This book is dated, so if you want to know about the current movers and shakers in the evangelical churches, you should look elsewhere. Also, Balmer is not a critical secularist; his portraits are sympathetic, if not always complementary.

However, if you want to know about the history of evangelicalism and why it is so diverse, this is an excellent book. Balmer visited a range of evangelical groups, including the bastion of evangelical theology, Dallas Theological Seminary; Capstone Cathedral, a very kooky off-shoot of Pentecostalism; Calvary Chapel in California, a proto-mega church; and group of dissident evangelicals from Trinity College. Each group is not only profiled, but set in historical context. This is an area I know a lot about and I still found new insights and connections in this book. ( )

Some insights, but nothing really new. Suffers from being outdated (how can you talk about mega churches without mentioning Saddleback these days?)

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