560 - God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School

God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School

By Alan Peshkin

Chicago, University of Chicago, 1986. 349 Pp. $24.95.

In this book, the Jewish author reports on eighteen months of model participant observer research in a fundamentalist Christian school in Illinois. He describes fairly and analyzes sympathetically the setting, the church context, the teaching, the behavior controls, the activities of students, teachers, and parents, and the effects of the school on their lives. Anyone wanting to know what life and learning are like inside such a school will be fascinated by the details and the comprehensive analysis. The book makes major contributions to two current concerns: first, the implications of socialization as a deliberate religious education strategy when it is done in a "total institution" relatively separated from the rest of society, and, second, the dialogue between pluralism and truth that the author addresses in the final chapter. The book is highly recommended for theologians, educators, and all persons interested in Christian faith in culture today.

William Bean Kennedy, Union Theological Seminary, New York, N.Y.