The value of Brasher's book resides in its ability to probe and explore paradox. Women who believe in submission to men find power in that world view. Scholarly analysis and empathic description yield different but interwoven truths. Readers tired of simplistic discussions of any of Brasher's concerns--women, fundamentalism,family life--will find this a refreshing book.

Brasher's ethnographic approach gave her insight into women's lived experience, both the rational and irrational bases of their choices to become fundamentalist, as the women she interviewed did. The sources of female power within the fundamentalist churches are real and concrete. Women's ministries and gender segregated congregational activities provide an alternative source of political power as well as providing women with mutual emotional and material support. Informal influence is also expressed by women in complex negotiations with the male power structure, whose power both in the church and in the home, ultimately resides in male submission to God. All are spiritually equal before God.

Brasher further notes that the stereotyped view of fundamentalist women as antifeminist ignores wide variation in actually held views. These views vary by individuals as well as by issue. Workplace equality is endorsed by a majority of her interviewees. The relationship between conservative religion and the popular cultural context is as complex and nuanced as the other relationships she explores.

My only (minor) complaint stems from the book's brevity. While Brasher balances scholarly analysis and narrative description of lived experience, I sometimes found the resulting discussion oddly abstract. While her empathic style allows these women's voices to be heard, at times it is nevertheless a slightly muted voice. Moreover, and despite the book's brevity, many of Brasher's major conclusions become repetitive. In particular this was the case with her emphasis on the role of women's ministries as an outlet for female energy and growth. At times I felt like saying, "Okay, I got the point." On the whole, however, this book is refreshingly insightful, and ultimately respectful of its subject. For those of us who, like Brasher, remain concerned about the negative cultural influences of fundamentalism, this is Brasher's most significant accomplishment.

Brascher's Godly Women is an empathetic, inductive, and scholarly look at religious women who use their faith as a source of empowerment. Focusing on women's talk within two fundamentalist churches, Brascher's ethnography questions the assumptions that religion-especially fundamentalism-is merely male-dominated or misogynistic. Her subjects find many nuanced and creative ways to influence their culture. What I continued to hear in Brascher's ethnography was my own mother's voice. She continues to attribute her empowerment to her faith. "Before I was a Christian, I didn't want to say or do anything. When I got saved, I had something important to say. I wanted to get involved." It seems before her conversion the world was too big and her voice was too small. Afterwards, however, she saw avenues of influence in small groups. The world was smaller, and her voice was enabled. Many scholars do not take the time to see and listen to that kind of power. Brascher takes that opportunity and proves that religious women can enact real change.

Fundamentalist women often are depicted as dedicated to furthering the goals and ideals of fundamentalist men and thus of ancillary importance to the movement as a whole. In Godly Women,I examine the paradox that fundamentalist women can be powerful actors in a religious cosmos generally deemed to be organized around their disempowerment. In doing research for this book, I spent two years as a participant/observer in Christian fundamentalist congregations followed by six months of immersion specifically in congregational-based women's ministries. Thus, the book draws upon my first-hand observations as well as excerpts from my interviews with fundamentalist women across the US to present a uniquely personal portrait of contemporary female Christian fundamentalists.

I agree with almost all of what Dr. Brasher has to say about the potential of online religion. That being said, however, this book (which makes at least some attempt at being academic, with footnotes and a chapter contextualizing technology and religion historically) fails to delve very deeply into specifics. Unsupported generalizations are rife, and anecdotes (accounts of individuals' experiences with religion on the Internet) are related without any evidence to suggest how widespread these kinds of experiences are. Overall, the book fails to look at enough specific Internet resources in enough detail to justify Brasher's sweeping claims for the future importance of online religion. Her speculation on the character and potential cultural effects of online religion are certainly interesting, but they make up the bulk of the work. As a result, _Give Me That Online Religion_ is an interesting personal vision, but a very weak piece of scholarship.

I originally faulted this book for lacking any reference to major Internet religion hubs such as Beliefnet, but Dr. Brasher has since informed me that the book went to press before Beliefnet came online. I still think, however, that a print directory of religion-related websites with brief descriptions would have been an excellent addition to the book. Even though the directory would have been outdated after a year, such a listing would have provided specific information about the context in which Brasher was writing and given her argument additional weight. Brasher does, however, provide a directory on her website, which is listed in the back of the book.

How will we do religion twenty, a hundred years from now? Will buildings still be important? Or, perhaps, will there be e-religion that people practice at home, just as they e-shop rather than going to the mall? According to Brenda E. Brasher, we already have e-religion, as shown in her book _Give Me That Online Religion_ (Jossey-Bass). A funny, imaginative work, it is also a serious look at how online religion has gotten its start in what humans will surely look back on as the most primitive days of the internet. Brasher teaches religion and philosophy, and for more than a decade has been taking a look at various religious websites. She has had her work cut out for her; there are more than a million sites of diverse religious affiliation, drawing believers as well as those simply curious. Perhaps this is just the internet way of distributing tracts, but Dr. Brasher says no: "online religion is the most portentous development for the future of religion to come out of the twentieth century" and "could become the dominant form of religious experience in the next century."

Those familiar with basic traditional religions will find that they have moved onto the Web without much change; perhaps the literal Bible, apocalyptic ones are over-represented, just as they are on TV. There are others in this book that any reader will find strange. Some sites are direct offshoots of IRL (In Real Life) religious practice, like online prayer chains and chat rooms where people can go for a more-or-less directed Sunday school. The site of EvilPeople, Inc., invites people to click on a button in order to sell their souls. (A soul was recently put up for sale on e-Bay.) There are memorials to many dead people; there are 8,000 Brasher has counted devoted to Princess Diana alone. There are strange and comic religious sites. Brasher never mentions the surrealistic site of the Church of the Subgenius ("The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!") or the subversively comic realism of the Landover Baptist Church ("Where the Worthy Worship and the Unsaved Are Not Welcome.") She does explain that much of the religion on the web is suffused with over-the-top humor. There are what she calls "Celebrity Altars," devoted to some sort of worship of someone famous, and she gives extensive quotes from the site "Dudes of the Keanic Circle," devoted to finding, among other things, the esoteric meanings of the films of Keanu Reeves. Keanu as Christ-figure is very weird, and so is another site that holds Keanu as the Antichrist, confusingly enough. The Transhumanists are interested in the typical religious goal of eternal life, but intend to do so by uploading their brains onto the 'net (undoubtedly Windows is merely withholding this software until their legal problems are worked out). There are many strange religions in this book. There are some not so strange, as the cyber-seder, and the woman who was drawn to convert to Judaism because of it.

Brasher does a good job of explaining how chat rooms and Web sites work, for those who don't know much about the 'net. She draws instructive parallels about previous shifts in media within religion; who is to say that the Web will not, as the years go by, have as much effect as Luther's use of the new technology of the printing press? She is an advocate for watching with curiosity the way religion branches in cyberspace, and for its protection in the face of commercialization. She is right to point out that those who grow up on the web may find the agrarian and pastoral images of inherited religion less credible than they find futuristic fiction. We are just at the beginning, but she has given us a start on a way to thinking about what might come.

Brenda Brasher's "Give Me That Online Religion" is a must-read book, a superbly written, insight-packed exploration of what happens when ancient faith fuses with tomorrow's technology. One of our most adept guides to modern religion, Brasher provides the first serious look at how the Internet is transforming spirituality -- and gazes into the always-intriguing, sometimes-frightening future of global religion in the brave new era of cyberspace.

-- Gershom Gorenberg, senior editor and columnist, The Jerusalem Report