Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion

239 Pages·2006·12.15 MB·English

by  Jan N. Bremmer

PARADIGMS, POETICS
AND POLITICS OF CONVERSIO
Jan N. BREMMER, Wout J. VAN BEKKUM and Arie L. MOLENDIJK (ed .)
PEETERS

PARADIGMS, POETICS
AND POLITICS OF CONVERSION
GRONINGEN STUDIES IN CULTURAL CHANGE
GENERAL EDITOR
M. Gosman
EDITORIAL BOARD
J.N. Bremmer, G.J. Dorleijn, A.A. MacDonald,
B.H. Stolte, A.J. Vanderjagt
Volume XIX
Other volumes in the series:
Volume I: Jan N. Bremmer and Jan R. Veenstra (eds.),
The Transformation of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period
Volume ll: Gerrit J. Reinink and Bemard H. Stolte (eds.),
The Reign of Heraclius (610-641): Crisis and Confrontation
Volume Ill: Gillis J. Dorleijn and Herman L.J. Vanstiphout (eds.),
Cultural Repertoires: Structure, Function and Dynamics
Volume N: Zweder von Martels and Victor M. Schmidt (eds.),
Antiquity Renewed: Late Classical and Early Modern Themes
Volume V: Alasdair A. MacDonald, Michael W. Twomey and Gerrit J. Reinink (eds.),
Learned Antiquity: Scholarship and Society in the Near East, the Greco-Roman
World, and the Early Medieval West
Volume VI: Alasdair A. MacDonald and Michael W. Twomey (eds.),
Schooling and Scholarship: The Ordering and Reordering of Knowledge in the
Western Middle Ages
Volume Vll: Alasdair A. MacDonald and Arend H. Huussen Jr (eds.),
Scholarly Environments: Centres of Learning and Institutional Contexts 1560-1960
Volume VI1I: Amanda Gilroy (ed.),
Green and Pleasant Land: English Culture and the Romantic Countryside
Volume IX: Margriet Hoogvliet (ed.),
Multi-Media Compositions from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period
Volume X: Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Renee LA. Nip (eds.),
The Prime of their Lives: Wise Old Women in Pre-industrial Europe
Volume XI: Frank R. Ankersmit and Henk Te Velde (eds.),
Trust: Cement of Democracy?
Volume Xli: Loqi Nauta and Detlev Patzold (eds.),
Imagination in the Later Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Volume Xlll: Joop W. Koopmans (ed.),
News and Politics in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800)
Volume XIV: Patrick Dassen and Mary Kemperink (eds.),
The many Faces of Evolution in Europe c.1860-1914
Volume XV: Barend van Heusden and Liesbeth Korthals Altes (eds.),
Aesthetic Autonomy. Problems and Perspectives
Volume XVI: Klaas van Berkel and Arjo Vanderjagt (eds.),
The Book of Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Volume XVll: Klaas van Berkel and Arjo Vanderjagt (eds.),
The Book of Nature in Modern Times
Volume XVIll: Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J. van Bekkum and Arie L. Molendijk (eds.),
Cultures of Conversion
PARADIGMS, POETICS
AND POLITICS OF
CONVERSION~·
EDITED BY
Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J. van Bekkum and
Arie L. Molendijk
PEETERS
LEUVEN -PARIS -DUDLEY, MA
2006
Illustration on cover: Caravaggio (1573-1610), Conversion of Saint Paul,
1600, oil on canvas, 230 x 175 cm. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo,
Rome. © 1990, Photo Scala, Florence.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paradigms, poetics, and politics of conversion / edited by Jan N. Bremmer, Wout J.
van Bekkum, and Arie L. Molendijk.
p. cm. -- (Groningen studies in cultural change; v. 19)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-429-1754-7 (alk. paper)
1. Conversion--Christianity--Social aspects--History--Congresses. 2. Conversion-
Social aspects--Congresses. 1. Bremmer, Jan N. IT. Bekkum, Wout Jac. van. m.
Molendijk, Arie L. IV. Series.
BRIlO.P26 2005
204' .2--dc22 2006041693
D.2006/0602/45
ISBN-lO: 90-429-1754-7
ISBN-13:9789042917545
© Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, 3000 Leuven
No part of this book may be used or reproduced/in any form by print, photoprint,
microfilm or any other means without permission from the publisher.
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
Contributors ix
Sociology of Conversion: The Last Twenty-Five Years
Steve Bruce
Conversion as a Rational Choice: An Evaluation of the
Stark-Finke-Model of Conversion and (Re-)affiliation
DurkHak 13
Towards a New Model of Religious Conversion Careers:
The Impact of Social and Institutional Factors
Henri Gooren 25
Paradigms in Psychological Conversion Research: Between
Social Science and Literary Analysis
Hetty Zock 41
Wolves Become Lambs: The Conversion of Lukewarm
Religious and Worldly Clerics in Devotio Moderna
Mathilde van Dijk 59
Conversion and Civil Society: Ysbrandus Trabius's Sermon
Het cleyn mostertzaet (1590)
Frank van der Pol 73
'Return Unto Me!': Literature and Conversion in Early
Modem England
Helen Wilcox 85
The Transvaluation of Body and Soul in the Spiritual
Autobiographies of Anna Trapnel
Hilary Hinds 107
vi
The Penitential Struggle ('Busskampf') of August Hermann Francke
(1663-1727): A Model of Pietistic Conversion?
H ans Martin Kirn 123
Reformed Doctrine and Pietist Conversion: The Historical Interplay
of Theology, Communication, and Experience
Fred van Lieburg 133
Germanisation of Christianity: The Early Medieval Conversion
History and the Search for German National Identity, 1890-1940
Christopher Koenig 149
Conversion to a Prophetic Healing Movement
Lammert G. Jansma 165
The Unconverted and the Conversion: Gender Relations in the
Salvation Narrative in Britain: 1800-1960
Callum G. Brown 183
Bibliography 201
Index 223
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In 1999, the local Groningen Research School for the Study of the Hum
anities, and the Groningen members of the national Netherlands Research
School for Medieval Studies succeeded in obtaining a grant for an
innovative, large-scale, collective research programme entitled Cultural
Change: Dynamics and Diagnosis. Supported by the faculties of Arts,
Philosophy and Theology and fmanced by the Board of the University of
Groningen, the Cultural Change programme constitutes an excellent oppor
tunity to promote multidisciplinary approaches to phenomena characteristic
of transformation processes in the fields of politics, literature and history,
philosophy and theology. In order to enhance programmatic cohesion, three
crucial 'moments' in European history were selected: 1) Late Antiquity to
Early Middle Ages (c.200-c.600), 2) Late Medieval to Early Modem (c.
l450-c.1650) and the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (l789-c.1918). In 2000
and 2002 further grants were obtained for Cultural Change: Impact and
Integration and Cultural Change: Perception and Representation respec
tively. A fourth crucial 'moment' was added: From the Cold war to
Globalization. Many international conferences and workshops have already
been organised; more are planned before the end of 2007.
This present volume, Paradigms, Poetics and Politics of Conversion,
number XIX in the series Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, offers a
selection of papers presented at the International Conference Cultures of
Conversion held in May 2002 in Groningen. It is the second of two vol
umes. The first one (volume XVIII in the series) is entitled Cultures ofCon
version and will appear at the same time as this volume.
In the terms of Durkheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Al
though they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can
obviously be interrogated for the norms, values and presuppositions of the
cultures in which they take place. In this way conversion can help us to shed
light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic
appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conver
sion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defming a new -
religious - identity. The contributions in these two volumes pay special at
tention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the
meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetori
cal tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to reli
gious or political conventions and idealizations. For the present volume we
selected theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion and some case
studies, which are mainly taken from the history of Christianity.
We thank the Board of the University of Groningen for the financial
support given to the Cultural Change programmes.
viii
The editors are particularly grateful to Marijke Wubbolts for helping to
organise the conference and to Nella Gosman-Scholtens for preparing the
texts for publication.
Martin Gosman, General Editor