Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia

The essays in this volume study cultural conversions that arose from missionary activities in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both Catholic and Protestant missionaries effected changes that often went beyond what they had intended, sometimes backfiring against the missions. These changes entailed wrenching political struggles to redefine families, communities, and lines of authority. This volume's contributors examine the meanings of "conversion" for individuals and communities in light of loyalties and cultural traditions, and consider how conversion, as a process, was often ambiguous. The history of Christian missions emerges from these pages as an integral part of world history that has stretched beyond professing Christians to affect the lives of peoples who have consciously rejected or remained largely unaware of missionary appeals.

Author: Heather J. Sharkey
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 08/29/2013
Pages: 328
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.41w x 1.09d
ISBN: 9780815633150

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2014

About the Author
Heather Sharkey is associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire.