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In the 1980s, the term “new religion” replaced “cult” when referring to the many relatively new Eastern, esoteric, and other religious movements emerging in the predominantly Christian West. Subsequent to its appearance, the term has undergone a process of refinement as scholars have sought more precisely to define exactly what characteristics designated a new religion. Based on an overview of the hundreds of new religions now operating in the East, new religions are now defined as those groups on the fringe of culture that both deviate substantially from the dominant Christianity (unlike sect groups) now practiced in the west, and lack ties with any ethnic religions traditionally identified with the belief and practices of the new religion (especially the Eastern religions). New religions often become well known for their identification with violence, active proselytization, and various questionable beliefs and practices.

The passage of the 1998 International Religious Freedom (IRF) Act seemed to presage a new chapter in U.S. foreign policy—in effect, the elevation of America's “first freedom” to what many considered its rightful ascendancy in the nation's human rights policy. In retrospect, however, the fault lines in the law's conception and implementation have been quite significant. This chapter examines those weaknesses, including the desire of IRF supporters to bypass the State Department, the perception that the law is Christian-centered, and the concern by liberals that religious freedom should not be elevated to the top of a “hierarchy of human rights.” In describing the hierarchy objection the chapter analyzes the controversial but critical issues of proselytization, and the distinction between religious tolerance and religious freedom. The net result of these and other problems is that U.S. IRF policy has been narrowly construed, ignored by its supporters, and largely ineffective.

Like other early modern monarchs, hunting was the favorite pastime of Mehmed IV, but rather than being merely a frivolous activity, as modern historians have claimed, the sultan's contemporary chroniclers argued that hunting demonstrated his bravery and courage, hence manliness, and trained him for warfare. Reading archival records together with the chronicles shows that hunting allowed Mehmed IV close contact with thousands of his subjects, and in these circumstances he personally converted Christians, in particular, to Islam. Hundreds of men and women changed religion at his feet during conversion ceremonies in which the sultan displayed his magnanimity by re-dressing the converts head to toe. This chapter demonstrates the uniqueness of the period and its convert-making sultan while utilizing the book's themes of the link between piety and proselytization, the key role of the mediator of conversion, and the context of war and conquest in conversion.

In the previous two chapters I characterised the early Shādhilī collectivity as a textual community that traced its unique Sufi identity to the †arīqa of Abū l-Óasan al-Shādhilī. After the deaths of al-Shādhilī and Abū l-ʿAbbās al-Mursī this †arīqa was disseminated in Egypt primarily through Ibn ʿA†āʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī’s discursive construction across several different texts, especially La†āʾif al-minan, and through his public preaching. It was the subsequent repetition and collective performance of that †arīqa that institutionalised the eponymous identity of al-Shādhilī and constituted the institutionalised social field from which the Shādhilī †āʾifa developed. In Chapter 3 I argued that it was largely the efforts of the state– the rulers and the Sufis of the khānqāh– which brought their form of Sufism to the urban populace of Cairo. It was principally in public spaces that they collectively produced and popularised a culture of Sufism accessible across multiple strata of society. Key to my understanding of the processes of popularisation is this notion of mass or large-scale cultural production, which is necessarily collective and happens at multiple social sites. Therefore, given the widespread popularity of the Shādhilī †arīqa and subsequent †āʾifa, we must ask a similar question.

This chapter discusses the importation and reproduction of European music in Manila and the Philippines, examining evidence of the transmission of commodities such as music scores, music treatises, and musical instruments. It reveals that many travelers to the colony possessed practical and theoretical skills in music—including composition, performance, and instrument building—which contributed to the creation of a colonial musical culture. European music, once it had taken root in Manila, became a powerful tool in the Spanish colonialists' pursuits of trade, diplomacy, and proselytization in the Asia‐Pacific region, and evidence illustrating this phenomenon is evaluated. The chapter also explores the cultural ramifications of the British occupation of Manila (1762–1764), giving examples of English musical practices that were introduced to the capital and then disseminated relatively rapidly to distant parts of the Philippine Archipelago.

This chapter examines the Islamic arguments for the permissibility of residence (iqama) in a non-Muslim country, against a tradition which holds it divinely prohibited and holds that migration (hijra) is mandatory or encouraged. It shows that even medieval Islamic jurists did not condition such residence on the ability to govern Muslim minority communities by Islamic law as a clear facet of the need to “manifest one’s religion.” This chapter introduces for the first time the Islamic obligation of proselytization (da‘wa) and how the possibilities for missionary activity are central to classical and contemporary Islamic justifications of residence in non-Muslim lands. Da‘wa is argued to have an ambiguous status as a motivating reason from a liberal perspective. Some attention is paid to the Islamic classification of non-Muslim lands as “abodes” of War (dar al-harb), Unbelief (dar al-kufr), Treaty (dar al-’ahd), Security (dar al-aman) Calling (dar al-da‘wa) and Testimony (dar al-shahada).

In this Preface, Kim Iryŏp says the goal of her book is to proselytize Buddhist teachings to help readers come to the realization that we need to find and know our real selves so that we can become real human beings. According to Iryŏp, the value of one's existence is measured by whether one stands as an independent being, leading one's life according to one's own will. Freedom and peace cannot be attained outside of oneself because they are the very self of each and every existence. Iryŏp argues that the word “proselytization” may turn off some people, but that is because they do not know what religion means. Religious education is a comprehensive path to all of education; it offers the ultimate solution for all problems. She says only those who have completed religious education can be considered to know the values of existence.

Though Nauvoo was abandoned by most Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century, Emma Smith, the widow of Church founder Joseph Smith, and her children remained in the city, maintaining a Mormon presence in western Illinois. This chapter examines the rise of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Community of Christ), founded by Smith’s children, and their use of family and historic sites in Nauvoo in the early twentieth century. It discusses the transformation of these sites from family residences to religious tourism centers used to proselytize people to the faith. It also introduces the competing views of Mormonism that developed between the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Reorganized Church.

This chapter is about the relationship between football (soccer) and religion. It focuses on the recent proliferation of Neo-Pentecostalism among Brazilian football players living abroad and the importance of religion in their daily lives. Serving as a socializing device that promotes better insertion of individuals in modern institutions, Neo-Pentecostalism promotes voluntary obedience, self-control, self-awareness, and reflection by encouraging the conscious and constant monitoring of the individual over the body and emotions. This self-discipline has a limit, and Neo-Pentecostalism’s Theology of Prosperity offers conciliation between asceticism and material consumption. Football provides Neo-Pentecostalism a large stage for its message, allowing it to reach billions of homes. The athletes become “selfless soliders of the Word,” who demonstrate the faith globally and disseminate “banal” religiosity through the mediascape.

Brazil's new economic and political standing has given new clout and visibility to its culture. As a consequence, many Westerners have been travelling to Brazil seeking an imagined, pristine environment deeply connected to spirituality and authenticity. Such imaginings of the exotic Other are also being globalized through mass media and the Internet. This chapter focuses Brazil’s religious innovation and its role in religious globalization. Drawing on Internet websites of tour guides, DVDs and books, mass media stories, and discussions on social network sites, this chapter argues that Brazil’s global emergence in new religious beliefs has to do with the coming together of three factors: the globalization of the exotic imaginary of Brazil, the emergence of the internet and social media, and the changes in religion in late modernity—i.e., the establishment of a religious marketplace, deregulation of the religious realm, the increase in religious pluralism, in private religious choice, and the turn to the self as a source of meaning.

This book explores the tension, conflict, and creativity in America's rich religious history from the colonial era to the present. It consists of twenty chapters, written by top scholars in their respective fields, that follow particular religious traditions, movements, and time periods. By way of introduction, it outlines ten major themes in American religious history, each containing within it a paradox: religious freedom and religiously sanctioned repression; (in)tolerance, diversity, and pluralism; racialized religion and the desire for a universal god; male hierarchy, female dominance, and gender codes in religion; Communalist visions and their consequent commercial capitalist dreams (or, the Protestant ethic and the spirit of therapeutic consumerism); proselytization—spiritual recruitment and the market economy of religion; the folk origins of high theology, and the theological base of popular religious movements; the sacralization of secular politics, and the politicization of the sacred; immigration, ethnicity, pluralism, and insularity; and regional homogeneity amid national diversity.

This book has explored how missionaries attempted to introduce Catholicism into three disparate regions of Southeast Asia and interrogates the reasons behind their successes and failures. The conclusion explores how Southeast Asia became a region in which ideas of evangelism, missionary identity, conversion and Catholic orthodoxy were tested and sometimes converted by the experience of proselytization. It considers how disagreements over jurisdiction, missionary methodology, and the acceptable behaviour of converts could have profound effects on European perceptions and representations of the evangelic endeavour. Drawing comparisons with other movements of religious change and proselytisation in the region, the conclusion considers the broader picture of the spread of religious belief, and explores how the issue of ‘true’ conversion became the focus of so much conflict.

Chapter 3 documents and briefly discusses the chronologies of the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam subsequent to their births. While these religions shared a lot in common, there were salient differences among them as well, especially in how evolved in medieval societies. But one common trait has consistently been their adherents’ zeal and motivation for actively promoting the teachings of One True God. And the success of monotheisms in spreading and generating stability and durability for socio-political systems meant that, sooner or later, civilizations associated with Judaism, Christianity and Islam would be in direct confrontation.

This chapter explores some of the outreach and proselytization (daʻwa) activities of the Shiʻi community in America. Besides immigrants and American-born Shiʻis, the Shiʻi community is also composed of an increasing number of African American converts. The chapter discusses the appeal of Shiʻism for the African American community and examines the interaction between black and immigrant Shiʻis. Like other immigrants, Muslims have been defined as alien. This categorization became more entrenched following the horrific events of September 11, 2001, and is directed at Muslims who, perhaps more than any other immigrant group, are more vulnerable to stereotypes and attacks. The chapter also considers the impact of the events of 9/11 on the Shiʻi community and the community's attempts to reconstitute a religious and an American identity in the face of demonization and stereotypical images propagated in the media.

This chapter is an elucidation of the process of identity formation among the Catholic Charismatics and the neo-Pentecostals, both at the corporate and the individual levels, with the recreation of the New Testament Church (NTC) as the guiding motif. The process of identity formation for the neo-Pentecostals involves marking clear-cut boundaries with Catholicism and Hinduism, the two dominant religious traditions in Goa. Assuming the identity of the NTC involves appropriating the dualistic spiritual worldview of the early Church and defining their mission as saving the lost, the lost being Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and all others who are not Born-Again Christians. The identity of the neo-Pentecostals is closely linked with their idea of the mission to include urgent, aggressive proselytization and numerical expansion.

This chapter deals with the exclusivist and fundamentalist notions of the Pentecostal movement, and the resultant terrains of conflict in Goan society. It describes how the Pentecostal–Charismatic movement by entering in the religious sphere of Goa has attempted to reform Church ritual and challenge the traditions of the Catholic Church as well as promote an evangelistic agenda of preaching and proselytizing. The resultant contestations and conflicts with both the Catholic and Hindu communities are then explored in the chapter by studying specific instances of conflict in Sao Joao de Areal and Siolim. These contestations occur in a rapidly changing Goan society in different spaces such as social, spiritual or metaphysical, and physical. The chapter argues how neo-Pentecostalism in Goa is characterized as fundamentalist and how its image of a militant Church with exclusivist views on salvation and other religions has led to the churning up of the religious space of Goa.

Though every chapter has some concluding remarks, there is a need to reinforce, qualify, and tie together the different strands of thought in order to assemble together a mosaic image of the contemporary Pentecostal–Charismatic movement in Goa. This attempt to build a cohesive, though not necessarily conclusive, understanding of Pentecostal–Charismatic Christianity is done in the final chapter. Since new religious movements are generally pitted against the mainstream religious establishment and occupy a contested religious space, this chapter discusses themes such as power, identity, evangelization, authoritative discourses, sacred and profane symbols, production of truth and mediation of grace, and terrains of conflict. The mission, the New Testament Church (NTC), the dualistic spiritual worldview, and the formation of a Charismatic habitus that structures and guides the everyday life practices and processes of individual believers are also important strands woven in the book to arrive at a tapestry of Pentecostalism.