The Story of Baptists in the United States.

The Story of Baptists in the United States. By Pamela R. Durso and Keith E. Durso. Brentwood, TN: Baptist History and Heritage Society, 2006. 224 pp.

Pam Durso, associate executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, and her husband, Keith Durso, a freelance writer and copyeditor, have written a brief narrative history of Baptists in America. After summarizing seventeenth-century Baptist origins in England, the text explores in roughly chronological order Baptist development in the United States from Roger Williams to Latino and Korean Baptists in twenty-first-century America in twelve brief chapters. Along the way, traditional themes such as revivalism, revolutionary Baptists, and the North/South divide are addressed, among others. None of this is new to those familiar with Baptist history. Leon McBeth presented it in selected chapters of his 1987 standard, The Baptist Heritage, and Bill J. Leonard updated it in sections of his 2003 Baptist Ways: A History, which he followed in 2005 with Baptists in America. With such sources readily available, is there a niche for the Dursos' book?

The answer is yes, and the reason is simple: many people who will not read other sources will read this book, learn from it, and perhaps be led to dig deeper into the topic. The content is brief and simply stated, though accurate, clear, and well-documented. Pare knows what is important and states it in plain language with helpful endnotes. A decent index is also included. Though one might find elsewhere brief narratives on African American Baptist history, Native American Baptist church origins, Southern Baptist fundamentalism, and Baptist female pastor Frances E. Townsley's 1885 ordination, to find them together in such a brief and accessible resource is quite a feat.

Another reason people will read this book is its miniature coffee-table style. Keith knows how to please and catch the eye. The chapters are short. The pages have wide margins on which are posted helpful pictures, charts, maps, and primary documents. The charts and maps are more educational, but items such as the picture of a 1950s Japanese Christian brass band on the back of a flatbed truck--"truck evangelism" says the caption--or the front page of a 1926 Fort Worth newspaper announcing Baptist pastor J. Frank Norris had gunned down city politico D. E. Chipps kept me turning the pages (176, 180).

One could quibble about what is not included. Only ten pages for all of African American Baptist history is too little. Or one could criticize certain inclusions: the conclusion comes close to Baptist self-flattery with terms such as "wonderful history" of Baptists who "continued to hold fervently [sic] that Jesus is Lord" (219). However, one cannot charge this text with failing to provide an appealing, solid introduction to American Baptists for "students in the classroom, pastors in their studies, and laypersons in their homes" (9). I will use this text as corollary reading in my courses, and place a copy in the lobby where students can pick it up, flip through it, and learn a little Baptist history despite themselves.--Reviewed by Win. Loyd Allen, Sylvan Hills Baptist Church Professor of Baptist Heritage, James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia.