We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Find out more

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $209.00

Format:
Hardback
816 pp.
8 illustrations, 6.75" x 9.75"

ISBN-13:
9780195338522

Publication date:
March 2014

Imprint: OUP US


The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion

Edited by Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian

Series : Oxford Handbooks

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamics of religious conversion, which for centuries has profoundly shaped societies, cultures, and individuals throughout the world. Scholars from a wide array of religions and disciplines interpret both the varieties of conversion experiences and the processes that inform this personal and communal phenomenon.

This volume examines the experiences of individuals and communities who change religions, those who experience an intensification of their religion of origin, and those who encounter new religions through colonial intrusion, missionary work, and charismatic and revitalization movements. The thirty-two innovative essays provide overviews of the history of particular religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous religions, and new religious movements. The essays also offer a wide range of disciplinary perspectives - psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, political, feminist, and geographical - on methods and theories deployed in understanding conversion, and insight into various forms of deconversion.

Readership : Suitable for students and scholars of religious conversion, comparative religion, history and philosophy of religion.

Contributors
Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian: Introduction
Disciplinary Perspectives
1. Marc David Baer: History of Religious Conversion
2. Todd M. Johnson: Demographics of Religious Conversion
3. Lily Kong and Seeta Nair: Geography of Religious Conversion
4. Henri Gooren: Anthropology of Conversion
5. Peter Stromberg: The Role of Language in Religious Conversion
6. Fenggang Yang and Andrew Abel: Sociology of Conversion
7. Robert Montgomery: Conversion and the Historic Spread of Religions
8. Rebecca Kim: Migration and Conversion of Korean American Christians
9. Ray Paloutzian: Psychology of Religious Conversion
10. Kelly Bulkeley: Religious Conversion and Cognitive Neuroscience
11. Kelly Bulkeley: Dreaming and Religious Conversion
12. Heinz Streib: Deconversion
13. Eliza Kent: Feminist Approaches to the Study of Conversion
14. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona: Religious Conversion and the Arts
15. Bruce Hindmarsh: Religious Conversion as Narrative and Autobiography
16. Massimo Leone: Religious Conversion and Semiotic Analysis
17. Timothy J. Steigenga: Politics and Religious Conversion
Religions
18. Arvind Sharma: Hinduism and Conversion
19. Andrea Jain: Conversion to Jainism
20. Dan Smyer Y: Conversion to Buddhism
21. Gurinder Singh Mann: Conversion to Sikhism
22. Louis Komjathy: Conversion to Daoism
23. Anna Sun: Conversion to Confucianism
24. Fan Lizhu and Chen Na: Conversion and Indigenous Religions in China
25. Alan Segal: Conversion to Judaism
26. David Kling: Conversion to Christianity
27. Marcia Hermansen: Conversion to Islam in Theological and Historical Perspectives
28. Karin van Nieuwkerk: Conversion to Islam and the Construction of a Pious Self
29. Douglas Cowan: Conversion to New Religious Movements
30. Stuart A. Wright: Deconversion from New Religious Movements
31. James Richardson: Legal and Political Issues and Religious Conversion
32. Seth L. Bryant, Henri Gooren, Rick Phillips, & David G. Stewart, Jr.: Conversion to Mormonism
Index

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Lewis R. Rambo is Research Professor of Psychology and Religion at the San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. He is the author of Understanding Religious Conversion.Charles E. Farhadian is Professor of World Religions and Christian Mission at Westmont College. He is the author of Christianity, Islam, and Nationalism in Indonesia, Christian Worship Worldwide: Expanding Horizons, Deepening Practices, The Testimony Project: Papua, and Introducing World Christianity.

Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin

Becoming Catholic - David Yamane
Honored by the Glory of Islam - Marc David Baer

Special Features

  • Offers comprehensive, multidisciplinary, multireligious, and up-to-date resources for the study of the dynamics, methods, and theories of conversion.