This study of Roma Pentecostals, centred in Croatia, contributes significantly to the knowledge of the Roma peoples, their culture, their encounters with Christianity, and their engagement with Croatian culture. It contributes to our understanding of the lives and faith of this remarkable people that find themselves spread across Europe, still excluded from much of the societies around them, divided by boundaries and social restrictions. The results of extensive participatory research are carefully and compassionately presented and analysed in Wachsmuth’s work. The key interlocutors become friends of the reader by the end of the book. The multi-disciplinary approach that respects the canons of the diverse disciplines but uses them in creative intersections, is developed in an exemplary manner and is worthy of emulation. It is an important contribution to Pentecostal studies, Roma studies, anthropology, and to the history of Croatia. - David Bundy, Associate Director, Manchester Wesley Research Centre
This book is more than inter-disciplinary: its contributions to anthropology, theology and Romani Studies will make it essential reading in all three fields. The writer's easy narrative style, empathy with a large cast of sinners and saints (usually the same people), and vast, smooth-flowing scholarship, contextualise the trauma, visions and triumphs of impoverished Balkan Pentecostal believers as part of the human condition: people like you and I. - Thomas Acton, FRSA, OBE Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies, University of Greenwich, Visiting Professor, Corvinus University, Budapest
Roma Pentecostals adds a convincing argument to the already assumed transformative potential of the Pentecostal faith. The strength of the book is the real-life journey of many Roma Pentecostals through pain, trauma, and transformation, presenting the possibility of a complete identity change among the Romas and the marginalized all over the world. - Wonsuk Ma, Distinguished Professor of Global Christianity, Oral Roberts University