BOOKS
Embracing Our Roots: Rediscovering the Value of Faith, Family, and Tradition (Wipf and Stock, 2021)
Drawing from Palma’s background as an Italian American evangelical, Embracing Our Roots considers the significance of rediscovering our ancestral history in a society where many are forced to repress, ignore, or reject their heritage. A nation of immigrants, every American is, in some sense, an “ethnic” American and stands to gain from considering how the people and places they come from make them unique.
“In Paul J. Palma’s latest work, faith, family, and tradition unite in a celebration of both past and present. Embracing Our Roots is a go-to guide for Christians who seek to strengthen their faith as it is connected to their family’s background. This book demonstrates that, like the quest for a hidden treasure, the discovery of one’s heritage can have a variety of twists and turns that bring a person home to themselves and, ultimately, to God.”
–Stephanie Longo, Instructor of history, Lackawanna College
NOW AVAILABLE in paperback, hardback, and e-book! Visit Wipf and Stock or Amazon (for your Kindle edition).
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Italian American Pentecostalism and the Struggle for Religious Identity. Routledge Studies in Religion series, 2020.
While many established forms of Christianity have seen significant decline in recent decades, Pentecostals are currently one of the fastest growing religious groups across the world. This book examines the roots, inception, and expansion of Pentecostalism among Italian Americans to demonstrate how Pentecostalism moves so freely through widely varying cultures.
NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK! Visit Routledge.com and enter code FLY21 at checkout for the 20% discount offer.
Check out the Book Launch video.
GRASSROOTS PENTECOSTALISM IN BRAZIL AND NORTH AMERICA: MISSIONS, MIGRATIONS, AND MOBILITY. NEW YORK: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, FORTHCOMING, 2022.
This book will be featured in the Christianity and Renewal – Interdisciplinary Studies series, edited by Wolfgang Vondey and Amos Yong.
Grassroots Christianities challenge the hierarchical and institutional makeup of mainline denominations. Increasingly diverse, global Pentecostalism encompasses movements that veer from the organizational structure of the dominant forms of Christianity characterizing the Western world. On the other hand, the many grassroots expressions of Pentecostalism generate stability from the bottom-up. While the rise to prominence of the Assemblies of God in Brazil (the Western hemisphere’s largest Pentecostal church body) demanded structure akin to mainline denominations, other Pentecostal contexts retain their grassroots, bottom-up identity. This book offers an historical and comparative profile of shifting growth patterns among denominations in Brazil and the United States in light of their migratory beginnings and transnational expansion.
SELECT ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
** For a complete list of publications, see my CV.
Paul J. Palma 