The Spirit Moves West

With the extraordinary growth of Christianity in the global south has come the rise of "reverse missions," in which countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America send missionaries to re-evangelize the West. In The Spirit Moves West, Rebecca Kim uses South Korea as a case study of how non-Western missionaries target Americans, particularly white Americans. She draws on four years of interviews, participant observation, and surveys of South Korea's largest non-denominational missionary-sending agency, University Bible Fellowship, in order to provide an inside look at this growing phenomenon. Known as the "Asian Protestant Superpower," South Korea is second only to the United States in the number of missionaries it sends abroad: approximately 22,000 in over 160 countries. Conducting her research both in the US and in South Korea, Kim studies the motivations and methods of these Korean evangelicals who have, since the 1970s, sought to "bring the gospel back" to America. By offering the first empirically-grounded examination of this much-discussed phenomenon, Kim explores what non-Western missions will mean to the future of Christianity in America and around the world.

"The dramatic growth of Christianity around the world in the last century has shifted the balance of power within the faith away from the traditional strongholds of Europe and the United States to the Global South. While we typically imagine Western missionaries carrying religion to the ends of the earth, David R. Swartz shows that the line of influence has often run the other way, as evangelicals in nations such as Korea, India, and Uganda shaped the American church from abroad. Swartz tells stories of evangelicals crossing national boundaries, offering new insights into a tradition that imagines itself as simultaneously American and part of a global communion"--

This is a powerful personal chronicle of the real-life saga of a Native American family, and how they endured the destruction of its way of life to survive in the modern world. Boyd's story is a history marked not only by love, but by prejudice, suffering, abuse, and the central ruination of her people. Photos.

The first comprehensive examination of Alaskan development schemes from 1890 to the present. Focuses on five major conflicts between environmentalists and developers, from reindeer herding to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Takes readers behind common and simplistic representations of the state to explore the rich history and extreme diversity of a land that cannot easily be pigeonholed into typical American conceptions about place.

The New York Times–bestselling author of Getting the Love You Want sends out a ‘call for renewed feminist action, based on “the spirit and ethic of love’” (Kirkus Reviews). A decade before the Seneca Falls Convention, black and white women joined together at the 1837 Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in the first instance of political organizing by American women for American women. Incited by “holy indignation,” these pioneers believed it was their God-given duty to challenge both slavery and patriarchy. Although the convention was largely written out of history for its religious and interracial character, these women created a blueprint for an intersectional feminism that was centuries ahead of its time. Part historical investigation, part personal memoir, Hunt traces how her research into nineteenth-century organizing led her to become one of the most significant philanthropists in modern history. Her journey to confront her position of power meant taking control of an oil fortune that was being deployed on her behalf but without her knowledge, and acknowledging the feminist faith animating her life’s work.