The author is a well-known sociologist of religion, and this is what lends weight to what otherwise comes over as an impressionistic account. But the book is deliberately crafted in this way, revised on the basis of the F.D. Maurice Lectures given some years ago at King’s College in London. For a fuller picture, one certainly must turn to the books listed for further reading, but what we have here is thought-provoking and instructive. Not only is the information of interest to those concerned for these two areas of the world, it contains material of far wider concern, on the form of Christian influence in society. For those who think that Christians underestimate the social effects of a Church which is sociologically marginal but alive, and capable of pervading the ethos of a society, David Martin’s study will provide welcome support.

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