Conversion to Christianity - Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation

"Contributes as much to advancing contemporary social theory as it does to understanding conversion."—Dale Eickelman, Dartmouth College

"These rich and rewarding essays problematize a process central to Western notions of the making of modernity—the reformation of peripheral worlds under the impact of global religions. [The authors] challenge established disciplinary boundaries, providing sensitive accounts of the interplay of world-transforming movements and accounts of specific cultures and histories. In doing so, they cause us to rethink the ethnocentric, developmentalist assumptions often built into the very notion of "conversion" itself as a concept in our own scholarly tradition."—Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago

List of contents

Robert W. Hefner, Introduction
Howard Clark Kee on the Early Church
Terence Ranger on Southern Africa
Robert W. Hefner on Java
William L. Merrill on Mexico
Donald K. Pollock on Amazonia
John Barker on Papua, New Guinea
Aram A. Yengoyan on Australia
Charles F. Keyes on Thailand
David K. Jordan on China
Peter Wood, Afterword

About the author

Robert W. Hefner is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Culture at Boston University.

Summary

This study of the conversion of tribal peoples to Christianity combines case studies with the contributors' theories, challenging anthropologists and sociologists to reassess the varieties of religious experience and the convergent processes involved in religious change.

Product details

• Authors: Robert W. Hefner, Robert W. Hefner
• Assisted by: Robert W. Hefner (Editor)
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 05.02.1993
• EAN: 9780520078369
• ISBN: 978-0-520-07836-9
• No. of pages: 345
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Christianity; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Miscellaneous; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, Anthropology, RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Missions, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Evangelism, RELIGION / Christianity / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Indigenous Studies, Christian mission & evangelism, Christianity, Indigenous Peoples, Relating to indigenous peoples, Religious mission and Religious Conversion