Conversion has played a central role in the history of Christianity. In this first in-depth and wide-ranging narrative history, David Kling examines the dynamic of turning to the Christian faith by individuals, families, and people groups. Global in reach, the narrative progresses from early Christian beginnings in the Roman world to Christianity's expansion into Europe, the Americas, China, India, and Africa. Conversion is often associated with a particular strand of modern Christianity (evangelical) and a particular type of experience (sudden, overwhelming). However, when examined over two millennia, it emerges as a phenomenon far more complex than any one-dimensional profile would suggest. No single, unitary paradigm defines conversion and no easily explicable process accounts for why people convert to Christianity. Rather, a multiplicity of factors-historical, personal, social, geographical, theological, psychological, and cultural-shape the converting process. A History of Christian Conversion not only narrates the conversions of select individuals and peoples, it also engages current theories and models to explain conversion, and examines recurring themes in the conversion process: divine presence, gender and the body, agency and motivation, testimony and memory, group- and self-identity, "authentic" and "nominal" conversion, and modes of communication. Accessible to scholars, students, and those with a general interest in conversion, Kling's book is the most satisfying and comprehensive account of conversion in Christian history to date; this major work will become a standard must-read in conversion studies.

Why have large numbers of the Bajju people of the Middle Belt of Nigeria become Christians? The first conversions occurred in 1929 and today almost one hundred percent of the Bajju claim to be Christians, so this people movement happened within a relatively short period. McKinney details the various contexts in which religious change took place among the Bajju: in traditional Bajju culture, in their relations with the Hausa-Fulani, in the British colonial context, and in the missionary context. She presents the results of an in-depth interview schedule administered in 1984 and 2011 to respondents in both a rural village and a Kaduna suburb. This longitudinal study, together with the author's involvement in participant observation, personal language learning, and archival records research, help provide answers to the questions of why, and to what degree, a worldview paradigm shift has occurred among the Bajju. The author also discusses some traditional religious beliefs retained by Bajju Christians, and charts traditional religious beliefs with biblical texts. Bajju Christian Conversion in the Middle Belt of Nigeria will be essential to anthropologists specializing in conversion studies, and be of interest to missiologists, and to the Bajju people themselves. It is a companion volume to Baranzan's People: An Ethnohistory of the Bajju of the Middle Belt of Nigeria, published by SIL International(R) 2019.

Walter Conn has provided us with something we have needed for a long time -- a scholarly study of Christian conversion that draws synthetically from present day psychology, philosophy, and theology and uses these insights to analyze actual Christian religious experience. And in doing that, Conn has produced what is probably the best treatment to date of foundational moral theology. To follow Conn through the pages of this volume is to become acquainted with most of today's important reflection on human moral and personal development. But one emerges with much more than relevant information about what is being said; Conn's own view of conversion goes beyond the thinkers from whom he draws and provides a basic challenge to and enrichment of our understanding of faith and morality. -- Bernard Cooke, Holy Cross College Walter E. Conn is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. He is also the editor of Horizons, journal of the College Theology Society.

Currently, about 6 percent of the eighty thousand Chinese college students in Korea are Christians, certainly no small number considering their future role within the Chinese Church. In this study, Chang Seop Kang seeks to find out the factors, process, and types concerning the conversion of thirty Chinese international students. This qualitative study gives a rich picture of their conversion stories, providing many examples from their insider perspectives. The key finding connecting these stories is experiencing God. Overall, this book showcases how an inductive data analysis such as grounded theory can produce a powerful message that affirms biblical truth.

Study conducted among the Nadars and Paraiyas community people at Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu, India.