BOOK NOTES

Justice Anderson, An Evangelical Saga: Baptists and Their Precursors in Latin America, Xulon Press, 2005

Reviewed by Daniel Carro “Baptists and other Evangelicals in Latin America

have a history of their own! They should no longer be relegated to chapters in books on the history of Christian missions. Having earned their raison d’etre by the tests of time and perseverance, Latin American Evangelicals should be welcomed to the academy as a recent and signifi cant chapter in the history of Christianity.”

With these words Justice C. Anderson prefaces his 637 page tome entitled, An Evangelical Saga: Baptists and Their Precursors in Latin America. The book, the fi rst and only one in its class in the English language, relates and analyzes the rapid growth of Baptist and Evangelical infl uence in Latin America. After so much recognition about the “center of gravity” of

Christianity moving to the Southern regions of the globe, this Baptist history carefully recorded by Anderson fi lls in a vacuum in historical literature in the Anglo-speaking world. The book is of interest to students and professors of Baptist history and Latin American Christianity, including missiologists, church historians and global denominational leaders. James Leo Garrett, in the Foreword, locates this book “in the face of the convergence of three Christian phenomena. First…that the center of gravity for Christianity is shifting from Europe and North America to the Southern hemisphere. Second, there is the changing face of Christianity in Latin America. Third, the Baptists of North America and most of Europe until recently had little knowledge of the origins and growth of Baptists in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the same is possibly true of most general historians of Christianity, for the entire story until recent years have been largely confi ned to the Spanish and Portuguese language.” Here there is a history well researched and investigated by someone who has been a participant in its development for many years as a missionary in the Latin American region, and as a respected historian of the missionary movement in his own country. “I have chosen the title saga,” Anderson fi nishes his preface, because this history is like “a modern heroic narrative of historic fi gures and events that have become legendary.” In this case, the legend includes the author. For all who participated in it, and for all who really want to

get to know it, Anderson has written a piece of Baptist history worth recalling and worth reading. Muchas gracias, Justo! Daniel Carro is professor of divinity, John Leland Center for Theological Studies, Virginia, USA

30 BAPTIST WORLD MAGAZINE Books Received by the BWA

Ross Clifford and Phillip Johnson, The Cross is not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection, Baker Books, 2012

George Bullard, Faith Soaring Churches: A Learning Experience Version, Lucas Park Books, 2012

William Brackney, Congregation & Campus: North American Baptists in Higher Education, Mercer University Press, 2008