Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel. By Jonathan Root

Nova Religio 114 Copyright © 2024 Association for the Academic Study of New Religions, Inc. as a "settler-­ colonial society" (124). He is equally clear that the efforts of Muslim and Christian communities in Israel to reclaim mosques and churches in their communities are "struggles of indigenous people to claim their past places" (125). Jewish Israeli claims to indigeneity are somewhat casually dismissed by reference to the work of radical non-­or anti-­ Zionist scholars such as Shlomo Sand and Israel Shahak. Luz consistently refers to the government of Israel as an "ethnocracy, " which he defines as "a political regime that facilitates expansion and control by a dominant ethnicity within a modern national state" (37). This is in contrast with both Israel's mainstream self-­ definition as a democratic and Jewish state, and Sammy Smooha's definition of Israel as an "ethnic democracy" whose ethnic dominance of Jews (approximately 80 percent of Israel's population) nonetheless maintains democratic, political, and civil rights for all. Tellingly, Smooha's work does not appear at all in Luz's bibliography. The book's subtitle, A View from Israel–Palestine, is somewhat misleading. At first glance a reader of the subtitle might think the book deals with people in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel. However, the reader soon notices that the author consistently refers to Muslim and Christian Israelis as "Palestinian. " Certainly, "Palestinian" is an integral part of the complex range of identities people in these Muslim and Christian communities in Israel possess, which include as well a positive identification by many of them as citizens of Israel. The author's presentation of only one of these important factors—the Palestinian—seems to overly simplify what Luz surely recognizes as the daunting complexity of the issues he deals with. Ira Robinson, Concordia University Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel. By Jonathan Root. ­ Eerdmans, 2023. 271 pages. 26. 00 softcover; ebook available. As Jonathan Root modestly claims in his analysis of the life and times of Oral Roberts, his book "shouldn't be the last on Roberts. " Instead, it should be the starting point for "other scholars much more capable than myself" to investigate further the man who embodied so many facets—good, bad, and downright ugly—of American culture (206–07). Roberts was both a product and representative of the economic and cultural shifts that occurred in the United States after World War II. The height of his power and influence came during the "age of evangelicalism " in the 1970s and 1980s. Although not as famous as Billy Graham, Roberts was a close second. By the mid-­ 1980s, he was head of a 120 million-­ a-­ year business with 2, 300 employees and the founder of Oral Roberts University—with 5, 400 undergraduates—a medical school, and plans to add schools of NR-27-4Text. indd 114 NR-27-4Text. indd 114 5/9/24 3: 33 PM 5/9/24 3: 33 PM Reviews Copyright © 2024 Association for the Academic Study of New Religions, Inc. 115 religion, law, and business. He had written more than 130 books, translated into over 100 languages. By 1980 he was so famous that 84 percent of Americans recognized him. During his seventy-­ year career, he conducted more than 300 healing crusades in 35 countries and laid hands on over two million people. While Billy Graham attracted mostly white middle-­and upper-­ class evangelicals, Roberts appealed to the lower-­ and middle-­ class remnants of the Midwest and South's agrarian and Pentecostal traditions. As his radio and television empire grew, so did his popularity among all classes of Americans. He frequently appeared on talk shows and late-­ night television. He even received a handwritten letter from John Lennon, reflecting his admiration for a man he saw as a potential role model: "maybe if I'd had a father like you, I would have been a better person" (1). But, as the saying goes, pride goeth before a fall, and Roberts fell mightily as his empire crumbled under the weight of his financial extravagance, his personal idiosyncrasies, and the tragedy that befell his family with the death of his oldest daughter in. . .