Rethinking religious conversion: missionary endeavor and religious response among the Zo (Chin) of the India-Burma borderland
In the late nineteenth century Christian missionaries landed in a remote corner of India-Burma to seek converts in a "heathen" land, known as Chin Hills, now Chin State of Burma. The Christian mission was an extension of the American Baptist Mission, which had already been working in diffe...
| Published in: | The journal of religion & society |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Creighton University
2012
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| In: |
The journal of religion & society
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| Further subjects: | B
Burma; Church history
B Missions; Burma B Nativistic movements; Burma B Culture conflict B Christians; Burma B Chin (Southeast Asian people) B Culture and Christianity B Pau Cin Hau B b 1859 |
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| Summary: | In the late nineteenth century Christian missionaries landed in a remote corner of India-Burma to seek converts in a "heathen" land, known as Chin Hills, now Chin State of Burma. The Christian mission was an extension of the American Baptist Mission, which had already been working in different parts of Burma and among different ethnic groups since the arrival of Adoniram Judson in 1813. This paper explores how the "incoming message" brought by the missionaries coped with a well-entrenched indigenous society and cosmology, and examines the role played by a contemporaneous indigenous socio-religious reform movement, spearheaded by Pau Cin Hau, in the conversion of the Zo (Chins) to Christianity. It argues that it is not historically correct to look at conversion only from the perspective of the "agents" without an in depth study of traditional belief and practices. In the case of the Zo, a careful analysis needs to be done because of the existence of an indigenous movement vis-�-vis the Christian mission. |
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| ISSN: | 1522-5658 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of religion & society
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| Persistent identifiers: | HDL: 10504/64303 |