Explore the vast range of titles available.

Although over eighty percent of the country is Muslim, Indonesia is marked by an extraordinary diversity in language, ancestry, culture, religion and ways of life. This book focuses on the Christian Dani of West Papua, providing a social and ethnographic history of the most important indigenous population in the troubled province. It presents a fascinating overview of the Dani’s conversion to Christianity, examining the social, religious and political uses to which they have put their new religion. Based on independent research carried out over many years among the Dani people, the book provides an abundance of new material on religious and political events in West Papua. Underlining the heart of Christian-Muslim rivalries, the book questions the fate of religion in late-modern times.

Although over eighty percent of the country is Muslim, Indonesia is marked by an extraordinary diversity in language, ancestry, culture, religion and ways of life. This book focuses on the Christian Dani of West Papua, providing a social and ethnographic history of the most important indigenous population in the troubled province. It presents a fascinating overview of the Dani’s conversion to Christianity, examining the social, religious and political uses to which they have put their new religion. Based on independent research carried out over many years among the Dani people, the book provides an abundance of new material on religious and political events in West Papua. Underlining the heart of Christian-Muslim rivalries, the book questions the fate of religion in late-modern times.

This article is a response to essay reviews of the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Rambo and Farhadian 2014) published in this issue of Pastoral Psychology. The editors of that volume seek to engage the various issues raised by the reviewers.

Many non-Western Christian communities have experienced terrible human rights violations at the hands of fellow citizens, civil authorities, or rebel groups, Christian or otherwise. This article presents a brief and practical model of healing that attempts to remain consistent with the general characteristics of non-Western social realities. It suggests that rather than relying on the paucity of professional therapies offered in those contexts, non-Western churches themselves can become harbingers of healing for the traumatized community. By blending social theory with biblical narratives, this article proffers an example of how healing can take place within sociocentric communities.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

In Jesus in Asia, R. S. Sugirtharajah—emeritus professor at the University of Birmingham known for his scholarship on postcolonial criticism of the Bible and giving voice to marginalized voices of biblical interpretation—turns his attention to the Asian re-imaginings of Jesus's life. Yet these two documents, Sugirtharajah argues, represented two models for presenting Jesus in Asia, the first an attempt to transfer the Semitic message without paying attention to the local, the second overlooking Semitic concepts of sin and human depravity and, instead, communicating Jesus through vernacular Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian categories recognizable to their audience. According to Radhakrishnan, salvation was mediated through the eternal Christ, not the historic Jesus, since Jesus was the “expression of timeless spirit” (179) like Krishna, Rama, or Buddha.

Given its minority status throughout much of Asia, Christianity's history and resilience in the region warrant a re-examination of the contemporary expressions of Christian theology in its wider Asian context. How are pre-Christian religious and cultural practices drawn up into contemporary expressions of Christianity? In periods of conflict and crisis, what particular sources of strength are employed by Christian minorities? This paper highlights the various roles that memory plays in the lives of West Papuans as a source of theologizing in their subjugated context. The chapter suggests that West Papuans employ primarily fives types of memories (embodied, ecological, storied, passionate, and redemptive) that provide guidance, insight, and an understanding of God with them. By highlighting the teasing out the continuities and discontinuities of Christianity and local traditions in West Papua, Indonesia, this paper underscores elements of an emerging Christian theology from an Asian frontier. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Topics covered are as varied as poverty alleviation in Nigeria, powerlessness of overseas contract workers, the role of faith-based organizations in promoting condom use in West Papua, hidden Christians in Japan, the impact of trauma on children, the missional configurations of diasporic Filipino communities, and new transnational and transcultural models of evangelism in Korea, Columbia, and the United States.

[...]definitions of conversion, case studies of converts, and empirical studies of conversion were shaped by the experiences of American converts. Much of American Christianity has been characterized by revival movements that stressed individual decisions to commit ones life to Jesus Christ, live in faithful adherence to the proscriptions and prescriptions of the church (with some variations according to denominations), share the good news of salvation with ones friends and neighbors, and support the mission of the church to Bpreach the gospel^ to all the world. [...]they advocate the profound importance of emic understandings, of the indigenous knowledge and perspectives of Binsiders^ in our approaches to understanding conversion and other phenomena that require rigorous, empathic, and careful study of people, religions, and cultures, particularly of contexts that are culturally different from the taken-for-granted world of Western scholars Gaining authentic emic knowledge and understanding demands that we have an approach that is humble, appreciative, and respectful of people, religions, spiritualties, and cultures that are, in many cases, profoundly different from our own. [...]most religions have theories and practices related to how and why people should act in order to be transformed in particular ways to be better human beings, to be in alignment with deities or spirits that can foster human welfare, and even, in some traditions, to transcend the human predicament of finitude (illness, death, and other obstacles to human well-being and flourishing).

While contributors focus primarily on churches established by evangelical faith missions, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches are also considered as part of the historical investigation.

Aiming to provide an \"encyclopedic view of the varied history of Christians in Indonesia\" (p. vii), the book is organized into three parts that combine broad historical coverage with thematic depth: (1) historical presentation, up to 1800, of the precolonial period, during which Christianity and Islam entered the archipelago; (2) focus on the \"most important\" Christian areas, including political, economic, and social developments; and (3) a discussion of some of the more salient aspects of Christian life, such as theological developments, ecumenical opportunities and obstacles, and Christian art and media. Readers more familiar with Christianity in Indonesia will learn of the numerous local missionaries and. church leaders who carried the weight of mission and evangelism throughout the archipelago, contending with the cultural, religious, social, and legal contexts that helped give rise to the diversity of Christian churches and movements throughout the nation.