Religious Change, Conversion and Culture (review)

Reviews 295 Olson, Lynette, ed., Religious Change, Conversion and Culture, (Sydney Studies in Society and Culture 12), Leichhardt, Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, 1996; paper; pp. 273; r.r.p. AUS$30.00, US$20.00, £15.00. [Available from Sydney Studies, P.O. Box 575, Leichhardt, N S W 2040] The spread of Christianity is an integral part of Western history the establishment of that religion. It is a process that is open-ended and in no way a linear development. The Christian religion is by its very nature both self-centered and aggressive. It sees itself as an incarnation of The Truth. Yet up until n o w I have had great, in fact increasing, difficulties with the existing treatment of this subject as I know it. The majority view of scholars appears to be that the spread of Christianity was inevitable due to the nature of its message, and t h i s despite the fact that the conversion of 'all nations' seems to be f a r off after two millennia. What is wrong? It has become increasingly dear to this writer, a European medieval historian, that the existing evidence is such as to make a balanced treatment extremely difficult. There is one obvious reason for this: Christianity as a 'religion of the Book' is essentially linked to writing, while humanity existed most ofthe time, and functioned well, without this medium. What written documents were produced in Christian societies and in the service of religion were, in that sphere, highly biased, propagandist and triumphalist, and yet these writings have been taken by most scholars as reliable sources for the investigation of the spread and maintenance of Christianity. Once this has been stated, the vicious circle is apparent, with the result that work has to begin in earnest, almost from scratch. In this enterprise, the publication to be reviewed here deserves a place of honour. It contains 12 contributions, the results of a conference held in 1994. It stretches over 1500 years, extending 296 Reviews to the presenttime,and ranges from Ireland in the West via eastern Europe (Bulgaria and Gothia) and the Near East and India to Australia and Papua N e w Guinea. This is a remarkable range, unusual in any case for the generally Euro-centric medievalist. Its added virtue is the interdisciplinary mix of the contributors, among w h o m scholars of religious studies are in the minority, anthropologists in the majority, with other disciplines also represented. The reader is thus confronted with various insights which can amount to comparative considerations. Altogether, this is a very welcome breath of fresh air, and it can be said that the subject benefits enormously. Whereas ecclesiastical historians are, on the whole, selective as well as narrow in the treatment of their topic, anthropologists have the whole of the society under investigation in view. They see, and rightly so, religion embedded in a wider system, and see mutual influences between society and religion, if these can be separated indeed (they cannot). In this perspective religion is one manifestation among others of a given social order. It has to be stated further that m a n in history is always a being that lives beyond the here and now, and that 'beyond' could well be called 'religion' in a loose sense. In that case, the spread of Christianity is always an endeavour to replace one religion by another which, from the Christian perspective, is superior and thus the natural winner in the competition; if Christianity fails there must be something wrong somewhere, yet certainly not the religion in question. This broad panorama offers various types of conversion, that of individuals and that of groups/masses, conversion 'from the top down' as well as 'from the bottom up'. It is built on a great variety of previous studies, and in particular on various contributions by Robin Horton, the psychologist turned anthropologist with a Reviews 297 lifelong experience in Africa. The insights provided are m a n y and various. I t must be stated explicitly, as indeed is done in this volume, that Christianity never exists in a pure state (hence the term 'Christianities' here...