While the study of Christianity in colonial and post-colonial settings has often represented religious changes through the lenses of political and economic processes, this book does something rather different. It brings to the fore the paradoxical understanding of God's simultaneous presence and absence and, by so doing, introduces fresh questions to the anthropological and historical study of Christianity, notably those that contribute to a comparative analysis of semiotic ideologies.

Engelke's case study revolves around the Masowe weChishanu Church in Zimbabwe, also known as the Friday Masowe Church. Following the emergence of Johan Masowe, Africa's John the Baptist, in the 1930s, the church now comprises a network of adherents who refer to themselves as “apostolics.” What makes these apostolics distinctive is their rejection of the Bible. The rejection derives in part from their view of the Bible as a tool of political subjugation in colonial Africa. More important, according to Engelke, is their sense that the Bible lacks contemporary and personal relevance, written as it was two thousand years ago. He develops this perspective into a far-reaching examination of Christian thought and semiotics, particularly the relationship between language and material culture, on one hand, and representation and authorization, on the other.

The empirical basis of the author's case rests on his visits to Zimbabwe in 1993, 1996, and 1999, with most of the fieldwork taking place in Harare and Chitungwiza, a town located some 30 kilometers from Harare. He also did archival research and was aided by his partner's rapport with female congregants, and by the several hundred pages of notes written by Lazarus Chidaushe, the author's collaborator during fieldwork.

The theoretical argument suggests that immateriality is central to the Masowe weChishanu's commitment to “live and direct” faith. Far from renouncing the world, they put forward a hierarchy of words, objects, and actions through which God becomes present. To uncover the specifics of his case, Engelke proposes a concept of “thingification,” designed to convey the negative connotations of the more familiar concept of objectification and thus reserving the latter for broader analytical work. An object becomes a mere thing when it is divested of immateriality. The problems of materiality, Engelke concludes, are not resolved by rejecting the Bible, something evident, among other things, in healing and in the propensity of prophets to become the regulators of access to the divine.