(2016) The Spirituality of Conversion

Course Description: This seminar will explore the nature of religious and spiritual change and transformation from the perspectives of anthropology, history, psychology, religious studies, theology, and sociology. Conversion and religious/spiritual transformation are central to Christianity, but to other religions as well. This seminar will introduce students to a wide range of experiences and phenomena that are not only personally profound, but culturally and historically significant. The contours of the contemporary world are, to some degree, shaped by the forces of religious conversion and transformation stimulated by the endeavors of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and many other religious movements. This class will combine the resources of various disciplines to explore these rich phenomena. The format of the class is a graduate seminar. Each student will conduct his or her own research and present it to the class. o Or; We invite you to submit a brief (1 page maximum) written proposal for a third option that fulfils this course requirement: If you select this option, you must submit your written proposal to the faculty by noon on Friday, November 16. Your proposal should include a description of how your project fulfils the assessment criteria. If your proposal is approved, the faculty will notify you via eMail by 11/23.

The Ecumenical Review, 2010

The word on the lips of the peoples of the world todays is "revolution." Every few days we read in our newspapers of another revolution somewhere in the world; an old regime has been overthrown and a new regime has taken over. Conversion is a revolution in the life of an individual. The old forces of sin, self-centredness, and evil are overthrown from their place of supreme power. Jesus Christ is put on the throne. More than forty years ago Professor A. C. Underwood gave to the world the results of his studies entitled "Conversion, Christian and non-Christian" He concluded that ". .. conversion is not simply a lingering * Rev. Dr. BILLY GRAHAM, Baptist, is world renowned Evangelist, Montreat, North Carolina, USA. This article is shortened from a longer paper written by the author for the WCC. The full version is available from the WCC Division of World Mission and Evangelism. UNDERWOOD, ALFRED CLAIR, Conversion : Christian and non-Christian, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1925. * Cf. biblical notes on shuv, epistrepho, metanoeo in this issue.

Pastoral Psychology, 2016

This article provides an introduction to the essays in this issue on the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion, edited by Lewis Rambo and Charles Farhadian. After briefly discussing the origins of these essays in a session sponsored by the Religious Conversions Group at the 2015 American Academy of Religion annual meeting, as well as some of the broad historical trends and problems in the study of conversion(s), the essay provides a summary of each author's contributions and suggests that one particular topic— healing—deserves more attention in the study of conversion than it has heretofore enjoyed.

2014

Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, -. Edited by Johannes Hahn and others. Pp.  +  black-and-white and colour plates. Münster: Aschendorff, . €.     ;   JEH () ; doi:./S As these essays show, the dissociation of Christianity from its pagan milieu was effected sometimes by the rejection, sometimes by the transformation of existing models. Johannes Hahn ('Tausend Schrecken des Gesetze') concludes that Coptic zealots of the fourth century were not instruments of imperial or ecclesiastical policy. Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic ('Poésie et mythe dans le Contra Academicos') finds the equivalent of a Platonic myth in Augustine's account of the primitive Academy, which (like his quotations of poetry) is designed to guide the reader from love of beauty to love of wisdom. Daniel Röthlisberger ('Die capitis velatio') observes that, in requiring men to pray with heads uncovered, Paul denies them the social status that was conferred on the pagan celebrant by his veil. All the examples of the formula pro voto suo collected by Ulrike Emig ('Pro voto suo') come from Christian sites. According to Elizabeth Panell ('Entwicklung der Ikonographie'), the pagan iconography of marriage was first adopted by Christian artists in their depictions of the saints. Gerhard Steigerwald ('Die edelsteingeschmückten Städte Jerusalem') deciphers a mosaic in which the Jerusalem of this world is adorned with the sapphires that apocalyptic bestows on the heavenly city. Peter Grossman ('Zur Entstehung des ḫ urus') identifies the seventh century as the era in which a room was first set apart for the use of the clergy in the basilica. Rainer Warland ('Byzanc und der Alemannia') discovers a peculiar appropriation of pagan heroic imagery in a Gothic disc of similar date. M. J. EDWARDS CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD Religious conversion. History, experience and meaning. Edited by Ira Katznelson and Miri Rubin. Pp. ix +  incl.  figs. Farnham-Burlington, VT: Ashgate, . £.      JEH () ; doi:./S Ira Katznelson and Miri Rubin's collective volume offers a welcome addition to scholarship on religious conversion, a subject that poses distinctive challenges and opportunities for historians. With its 'centre of gravity' in medieval and

2014

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International Bulletin of Mission Research, 2024

This article is a review of conversion research and how it views the spiritual within conversion. Central to missions is the understanding of the process of conversion. Missiologists, psychologists, sociologists, and theologians have all studied the process of conversion. An evaluation of conversion studies shows that researchers tend to ignore or downplay the role of spiritual agency or the supernatural in the process of conversion. Recent studies in a majority world context have identified spiritual agency or the supernatural as central to conversion. We need to reexamine our models of conversion and further study the universality of spiritual agency in consideration of these results.

Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2004

We use definition of religion-"the search for significance in ways related to the sacred"-as a framework to understand spiritual conversion. Like other life-changing transformations, spiritual conversion alters the destinations that clients perceive to be of greatest importance in life (significance) and the pathways by which clients discover what is most significant in life (search). Unlike other transformative experiences, however, spiritual conversion incorporates the third element of religion, "the sacred," into the content of change. To illustrate these points, we discuss two theological models of spiritual conversion rooted in Christianity: a traditional model based on classic western theology and an alternative model based on feminist theology. We then compare processes of spiritual conversion to nonreligious models of transformation. We also highlight the importance for clinical work of the fit between the context of a client's life and the type of spiritual conversion experienced.

The subject of conversion has engaged sociologists in Israel and around the world for decades. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism etc. all have their own understanding of conversion. In this paper it is a tongues speaking Charismatic who is under investigation. Among the issues discussed are: (1) The relationship between macro-historical changes and personal redefinition. (2) The role of “crises”, whether personal or societal, in the conversion process. (3) Does the emphasis on “narratives” preclude a discussion of the crucial rule of “ritual” in conversion? (4) As opposed to “access to wider values,” how do conversions often reflect a choice to join smaller more particularistic associations such as “deviant” groups and “local” churches? The study looks at a case study of Edi Nachman a tradition Baptist turned Spirit filled Charismatic Evangelical whose conversion the author argues is revivalistic a category which has come under some challenge in recent scholarship. Lofland and Stark, Rambo, Heirich, Harding and Beckford all have their perspectives on what is conversion.

The Journal of Theological Studies, 2009