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Understanding Religious Conversion
Religious conversion provides converts with an opportunity to embrace a community of faith and a philosophy that nurture and guide, that offer a focus for loyalty and a framework for action. Whether the conversion is from one religious tradition to another, from one denomination to another, from no involvement to participation in a religious community, or is an intensification of commitment within one's faith, the process can be complex but compelling and transformative.
In this book Lewis Rambo discusses the dynamics of conversion, presenting it as a multifaceted process of change with personal, cultural, social, and religious implications. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, theology, and missiology, as well as on interviews with converts from disparate backgrounds, Rambo explores the forces that shape the conversion experience. He considers various theories of conversion, examines the role of cultural and social factors in the conversion process, and describes how different religions and disciplines view conversion. While acknowledging the individual nature of each conversion experience, Rambo discerns stages that are illuminating. These include opening oneself to new options; seeking a resolution to the dilemma or deprivation that makes change seem attractive; meeting the agent who embodies the religious vision; learning new roles, rituals, and rhetoric; and committing oneself to a new way of life. His book will not only encourage empathy for the converting process but will also provide a nuanced strategy of critique and evaluation of religious conversion throughout the world.
In this book Lewis Rambo discusses the dynamics of conversion, presenting it as a multifaceted process of change with personal, cultural, social, and religious implications. Drawing on insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, theology, and missiology, as well as on interviews with converts from disparate backgrounds, Rambo explores the forces that shape the conversion experience. He considers various theories of conversion, examines the role of cultural and social factors in the conversion process, and describes how different religions and disciplines view conversion. While acknowledging the individual nature of each conversion experience, Rambo discerns stages that are illuminating. These include opening oneself to new options; seeking a resolution to the dilemma or deprivation that makes change seem attractive; meeting the agent who embodies the religious vision; learning new roles, rituals, and rhetoric; and committing oneself to a new way of life. His book will not only encourage empathy for the converting process but will also provide a nuanced strategy of critique and evaluation of religious conversion throughout the world.
- GenresSociology
260 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 2, 2020
A really good anthropology motivated sociological perspective on understanding religious conversion. Good coverage on various elements within that study.
March 10, 2024
“Understanding Religious Conversion” is an effective and succinct introduction to the anthropological field of “conversion studies.” Lewis Rambo does a fine job of exploring different conversion motifs and stages.
My minor critiques are:
- The book focuses too much on Christianity (and other Abrahamic faiths) at the expense of in-depth discussion about other religions and spiritualities. This focus makes some sense as Christianity is unique in its missionary efforts; apart from offshoot sects like Mormons, other religions don’t proselytize nearly as much. It also dates the 1993 book, as recent humanities works are very intentional in rhetorically “decentralizing” Christianity.
- Rambo’s use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” feels a bit reductive. It seems that to him conservative refers to a rigid, fundamentalist approach to doctrine and faith, while liberal is a more layered, thoughtful approach. Rambo seems to use the term conservative pejoratively, particularly in conversations about Christianity.
- This isn’t a strong critique as much as a tonal preference: Rambo seems to be a Christian, and his book is remarkably open (for an anthropology text) to the possibility of mystical or spiritual experiences. That said, the book seems to use sceptical secular methodologies in its rhetoric and approach to anthropology. This leads to some confusion about Rambo’s own perspective and methodology. In his final chapter, he even suggests that somebody researching conversion must acknowledge their own bias, and he proposes a series of questions the researcher must answer for their readers. Rambo doesn’t answer any of his proposed questions for his own readers, so we are left guessing about his bias.
My minor critiques are:
- The book focuses too much on Christianity (and other Abrahamic faiths) at the expense of in-depth discussion about other religions and spiritualities. This focus makes some sense as Christianity is unique in its missionary efforts; apart from offshoot sects like Mormons, other religions don’t proselytize nearly as much. It also dates the 1993 book, as recent humanities works are very intentional in rhetorically “decentralizing” Christianity.
- Rambo’s use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” feels a bit reductive. It seems that to him conservative refers to a rigid, fundamentalist approach to doctrine and faith, while liberal is a more layered, thoughtful approach. Rambo seems to use the term conservative pejoratively, particularly in conversations about Christianity.
- This isn’t a strong critique as much as a tonal preference: Rambo seems to be a Christian, and his book is remarkably open (for an anthropology text) to the possibility of mystical or spiritual experiences. That said, the book seems to use sceptical secular methodologies in its rhetoric and approach to anthropology. This leads to some confusion about Rambo’s own perspective and methodology. In his final chapter, he even suggests that somebody researching conversion must acknowledge their own bias, and he proposes a series of questions the researcher must answer for their readers. Rambo doesn’t answer any of his proposed questions for his own readers, so we are left guessing about his bias.
February 20, 2012
I read this book as part of a religious studies graduate course on Conversion, and wrote this review for the course.
In Understanding Religious Conversion, Lewis R. Rambo attempts to synthesize his own research on why people convert with current research from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, religious studies, psychology, and missiology, among others. His goal is to better understand the factors that go in to the decision to convert on an individual level, as well as the sociological processes that encourage (or discourage) conversion on a grand scale. Rambo then creates a variety of lists and models in an attempt to codify conversion processes in a predictable and clear manner, while still recognizing the vast differences in the individual experiences, decision-making processes, and social or historical influences that converge on any single conversion.
One very useful aspect of Rambo’s approach is his insistence on the interconnectedness of all stages of the conversion process. He recognizes that conversion can be an experience that incorporates a multitude of dimensions within an individual’s life in unique ways. Rambo illustrates this interconnected approach in his many web diagrams, where a major theme of discussion is placed in the center of the diagram, and is surrounded by a variety of smaller themes which inform the dynamic progression of the major theme. So, for example, commitment (the sixth stage of conversion in Rambo’s model), both influences, and is influenced by, the subject’s experience of, and history with, the stages of context, question, interaction, consequences, encounter, and crisis simultaneously (125). I felt that Rambo generally did a good job of writing about each stage as a fluid collection of ideas and processes, and not as a monolithic aspect of each and every individual conversion.
Although I felt that Rambo’s concept of conversion was more thoroughly researched and more widely applicable than James’ (in Varieties of Religious Experience), there were several aspects of his methodology that seemed to weaken his conclusions. My main concern is with the lack of information he provides about the interviews with converts he conducted as part of his research into the topic. In his preface, Rambo writes:
“I also conducted numerous interviews with converts from a wide variety of backgrounds: men and women who had embraced the Unification Church, Jews who had become Christians and Christians who had become Jews, Japanese secularists who had adopted Christianity, and Chinese people with little or no religious background . . . who had become Christians” (xi-xii).
Outside of this sentence, there is very little information about either the substance of the interviews or the subjects themselves. As far as I could tell, Rambo does not directly quote anyone’s personal experiences to support any of his arguments, or include information about who the subjects were or what questions they were asked. This is important because he seems to rely on these interviews quite a lot in his text where he cites his own general understanding of conversion, but he does not give his readers any way to access his data for themselves, which means that we cannot critically evaluate his conclusions in a meaningful way. To be clear, I do not think that this issue completely undermines his work in any way, but I do think that including an appendix with a little more information about the interview subjects and process would have been helpful to me.
Some of my other concerns might be more easily addressed if we had more access to Rambo’s interview subjects. For example, I often felt that Rambo exhibited a bias toward studying conversion to or from the Abrahamic religions. He does include a discussion of a mass conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism, and he certainly mentions other traditions in passing. Still, I felt that most of more specific, in-depth examples were drawn from the Abrahamic traditions. This may simply be due to the restrictions inherent in any sample of people one might interview, or it could be due to lack of research on contemporary conversion to and from non-Abrahamic traditions, but it is a case where having more statistical information about Rambo’s interviewees would have been helpful. In many ways, Rambo seems inclined to state his known biases directly; he writes a bit about his own theological inclinations and explicitly recognizes that stating them outright will allow his readers to make better decisions about their interpretations of his work. This forthrightness makes it difficult for me to believe that he would obfuscate a direct attempt to focus more on Abrahamic conversion experiences, but I am not sure what else might be going on to make the text appear to be biased in this way.
Last, the lack of personal conversion stories and experiences in the text was disappointing, especially considering the depth into which Rambo investigates and catalogs various conversion processes. One positive aspect of James’ Varieties for me was looking at a number of conversion experiences with him, as it were, and being able to see for myself how James’ way of categorizing conversions played out in the lives of real people. In many ways, I think Rambo accounts for a much larger variety of experience, and even a wider understanding of what conversion is than James does. Still, there were many places where Rambo’s claims could have been stronger if he had been able to cite a real experience to further illustrate his point.
To sum up, the lack of information about Rambo’s interviewees combined with his lack of citations of personal experience seemed to me to damage an otherwise engaging and useful theory of conversion. Despite these issues, I do highly recommend this book for those interested in conversion as it's addressed in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, or religious studies.
In Understanding Religious Conversion, Lewis R. Rambo attempts to synthesize his own research on why people convert with current research from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, religious studies, psychology, and missiology, among others. His goal is to better understand the factors that go in to the decision to convert on an individual level, as well as the sociological processes that encourage (or discourage) conversion on a grand scale. Rambo then creates a variety of lists and models in an attempt to codify conversion processes in a predictable and clear manner, while still recognizing the vast differences in the individual experiences, decision-making processes, and social or historical influences that converge on any single conversion.
One very useful aspect of Rambo’s approach is his insistence on the interconnectedness of all stages of the conversion process. He recognizes that conversion can be an experience that incorporates a multitude of dimensions within an individual’s life in unique ways. Rambo illustrates this interconnected approach in his many web diagrams, where a major theme of discussion is placed in the center of the diagram, and is surrounded by a variety of smaller themes which inform the dynamic progression of the major theme. So, for example, commitment (the sixth stage of conversion in Rambo’s model), both influences, and is influenced by, the subject’s experience of, and history with, the stages of context, question, interaction, consequences, encounter, and crisis simultaneously (125). I felt that Rambo generally did a good job of writing about each stage as a fluid collection of ideas and processes, and not as a monolithic aspect of each and every individual conversion.
Although I felt that Rambo’s concept of conversion was more thoroughly researched and more widely applicable than James’ (in Varieties of Religious Experience), there were several aspects of his methodology that seemed to weaken his conclusions. My main concern is with the lack of information he provides about the interviews with converts he conducted as part of his research into the topic. In his preface, Rambo writes:
“I also conducted numerous interviews with converts from a wide variety of backgrounds: men and women who had embraced the Unification Church, Jews who had become Christians and Christians who had become Jews, Japanese secularists who had adopted Christianity, and Chinese people with little or no religious background . . . who had become Christians” (xi-xii).
Outside of this sentence, there is very little information about either the substance of the interviews or the subjects themselves. As far as I could tell, Rambo does not directly quote anyone’s personal experiences to support any of his arguments, or include information about who the subjects were or what questions they were asked. This is important because he seems to rely on these interviews quite a lot in his text where he cites his own general understanding of conversion, but he does not give his readers any way to access his data for themselves, which means that we cannot critically evaluate his conclusions in a meaningful way. To be clear, I do not think that this issue completely undermines his work in any way, but I do think that including an appendix with a little more information about the interview subjects and process would have been helpful to me.
Some of my other concerns might be more easily addressed if we had more access to Rambo’s interview subjects. For example, I often felt that Rambo exhibited a bias toward studying conversion to or from the Abrahamic religions. He does include a discussion of a mass conversion from Hinduism to Buddhism, and he certainly mentions other traditions in passing. Still, I felt that most of more specific, in-depth examples were drawn from the Abrahamic traditions. This may simply be due to the restrictions inherent in any sample of people one might interview, or it could be due to lack of research on contemporary conversion to and from non-Abrahamic traditions, but it is a case where having more statistical information about Rambo’s interviewees would have been helpful. In many ways, Rambo seems inclined to state his known biases directly; he writes a bit about his own theological inclinations and explicitly recognizes that stating them outright will allow his readers to make better decisions about their interpretations of his work. This forthrightness makes it difficult for me to believe that he would obfuscate a direct attempt to focus more on Abrahamic conversion experiences, but I am not sure what else might be going on to make the text appear to be biased in this way.
Last, the lack of personal conversion stories and experiences in the text was disappointing, especially considering the depth into which Rambo investigates and catalogs various conversion processes. One positive aspect of James’ Varieties for me was looking at a number of conversion experiences with him, as it were, and being able to see for myself how James’ way of categorizing conversions played out in the lives of real people. In many ways, I think Rambo accounts for a much larger variety of experience, and even a wider understanding of what conversion is than James does. Still, there were many places where Rambo’s claims could have been stronger if he had been able to cite a real experience to further illustrate his point.
To sum up, the lack of information about Rambo’s interviewees combined with his lack of citations of personal experience seemed to me to damage an otherwise engaging and useful theory of conversion. Despite these issues, I do highly recommend this book for those interested in conversion as it's addressed in the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology, or religious studies.
December 10, 2011
While Rambo presents an excellent discussion of the various stages of the process of conversion, his presentation style did not seem to support his thesis completely. Throughout the book, each stage of the conversion was presented as a component of an interrelated web of the other components of the conversion. The implication of this visual is that there is not necessarily a progressive step-by-step process of conversion, but that they interacted and built on each other. Rambo indicates that this was his intention in the first chapter (Rambo, 1993, p. 17). The presentation of these stages, though, did not follow this. Each stage was given its own chapter or chapters and was presented as the next step in a progression. While some interaction is mentioned, for the most part, he limits his discussions in the various chapters to focus on the particular stage.
One thing that he does do in describing the inter-relation between the stages is weave the idea of context throughout the book. The crisis of the convert is driven by the context in which the convert exists, both micro and macro. The quest of the convert is dictated in some ways by the contextual availability to pursue the quest. The encounter between the convert and the advocate is contextually influenced by the social context of both persons. Interaction, commitment, and consequence all are enacted and evaluated based upon the context in which the conversion takes place. So, while Rambo’s web diagram seems to be unsupported overall in the book, the extreme importance of context definitely comes out in the discussions.
To this extent, this book is a good starting point for discussion of what people engaged in the process of conversion need to consider when taking on the role of advocate in the process, especially in a post-modern society. For post-moderns, objectivity is elusive while subjectivity is the key when it comes to understanding truth. Understanding the context of the convert, the advocate, and even the religious system helps to define the subjectivity involved in the discussion of truth and gives a starting point for effective processing of the conversion. While this may not necessarily counter the general sense of skepticism that comes with post-modern thought, remembering the importance of context in conversion will help with forming better methods of communication and assist with adapting new symbols and analogies.
One major disappointing characteristic of this book, though, is the degree of intellectualization given to the conversion process. As I mentioned above, I did appreciate the understanding of the social and psychological complexities that reading this text gave me, there is something missing when the mystical and spiritual is divorced from the process. While Rambo gives a general nod in the direction of such experiences in the development of a crisis (Rambo, 1993, pp. 48-49), the role that the spiritual dimension plays in the other stages of the process is understated and, in some cases, non-existent in Rambo’s analysis. I would be amiss if I did not recognize that I come at this with a Christian bias that emphasizes verses like Romans 12:1-2 when it comes to a conversion experience. I agree with Rambo that it is a process, but it is process that includes both the mundane elements that he describes as well as the more mystical elements of spiritual indwelling and change.
Additionally, for a post-modern world, while the understanding of context is important for relating to people in such a society, the process by which Rambo went through in developing his model and arguments was a very rational, intellectual, and scientific approach. To use such an approach in an era where such methods are viewed with skepticism and doubt seems counter-productive. Again, perhaps I am more of a post-modern than some and so these modernistic methods of explaining conversion do not appeal to me as much as discussions on the role of relationships, of artistic and emotional effects, and on the paradoxical nature of the world. Rambo gives some acknowledgement of that in the last paragraph of the book (Rambo, 1993, p. 176) but it seems to be too little, too late.
Over all, as a scientific analysis of the process of conversion, Lewis Rambo presents a clear presentation of the progressive stages of the process of conversion. The stages of context, crisis, quest, encounter, interaction, commitment, and consequences are clearly explained and described with plenty of examples of the various aspects of each stage. The social, psychological, and cultural impact and effects of conversion are delineated and presented in a well thought out manner. However, the implication of the interaction between the different stages, their cumulative effect, and the fluidity of the process is understated and incomplete. As a sociology text on the process of conversion, this is an excellent book. However, as a book intended to show such interaction or as a book to communicate conversion theory to post-moderns, this is a starting point only and the ideas may need considerable further development.
One thing that he does do in describing the inter-relation between the stages is weave the idea of context throughout the book. The crisis of the convert is driven by the context in which the convert exists, both micro and macro. The quest of the convert is dictated in some ways by the contextual availability to pursue the quest. The encounter between the convert and the advocate is contextually influenced by the social context of both persons. Interaction, commitment, and consequence all are enacted and evaluated based upon the context in which the conversion takes place. So, while Rambo’s web diagram seems to be unsupported overall in the book, the extreme importance of context definitely comes out in the discussions.
To this extent, this book is a good starting point for discussion of what people engaged in the process of conversion need to consider when taking on the role of advocate in the process, especially in a post-modern society. For post-moderns, objectivity is elusive while subjectivity is the key when it comes to understanding truth. Understanding the context of the convert, the advocate, and even the religious system helps to define the subjectivity involved in the discussion of truth and gives a starting point for effective processing of the conversion. While this may not necessarily counter the general sense of skepticism that comes with post-modern thought, remembering the importance of context in conversion will help with forming better methods of communication and assist with adapting new symbols and analogies.
One major disappointing characteristic of this book, though, is the degree of intellectualization given to the conversion process. As I mentioned above, I did appreciate the understanding of the social and psychological complexities that reading this text gave me, there is something missing when the mystical and spiritual is divorced from the process. While Rambo gives a general nod in the direction of such experiences in the development of a crisis (Rambo, 1993, pp. 48-49), the role that the spiritual dimension plays in the other stages of the process is understated and, in some cases, non-existent in Rambo’s analysis. I would be amiss if I did not recognize that I come at this with a Christian bias that emphasizes verses like Romans 12:1-2 when it comes to a conversion experience. I agree with Rambo that it is a process, but it is process that includes both the mundane elements that he describes as well as the more mystical elements of spiritual indwelling and change.
Additionally, for a post-modern world, while the understanding of context is important for relating to people in such a society, the process by which Rambo went through in developing his model and arguments was a very rational, intellectual, and scientific approach. To use such an approach in an era where such methods are viewed with skepticism and doubt seems counter-productive. Again, perhaps I am more of a post-modern than some and so these modernistic methods of explaining conversion do not appeal to me as much as discussions on the role of relationships, of artistic and emotional effects, and on the paradoxical nature of the world. Rambo gives some acknowledgement of that in the last paragraph of the book (Rambo, 1993, p. 176) but it seems to be too little, too late.
Over all, as a scientific analysis of the process of conversion, Lewis Rambo presents a clear presentation of the progressive stages of the process of conversion. The stages of context, crisis, quest, encounter, interaction, commitment, and consequences are clearly explained and described with plenty of examples of the various aspects of each stage. The social, psychological, and cultural impact and effects of conversion are delineated and presented in a well thought out manner. However, the implication of the interaction between the different stages, their cumulative effect, and the fluidity of the process is understated and incomplete. As a sociology text on the process of conversion, this is an excellent book. However, as a book intended to show such interaction or as a book to communicate conversion theory to post-moderns, this is a starting point only and the ideas may need considerable further development.
February 1, 2014
A tedious organization and discussion of religious conversion studies into a common sense model of contributing factors with an emphasis on the social sciences. Had to read it for an Apologetics course in seminary. Author considers himself a "scholar of conversion". Gives intellectual a bad name. Who pays for these studies?
April 20, 2017
This book very good
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September 15, 2017I want to read this book to support the research I am doing
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