Joel Robbins. Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004 (xxvii and 383 pp., 10 photos, 2 maps)

Abstract

A string of important articles over the years has established Joel Robbins at the forefront of the anthropological study of Christianity. Although his long awaited book draws on these earlier publications, it presents a powerful and sustained argument that is far greater than the sum of its parts. It is hard to think of another recent work in the anthropology of Christianity, or even of religion more generally, that displays such a command of local knowledge in tandem with so broad and secure a mastery both of social theory and the history of religious doctrine. Moreover, counter to the particularistic tendency of some cultural anthropology today, this book forthrightly lays the groundwork for further comparative research. It is also an exemplary piece of ethnographic and historical writing. Although the volume is long and well documented, every detail works for the analysis. Robbins writes in language so clear, measured, and intellectually sober that those whose palates have become accustomed to the harsher spices and artificial flavorings so often served up in the name of cultural theory may miss its significance. They should not: this is a monumental book with which all subsequent writers on religious conversion, culture theory, social transformation, and globalization should have to contend.