Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies

Description

Conversion has been an important issue for most of the universal religions - those usually associated with a founder, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism - which have a mission to spread their message. Other religions have been less concerned with conversion except in so far as it has been a negative force for them to confront. This study explores how conversion has been understood by different religions during different eras, and includes a survey of the textual, legal, ritual, historic and experiential dimensions of the phenomenon of conversion.

M. Darroll Bryant, is professor of Religion and Culture at Renison College and Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

"...the volume does an excellent job of distinguishing between ethnic and universal religions, pointing out that conversion is more apt to be associated with the universal religions...this is an excellent volume, one that should be on the shelf of any scholar or student interested in conversion. Perhaps its strongest point is that it is written in a style that makes it accessible both to scholars and to lay persons."--Hindu-Christian Studies, 14 (2001)