It is one thing to write a good book. It is another thing entirely to write a timely book, and given the choice, most people would settle for the latter. Melani McAlister does not have to make this choice, for with the publication of The Kingdom of God Has No Borders, she has managed to achieve both. She has written an absolutely brilliant and totally absorbing book on American evangelicals at the precise historical moment when American evangelicals and evangelical politics have come under persistent academic and public scrutiny, perhaps the most intense and most searching in a generation. We all know why. This book has suffered a protracted gestation, and the world into which The Kingdom of God is released is, morally and politically speaking, arguably a radically different one from that in which the idea for the book was originally conceived over a decade ago. But I cannot imagine Professor McAlister complaining. Good things usually come to those who wait, and she must surely feel that all that time spent trying versions of different chapters on audiences at workshops, conferences, and public lectures, and importuning an endless list of interlocutors, is justified by the exquisite timing of its eventual release.
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The Cow in the Elevator: An introduction
by
Tulasi Srinivas
In January 2009 I found myself helping three priests lure a reluctant cow into an elevator in the city of Bangalore, India. The cow’s handler and the priests pushed at her rear end while I held tempting ripe bananas in front of her. I wondered why the priests were attempting to shove the cow into the elevator, but in the whirl of shouting and pushing that was involved, I forgot my bewilderment and entered into the spirit of the exercise. Finally, we were successful. Having wedged the cow sideways into the elevator, we all rode upwards triumphantly. {. . .} In thinking about the care required to hoist a cow into an elevator to create a moment of wonder, I began to wonder: Could we eff the ineffability of wonder differently? What if wonder was not an act of God that “struck” one, but was a response to a deliberate conflation of events? Could wonder be deliberately pursued?
Crossing and conversion: Conclusion
by
Peter van der Veer
Religious identity is a deeply political fact that takes different shapes in different political configurations. Conversions are therefore suspect and dangerous border crossings, since the converts move from one political category to the other. This is not only true for Christianity, but also for Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and most other expanding religions.