Between Secrecy and Transparency
Conversions to Protestantism Among Iranian Refugees in Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5791513 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susanne Stadlbauer (University of Colorado System, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Publication date | 2019-06-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Entangled Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2363-6696 • E-ISSN: 2363-6696 |
| Publisher | CERES / KHK Bochum (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.46586/er.8.2019.8322 |
| OpenAlex | W4229951556 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 34 |
Present-day scholarship on religious conversions diverts from classic Protestant paradigms of sudden conversions and instant transformations of the self. Instead, it stresses that converts make active choices that are influenced by specific contexts and historical changes. This becomes evident in an ethnographic study of one controversial aspect of the recent refugee influx in Germany: the so-called mass conversions of Iranian refugees from Shia Islam to Christianity, which have been highly publicized and criticized since the height of immigration in 2015. The analysis draws on interview data with Iranian refugee converts and their pastors in Protestant churches in North Rhine-Westphalia between October 2017 and January 2018. The study reveals the need to theorize the symbiotic connection between religious contacts, forced migration, and conversion to Christianity. It applies Rambo's (1993) stage model of conversion and the analytical concept of secrecy (Jones 2014, Manderson et al. 2015, Simmel 1906) to demonstrate that the Iranian refugees' conversions are shaped by contexts, crises, encounters, quests, interactions, commitments, and consequences (Rambo 1993) as they negotiate the forces of secrecy, risk, transparency, and the benefits of being a Christian. The goal of this paper is to find thematic patterns in their narratives that can be systematized and can build a foundation for further study
Religious conversion · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
Conversion
Secrecy
Actual Minds, Possible Worlds
The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion
The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights
Managing Quality in Qualitative Research
Biographieforschung und narratives Interview
Mediation and immediacy
Religion and media
Constructing cultural borders
Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences
Religious Conversion to Christianity in Muslim Refugees in Europe
Religious Conversion and Disaffiliation
Conversion Motifs Among British Converts to Islam
Conversion as a Migration Strategy in a Transit Country
Re‐Thinking Migrants’ Networks and Social Capital
Narratives of migration
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Stories as Lived Experience
Becoming a World-Saver
The performance of secrecy
A Profile of Germany's Refugee Populations
The politics of transcription
Crossing boundaries
Language in the Inner City
The Convert as a Social Type
Conversion Motifs
Translating the Devil
Secrecy
On Secrecy, Disclosure, the Public, and the Private in Anthropology
The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies
Pierre Bourdieu and the sociology of religion
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |