tive yet fast-paced, spiritual yet worldly wise and fanciful
yet carefully researched. It’s a delicate balancing act, but she
pulls it off, for the most part, by keeping the plot moving
right to a pleasing, page-turning end.
Fans of mystery and thriller novels will find a lot to like in
this book. Readers of other genres might find the occasional
use of clichéd description a bit off-putting (the “wan smile”
and the voice “crackling on a speakerphone”) but it’s no more
than you’d find in a Clive Cussler or Sue Grafton novel. It will
be interesting to see where time, Providence and a few more
novels take this promising writer of Christian thrillers.
–LLOYD RANG
CANADIAN PENTECOSTALISM:
TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION
Editor: Michael Wilkinson
pentecostalism in its various forms became a key part of the
Canadian religious landscape for most of the 20th century,
and it shows no sign of waning. Indeed, it is now “the most
significant reconfiguration within Christianity.”
Michael Wilkinson, professor of sociology at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., and author of The Spirit Said
Go: Pentecostal Immigrants in Canada (Peter Lang, 2006), has
edited the first in-depth treatment of this phenomenon in the
Canadian context. These essays examine and illumine classical
Pentecostalism, charismatic movements in the Roman Catholic
and mainline Protestant churches and neo-Pentecostalism.
This book focuses on the origins and development of Ca-
nadian Pentecostalism from movement
to denomination; aspects of the Canadian Pentecostal experience, including
how it manifests itself in education,
theology, missions and gender relations;
and the Pentecostal response to institutionalization and globalization.
The authors, most of whom have
earned doctorates from Canadian institutions, have amassed an impressive
mcGill-Queen’s,
2009. 316 pages. array of literature – witness the 23-page
$85. (hardcover)
bibliography. What makes this volume
so significant are the broad categories of investigation: history, sociology, cultural and religious studies, and theology.
The scholars represent, among other institutions, the universities of Ottawa and Lethbridge, Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary/Trinity Western University, and Providence,
Wycliffe and Mount Royal colleges.
Canadian Pentecostalism is another of a McGill-Queen’s
series on the history of religion. With this collection of disparate yet interconnected essays, the editor has provided
a useful service to both Pentecostals, as they think about
their origins and prospects, and non-Pentecostals desiring
to understand the presence and growing influence of Pentecostals.
This book goes a long way toward helping me personally, having been raised in a classical Pentecostal parsonage, to come to grips with the dynamics at work within
this unique expression of spirituality.
–BURTON JANES
THROUGH A LENS DARKLY:
HOW THE NEWS MEDIA PERCEIVE AND
PORTRAY EVANGELICALS
Author: David M. Haskell
this assessment of how the Canadian media perceive and
portray Canadian Evangelicals contains both good news
and bad news. The good: Evangelicals who have wondered
if they’re crazy for thinking that the media portray them
negatively have not lost their minds. The reason they’re
not crazy is the bad: in a measurable
number of instances and in a number
of specific ways, Canadian media do
betray a negative bias in their treatment
of Evangelicals.
But author David Haskell includes a
small slice of good news inside the bad:
by comparison with how Canadian
media portray American Evangelicals,
Canadian Evangelicals look tolerant.
Clements aca-
Haskell, who teaches journalism at
demic, 2009. 289
at the Brantford, Ont., campus of Wil-
pages. $24.95
(paper)
frid Laurier University, knows whereof
he writes. And readers will readily see he has researched his
subject carefully and exhaustively. At several points he gives
readers a view of his raw findings. But he keeps this book accessible. It reads like a story, albeit not the happiest one you
will read this year.
Readers will detect an irenic tone in Through a Lens
Darkly. Haskell does not hold back from reporting the negative conclusions he has drawn from his research, but he consistently avoids the whiny tone that some of us might adopt
in the same circumstances. In fact, throughout, he treats the
journalists who have failed Evangelicals in the way Evangelicals would like to be treated.
If some readers of Haskell’s book might prefer that the
problem he has researched be rooted entirely in some plot
on the journalists’ side, those readers will come away disappointed. Late in his book, he offers some interesting advice
to Evangelicals wishing to be heard. Without spoiling the
reading experience by revealing his advice, I will commend
the book to anyone willing to admit that culpability lies not
entirely on the one side.
