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Conversion and Mission History: a Review of David W. Kling’s A History of Christian Conversion

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Abstract

This article reviews David W. Kling’s A History of Christian Conversion by putting it into dialogue with mission history. It suggests that conversion is an integral component of mission history that prioritizes the personal and social dimensions of religious change. Engaging the author’s expansive temporal, geographical, cultural, and social synthesis of the scholarship on conversion, the article highlights the value of Kling’s comprehensive work: it is highly useful for mission history but does not encompass its entirety.

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Notes

  1. The volumes by Latourette are as follows: volume 1: The First Five Centuries (1937), volume 2: The Thousand Years of Uncertainty (1938), volume 3: Three Centuries of Advance (1940), volume 4: The Great Century: Europe and the United States (1945), volume 5: The Great Century: The Americas, Australasia and Africa (1943), volume 6: The Great Century: North Africa and Asia (1941), and volume 7: Advance Through Storm, A.D. 1914 and After (1945).

  2. For the intersection of mission history and world Christianity with the global history movement, see Lindenfeld (2021), World Christianity and Indigenous Experience: A Global History, 1500–2000.

  3. See Comaroff and Comaroff (1991) for the theoretical background of the “colonization of consciousness.”.

References

  • Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (1991). Of revelation and revolution (Vol. 1). University of Chicago Press.

  • Kling, D. W. (2020). A history of Christian conversion. Oxford University Press.

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  • Latourette, K. S. (1937–1945). A history of the expansion of Christianity (Vols. 1–7). Harper & Brothers.

  • Lindenfeld, D. F. (2021). World Christianity and indigenous experience: A global history, 1500–2000. Cambridge University Press.

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  • Rambo, L., & Bauman, S. (2011). Psychology of conversion and spiritual transformation. Pastoral Psychology, 61, 5–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-011-0364-5

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, Boston University School of Theology, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Dana L. Robert

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  1. Dana L. Robert
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Correspondence to Dana L. Robert.

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Robert, D.L. Conversion and Mission History: a Review of David W. Kling’s A History of Christian Conversion. Pastoral Psychol 71, 789–792 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01019-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-022-01019-x

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