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Theology, Sociology, and Politics: The German Protestant Social Conscience, 1890–1933 . By W. R. Ward. Bern: Peter Lang, 1979. 250 pp.

For years historians of American religion have recognized the importance of the city in shaping the development of Protestantism, but this awareness has not led to many noteworthy studies of the issue. This book is clearly an exception. It is a well-crafted, competent, and thought-provoking study of the interrelationship between American Protestant culture and urbanization as seen in Los Angeles during the years 1850-1930. The author's thesis is that "from the 1890s to the 1910s political, business, and social institutions in Los Angeles were extensions of the Protestant culture," but this religious establishment came apart during the 1920s as Los Angeles increasingly turned into a "secular metropolis." At first glance, the thesis looks simple enough—Protestant city becomes secular metropolis—but how and why this transition took place are important questions which Singleton carefully and judiciously seeks to answer. The principal sources the author used were membership lists and directories of Los Angeles churches: using a random sample of 7,014 people, he put the Protestant community through the computer and came up with an impressive list of 35 tables plus 40 pages of appendix tables. These tables provided the basis for his analysis of change in the community. The author also consulted more traditional literary sources and conducted some oral interviews. The end result is a very readable and well-documented study. But there are problems. The major problem is the conceptual framework in which the thesis is wrapped. The author groups together six denominations—the Protestant empire that ruled Los Angeles—and labels them the voluntaristic churches. The reasoning behind this is not totally persuasive, and the emphasis on the concept of voluntarism becomes exaggerated and from my vantage point does not appear to be crucial to the argument. Also, Singleton's emphasis on urbanization as the causal force in the breakup of the Protestant community, as persuasive as it is, does not allow for other possible influences, such as modernization or the internal crises encountered by twentieth-century Protestantism. Such issues are not readily resolved, but to his credit Singleton seeks to answer them. The end result is a thoughtprovoking book which was a pleasure to read.