Asylum And Conversion To Christianity In Europe

Drawing together previously disjointed scholarship on the topic of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity, this book shows how boundaries of belonging are negotiated between Middle Eastern ex-Muslim asylum seekers, church representatives, lawyers, legal decision-makers and policymakers. With case studies from European countries such as Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach including ethnographic and other qualitative research, discourse analysis and case law analysis, to explore the complexities of the phenomenon of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity. This book is an authoritative resource for academic scholars in fields as diverse as migration and refugee studies, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, law and socio-legal studies, as well as legal and religious practitioners.

Drawing together previously disjointed scholarship on the topic of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity, this book shows how boundaries of belonging are negotiated between Middle Eastern ex-Muslim asylum seekers, church representatives, lawyers, legal decision-makers and policymakers. With case studies from European countries such as Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach including ethnographic and other qualitative research, discourse analysis and case law analysis, to explore the complexities of the phenomenon of asylum and conversion from Islam to Christianity. This book is an authoritative resource for academic scholars in fields as diverse as migration and refugee studies, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, law and socio-legal studies, as well as legal and religious practitioners.

In Christianity and Conversion among Migrants, Darren Carlson explores the faith, beliefs, and practices of migrants and refugees as well as the Christian organizations serving them between 2014–2018 in Athens, Greece.

The Handbook of Leaving Religion introduces a neglected field of research with the aim to outline previous and contemporary research, and suggest how the topic of leaving religion should be studied in the future. The handbook consists of three sections: 1) Major debates about leaving religion; 2) Case studies and empirical insights; and 3) Theoretical and methodological approaches. Section one provides the reader with an introduction to key terms, historical developments, major controversies and significant cases. Section two includes case studies that illustrate various processes of leaving religion from different perspectives, and each chapter provides new empirical insights. Section three discusses, presents and encourages new approaches to the study of leaving religion.

Over the past few decades, whilst evading severe governmental restrictions in Iran, the Iranian Evangelical diaspora has grown across Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands, the US and the UK. Far from the censorship of the Islamic Republic, Iranian Evangelical pastors and ministers publish Persian-language Christian magazines and online videos with the aim to reach the transnational Iranian Christian community, as well as potential converts in Iran. This book explores notions of nationhood and diasporic dwelling in the religious narratives and practices of Iranian Christian exilic communities, showing how claims to the authenticity of a distinct Iranian-Christian identity are constructed. Examining abundant source material available in the Iranian Christian exilic milieu, the book draws extensively upon five unstudied series of Persian-language Christian exile magazines published between the early 1990s and the 2020s, Persian-language video material and a number of interviews with Iranian Christian pastors with leadership positions in the Iranian Christian diaspora. These sources demonstrate the significance of exile and religious affiliation as key factors shaping diasporic images of the homeland and visions of a future return. Benedikt Römer weaves the history and contemporary story of the Iranian Christian community together, placing it in the context of a wider ongoing religious transformation in Iranian society.

The war on terror, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli conflict—again and again in the twenty-first century, crises coming out of the Middle East confront and puzzle Americans. Daniel Pipes has, to much acclaim, been explaining the region since the 1960s. The Wall Street Journal considers him “an authoritative commentator on the Middle East” and the Washington Post deems him “perhaps the most prominent U.S. scholar on radical Islam.” The New York Times calls him “smart and well-informed.” In this volume, Daniel Pipes tackles many questions: Are Muslims truly fatalistic, as their reputation holds? Is radical Islam still on the rise or is it declining? Why are substantial numbers of Iranian-Muslims converting to Christianity? Which American city has emerged as a global center of criminality with female coverings as accessories? Why does tension exist between the Jews of Europe and Israel? How did it happen that Israel is the only country in the world that did not come into existence through conquest? Why are Muslim countries the hold-outs in eradicating polio? In the skilled hands of a leading Middle East authority, these topics come to life as Daniel Pipes explains much about the world’s most volatile region.

“Compelle intrare”: since the time of St Augustine, St Luke’s words in the parable of the Banquet have served as a justification for forced conversion to Christianity. Challenging this tradition, in 1686 Pierre Bayle denounced how a literal interpretation of the parable had led to a long line of crimes, and argued that “nothing is more abominable than obtaining conversion by coercion”. In recent decades, scholarly research on conversion in the Early Modern Age has increasingly focused on intriguing aspects such as the fluidity of converts’ identity and their crossing of borders – both geographical and confessional. This book takes a different perspective and brings the focus back to the dark side of conversion, to the varying degrees of violence that accompanied Catholic missionary activities in the non-European World in the 16th and 17th centuries. The essays collected here examine three areas where, sometimes visibly, sometimes much more subtly, the violent aspects of conversion took shape: doctrine, missionary practice, and the conversion narratives. Investigating the connection between violence and conversion is a way to reflect not only on the early modern world, but also on that of the present day, when conversion – including by coercion – has yet again become a significant issue.