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Book Review: In Search of the Triune God: The Christian Paths of East and West

1880 to 1940 (Foster alludes to this complex history on p. 13), which forms the context of the study. These years were marked by several significant events such as the establishment of electoral institutions in the colony of Senegal in 1880 (esp. in the four communes of Saint Louis, Gorée, Dakar, and Rufisque), the laws of 1901 and 1905 on the separation of church and state in France, and the French defeat of 1940. Foster’s first chapter is “To Mock a Nun: Religion and Politics in Senegal’s Coastal Communes, 1882–1890). This and the remaining five chapters provide a nuanced analysis of (1) the links between colonial policy and rule, religion and Christian mission by emphasizing “the heterogeneity of French colonial rule,” and (2) the importance of “local agency in forging the colonial order” (4, 5, 93, 177). By privileging “local agency” and the reality on the ground, Foster shows convincingly that “there is often an improvisational character to imperial governance” (180), as was the case for French rule in Senegal during the period of the study. The “improvisational character” of French rule in Senegal, as in France’s other colonies, is evident in the resistance to the full implementation of the 1901 and 1905 laws (69–94, esp. 73, 74, 93). Ironically, the nonimplementation of these laws in the colonies resulted in an Old Régime (fifteenth century to 1789) ethos, with its multiplicity of “distinct laws and regulations . . . applied to particular groups and territories” (5, 93). Faith in Empire is an excellent study, a must-read for historians, missiologists, and students of world Christianity.