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Simon Coleman. The Globalization of Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xii + 264 pp. $70.00.
Simon Coleman, lecturer in anthropology at the University of Durham, attempts to highlight the relationship of certain forms of Christianity with growing globalization. He traces the growth of one Scandinavian church group, showing how it maintains ties with like-minded groups around the world, particularly in America. The detailed study provides helpful insights into globalization and the rapid growth of charismatic Christianity, both topics of increasing academic interest. Somewhat unexpectedly, the church at the center of Coleman's study is not in the U.S., Latin America, or Africa, but in Sweden. Although often considered secular, Sweden provides a useful context to underscore a number of traits of charismatic Christianity and to outline several global processes. Coleman writes, "In this book, I propose that the revival of conservative Protestantism in many parts of the contemporary world can be viewed in the light of another body of social theory that is of vital importance but is still relatively little explored in relation to the spread of faith: that of globalization" (pp. 3-4). In discussing how globalization has helped the explosive expansion of religion, stimulated by secular global processes such as migration, multi-national capital, and the media revolution, Coleman writes, "In a curious sense, then, apparently secular aspects of modernity have actually increased the scope of religion rather than rendering it irrelevant" (p. 5).
Coleman's extensive field research, which builds on work he did for his Ph.D. thesis (University of Cambridge, 1989), examines the ministry of the Word of Life church in Uppsala, Sweden. Word of Life (Livets Ord) was started in the early 1980s by Ulf Ekman, and it now has a thriving Sunday service, with an auditorium that seats over 4,000 people, a Bible institute with over 6,000 graduates, and business activities which include the printing of books and course literature as well as the production of audio-cassettes, videos, and television programs. Ekman himself...