Religious Conversion

“Documentary Records of Conversions among Ottoman Palace Personnel.” In Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, edited by Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn, and Luke Yarbrough, University of California Press, 2020.

The purpose of this research is to publish a manuscript of the treatise Sefer Habri’a (The Book of Creation), written in 1670 by Rabbi Avraham Binyamin Nathan ben Elisha Chaim Halevi Askhenazy, also known as Nathan Ghazzati or Rabbi Nathan of Gaza. It has been copied into several manuscripts, which ended up scattered around the world, until they were ultimately collected by professor Chaim Wirszubski Z.L. of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s. Wirszubski set out on a project of conducting a scientific edition of the treatise, and even published a small part of it.  However, misfortune has prevented him from finishing his great work, and he was called upon to teach in the Great Yeshiva in heavens. Now, the reader is presented with a full edition, accompanied by a comprehensive and methodical research. The research is separated from the original text, to allow the reader to focus on the text itself, if they so wish. Those who would seek to also delve into the analysis, can easily do so.
It is not everyday that a person is awarded the great privilege of returning a lost book to the collective Jewish library. Even more so when it is a book written by one of the greatest rabbis in recent generations, least of all a halakhic figure of the magnitude of Rabbi Nathan. We are faced with an unparalleled text in Rabbinic messianic and Hebrew literature. It is the central text of the Sabbatean movement after Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion to Islam. Sefer Habri’a was written by the progenitor of the movement, Rabbi Nathan of Gaza. Rabbi Nathan was famously considered a prophet by the spiritual leaders of the Jewish world in his time, and was one of those who declared Sabbatai Zevi to be a messiah. He was the one who explained the profound meaning of Zevi’s conversion, and the one who tried to prevent the masses from converting along with him.
If we wish to be certain that we can indeed declare “thou art our brother” to Nathan, we must look at this renewed text from every possible perspective. The text’s uniqueness, it’s complexity, length and meaning introduce many challenges, both on the technical-philological level and on that of semantic analysis. We should also pay heed to how socially problematic the Sabbatean movement is, following the heated debates that arose several generations after Zevi’s conversion. On that subject, we can view Sefer Habri’a as a treatise which ascribes profound meaning to Zevi’s ‘foreign acts’, through the Ha’ari’s hyper-nomic system. That is, the Lurianic Kabbalah, which unequivocally accepts the Jewish Halakha as sacred, is the treatise’s main method of discourse. It seems that the survival and continuity of Jewish tradition after the crisis was Rabbi Nathan’s main motivation in writing this immense work. That is, the desire to give a profound kabbalic meaning to the commandments of halakha, in the face of a shifting historical reality is at the heart of the text.
Sabbateanism is a grave subject in Jewish history. Therefore, whenever a new Sabbatean document is published, we must ask ourselves how its publication will affect the existing knowledge we have. When people read new material that contradicts what they perceive to be true, they often develop a ‘resistance front’, assuming that every new claim must be proved out of the existing body of knowledge, as if the unknown can be explored from the confines of the known. The problem here is evident - new information cannot be added in this way, and true learning cannot be achieved. All that can happen is that we pour old knowledge into a slightly different mould, at best. That said, there are times when a newly published document is so important that it demands of us to re-examine all of our previous held knowledge. More often than not, those who are tasked with preserving knowledge are not enthusiastic by the appearance of a new research which undermines the well known system to which they adhere. Therefore, if we wish the new knowledge to be properly accepted by people in that position, upon publishing such a document we must present in detail what we retain, and what we reconsider. It is possible that Sefer Habri’a would lead us into rethinking the Sabbatean movement in its entirety. It is, after all, a fundamental text written by the movement’s progenitor, immediately after the conversion. We will soon see that Sefer Habri’a would lead any observant reader to a clear understanding that it is a Kabbalah book that follows directly the writings of the Ha’ari. It is a direct continuation, and some would even say the highlight, of the Lurianic corpus. In this manner we can also see that Torat Israel, the Jewish halakha and the well-being of the nation at a time of crisis were undoubtedly on the mind of the author, Rabbi Nathan of Gaza, and that he was a loyal grand sage of Israel.

At the heart of James B. Torrance’s theological project was a concern to demonstrate the importance of an evangelical account of repentance, over against a legal account. This was a concern that he inherited from John Calvin, who stood as the greatest theological influence on Torrance. Out of his respect for Calvin, Torrance did not seek to commandeer Calvin’s work on this topic for his own project. Rather, he sought to communicate Calvin’s own vision of evangelical repentance to a new generation. Accordingly, this essay will primarily devote itself to exploring Calvin’s position. Before so doing, however, I shall provide a brief analysis of the distinction between the “covenant God” and “contract God,” which underlays Torrance’s emphasis on Calvin’s distinction between legal and evangelical repentance. Also, following our exploration of Calvin, I shall look briefly at Torrance’s own account of evangelical repentance, as it followed Calvin’s trajectory.

C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength is often regarded as one of his most bizarre and unwieldy books. There are very few studies of it, and those that do exist tend to focus on its central social critique, leaving its ancillary theological and philosophical themes largely unexplored. This article examines the motif of conversion in That Hideous Strength. It traces out the contrasting conversion narratives of Mark and Jane Studdock, situates them in relation to the larger social message of the novel, and then draws two applications for what we can learn about evangelism today from this book.

My ethnographic fieldwork conducted with female converts to Islam in France and in Quebec (Canada) shows that, for these women, being Muslim does not necessarily mean wearing clothes with ‘oriental’ designs. Rather, they are starting their own clothing companies so as to produce distinct Muslim-Western fashions that they promote through the Internet. By interpreting Islam in a context where Muslims are a minority religious group, converts construct alternative religious and social representations of Muslim identity that accord with their feminist interpretation of the Qu’ran while simultaneously incorporating the Western background within which they were socialized. In this regard, the strategies that they develop for wearing the veil and for integrating into their environment (family, workplace, etc.) make it clear that fashion, religion and politics are interacting in multiple, creative ways. In this paper, I look at how new Muslim feminist subjectivities are produced and realized through habits of dress, resulting in new representations of the body. I explore this issue by considering dress and hairstyle strategies developed by Muslim converts, in order to examine new perspectives on the place of gender in religion as it relates to particular social contexts.

Siaburcharpat Con Culaind is a great cross-over saga. Cú Chulainn, the greatest of pagan heroes, helps Patrick in his mission to convert the king of Ireland. What does this story tell us about conversion? What role is played by the pagan past? Why is telling stories so important?

Published in: CSANA Yearbook 1 (2001) 109–25

Between 2014-2016, Sweden received an influx of some 44, 617 unaccompanied refugee minors (UMs), under 18-year-olds who enter the country and seek asylum without a parent. Taking a short-term ethnographic approach, this study looks at identity (re)construction and fictive kinship among Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors who convert to Christianity in the Church of Sweden, challenging some of the pre-conceived outsider categorisations of this phenomenon. By taking an exploratory stance, I seek to understand conversion processes from the perspective of the UMs themselves, as they narrate their own identity processes and attribute meaning to them. I utilise Butler’s performativity and the concept of fictive kinship as lenses for understanding constructions of identity and belonging with particular focus on process and practice. The data reveals the curiosity-driven nature of UM conversions, the sense of belonging which plays an important role in UM identity formation, and the ways in which participants transition from community-coerced religious practices to individual, self-directed spiritual journeys.

The medieval period is marked by a dramatic rivalry between the Pentarchy, and their attempts at territorial and conversional dominion; this is especially so with, notably, the Roman Catholic Church and the ... within. Both Churches were extremely formidable powers and wished to extend their influence to all corners of the globe. In order to achieve this goal, it is clear, conversion was key. This power strug...individuals that played a fundamental role in the strengthening and control of these two opposing Churches: the first being Clovis I, King of the Franks, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 496 A.D., and the other is Boris I of Bulgaria, who converted to Byzantium Christianity in 864 A.D....of many pagans residing under their rule, thus strengthening the influence and authority of their respective churches.

This essay explores the persistent scholarly desires and motivations that structure the historical study of conversion in religious studies. Most “conversion studies” take a phenomenological approach, which acknowledges the diverse processes, contexts, and meanings of conversion but nonetheless sees the phenomenon as a way to access the contours of global religion. Phenomenology of conversion reveals a desire for bounded religions arranged in a comparable system, “religion.” A hermeneutical approach to conversion does not seek to access a stable phenomenon but asks why conversion as a discourse is deployed. This form of narrative interpretation can open up new possibilities in what we think the study of religion can, and should, do. The specific examples of Jewish conversion to Christianity in late antiquity act as case studies.

A strong link between religion and national identity has been particularly
important in the study of Eastern and Southeastern Europe during the 20th century.
The study of religion and its changes came into the focus of anthropological
and sociological research especially after the communist period. One of the most
important aspects of change was “religious revival” which also included conversion
to new forms of religiosity such as the Evangelical communities, the
Nazarenes, Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and
Pentecostals. The majority of Serbs living in Romania belong to the Serbian
Orthodox Church, but during the last decades a number of Evangelicals appeared
among the Serbian minority. This paper is based on the results of qualitative
ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2010 among the Serbian Evangelical communities
in Romania. The research focuses on the influence of conversion from
Christian Orthodoxy to Evangelicalism among Serbs, focusing on the Evangelical
response to religion and nationalism discourses, changes in collective and personal
identity of newly converted believers, and perception of converted co-ethnics
by the non-Evangelical community. In addressing these issues, this article explores
the role of religious traditions which do not overlap with any particular national/ethnic
group, the relationship between religion and nationalism, and the
presence of supra-national narrative emphasized in Evangelical communities

This collection of studies by social anthropologists describes the complex and often controversial processes of religious change occurring in the postsocialist world. By critically examining the influx of missionaries, the adoption of ‘new’ faiths, and the reactions to these unanticipated shifts in religious landscape, the authors offer valuable insight into the fate of state supported secularism as well as providing fresh critiques of anthropological studies of conversion.

"The purpose of this analysis is to provide an overview of the North Korean situation in order to design effective mission strategies among the North Korean people.  This analysis will provide a summary overview of the current North Korean culture, current missionary work, and possible strategies for the future.  Due to the intense suspicion of foreigners and extreme resistance to religious activity, missionaries will have to rely heavily on political, social, and humanitarian methods in order to evangelize the North Korean people" (taken from the introduction).

La tétralogie du Roman de Durtal trouve son unité dans le personnage principal à travers lequel Joris-Karl Huysmans retrace les étapes de sa conversion, dans une oeuvre de fiction, composant ainsi une autofiction. Sa démarche d'écriture correspond à celle de Serge Doubrovsky, qui a théorisé le concept d'autofiction à partir de 1977. J-K. Huysmans met en scène sa personnalité et certains épisodes de sa vie, dans l'objectif de comprendre sa conversion, de l'accomplir, et de renouveler le genre romanesque. Il se prend lui-même comme objet d'étude, dans une "aventure du langage", qu'il nomme le Naturalisme Spiritualiste. Fidèle à l'esthétique décadente, il mêle sa vie et son oeuvre et se transpose dans ses récits à travers le personnage Durtal et à l'aide d'éléments romanesques et d'éléments de non-fiction. Il crée ainsi une oeuvre-miroir de sa conversion, instaurant un jeu de reflets entre l'auteur, le narrateur et le personnage, représentatif des écritures de soi.

The article begins with a question whether the tragic message of the cross of Jesus allows Christians to see in the cross not only a reminder of the cruel death of the Saviour but also an important and meaningful call of God. Subsequently, the cross of Jesus is considered as a call to oppose evil. The cross is also shown as a “word” by which the very being of God is revealed to every human person. In this perspective the cross makes the call for conversion credible. Finally, the article emphasises the “calling” role of the cross in the Christian mission of preaching the Gospel to the modern world.

What impact did the cultural origins and religious backgrounds of the merchants in the early modern period have on their business activities? How did these people manage to integrate themselves into the foreign societies within which they lived and worked? In this book Jorun Poettering examines the circumstances of the merchants who traded between Hamburg and Portugal in the seventeenth century. Her study offers new insights into the history of migration and intercultural encounter as world became more interconnected.

Within the classicising mindset of many Late Antique Gallo-Roman writers, we witness examples of the learned minority appropriating the right to represent the alleged historical memories of the majority’s pagan past. Distrust towards demotic morality and civilizational aptitude – never very far from being uttered aloud by the Imperial elites – are explicitly commented upon in the fifth-century Gallic play Querolus. Ausonius’ confidence within his textual universe in constructing the personal memories of his slave girl Bissula and the Gallic pagi alike can be compared to the received Lucanic topoi of dark Celtic groves, and to the development of these stock scenes in the episcopal gesta of the Merovingian Gaul. The vicarious creation of memories for the silent majority by the learned minority (with its mixture of Christian identity and a thorough knowledge of the classics) is not limited to narrative genres. An intriguing paratextual space for the construction of demotic religiosities is framed by the already-mentioned ecclesiastical writings and the scholia to Lucan and Juvenal, all pointing to creative re-imagining of the divinities worshipped by Gallic vulgus (implied to be changeless in an almost colonialist sense). The Gallic cult of Diana as a literary artefact is a particular case in point.

What is the manner in which Qadiani Ahmadiyya have propagated their beliefs and teachings to Indonesian Muslims and the factors that have attracted people to this movement and led them to convert to Ahmadiyya? What are the social implications of conversion? There is a perception that people’s receptiveness to Ahmadiyya is due mainly to its modernist character. But for Indonesians Qadiani’s most attractive feature is not its modernist stance, but rather its followers’ belief in the coming of the Messiah, its close knit organization and its sober and passionate missionaries. In contrast to members of the Lahore branch of Ahmadiyya, known for its rational tendency, members of the Qadiani branch have in their efforts at propagation of the faith emphasized their distinctive beliefs, such as the natural death of Jesus and the caliphate system. Qadiani Ahmadiyya has also tended to be a mystical movement whose members have a strong belief in supernatural experiences and dreams. They use these experiences and dreams to show God’s preference for them and God’s interference in human relationships, as when God sides with them.

ABSTRACT: Drawing on Bernard Lonergan’s Method in Theology (1972) I argue that theology can be taught because personal knowledge, of which it is an instance, is at the heart of academic inquiry; and it should be taught because critical engagement with basic ways of taking one’s life as a whole (religion in a broad sense) furnishes a critique of the typical oversights of contemporary culture. The appropriation of one’s subjectivity entails an awareness of an existential dialectic which pushes towards a decisive option for affirming the possibility and worth of growth in one's powers of self-determination and self-transcendence. Because of this, conversion – precisely defined in terms of this dialectic – has not only a religious but importantly moral and intellectual dimensions and its promotion goes to the heart of the academic enterprise. Nevertheless the full articulation of this personal reality is to be found in the humanities and particularly in theology but contemporary culture to a large extent works with a model of knowledge which disinherits these intellectual traditions. By distinguishing theological disciplines mediating the religious tradition (such as hermeneutics) from those in which the tradition is mediated by the existential stance taken by the theologian and re-articulated for the contemporary context (for example systematics), Lonergan opens the way towards seeing any theology presented as one world view among others, the critical element necessary for any university discipline being situated precisely in the standards set up by the demands of the existential dialectic.

Ky artikull eksploron mundësinë dhe interesin për të analizuar historisë semantike të termave të fjalorit të institucioneve që shërbejnë për të shprehur nocionet e nderit dhe besimit. Kjo analizë mundëson një qasje krahasuese në perspektivën e ndërthurur të antropologjisë historike dhe gjuhësore që mund të jetë themelore për të kuptuar raportet ndërmjet vlerave sociale të moralit dhe të fesë. Për të emërtuar fenë dhe besimin, shqiptarët përdorin terma që kanë të njëjtin trung të përbashkët indoeuropian me termat e latinishtes dhe të greqishtes së vjetër. Por edhe fjalë të tjera, që tregojnë vlerat morale të nderit, si betimi dhe fjala e dhënë, si edhe strategjitë për aleanca martesore, mbeten të lidhura me të njëjtat burime në shqip. Në këtë mënyrë, termat e kësaj fushe leksikore tregojnë nocione që janë të rëndësishme për të kuptuar funksionimin e grupit social, familjar e farefisnor, si edhe atë të gjithë shoqërisë. Kështu bëhet e mundur të kuptohet më mirë shprehja e këtij nocioni themelor që mbështetet jo vetëm mbi një kod nderi tepër të rreptë, por edhe mbi struktura farefisnore shumë të forta, mbi përparësinë e fisit e të lidhjeve të gjakut dhe që përfshijnë përgjegjësinë kolektive në mekanizmat komplekse të sistemeve të aleancave dhe hakmarrjeve. Paralelisht, për të kuptuar vlerat morale si edhe natyrën e fesë tek shqiptarët, nuk duhet të nisemi nga subjektiviteti i një besimi apo objektiviteti i një dijeje, por nga marrëdhënia që parimet për nderin dhe praktikat sociale vendosin midis njerëzve. Besimi dhe feja janë thjesht virtyte të nderit, pesha e besimit në fjalën e dhënë.

This chapter analyses the positionality of Halis—former bonded
labourers, ploughers and animal carcass removers—who constitute the most subordinated Scheduled Caste (SC) community within the Gaddi tribal orbit. For many
Halis, the struggle for Scheduled Tribe (ST) recognition begins with legally undoing
their ancestral conversion to the Ayra Samaj. In the early twentieth century, many
Halis officially replaced their caste name with ‘Arya’ or ‘Gaddi Arya’ in the Revenue
Record in order to combat tribal casteism. For a time, they adopted the purifying techniques and caste-obliterating ideologies of the Arya Samaj. This strategy of upward caste mobility backfired, however, when Arya was classified as a forward caste and converted Halis were denied SC/ST benefits in the initial constitutional scheduling. Their official status as Aryas continues to deprive thousands of Halis of much-needed reservation protections. Through fieldwork data collected between 2014 and 16, I highlight the psychosocial anguish of many Halis as they waste inordinate amounts of time and resources bribing bureaucrats, negotiating with state administrators, excavating the archive for non-existent property documents, and being exploited by lawyers—all in the pursuit of restoring their Hali caste name to qualify for SC benefits. Many Halis—non-literate village scratch farmers—are defeated by feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. Their struggle is further complicated by a desire to
ascend the escalator of state recognition from forward caste Aryas to SC Halis to
ST Gaddi Dalits. Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that state
(mis)recognition can drive marginalization and coarsen psychosocial wellbeing.

Clothes are a means to demonstrate wealth, status, and socio-religious hegemony. Practices of consuming and exchanging clothing enhance or lower one’s status by displaying and creating taste and capital. In Guyana, many Hindus relate charitable clothing distributions exclusively to Christian missions. They commonly state that the distribution of used clothing is a means to convert Hindus to Christianity. While indeed in the past only Christians were able to conduct such distributions due to their links to colonial powers, today and as a result of transnational migration to North America Guyanese Hindus also organize distributions of clothing. For this purpose, migrants collect used clothes and ship them to Guyana. This article proposes that as Hindus remain a minority in Guyana, the practice of and discourse about charitable distributions are a means to counter and resist the perceived ‘threat’ of conversion. It demonstrates how charitable distributions thereby influence the local socio-religious hierarchy and challenge established power structures.

The religious conversion is a phenomenon crossing many different disciplines and findings ranging from the medicine, through disciplines such are psychology, religious studies and theology. The aim of this paper is to meaningfully describe selected themes and trends of the religious conversion across its wide range. In the beginning chapter of this paper (I) is described the term religious conversion. Further (chapter II) are mentioned major scientific leaders who have dealt with this matter in its early stages. The final chapter (III) discusses mechanisms and circumstances under which the religious conversion takes place. Here are included various views from neuropsychological through sociological to depth-psychological.