Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Asia [electronic resource] /
Finucane, Juliana.editor.
Feener, R. Michael.editor.
This volume brings together a range of critical studies that explore diverse ways in which processes of globalization pose new challenges and offer new opportunities for religious groups to propagate their beliefs in contemporary Asian contexts. Proselytizing tests the limits of religious pluralism, as it is a practice that exists on the border of tolerance and intolerance. The practice of proselytizing presupposes not only that people are freely-choosing agents and that religion itself is an issue of individual preference. At the same time, however, it also raises fraught questions about belonging to particular communties and heightens the moral stakes in involved in such choices. In many contemporary Asian societies, questions about the limits of acceptable proselytic behavior have taken on added urgency in the current era of globalization. Recognizing this, the studies brought together here serve to develop our uderstandings of current developments as it critically explores the complex ways in which contemporary contexts of religious pluralism in Asia both enable, and are threatened by, projects of proselytization.
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Preface and Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1 Official Religions, State Secularisms, and the Structures of Religious Pluralism.- Chapter 2 Proselytization, Religious Diversity and the State in Indonesia: The Offense of Deceiving a Child to Change Religion.- Chapter 3 Conversion and Controversy: Reshaping the Boundaries of Malaysian Pluralism -- Chapter 4 The Tablighi Jama`at in West Papua, Indonesia: The Impact of a Lay Missionary Movement in a Plural Multi-religious and Multi-ethnic setting.- Chapter 5 Religious Learning Circles and Da`wa: The Modalities of Educated Bangladeshi Women Preaching Islam.- Chapter 6 Proselytizing, Peacework, and Public Relations: Soka Gakkai's commitment to Interreligious Harmony in Singapore -- Chapter 7 Pluralist Secularism and the Displacements of Christian Proselytizing in Singapore -- Chapter 8 Performing Identities: State-ISKCON Interactions in Singapore.- Chapter 9 "We Are Not a Religion": Secularization and Religious Territoriality of the Yiguan Dao (Unity Way) in Singapore -- Chapter 10 From Diasporic to Ecumenical: The Buddhist Tzu Chi (Ciji) Movement in Malaysia.- Chapter 11 Conversion and Anti-Conversion in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Pentecostal Christian Evangelism and Theravada Buddhist Views on the Ethics of Religious Attraction.- Chapter 12 Pluralism and its Discontents: Buddhism and Proselytizing in Modern China -- Contributor information.-Index.
This volume brings together a range of critical studies that explore diverse ways in which processes of globalization pose new challenges and offer new opportunities for religious groups to propagate their beliefs in contemporary Asian contexts. Proselytizing tests the limits of religious pluralism, as it is a practice that exists on the border of tolerance and intolerance. The practice of proselytizing presupposes not only that people are freely-choosing agents and that religion itself is an issue of individual preference. At the same time, however, it also raises fraught questions about belonging to particular communties and heightens the moral stakes in involved in such choices. In many contemporary Asian societies, questions about the limits of acceptable proselytic behavior have taken on added urgency in the current era of globalization. Recognizing this, the studies brought together here serve to develop our uderstandings of current developments as it critically explores the complex ways in which contemporary contexts of religious pluralism in Asia both enable, and are threatened by, projects of proselytization.
Religion.
Culture-Study and teaching.
Religious Studies, general.
Regional and Cultural Studies.