This collection of essays delivers on its intention to provide a “historically sensitive picture of religion making in one society” (2). As the title indicates, that one society is Finnish, and more particularly the Finland of approximately the last century. Readers who come to the collection and the topic expecting that the religion explored will be homogeneous and that the majority of women considered will be Lutherans, perhaps interspersed with a few Orthodox believers will be surprised. While it is true that 76% of Finns (approximately 5.4 million) are nominally members of the Lutheran church, as these chapters demonstrate, such belonging should not be taken as evidence of conventional belief or conformist practice. Much to the contrary, the range of religion made by Finnish women and studied here by scholars using the tools of several disciplines is far wider and much more varied that what might be inferred from the history of Lutheran and Orthodox churches or even from contemporary membership statistics. As in other nations that once constituted western Christendom, in recent decades Christianity in Finland has undergone significant change, interacting with forces of both secularization and religious pluralism. Thus the book's value is not limited to those concerned primarily with the one society, but offers opportunity for comparison with similar trends throughout Europe and North America.

In their introduction editors Utrianen and Salmesvuori provide a concise and informative outline of the religious and political history of Finland since Christianity was adopted there in the high medieval era. This orients readers, allowing them to place the twelve case studies in broader cultural context. Of remarkably even quality, the chapters are presented in four sections, arranged more-or-less chronologically. Their authors explore in turn topics such as folk religion, fiction, eco-theology, mission work, and multiple religious belonging, always with an eye on women and the role of gender. Chapter titles, the introduction's overview, and an index will aid readers interested in specific individuals, movements, or phenomena to locate relevant sections. Sources include interviews with contemporary women whose practice incorporates Indian spirituality, archival materials related to Nordic feminism, and the publications of Finnish women theologians. The seemingly disparate topics and sources are examined with the appropriate (though also various) tools of several disciplines: history, feminist theory, sociology, anthropology, and the like. Twenty-five pages of bibliography make evident the authors' familiarity with foundational and recent work in their fields, American and European, as well as Nordic scholarship which may be less well-known to many readers.

Some authors give attention to theology, however, religious practice and lived religion are the central focus of the collection. Although her topic is gender roles in neocharismatic Christianity, contributor Tuija Hovi's observation, “There is no such thing as a static religion” (188), articulates the most basic and shared premise of this collection. Religion changes; more than that, women participate in the process, thereby “making religion.” The ways women participate and exercise agency is a recurring theme: for example, in Marja-Liisa Keinänen's discussion of the “work of kinship” in the mortuary rites that link the living and dead (the ancestors of the book's sub-title) in traditional Russian Orthodoxy in Karelia; in Seija Jalagin's exploration of Finnish women's resistance to gender and ethnic hierarchies in the Lutheran mission to Japan; in Anni Tsokkinen's examination of the ways Finnish women theologians, including Bishop Irja Askola, have employed non-dogmatic literary genres; and in Terhi Utriainen's examination of women's involvement with angels and angel practices. The model of agency Utrianinen develops, namely that agency is “a relational and mediated field or network of action: a shared and complex network for making a difference” (239), suggests an understanding of religion that highlights the ways in which it serves in individual and community life and that regards these functions as essential as its official teachings and institutional forms. The editors signal this at the outset: “As these case studies prove, religion has never been simply a private matter or solely a spiritual concern in women's lives. It has entwined in several ways with nearly all possible aspects and spheres of life and society: from work to art and science to therapy” (13). A final essay drawing out this theme and developing it in conversation with the several authors' work would have enhanced book's internal conversation. Nonetheless, readers will find it woven through the chapters that follow and be stimulated to engage it both in the context of Finnish society and their own scholarly contexts.