Religious Identity and Social Change

Explaining Christian conversion in a Muslim world

David Radford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780367869755
• eBook ISBN: 9781317691716
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Religious Identity and Social Change offers a macro and micro analysis of the dynamics of rapid social and religious change occurring within the Muslim world. Drawing on rich ethnographic and quantitative research in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, David Radford provides theoretical insight into the nature of religious and social change and ethnic identity transformation exploring significant questions concerning why people convert and what happens when they do so. A crisis of identity occurs when religious conversion takes place, especially from one major religious tradition (Islam) to another (Christianity); and where religious identity is intimately connected to ethnic and national identity. Radford argues for the importance of recognising the socially constructed nature of identity involving the dynamic interplay between human agency, culture and social networks. Kyrgyz Christians have been active agents in bringing religious and identity transformation building upon the contextual parameters in which they are situated.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315776859-1

Every religious idea, every idea of God, even flirting with the idea of God, is unutterable vileness … vileness of the most dangerous kind, ‘contagion’ of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence and physical ‘contagions’ … are far less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of a God decked out in the smartest ‘ideological’ costumes. … Every defense or justification of the idea of God, even the most refined, the best intension, is a justification of reaction.

(Vladimir Ilich Lenin, quoted in Conquest 1986)

One result of Lenin’s disdain, even revulsion, of religion, as seen in the opening quotation, was that the eradication of religion from Soviet society became a part of Communist Party policy, referred to by one writer as the ‘Soviet secularisation experiment’ (Froese 2008). Enormous amounts of energy and significant government authority, policy and organisation were utilised to achieve that end. For seventy years the Soviet Communist regime systematically attempted to impose a government-sponsored secularisation of all aspects of society. Religion, ‘the opiate of the people’, was to be separated and eliminated from all institutions and, it was hoped, from the world view and identity of its citizens (Froese 2008; Greeley 1994). The goal was a utopian Soviet community that had put aside all vestiges of religious ideas (supernatural and superstitious), rituals and institutions for rational scientific atheism. In the end, this did not happen. Indeed, within a few short years after the collapse of Soviet Communism, there was widespread revitalisation of religion in many of the countries that were once a part of the Soviet Union, including Russia itself.

The years after the achievement of the political independence of Kyrgyzstan in 1991 witnessed a flourishing ‘religious market’ (McBrien 2006; Pelkmans 2006). This included an increase in public Islamic religious observance and commitment, of both orthodox (Sunni) and ‘traditional’ or ‘popular’ forms of Islam, ¹ visible by the sharp increase in the number of mosques (from fifty-nine in 1991 to more than 1000 five years later), in mosque attendance (Anderson 1999; Murzakhalilov 2004) and in the proliferation of traditional or popular religious observance through fortune tellers and shamans. Since 1990 Kyrgyzstan has also witnessed the growth of numerous Protestant Christian and non-Christian denominations and sects, including Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baha’is (Anderson 1999; Gunn 2003). It is estimated that within a decade and a half after independence in 1991, more than 20,000 Muslim Kyrgyz have become Protestant Christians out of a total Kyrgyz (ethnic) population of about 3.6 million (McBrien and Pelkmans 2008; Pelkmans 2009; Radford 2014). By the early 2000s one Protestant group alone claimed over 3000 Kyrgyz adherents (Rotar 2004). This growth of Protestant Christianity among the Kyrgyz community is remarkable, given that prior to 1991 the Kyrgyz church was barely known. This is a situation not common in the Muslim world. In relation to what is happening in Central Asia, Tabyshalieva states:

A sign of new times is the Christianization of Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uzbek[s]. … Today it is possible to speak of thousands of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs converted to Protestantism. This new phenomenon has clashed with the common belief that all native people must be Muslims.

(Tabyshalieva 2003)

Religious conversion is a controversial topic. It challenges popular notions in much of the West that religion is a diminishing reality for contemporary societies; it also challenges issues of social cohesion in many non-Western societies. Regardless of its geographical or cultural contexts, religious conversion is intimately connected to both personal and social issues. This is certainly the case when conversion takes places from Islam to Christianity, and where religion is deeply intertwined with ethnic and national identities.

Conversion literature has largely focused on Christian subjects within a Christian context, and of those joining what have been called new religious movements. However, a growing body of research has increasingly considered conversion from Christianity to Islam, in particular among converts from Western societies (Köse 1996; Wohlrab-Sahr 1999; Zebiri 2008). More recently, in 2014–2015, this topic has found further media exposure through Western converts to Islam who have not only been active proselytisers in their own countries, but who have then taken this new conversion experience to extreme lengths through their participation as fighters in the cause of radical Islamist movements such as the Al Nusra and Islamic State groups in Syria and Iraq.

Although there are examples of conversion from Islam to Christianity, this topic has received relatively little academic attention (Chestnut 2007; Khalil and Bilici 2007). There are a few examples, such as: In Search of Meaning and Identity: Conversion to Christianity in Pakistiani Muslim Culture (Syrjänen 1984) situated in South Asia; ‘Of faith and commitment: Christian conversion in Muslim Java’ in the well-known edited work of Hefner (1993) Conversion to Christianity – Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation situated in South-East Asia; Christian Conversion From Islam (Greenlee 1996); and Community and Identity Among Arabs of a Muslim Background who Choose to Follow A Christian Faith (Kraft 2007), situated in the Middle East. This book, Religious Identity and Social Change: Explaining Christian Conversion in a Muslim World, seeks to add to this literature by examining a case study in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia. ²

One difficulty in any discussion of religious conversion remains defining what is meant by ‘religious conversion’, occasionally referred to as ‘religious switching’ (Tamney and Hassan 1987). A number of issues need to be addressed when discussing definitions of religious conversion. If conversion is moving from one religious position to another, what exactly is conversion moving from, and to, and can it really be called ‘conversion’? If there is a continuum upon which religious change takes place, where on this continuum can one say that conversion has occurred?

Religious change can take several forms or directions, such as: from a non-religious position to a religious position of some kind, or vice versa; a re-vitalised religious faith within a particular religious tradition; a movement from one denomination to another within one major religious tradition; or a movement from one religious tradition to another. It may also refer to the merging of various religious positions, between the old and new, within a religious tradition or between religious traditions (cf. Rambo 1982).

There is a range of possible definitions; I consider a few examples here. While some consider ‘religious conversion’ an adequate term to describe all forms of religious change (Rambo 1999), others disagree. Snow and Machalek (1984) describe a number of different categories of religious change, but identify religious conversion as one specific kind of change. Nock (1933) talks of a category called ‘adhesion’, which refers to a person’s involvement in the various activities of a religious group without embracing a new way of life, something akin to a kind of nominal religious position. The concept of ‘regeneration’ has been described as a wholehearted return to the belief system that one grew up with, but had rejected or turned away from at some time (Clark 1929; Lang and Lang 1961; Nock 1933). Travisano (1970) and, later, Pilarzyk (1978) offer ‘alternation’ as a category of religious change through which a person can go, being one that is less radical and more transitional in nature than what one had before. The change does not alter a person’s present world view in a significant way and is, indeed, reversible. For Travisano (1970), however, conversion is nothing less than a complete break with past religious affiliation and all other kinds of religious change are forms of alternation.

‘Consolidation’ is said to occur when a person incorporates the ideas or identity of two previous world views and synthesises them into a hybrid third kind (Gordon 1974). The ‘metamorphic’ change that Snow and Machalek (1984) describe is the dramatic conversion experience of people epitomised by the conversion experience of the Apostle Paul as described in the New Testament (Acts of the Apostles, 8 and 9). This seems to be closer to the kind of ‘radical personal change’ description about which much of the conversion literature speaks.

Does conversion happen on a single occasion, at a point in time, or is it something that proceeds at different speeds and in different encounters over time? Although it may be that some people experience a life-changing encounter or spiritual experience that triggers conversion, this is not always true for others. What does seem to hold true is that religious conversion is a process of religious change over time (Rambo 1999; Snow and Machalek 1984) that may or may not involve one or more pivotal spiritual encounters, but which does result in life transformation, a transformation that involves significant changes in behaviour, beliefs, values, identities and, as often as not, communities.

Although religious conversion includes changes in these areas, I suggest that it primarily involves a radical change in religious/spiritual allegiance – whether the source of religious/spiritual authority is sacred scripture, deity or human religious/spiritual leadership (cf. Lang and Lang 1961; Strauss 1959; Travisano 1970). The result of this radical change will ultimately influence changes in all areas of life to a greater or lesser degree, at least in the meanings and explanations given to them by those converting. Ultimately, conversion affects a person’s sense of identity, the explanations of who they are as individuals, their relationships with the world around them – family, community, or physical environment – and, of course, a person’s relationship with the metaphysical – the spiritual truths concerning ‘God’, life beyond death and other spiritual entities. I suggest that the clearest examples of religious conversion are seen in the process of change from one religious tradition/community to another, ³ such as Christian to Buddhist or Hindu to Muslim (Stark and Finke 2000).

Although conversion inevitably touches on beliefs, values, behaviours, interpersonal loyalties and identities, it does not necessarily mean or require a radical break in all of these areas, nor that they occur all at one time, nor in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• HalfTitle Page
• Series Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Making sense of the context
• 3 Methodology and description of Kyrgyz Christians
• 4 Approaches to the study of religious conversion
• 5 Religious capital and Kyrgyz conversion
• 6 Social and cultural capital and Kyrgyz conversion
• 7 Life situations, solutions and explanations
• 8 Living a minority Kyrgyz Christian identity in a majority Muslim Kyrgyz world
• 9 Religious conversion and the reconstruction of ethnic identity*
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Index