JUST AS WE WERE: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up Born Again

If born-again baby boomers were to put on one big family slide show about growing up in the evangelicalism of the 1950s, it would look quite a bit like this book. From missionary prayer cards to vacation Bible school craft projects, much of the appeal of this gently humorous volume comes from its impressive collection of artifacts of popular religion. The short chapters ("The B-I-B-L-E," "If You're Saved and You Know It") distill middle America's conservative religious heritage in the artless and candid voice of a child growing up among a self-consciously "peculiar people." The five authors—all born between 1949 and 1953—apply a smidgen of adult critique to their childhood faith, but, as the subtitle says, nostalgia is the order of the day. Readers who share the authors' religious background will surely chuckle, or groan, at depictions of covered-dish suppers, summer camp and Sunday School attendance medals. Some may wonder how the authors emerged merely nostalgic, and otherwise unscathed, from the world of "flannelgraphs" and Pat Boone, with that world's strict codes that prohibited everything from smoking to square dancing. Much of the humor here comes from the authors' knowing winks at the peculiarities of their upbringing, but their affection for evangelicalism makes this book, as evangelicals themselves would say, thoroughly "edifying." (Mar.)