Conversion to Christianity
The sociology of religion indicates religious conversion was an important factor in the emergence of civilization and the making of the modern world.
[2][3] In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Pentecostalism is the largest and fastest growing form of Christianity;[4] this growth is primarily due to religious conversion.
[13] Religious conversion into Christianity sometimes came with physical incentives and rewards for new converts, such as the right of residence, access to land, or preferential legal status.
[14] Anthropologist Robert Hefner adds that "Conversion assumes a variety of forms... because it is influenced by a larger interplay of identity, politics and morality".
[20] Jindra describes the first theme as "human cognizance of divine presence," while Kling says, "God becomes real to people" through conversion.
[21] Jindra writes that, while all conversion accounts vary, they all show evidence of being based upon personal internal experiences of crisis expressed through the specific historical context in which the converts lived.
This can determine how much intentional action on the part of the individual convert has directed outcome, and how much outside forces may have impinged upon personal agency instead.
[17] Rambo's model of conversion includes context, crisis (involving some form of searching by the prospective convert), encounter, and interaction, (with someone who believes in the new religious belief system).
[17] In his book Sociology of Religion, German sociologist Max Weber writes that religious conversion begins with the prophet, as the voice of revelation and vision, calling others to break with tradition and bring their lives into conformity with his "world-building truth.
"[29] Weber believed that prophetic ideals can become, through the conversion of a community of followers, "a force for world transformation as powerful as anything in human history.
[31] According to Hefner, the "reformulation of social relations, cultural meanings and personal experience" involved in conversion carries with it an inherent "world building aspect".
[32] In the late nineteenth century, the development of world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism) was seen as part of the inevitable march toward human enlightenment in a linear upward evolution.
[34] The world religions developed institutions capable of standardizing knowledge and some have argued that this helped them survive while "empires and economic orders have come and gone".
[35] But in fact, only a few religions have been successful in propagating themselves over the long term, and standardized doctrine does not necessarily impact individual conversion and belief.
[38] The tension between ordinary reality and the transcendent creates recognition of a need for social reform, driven by a redemptive vision, that remakes the world rather than passively accepting it.
[61][62] The phenomenon of conversion is based on the belief that humans have the ability to change the way they mentally perceive and experience the world.
[63] Bulkeley writes that "Cognitive neuroscience in relation to religious conversions, where people undergo a basic reordering of the assumptions and expectations that frame their perceptions of the world, may lead to new evidence regarding the latent potential of brain/mind development".
[64] Studies on prayer and meditation show they alter the brain's functioning in measurable, material, ways: Several implications flow from that basic finding.
The best available scientific evidence indicates that people who engage in religiously motivated contemplative practices have normal, healthy brains.
Perhaps other forms of religion can be more directly tied to neuropathology, but in the case of meditation and prayer the CN literature supports a pragmatic appreciation of the effectiveness of religious practices in shaping the healthy interaction of brain and mind.
[4] Professor of religion Dyron B. Daughrity quotes Paul Freston: "Within a couple of decades, half the world's Christians will be in Africa and Latin America.
[68] Social Anthropologist Juliette Koning and sociologist Heidi Dahles of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, agree there has been a "rapid expansion of charismatic Christianity from the 1980s onwards.
Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are said to have the fastest-growing Christian communities and the majority of the new believers are "upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese".
[70] It has been reported also that increasing numbers of young people are becoming Christians in several countries such as China,[71][72] Hong Kong,[73] Indonesia,[74] Iran,[75][76] Japan,[77] Singapore,[78][79][80] and South Korea.
[89] Countries with the largest numbers of Muslims converted to Christianity include Indonesia (6,500,000), Nigeria (600,000), Iran (500,000 versus only 500 in 1979), the United States (450,000), Ethiopia (400,000), and Algeria (380,000).
[91][92][93] According to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2007, experts estimated that thousands of Muslims in the Western world converted to Christianity annually, but were not publicized due to fear of retribution.
[106] In the many new nation-states being formed in Eastern Europe of the Late Middle Ages, some kings and princes pressured their people to adopt the new religion.
[109] Almost all baptisms share in common the use of the Trinitarian formula (in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) by the minister while baptizing the convert.
[123] He draws on theories from the sociology of deviance where there is some recognition that "a change of religious affiliation generally represents a break with previous norms and a severing of social commitments—even when it does not involve a radical personality realignment".
When an adult decides to convert to the Catholic or Orthodox Church, they become a "catechumen" and attend classes to learn what conversion means and requires.
