Soul by soul The Evangelical mission to spread the Gospel to Muslims

Brazilian journalist Carranca makes her English-language debut with a riveting report on the "secretive world" of evangelical Christian missionaries proselytizing to Muslims. Focusing on "the dynamics of soul-winning... on the ground" in countries like Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan--where Christian evangelizing is sometimes severely punished--Carranca describes how, because these regions are often hostile or unpalatable to Americans, the missionary work is being done primarily by Christian converts from other countries with a recent history of evangelical proselytizing--Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, and South Korea. (Meanwhile, evangelicals in America have redirected their efforts toward recently arrived Muslim refugees from Syria.) She profiles Brazilian converts Luiz and Gis, missionaries working in Afghanistan alongside South Africans Hannelie and Werner and Afghan convert Hussain. Operating undercover, the group holds prayer meetings, distributes religious material, and smuggles converts out of the country. They and their colleagues risk being kidnapped, beaten, and killed--threats Carranca narrates with a precipitous momentum as they come to fruition: "Heavy gunshots were fired, followed by a loud explosion. The neighborhood darkened.... Hannelie could see her house burning." Zooming out, Carranca tracks how this "dramatic" shift in evangelical attention toward Muslims (from an earlier global focus on recruiting Catholics) is facilitated by international Christian organizations, sometimes with U.S. government support. The result is a breathtaking deep dive into a clandestine, high-stakes world of clashing religions. (Apr.)

An account of the fervent desire to promote Christianity across the world. Brazilian journalist Carranca offers a penetrating report on the clandestine world of Evangelical missionaries, many from Latin America, who come to the Middle East to convert people. Her primary guide to this dedicated community is S.P. Luiz. In 2003, he and his family left their native Brazil--the second-largest sender of missionaries--to save souls in Afghanistan. Luiz's journey, Carranca writes, "took me to underground house churches in Afghanistan, among persecuted Christian converts in Pakistan, to a close-mouthed summit on global Evangelism in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, and to mission fields in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey." She came to understand that the missionaries' work, as they saw it, was not to liberate inhabitants from poverty and oppression, but to free them from being "'enslaved' by Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism." Missionaries, she writes, believe "they are fighting spiritual battles, and they see poverty, wars, and disasters as caused by evil forces to which the only solution is Evangelism." Their missions are dangerous, to be sure: They are subject to constant surveillance, death threats, and arrests. To protect themselves, they use encrypted messages and email to communicate, never talk about religion on the phone, and use fake names. They keep religious materials and images hidden; sometimes, they are forced to flee for their lives when terrorists rampage through their communities. Yet their work has been successful, with large numbers of converts, and Evangelicals' experiences throughout the Global South have changed the sect. No longer homogeneously white and socially conservative, they have become a diverse group whose leaders, rather than support isolationist policies, see themselves as part of a global community--all "God's Kingdom, conceived by Evangelicals as universal and borderless." An eye-opening look at a hidden reality of Evangelical missions. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.