Joliet UU's Rev. Emily Gage reviews How the Other Half Worships

In today's Chicago Tribune Book section Images of religious life among America's urban poor are a revelation. She reviews Camilo Jose Vergara's How the Other Half Worships .

Over a period of 30 years, Vergara photographed, visited and interviewed pastors, deacons, ministers and members of these various communities. Along with the images there is a kind of oral history, with insights and reflections from the worshippers and church builders. There is a quality of unvarnished realism in these quotes. Bishop B.J. Luckett of Plain Truth Mission Church states succintly:

"I got shot through my neck during the course of a robbery. I became a preacher very quickly after and never looked back."

One reason I have no quarrel at all with Evangelicals. There's often that unvarnished realism among them that makes their whorsip more humanistic.

cross posted at Pfarrer Streccius