164 n Book Reviews Here, one critical remark can be made. While Smith is transparent regarding the editorial work carried out on Ngeti’s texts, and while he is also oten open about personal dilemmas (e.g., his relationship to his own parents at the end of the book, a visit to a psychic in the US, etc.), the issue of ethics regarding the publication of these personal lives and the potential impact on the book’s protagonists remains untouched. To conclude, this book will undoubtedly speak to various audiences. It illustrates a hitherto underexplored aspect of knowledge production in (Africanist) anthropology, and scholars of religion and post-colonial African societies will certainly appreciate it. Finally, readers interested in the praxis of ieldwork will unquestionably ind this book illuminating. Katrien Pype University of Leuven, University of Birmingham VAN WYK, Ilana, The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa: A Church of Strangers, 280 pp., igures, glossary, bibliography, index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Hardcover, £65.00. ISBN 9781107057241. Ilana van Wyk has written a thought-provoking ethnography on the Brazilian Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), one of the world’s most controversial churches, and more speciically about the UCKG in Durban, South Africa. he UCKG is a radical advocate of the ‘prosperity gospel’, the global Christian movement associated mostly with Pentecostal Charismatic churches (PCCs), which emphasizes that it is God’s will for believers to be successful in every aspect of their lives. Following a divine logic of ‘sowing and reaping’, congregants’ investment in both spiritual and monetary terms is believed to generate success for them in this world in the form of a prosperous life. Moreover, similar to other PCCs, the UCKG’s view of the world is one of a spiritual battleield between demonic and heavenly forces. Various scholarly explanations for the popularity of PCCs oten stress the emancipatory social and economic functions of these churches, as van Wyk describes in the introductory chapter 1. Yet van Wyk’s whole book is a profound demonstration of the contrary case of the UCKG in South Africa. he church’s battle against evil, including a ‘spiritual war’ against family members who are accused of witchcrat, puts enormous stress on intimate social relationships. Moreover, the endless requirement to ofer money to the church means that bills and school fees cannot be paid, increasing the tensions between UCKG followers and their kin. In chapter 2, “Christian Warriors and Spiritual Warfare,” we read about van Wyk’s research assistant Phukile, who is disrespectful to a sangoma (diviner) and talks aggressively to her aunt. he constant ight among the UCKG’s ‘overcomers’ against the demons AIDS, sangomas, and crime ofers little room for the liberating power of the Holy Spirit that is known in other PCCs, van Wyk observes. Furthermore, as described in chapter 3, “On the Front Lines: Men of God,” the Brazilian and South African bishops and pastors are regularly transferred and “are always from somewhere else” (p. 71). hey are not locally embedded pastors who build a relationship with their spiritual children; instead, they are “front-line spiritual ighters in a global war against Satan” (p. 86). Similarly, no relationships between the church visitors develop, no social gatherings take place in the church, and many believers stay for just a short period of time. he only group that seems to form a minimal community are the assistants. Chapter 4, “Women of God, Love and Marriage,” describes how the assistants prepare for the church services, help the pastors by distributing tithe envelopes, and patrol the aisles to look for demons. But the social lives of assistants are constrained. Intimacies with their colleagues are restricted, as these could harbor evil through jealousy and unfulilled ideals Book Reviews of romantic love between male and female assistants. In addition, their families are oten highly suspicious of their involvement in the UCKG. In chapter 6, “Gossiping Demons, Strong Words and Lies,” it is explained further that family members and other citizens oten accuse the UCKG of witchcrat. UCKG members are so busy ighting evil that they themselves are suspected of having knowledge about how demons work. So why would people want to participate in the UCKG if it leads to even more jealousy, suspicion, and distress? Taking the local cosmological reality of spiritual forces and evil into account, van Wyk explains in chapter 5, “he Leaking Nature of hings,” that the attraction of the UCKG is related to the possibility of a pragmatic faith instead of the more propositional faith of other PCCs. he UCKG ofers technologies through which believers can direct good luck into their lives. hese include physical objects, such as small bottles containing holy water that helps to defend one’s body from evil, and clear instructions about how to tithe and pray. In accounting for the church’s success in South Africa, van Wyk states: “he UCKG thus concentrated on individual bodies as a nexus from which the intersections between material and invisible realities could be controlled” (p. 131). It is in such a context that the strong emphasis on money collection in the church appears to make sense, as analyzed in chapter 7, “Proit Prophets and God’s Money.” Seeing money as part of people’s relationships, the UCKG considers it to be contaminated by its evil origins, be it employers or family members. Sacriicing large amounts of money, sometimes the income of a few months, becomes a ‘triumphant moment’ in a longer process of combating Satan: one’s money, job, and house are safeguarded by putting them in the hands of God. he technologies of faith show a logic of ‘overcoming’ by becoming radically suspicious of others—creating obligations not within a community of believers but between individuals and God. As depicted in chapter 8, “Family Demons and the Blessed Life,” even though n 165 believers feel empowered by their combative faith, in the end they stand alone, leading to a growing army of demonic enemies in their lives that need to be battled. Van Wyk’s study is a welcome contribution to the study of Pentecostalism in particular and of religion more generally because it challenges and complicates the dominant view on the role of religion in Africa (and Brazil), which is seen as mainly ofering help, community, and emancipation. In this sense, the book’s emphasis on the UCKG as a contrary case could be considered a drawback, as scholars might conclude that the UCKG is an exception to the rule. It is on the implications of her analysis for the future study of Pentecostalism at large that I think Van Wyk could have elaborated more in her last concluding chapter. Even if the UCKG seems to be extreme in many ways, other work on PCCs in Africa show similar issues, such as in the case of Ghanaian churches in Botswana (van Dijk 2010), the Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God (Ukah 2008), and other Brazilian Pentecostal churches in Mozambique (van de Kamp 2010). hat said, Ilana van Wyk’s book is important in bringing the study of global Christianity to a new level. Linda van de Kamp University of Amsterdam References van de Kamp, Linda. 2011. “Converting the Spirit Spouse: he Violent Transformation of the Pentecostal Female Body in Maputo, Mozambique.” Ethnos 76 (4): 510–533. van Dijk, Rijk. 2010. “Social Catapulting and the Spirit of Entrepreneurialism: Migrants, Private Initiative, and the Pentecostal Ethic in Botswana.” Pp. 101–117 in Traveling Spirits: Migrants, Markets and Mobilities, ed. Gertrud Hüwelmeier and Kristine Krause. London: Routledge. Ukah, Asonzeh. 2008. A New Paradigm of Pentecostal Power: he Redeemed Christian Church of God in Nigeria. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press; Asmara: Red Sea Press.