James Bourk Hoesterey's Rebranding Islam: Piety, Prosperity, and a Self-Help Guru is an incisive analysis of the formation of religious authority, Islamic subjectivities, and politics in post-authoritarian Indonesia through an examination of the phenomenon of Kyai Abdullah Gymnastiar, known as Aa Gym, and his Manajemen Qolbu (Heart Management). Hoesterey introduces Aa Gym as “a combination of prosperity gospel televangelist Joel Osteen and TV psychologist Dr. Phil …, with Oprah Winfrey's power of personal brand …” (p. 11). He artfully demonstrates how Aa Gym as a figure of “Islam mutakhir, or ‘Islam on the cutting edge’” resonates with the aspirational piety of the Indonesian middle class (p. 12). Through weaving the tale of Aa Gym's resonances with the Indonesian middle class, new genealogies of Islamic knowledge and practice emerge, neoliberal and Islamic subjectivities converge to form “ethical entrepreneurs and virtuous citizens,” and a different form of political Islam appears to discipline the state (p. 97).
Following the diffusion of religious authority during the worldwide Islamic revival and the rise of media during New Order (1965–98) Indonesia, chapter 1 details Aa Gym's rise to prominence in Indonesia. His entrepreneurial spirit, military upbringing, theatrical experience, and purported reception of knowledge directly from God all contributed to the rise of his popularity. However, his religious authority and emergence as a televangelist or “tel-dai” stemmed from his ability to push his own interest during times of political and moral dispute (p. 9). He became the “therapist-in-chief” (p. 41) by appealing to unity and establishing a brand narrative as a successful entrepreneur, moral exemplar, and “model of male masculinity” (p. 68). The consumption of this brand narrative, Hoesterey argues, both economically and affectively establishes Aa Gym's religious authority, rather than his religious training, establishing a new paradigm of religious authority.
Chapter 2 expands upon the way in which religious authority is performed by Aa Gym and Muslim trainers who become experts in psychological knowledge and transform this knowledge into Islamic wisdom, complicating the boundaries of science and religion. For example, Aa Gym translates and reframes Masaru Emoto's research on “the true power of water” that is legitimated through science “within the textual authority of the Qur'an and the Islamic belief in one omnipotent God” (p. 85). Aa Gym and other self-help trainers legitimate their religious authority through their psychological knowledge and indicate the training seminar as an important space for Islamic learning and practice.
After exploring how Aa Gym gains authority through the construction of a brand narrative and expert knowledge of self-help psychology, Hoesterey turns to the way in which Aa Gym's trainers at his compound in Bandung, Daarut Tauhiid, incorporate psychology, business management theory, and Islamic teachings to cultivate the dispositions of “ethical entrepreneurs and virtuous citizens” in chapters 3 and 4. The ethical entrepreneur looks to the success stories of entrepreneurs like Aa Gym for inspiration and reimagines the Prophet Muhammad as the quintessential entrepreneur and businessman. In accumulating capital, however, these entrepreneurs look to fulfill religious obligations by mixing piety with prosperity.
Aa Gym and his creation Gema Nusa, Movement to Raise the Consciousness of the Nation, train model citizens. Intended for both Muslim and non-Muslims, the trainings present the Prophet Muhammad as the perfect example of an ESFJ—Extrovert, Sensing, Feeling, Judging—servant leader and encourage participants to reflect on their civic actions as a part of their fate in the afterlife. The foundation of these “ethical entrepreneurs and virtuous citizens” cannot be reduced to the impact of neoliberalism but rather exists in the play between “neoliberal techniques of the self and Islamic modes of subjectivity” (p. 22).
Chapter 5 turns to Aa Gym's role in the moral and political debates around pornography and other moral issues. Hoesterey argues that Aa Gym was able to discipline the state through a “shaming of the state” (p. 150). This sense of shame that Aa Gym wanted government officials to perform stemmed from a lowered sexual gaze. He was able to use his place in public debates, congressional hearings, and his television program, as well as his well-established networks, to summon state officials to perform their piety and modesty and uphold the conscience of the nation. However, his ability to motivate public sentiment and government officials quickly changed.
In chapter 6, Hoesterey discusses how Aa Gym married a second wife secretly, and how his personal brand, popularity, and economic prosperity collapsed when the secret became public. He was once seen as the doting husband, a “model of male masculinity,” and a proponent of the averted sexual gaze. However, he was suddenly perceived as insincere and inauthentic, and no one was buying his brand narrative. He tried several different framings of polygamy and “managed his heart” through Psikologi Islam, but he lost his television spot and never recovered to the fame he once had. This fall is not simply an indication of Indonesian popular opinion about polygamy, but rather, as Hoesterey argues, is revealing of the “economic and affective exchange relationships between preacher-producer, corporate consumer, and fickle devotees” (p. 177).
Hoesterey's contributions to Indonesian studies, Islamic studies, anthropology, and religious studies are numerous. He indicates how Aa Gym's training seminars and political networks extended beyond various organizational streams (alirans) and argues for more attention to “religio-political networks (jaringan)” (p. 155). A view of Indonesia that relies on networks rather than “streams” provides a different way of conceptualizing Islamic sensibilities in post-authoritarian Indonesia and demonstrates a need for further research beyond the modernist/traditionalist binaries that have often remained essential to many analyses of Indonesia. Hoesterey reveals a type of political Islam beyond the creation of an Islamic State, and its ability to exist within a democracy. He complicates the composition of subjectivities and helps us reconsider the way in which genealogies of knowledge, such as psychological knowledge, and practice create religious authority that cannot be reduced to Western or Islamic roots.
