The Eastern Church in the Spiritual Marketplace - (Niu Orthodox Christian Studies) by Amy Slagle (Paperback)

About the Book

Like many Americans, the Eastern Orthodox converts in this study are
participants in what scholars today refer to as the "spiritual marketplace"
or quest culture of expanding religious diversity and individual choice-
making that marks the post-World War II American religious landscape.
In this highly readable ethnographic study, Slagle explores the ways in
which converts, clerics, and lifelong church members use marketplace
metaphors in describing and enacting their religious lives.

Slagle conducted participant observation and formal semi-structured
interviews in Orthodox churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
Jackson, Mississippi. Known among Orthodox Christians as the "Holy
Land" of North American Orthodoxy, Pittsburgh offers an important
context for exploring the interplay of Orthodox Christianity with the
mainstreams of American religious life. Slagle's second round of research
in Jackson sheds light on the American Bible Belt where over the past
thirty years the Orthodox Church in America has marshaled significant
resources to build mission parishes.

Relatively few ethnographic studies have examined Eastern Orthodox
Christianity in the United States, and Slagle's book fills a significant gap.
This lucidly written book is an ideal selection for courses in the sociology
and anthropology of religion, contemporary Christianity, and religious
change. Scholars of Orthodox Christianity, as well as clerical and lay
people interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, will find this book to be of
great appeal.

Book Synopsis

Like many Americans, the Eastern Orthodox converts in this study are participants in what scholars today refer to as the "spiritual marketplace" or quest culture of expanding religious diversity and individual choice-making that marks the post-World War II American religious landscape.

In this highly readable ethnographic study, Slagle explores the ways in which converts, clerics, and lifelong church members use marketplace metaphors in describing and enacting their religious lives. Slagle conducted participant observation and formal semi-structured interviews in Orthodox churches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Jackson, Mississippi. Known among Orthodox Christians as the "Holy Land" of North American Orthodoxy, Pittsburgh offers an important context for exploring the interplay of Orthodox Christianity with the mainstreams of American religious life. Slagle's second round of research in Jackson sheds light on the American Bible Belt where over the past thirty years the Orthodox Church in America has marshaled significant resources to build mission parishes.

Relatively few ethnographic studies have examined Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the United States, and Slagle's book fills a significant gap. This lucidly written book is an ideal selection for courses in the sociology and anthropology of religion, contemporary Christianity, and religious change. Scholars of Orthodox Christianity, as well as clerical and lay people interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, will find this book to be of great appeal.

Review Quotes

"Amy Slagle's new ethnographic study on the dynamics of conversion to the Orthodox Church in the so-called spiritual marketplace is a welcome contribution illuminating the historian, sociologist, pastor, and theologian.

" -Nicholas E. Denysenko, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Slagle's study is an important contribution to several fields. It adds significantly to the treatment of conversion in the sociology of religion, which has tended to focus mainly on protestantism and secondarily on Catholicism. The book is extraordinarily well written and organized, combining data and theory with an ease seldom found in academic prose.

" -Andrew Buckser, professor of Anthropology at Purdue University and co-editor of The Anthropology of Religious Conversion

"Amy Slagle's monograph represents the first substantial ethnographic study [on] Eastern Orthodox Christians in America. She focuses on converts to Orthodoxy, presenting a compelling argument that, far from rejecting modernity and the spiritual marketplace in favor of tradition, converts operate precisely within the 'culture of choice' environment.

" -Scott Kenworthy, Church History

Amy Slagle's monograph represents the first substantial ethnographic study [on] Eastern Orthodox Christians in America. She focuses on converts to Orthodoxy, presenting a compelling argument that, far from rejecting modernity and the spiritual marketplace in favor of tradition, converts operate precisely within the "culture of choice" environment.

Amy Slagle's new ethnographic study on the dynamics of conversion to the Orthodox Church in the so-called spiritual marketplace is a welcome contribution illuminating the historian, sociologist, pastor, and theologian.

Slagle's study is an important contribution to several fields. It adds significantly to the treatment of conversion in the sociology of religion, which has tended to focus mainly on protestantism and secondarily on Catholicism. The book is extraordinarily well written and organized, combining data and theory with an ease seldom found in academic prose.

About the Author

Amy Slagle is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Southern Mississippi.