Memoirs of the Spirit (review)

Memoirs of the Spirit. Edited by Edwin S. Gaustad. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1999. Pp. xix, 356. $26.00.)

This anthology of religious reflections compiled by a distinguished scholar of religion in the United States presents a thoughtfully chosen selection of twenty-six excerpts from American autobiographical writing dating from 1676 to the present. Each excerpt has a winsome introduction that includes a picture of each author and suggestions for background reading. Technical terms in the excerpts are explained in footnotes. The selections represent a broad sample of religious, geographical, vocational, ethnic, and racial perspectives including, by my count, nine Roman Catholic authors. No American Catholic saint, however, is included. The characteristic content of each excerpt is a description or reflection on a spiritual struggle experienced by its author.

The diversity and extensiveness of American personal religious writing makes it impossible for a single book to represent every perspective. The excerpts chosen by Professor Gaustad are above all interesting because they involve perennial decisions about moral life, discipleship, and practical living. Here readers will find Mary Rowlandson's reflections during the adversity of captivity, Rabbi Isaac M. Wise and Reinhold Niebuhr in the thick of ministry, Richard Allen founding the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Virginia Sorensen remembering a killing which occurred in her Mormon community as a young woman. Notable omissions, to my reading, are the Society of Friends, especially a selection from John Woolman, Christian Science, Islam, Spiritualism, and twentieth-century alternative movements. There is no excerpt from the writings of a martyr--traditionally the quintessential spiritual struggle.

The excellent introductions to the selections will be helpful to the general reader, but less so to scholars, who will find more complete references for deceased authors in The American National Biography. The introductions do not mention textual issues about the selections. In some cases there are significant textual questions, for example, in the case of Black Elk Speaks (see, Philip P. Arnold, "Black Elk and Book Culture," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 67 [1999], 85-111). Every text has a context, and sometimes the context is thick and complex. For the ordinary reader seeking spiritual insight textual issues are a minor problem, but scholars should be wary of mining the excerpts for illustrations of generalizations without considering the background of the excerpt.

Memoirs of the Spirit may prove useful as a sourcebook for classes in United States religious history, but its true audience would seem to be spiritual seekers rather than academics. Here readers will discover a harvest of insights. Indeed, it is such a good read that the book makes an ideal ecumenical gift at holiday, graduation, or adult initiation time.

Jon Alexander, O.P.
Providence College

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