reviewed by Louis Weeks
Robert Wuthnow has done it again! The only scholar I know to take on so constructively so many crucial issues in American religion offers a first rate study of the relationship of American congregations and denominations to global Christianity and world affairs.
Boundless Faith is perhaps Wuthnow’s most complex work to date, for the book’s argument draws upon disparate strains of recent scholarship by those who see the “next Christendom” in the Southern hemisphere, those who find a heuristic future in “emergent” and “missional” movements and churches, those who follow Pentecostalism and its spread, as well as those who study Catholics and mainline Protestants, religion and the public square, NGOs, American foreign policy, particular messianic-prophetic movements in various locales, and the myriad American evangelical preachers and ministries.
The central argument of the book is that Christian denominations, faith-based NGOs, and especially congregations in the U.S. are now deeply related, interdependent with world Christianity and international affairs more broadly. In his words, “American Christianity has been significantly influenced in recent years by globalization, and is, in turn, playing a much larger role in other countries and in U.S. policies and programs abroad” (viii).
Wuthnow gives sympathetic recitals and then critiques of current, sometimes mutually conflicting trends today, such as urbanization decreasing religiosity, increasing localization of interests, and secularization. He provides four plausible and conflicting scenarios of globalization — “Global Monoculture”(rampant homogeneity), “Glocalized Diversity” (increasing diversity of distinctive beliefs and practices), “Beneficent Markets,” (raising the economic lives of people, especially the poor), and “Immiserating Dislocation” (de-centering of cultures and people, especially the poor, exacerbating suffering). He shows in concrete illustrations how all four bear on the contemporary relationships between American Christians and people throughout the world.
Perhaps the most important chapter in considering the worldwide impact of American congregations and other faith-based efforts is the chapter on “Faith and Foreign Policy.” There he sees greater influence recently from Christian groups on foreign policy of the U.S. and presents, in his words, “an argument suggesting that policy makers and religious leaders do, on occasion, have reason to give an appearance of listening to one another.”
A final chapter presents challenges for American Christians considering the implications of global involvement. How can local congregations keep “on task” in the central work of teaching, preaching, and pastoral care, while they engage in global activities and mission — “balancing service and spirituality.” How can partnerships abroad succeed? And how can American Christians serve as a nation’s conscience without being arrogant and self-serving?
LOUIS WEEKS is President Emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary (Union-PSCE) in Richmond, Va.
