Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture. Edited by Amos Young and Estrelda Y. Alexander. Religion, Race and Ethnicity Series. New York: New York University Press, 2010. x + 262 pp. $80.00 cloth; $30.00 paper.

Abstract

inconsistencies and contradictions in the writing by, for instance, the elite Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó as much as she did in works by U.S.-Americans. Harris does not dwell on Rodó's "reject[ion of] the idea that inferior minds can be uplifted," an unusual position for a champion of the oppressed to hold, emphasizing instead his critique of American materialism (174). In contrast, she discusses Fee's incorporation of Filipino dialect at length, arguing that the fact that "Filipino speech is represented as foreign" suggests that Fee's memoir emblematizes an American fear of "penetration of the form [of standard English] by linguistic difference" that resembles the fear of racial contamination accompanying much anti-imperialist rhetoric (117). Yet could not whitewashing Filipino pronunciation in print, failing to distinguish it from standard American English, also be read as a symptom of the same fear? The nuanced analysis here is bestowed on American writing, but perhaps that is as it should be. God's Arbiters is, after all, an American story about American stories. Above all, the book helps us to notice how the stories we tell about ourselves influence the actions we take-no insignificant lesson to internalize.