Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus: Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil

sections that are ‘heavy’ with anthropological theory. He indicates which parts are the most onerous and encourages readers who are not interested in that content to skip those sections. Perhaps they are engaging for cultural anthropologists, but they read largely as wordplay for the sake of wordplay. I failed to discern coherent arguments in these relatively short sections and to see why some anthropologists choose to write in such incomprehensible ways. Other problems are relatively minor. There are a number of small errors. Bialecki uses ‘secularism’ as a catch-all term for secularity, secularisation, nonreligion, irreligion, and all things that are not religion, which is not the way most scholars understand the term. He mistakenly describes the Salt Lake Tabernacle as a former temple site (67) and occasionally uses terms like ‘disfellowshipped’ erroneously (ibid). Finally, Bialecki suggests that Mormonism and transhumanism are inherently compatible (161). There may be some possible links thanks to Mormon theology, but the author’s primary source for determining this compatibility is individuals who have found a way to make them compatible—informants who are Mormon transhumanists. This argument would have been much stronger had the author interviewed or studied other Mormons who do not identify as transhumanists. Overall,Machines for Making Gods is intriguing because the subject matter is unique— Mormons who embrace cryonics, the singularity, technology, and human enhancement. As indicated, the book could be much tighter, closer editing would have strengthened it, and a clearly discernible overarching argument would have helped. The book is strongest when describing the MTA and its members; the subtle errors creep in more commonly when Bialecki discusses the LDS Church more generally. However, for those interested in either Mormonism or transhumanism, this book is worth the read.