Choice Review

Though a goodly number of libraries will buy this book just for the title, which conjures up scenes of primly dressed church folks whacking one another with their King James Bibles (red letter edition), the actual focus of this well-researched and well-written--though at times repetitious--monograph is on the language of violence in American Methodist literature from the time of Methodist founders John and Charles Wesley to the Civil War. By "violence," Williams (Texas Christian Univ.) does not mean physical force or injury, but this point is not always kept straight. What he terms "violence" should more properly be called "spiritual warfare" or "struggle," the Methodists' very real fight against sin in which "the body became engulfed in the bitter and destructive contest for salvation" (p. 14). For early Methodists, spiritual warfare manifested itself in a believer's life, producing physical responses within those who experienced not only the presence of God but also the spiritual attacks of Satan. Williams's book reminds readers that Methodist religious experience was not always warm and sentimental but was originally one in which believers were at war within themselves and against sin in the world. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. J. R. Stone California State University, Long Beach