Primitive Revolution: Restorationist Religion and the Idea of the Mexican Revolution, 1940–1968 (review)
Revolutions invariably awaken the human itch for Utopia, a fact true for religion as well as politics. As Jason Dormady documents in this new study of the Mexico boom years, the overthrow of the Porfiriato inspired dreams of religious restoration: that is, a return to a primitive Christianity that St. Paul might have recognized. The Mexico of presidents like Manuel Avila Camacho (to say nothing of wheeler-dealer Miguel Aleman) might seem like an odd place to be looking for 60 A.D., and yet precisely this vision led to at least three dynamic movements that experimented with creating faith-based communities uncontaminated by the fallen world around them. In all cases, the fallen world proved harder to escape than the restorationists had hoped.