Instead, Eshete shows, it was a genuine indigenous response to cultural pressures.

Instead, Eshete shows, it was a genuine indigenous response to cultural pressures.--Liza Debevec "Journal of Religion in Africa"

Ethiopia is an icon of freedom and indigenous Christianity across Africa due to its historic independence, ancient Christian identity and rich religious heritage. However, Ethiopia and its various Christian denominations have their own understandings of this identity and how these communities relate to one another. In this detailed study, Dr Seblewengel Daniel explores the perception and identity of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and evangelical church in Ethiopia and examines the relations between the two. Beginning with the earliest evangelical missionary engagement with the Orthodox church, Dr Daniel skilfully uses historical and theological frameworks to explain the dynamics at play when approaching the relations over two centuries between these two churches and their respective communities. Daniel ultimately emphasizes that what unites the Orthodox and evangelical church is greater than what divides – namely an ancient faith in the triune God. This important study urges both sides to place the Bible at the centre, using it to understand their differences, and challenges them to take responsibility for past negative perceptions in order to move forward together in greater unity and mutual respect.

Evangelical Faith Movement in Ethiopia is an important work that provides a superb overview and an in-depth history of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), an influential church of national magnitude. While the growth of the evangelical movement has already been documented, the significance of this book lies in the fact that it has originally been written in Amharic by an insider who is a long-standing member of the church and translated by a trained historian who has lent the work an interpretive balance and clarity. The book is also significant for it seeks to situate the origin and development of the EECMY within the sociopolitical, cultural, and historical contexts of Ethiopia, thereby highlighting the ability of the evangelical faith to adapt itself to multiple regional and ethnic milieus. At a time of growing interest in the evangelical movement in Ethiopia, this volume offers a crucial contribution to the study of the dynamics of the evangelical enterprise in Ethiopia in its multiple and complex dimensions. Its stress on the indigenous roots of the evolution and development of the EECMY dispels any misconception that the evangelical faith movement in Ethiopia is a foreign import. This well-researched and thoughful work on the history of the evangelical faith movement with special reference to western and southern parts of Ethiopia is a splendid addition to the rising literature on evangelicalism and the broader contours of the unfolding of the movement in multifaceted locales in Africa. Scholars and general readers alike will benefit from this work of theological, missilogical, and historical significance. It is especially good to hear a national voice representing the Lutheran tradition in Ethiopia. Book jacket.

A new history explores the commercial heart of evangelical Christianity. American evangelicalism is big business. For decades, the world’s largest media conglomerates have sought out evangelical consumers, and evangelical books have regularly become international best sellers. In the early 2000s, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life spent ninety weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list and sold more than thirty million copies. But why have evangelicals achieved such remarkable commercial success? According to Daniel Vaca, evangelicalism depends upon commercialism. Tracing the once-humble evangelical book industry’s emergence as a lucrative center of the US book trade, Vaca argues that evangelical Christianity became religiously and politically prominent through business activity. Through areas of commerce such as branding, retailing, marketing, and finance, for-profit media companies have capitalized on the expansive potential of evangelicalism for more than a century. Rather than treat evangelicalism as a type of conservative Protestantism that market forces have commodified and corrupted, Vaca argues that evangelicalism is an expressly commercial religion. Although religious traditions seem to incorporate people who embrace distinct theological ideas and beliefs, Vaca shows, members of contemporary consumer society often participate in religious cultures by engaging commercial products and corporations. By examining the history of companies and corporate conglomerates that have produced and distributed best-selling religious books, bibles, and more, Vaca not only illustrates how evangelical ideas, identities, and alliances have developed through commercial activity but also reveals how the production of evangelical identity became a component of modern capitalism.

In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women. In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Pure is “a revelation... Part memoir and part journalism, Pure is a horrendous, granular, relentless, emotionally true account" (The Cut) of society’s larger subjugation of women and the role the purity industry played in maintaining it. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” (Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising).