From an Encounter with God to a Life with God
Typology of Conversion in Russian Pentecostal Churches
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.33489Keywords:
Pentecostalism in Russia, Conversion, TypologyAbstract
This article suggests a typology of conversion to Pentecostalism in Russia, based on research among believers in the Russian Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, Yugra, West Siberia. The typology of religious conversion is based on the analysis of the motives and causes that led the believers to God. The authors identify four types of conversion: socially induced, induced by a religious crisis, induced by a life crisis, and induced by an existential crisis. The socially induced conversion includes a family sub-type, while a rehabilitation sub-type is identified within the conversion induced by a life crisis. The results obtained demonstrate that the reasons for religious conversion in contemporary Russia are, to some extent, rooted in such social problems as addiction to drugs and alcohol, which people seek to abandon in a church. In addition, the authors give a brief overview of the history of the Pentecostal communities in the region under consideration and of their social and demographic characteristics.
References
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Labov, W. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.
Land, S. J. Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.
McGee, H. “Istoricheskii obzor”. In S. Horton (ed.), Sistematicheskoe bogoslovie. Springfield, MO: Life Publishers International, 1999: 9–46.
Mavliutova, G. S. Missionerskaia deiatelnost Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v Severo- Zapadnoi Sibiri (XIX – nachalo XX veka. Tyumen: Tyumen State University Press, 2001.
Nikolaev, V. V. “Khristianizatsiia korennogo naseleniia predgorii Severnogo Altaia”. Narody i religii Evrazii 3 (2009): 210–20.
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— “Introduction: Post-Soviet Space and the Unexpected Turns of Religious Life”. In Pelkmans, Conversion after Socialism: 1–16.
Rambo, R. L. and C. E. Farhadian. “Converting: Stages of Religious Change”. In Darrol Bryant and Lamb, Religious Conversion: 23–34.
Riazanova, S. V. and A. V. Mikhaleva. Fenomen zhenskoi religioznosti v postsovetskom obshchestve (regionalnii srez). Perm: Perm State National Research University Press, 2011.
Sharifullin, S. “Koran podtverzhdaet Bibliyu”. Slovo Zhizni 1 (2002). Sirotkina, I. Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880–1930. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Sofronov, V. I. Missionerskaia i dukhovno-prosvetitelskaia deiatelnost Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v Zapadnoi Sibiri (konets XVII – nachalo XX vv.). Tobolsk: Tobolsk State Pedagogical Institute Press, 2005.
Steigenga, T. J. and E. L. Clearly (eds). Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
Sviridova, V. “Desiat let s Bogom”. Slovo Zhizni 1 (2002).
Vagramenko, T. “Indigeneity and Religious Conversion in Siberia: Nenets ‘Eluding’ Culture and Indigenous Revitalization”. In L. Guzy and J. Kapaló (eds), Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews: Comparative Studies on Contemporary Eurasia, India and South America. Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2017: 207–29.
Vallikivi, L. “Christianization of Worlds and Selves: Nenets Reindeer Herders Joining the State through Conversion”. In Pelkmans, Conversion after Socialism: 59–84.
Vitiuk, N. “Prosto Khristos – moia zhizn”. Slovo Zhizni 5–6 (2002).
Vorobiev, D. “On dal mne svobodu”. Slovo Zhizni 4 (2003).
Währisch-Oblau, C. The Missionary Self-Perception of Pentecostal/Charismatic Church Leaders from the Global South in Europe: Bringing Back the Gospel. Leiden: Brill, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004175082.i-430
Arkhipenko, R. “Bog khochet, chtoby vse liudi spaslis”. Slovo Zhizni 5–6 (2002).
Austin-Broos, D. “The Anthropology of Conversion: An Introduction”. In Buckser and Glazier, The Anthropology of Religious Conversion: 1–12.
Aziz, R. C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990.
— The Syndetic Paradigm: the untrodden path beyond Freud and Jung. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Birman, P. “Conversion from Afro-Brazilian Religions to Neo-Pentecostalism: Opening New Horizons of the Possible”. In Steigenga and Clearly, Conversion of a Continent: 115–32.
Buckser, A. and S. D. Glazier (eds). The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Bulanova, I. S. “Spetsifika religioznosti v zavisimosti ot tipa religioznoi konversii”. Herald of Pushkin Leningrad State University 5.1 (2014): 146–55.
Chesnut, A. Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New Religious Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Coleman, S. “Continuous Conversion? The Rhetoric, Practice, and Rhetorical Practice of Charismatic Protestant Conversion”. In Buckser and Glazier, The Anthropology of Religious Conversion: 15–27.
Colombani Pedrón, S. “Diversificación y competencia religiosa en Guatemala: entre pentecostalismo y cultos ‘neotradicionales’”. Sociedade e Estado, Brasília 2 (2008): 355–79. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-69922008000200006
Darrol Bryant, M. and C. Lamb (eds). Religious Conversion. Contemporary Practices and Controversies. London: Cassell, 1999.
— “Introduction: Conversion: Contours of controversy and commitment in a plural world”. In Darrol Bryant and Lamb, Religious Conversion: 1–19.
Fahlbusch, E., J. M. Lockman and J. Mbiti (eds). The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005.
Flinn, F. K. “Conversion: Up from Evangelicalism or the Pentecostal and Charismatic Experience”. In Darrol Bryant and Lamb, Religious Conversion: 51–72.
Gooren, H. “Conversion Careers in Latin America: Entering and Leaving Church among Pentecostals, Catholics, and Mormons”. In Steigenga and Clearly, Conversion of a Continent: 52–71. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230113039_6
Horton, R. “African Conversion”. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 41.2 (1971): 103.
Ipatova, L. P. “Pravoslavnyie zhenshchiny: puti votserkovleniia”. In E. I. Meshcherkina (ed.), Ustnaia istoriia i biografiia: zhenskii vzgliad. Moscow: Nevskii prostor, 2004: 153–89.
Isaeva, V. B. “Sovremennye kontseptualnyie modeli sotsiologii konversii”. Izvesia: Herzen University Journal of Humanities and Science 166 (2014): 108–13.
Kardinskaia, S. V. and A. S. Siutkin. “Religioznoie soobshchestvo v prostranstve diskursa ‘sotsialnogo sluzheniia’”. Udmurt University Herald 2 (2010): 14–23.
Kargina, I. G. “Rossiiskiie protestanti v usloviiakh religioznogo pliuralizma: analiz sovremennikh tendentsii (po rezultatam sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii”. In V. S. Glagolev and A. V. Shestopal (eds), Prostranstvo i vremia v mirovoi politike i mezhdunarodnikh otnosheniiakh, vol. III. Moscow: MGIMO-Universitet, 2007: 123–32.
Klyueva, V. “Rasprostranenie protestantizma u korennykh malochislennykh narodov (na primere khantov-piatidesiatnikov)”. Vestnik arkheologii, antropologii i etnografii 4 (2012): 133–41.
— and R. Poplavsky. “‘Kak tolko ia pererodilsia …’ Konversiia i rasskazy o nei v piatidesiatnicheskoi traditsii: struktura I funktsii”. Mezhdunarodnyi zhurnal issledovanii kultury 1 (2013): 35–41.
—, — and I. Bobrov. Piatidesiatniki v Iugre: na primere obshchin ROS TsKhVE KhMAO. Saint-Petersburg: RKhGA, 2013.
Krikhtova, T. M. “Vkhozhdenie v religioznuiu obshchinu kak sobytie i protsess (na materialakh issledovaniya molodiozhnoi gruppy odnoi iz kharizmaticheskikh tserkvei)”. Thesis, Saint-Petersburg, 2012.
Kulakova, M. “Tserkov, gde zhivet Bog”. Slovo Zhizni 1 (2002).
Labov, W. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.
Land, S. J. Pentecostal Spirituality: A Passion for the Kingdom. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.
McGee, H. “Istoricheskii obzor”. In S. Horton (ed.), Sistematicheskoe bogoslovie. Springfield, MO: Life Publishers International, 1999: 9–46.
Mavliutova, G. S. Missionerskaia deiatelnost Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v Severo- Zapadnoi Sibiri (XIX – nachalo XX veka. Tyumen: Tyumen State University Press, 2001.
Nikolaev, V. V. “Khristianizatsiia korennogo naseleniia predgorii Severnogo Altaia”. Narody i religii Evrazii 3 (2009): 210–20.
Nunn, N. “Religious Conversion in Colonial Africa”. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 100 (2010): 147–52. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.147
Pelkmans, M. (ed.). Conversion after Socialism: Disruptions, Modernisms and Technologies of Faith in the Former Soviet Union. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009.
— “Introduction: Post-Soviet Space and the Unexpected Turns of Religious Life”. In Pelkmans, Conversion after Socialism: 1–16.
Rambo, R. L. and C. E. Farhadian. “Converting: Stages of Religious Change”. In Darrol Bryant and Lamb, Religious Conversion: 23–34.
Riazanova, S. V. and A. V. Mikhaleva. Fenomen zhenskoi religioznosti v postsovetskom obshchestve (regionalnii srez). Perm: Perm State National Research University Press, 2011.
Sharifullin, S. “Koran podtverzhdaet Bibliyu”. Slovo Zhizni 1 (2002). Sirotkina, I. Diagnosing Literary Genius: A Cultural History of Psychiatry in Russia, 1880–1930. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Sofronov, V. I. Missionerskaia i dukhovno-prosvetitelskaia deiatelnost Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v Zapadnoi Sibiri (konets XVII – nachalo XX vv.). Tobolsk: Tobolsk State Pedagogical Institute Press, 2005.
Steigenga, T. J. and E. L. Clearly (eds). Conversion of a Continent: Contemporary Religious Change in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
Sviridova, V. “Desiat let s Bogom”. Slovo Zhizni 1 (2002).
Vagramenko, T. “Indigeneity and Religious Conversion in Siberia: Nenets ‘Eluding’ Culture and Indigenous Revitalization”. In L. Guzy and J. Kapaló (eds), Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews: Comparative Studies on Contemporary Eurasia, India and South America. Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2017: 207–29.
Vallikivi, L. “Christianization of Worlds and Selves: Nenets Reindeer Herders Joining the State through Conversion”. In Pelkmans, Conversion after Socialism: 59–84.
Vitiuk, N. “Prosto Khristos – moia zhizn”. Slovo Zhizni 5–6 (2002).
Vorobiev, D. “On dal mne svobodu”. Slovo Zhizni 4 (2003).
Währisch-Oblau, C. The Missionary Self-Perception of Pentecostal/Charismatic Church Leaders from the Global South in Europe: Bringing Back the Gospel. Leiden: Brill, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004175082.i-430
Published
2017-12-12
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Articles
How to Cite
Poplavsky, R., & Klyueva, V. (2017). From an Encounter with God to a Life with God: Typology of Conversion in Russian Pentecostal Churches. PentecoStudies, 16(2), 178-201. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.33489
