Analysis and Applications

Abstract This article focuses on the narratives that emerged from two conversion episodes in Kerala in the 1920s involving the German missionary Paul Sengle (1870–1932): the conversion of a young Hindu woman named Kalyani and attempts to convert members of the Ezhava caste amid competition from Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. While mainly drawing on materials produced by the Basel Mission or by missionaries in the field like Sengle, this article also gives space to the perspectives of the newly converted person and of the rival religious communities. It suggests studying conversion experiences as shaped by situations of interaction, by connecting sources that represent the divergent perspectives of all the parties involved in such cases. This approach helps to examine the different sides of a conversion experience at both macro and micro levels and offers insights into the broader processes of religious encounters in the early twentieth century global history of religions.

Abstract Based on the case study of a prophetic-charismatic Church in Angola (Tokoist Church), this article analyzes the emergence of conversion narratives, collected through interviews and ethnography, through a historically constructed paradigm, where spiritual encounters are combined with an institutional and sociopolitical dimension. This paradigm acts as a catalyst for a biographic illusion, whereby contact with the Spirit is considered as the main factor for one’s transformation, yet it is anchored to one’s social capital. It also shows how these conversion narratives reproduce three distinct temporalities, which reflect the temporalities implicitly embodied by the figure of the prophet: the event, associated with a spiritual dimension, i.e. the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the bureaucratic act of conversion; the process, which involves access to institutional positions and daily charisma, depending on one’s social capital; and performativity, which is visible in the ethnographic interaction between the researcher and the converts.

Abstract This article aims to reconstruct the social origins of 124 Swedish missionaries who worked for the Swedish Mission Covenant in the Congo Free State (CFS) from 1882 to 1908, while analysing the impact of the missionaries’ origins on their work and on their interactions with Congolese peoples. The results show that most of the missionaries came from a rural background and had a low socio-economic status. This social background affected the Swedish missionaries’ relationships with Congolese people and contributed to an encounter that was both ambivalent (mixed on both sides) and ambiguous (marked by contradiction). On the one hand the missionaries’ humble backgrounds, combined with the universalism of their Protestant revivalist culture, cultivated an ethos of egalitarianism. On the other hand, their position as white missionaries in a colonial society and their vocal support for the idea of civilizing mission in Africa fostered attitudes of arrogance towards Congolese society.

Abstract The article examines the influence of Swabian Pietism, a variant of Pietism in South Germany, on the Basel Mission’s activities in South India. It highlights how Pietism redefined conversion as a personal, transformative experience, shaping missionary discourse and practices. The Basel Mission, founded by Pietistic followers, exemplifies this approach, emphasising “personal will” in conversion. The Mission’s expansion in 19th-century South India brought encounters with diverse socio-religious groups, including Brahmins, Billavas, and Lingayats, each with distinct responses to Protestantism. These encounters challenge simplistic narratives of religious conversion and transformations, revealing complex negotiations and adaptations by both missionaries and locals. The article argues for an intersectional perspective that considers caste, class, and sectarian divides in understanding missionary encounters. It suggests that notions of ‘native agency’ were nuanced and shaped by social, religious, and economic contexts, leading to a unique ‘Indian’ Pietistic Protestantism that defied missionary expectations of converts.

Abstract Baba Padmanji Mulay’s (1831–1906) conversion to Christianity in Bombay Presidency is located in an evolving intellectual domain of confrontation between missionaries, reformers, and conservatives. This competitive atmosphere placed early converts in a state of crisis, squeezing them between British missionaries and Marathi, mostly upper-caste Hindus. Given this context, Padmanji’s rise to eminence is reflected in his ideological writings on women’s emancipation, and in his autobiographical encounter with spirit possession. This article reads Padmanji’s ideology and spirit possession anecdote as a demonstration of the Indian Christian predicament that saw a move to refashion community identity as masculine and chivalrous.

Abstract This article focuses on the conversion narratives of two fathers of the Belgian Jesuit mission in Bengal (India), Joseph Müllender and Johan-Baptist Hoffmann, among the Munda Adivasi minority. Their letters (1881–1927) offer contrasting accounts of conversion as motivated by preaching and the theological superiority of Christianity over so-called ‘spirit worship’ on the one hand, and by socio-political and agrarian issues as well as literacy on the other. Published material by Hoffmann (notably the Encyclopedia Mundarica, 1930–1937) completes our perspective on Munda cosmology and politics as on its Jesuit translation. Finally, an article from 1928 gives us the perspective of a young Jesuit-educated Adivasi on the same subject.

Abstract This paper brings together perspectives on hosting and pilgrimage to show how both can contribute to forms of “indirect mission”: a type of social action where overt intervention for missionary purposes is kept to a minimum, but where an implicit missionary intent is retained. While bringing in comparative material on cathedrals, my ethnographic focus is on the English pilgrimage site of Walsingham, a location of both Anglican and Roman Catholic shrines. I show how shrines work to become sites of reception for publics ranging from pious pilgrims to members of the general population as they seek recognition within both Catholic and secular liberal contexts.