Jim Fulner reviewed God Needs No Passport by Peggy Levitt
Transnationalism is A.O.K.
3 stars
God Needs No Passport wasn't quite what I was expecting. I would say this book is more about transnationalism in general than the American religious landscape. Levitt uses Boston, MA as a case study for all of the United States and interviews over 200 people from four different immigrant communities India (Hindu), Pakistan (Muslim), Ireland (Catholic), & Brazil (Christian, primarily Pentecostal). She also goes through a number of native-born Americans and their position on religion, particularly of new arrivals, ranging from the evangelical anti-religious, to the as long as they are the right kind of religion, to everyone is part of our melting pot. Similarly, she finds several different groups of believers among her immigrant interviewees, the most disturbing of which I found to be the "golden rulers" who have "studied all the religions" and found them all to teach basically the same thing. Thankfully Levitt does point out that …
God Needs No Passport wasn't quite what I was expecting. I would say this book is more about transnationalism in general than the American religious landscape. Levitt uses Boston, MA as a case study for all of the United States and interviews over 200 people from four different immigrant communities India (Hindu), Pakistan (Muslim), Ireland (Catholic), & Brazil (Christian, primarily Pentecostal). She also goes through a number of native-born Americans and their position on religion, particularly of new arrivals, ranging from the evangelical anti-religious, to the as long as they are the right kind of religion, to everyone is part of our melting pot. Similarly, she finds several different groups of believers among her immigrant interviewees, the most disturbing of which I found to be the "golden rulers" who have "studied all the religions" and found them all to teach basically the same thing. Thankfully Levitt does point out that these folks haven't actually studied any religion, but since none of them seem to specifically say to be mean to everyone, then they are all teaching to be nice to everyone. All of these different people with all of their similar names made it kind of hard for me to keep track. For a while I kept flipping back to the beginning to check who was who but eventually, I gave up and decided it wasn't that important. This book was written in 2007 and has very much a post-9/11-feel with an uncomfortable amount of emphasis on international terrorism and some people's attempts at blaming religion for such. All-in-all it kept me longing for more, so the pages kept turning, but I never quit got filled.