affiliation and change. inthesecondhalfofthevolumeWetzel illustrates the use of sound methodology as he discusses, by way of example, four specific topics of concern and their implications for mission: population growth, aids, population decline, and migration. Wetzel’s conclusions are both encouraging and sobering, particularly in light of the dramatic decline of Western christianity. this volume succeeds admirably in helping thereaderunderstandnotonlythe technicalaspectsofdemographicresearch but also the steps needed to unpack and critically evaluate the usefulness of such data and interpret its implications for the task of mission. typical pitfalls leading to false conclusions and inappropriate applications are exposed, with numerous examples. a sensible and nuanced approach is offered. the pages are rich with examples and illustrative tables in a carefully outlined format and including an extensive bibliography. Both novices and seasoned missiologists interested in demographicsandmissionwillprofit from a careful reading of this text. —craig ott