ACCOUNTING FOR CONVERSION : BECOMING A CHRISTIAN IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

The following project seeks to provide an explanation for the phenomenon of religious conversion to Charismatic Christianity within the local context. This is in view of the observed revival of religious fundamentalism and the spread of new religious movements on a global scale in recent years. Two major paradigms of religious conversion, namely, the 'brainwashing' and 'active' paradigms are compared and contrasted, giving rise to a potential 'third paradigm'. This 'third paradigm' is then argued to be a more complete and less partial explanation, taking into account the concepts of a 'social cocoon', liminality and communitas. Further exploration is made of the potentially problematic status of conversion accounts, which appear to be reconstructed accounts of past events which may not have been experienced in quite the same way. The identity of the convert is then viewed as a social type, guided by particular ways of speaking and interacting. What is finally proposed is the concept of religious transplantation - as opposed to earlier concepts of religious conversion or religious alternation - which must take into account the social-historical contexts in which religious choices are made. For reasons of confidentiality, pseudonyms have been used.