Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East

by Eleanor H. Tejirian, Reeva Spector Simon

"Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion" surveys two thousand years of the Christian missionary enterprise in the Middle East within the context of the region's political evolution. Its broad, rich narrative follows Christian missions as they interacted with imperial powers and as the momentum of religious change shifted from Christianity to Islam and back, adding new dimensions to the history of the region and the nature of the relationship between the Middle East and the West.

Historians and political scientists increasingly recognize the importance of integrating religion into political analysis, and this volume, using long-neglected sources, uniquely advances this effort. It surveys Christian missions from the earliest days of Christianity to the present, paying particular attention to the role of Christian missions, both Protestant and Catholic, in shaping the political and economic imperialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon delineate the ongoing tensions between conversion and the focus on witness and "good works" within the missionary movement, which contributed to the development and spread of nongovernmental organizations. Through its conscientious, systematic study, this volume offers an unparalleled encounter with the social, political, and economic consequences of such trends.

Genres: Religion

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2012

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is less about conversions than about the organizations and individuals that went to the Middle East to convert, educate and give medical care to people there. Partly this is because of the failure of the efforts to convert. When missionaries discovered that it was nearly impossible to convert Jews and Muslims, they turned their efforts to convert Christians to whatever sect they belonged to. Catholics tried to convert Orthodox and Protestants, etc. Later on, the efforts turned to humanitarianism.

[Mills College Library]

266.00956 T2666 2012