In Books and Religious Devotion, Allan Westphall presents a study of the book-collecting habits and annotation practices of Thomas Connary, an Irish immigrant farmer who lived in New Hampshire in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Connary led a pious life that revolved around the use, annotation, and sharing of religious books. His surviving annotated volumes provide a revealing glimpse into the utility of books for a common reader—and they show how one remarkable, eccentric reader turned religious books into near icons. Through a careful excavation of book adaptations and enhancements, Westphall gives us insight into the range of opportunities provided by the material book for recording and communicating Connary's religious fervor. The study also investigates the broader nineteenth-century cultural setting, in which books are seen as testimonies of personal faith and come to function as instruments of social interaction in both domestic and public spheres. Underlying Connary’s many and varied interactions with books is his belief that working in books, as physical objects, can be a devout exercise instrumental in human salvation.

The recent rediscovery of the doctrine of the Trinity has left great impact on the thought and life of the Christian Church. With this reinstatement, the Trinity, which was left out for long as an esoteric mystery, has captured the imagination of theologians and elicited remarkable trinitarian formulations from across theological traditions. This contemporary development has forced the church to review its dogma, spirituality, and Christian practices through the lens of this central doctrine of the Christian faith. One of the important and essential upshots of the doctrine has been the reclamation of a theocentric and trinitarian understanding of mission as the missio Dei. In view of the modern renewal of the Trinity and the global expansion of Christianity, this book explores insights and perspectives from the trinitarian thoughts of St. Augustine and the Indian theologian Brahmabandhab Upadhyay that can inform missio Dei theology relevant for the Indian context.