Review of When the Roll is Called: Trauma and the Soul of American Evangelicalism

There are books that offer a radically new perspective on old topics. Such is the case with When the Roll Is Called: Trauma and the Soul of American Evangelicalism. In this review essay, the author examines the fresh perspective that psychoanalysis can offer to religion as psychologist/psychoanalyst Marie Hoffman focuses on the trauma that she perceives has lain at the foundation of modern evangelicalism. This trauma, she asserts, has led to incalculable suffering in “believers” who have not realized how far some of evangelicalism has deviated from the message of Christ. The author examines Hoffman’s contention that dualisms prevailed as a result of trauma in the lives of some of evangelicalism’s progenitors, and also as a result of the American Civil War that prepared the soil for reception of this apocalyptic theology. After reviewing Hoffman’s ideas, the author adds theological expansion to the book’s perspective on eschatology.