Conversion

Global World Religions Competing for Converts

The 15 main global religions competing for converts worldwide are presented in Table 1. The data from the Internet source of statistics on religious communities, http://www.adherents.com, also address the internal cohesion and doctrinal standardization of the global world religions. Baha'i and Islam show much greater internal cohesion than Christianity, Buddhism, and especially Hinduism. The large group of people with no religion (16%) is made up mostly of unaffiliated believers with only a tiny portion of atheists included (2.5%). This 16% is the population targeted for conversion by all global world religions.

Table 1 Global World Religion Memberships, 2008

Although Islam is growing strongly, by almost 3% a year, Christians still form the largest group, constituting one third of the world's population. Christianity is growing on average by 2.3% a year, but this percentage obscures some big differences. Roman Catholicism is growing by only 1.3% a year, because it continues to lose many adherents to Pentecostalism in its main continent, Latin America. Protestantism is growing by 3.3% worldwide, but the real growth explosion is taking place in the “born-again” Christian churches. Pentecostal and evangelical churches are growing by 7% annually. How can conversion models explain these statistics?

Conversion Models

Conversion has been an important theme in the anthropology, sociology, and psychology of religion for many decades. In the sociology and psychology of religion, the crisis or deprivation approach was dominant since the research on “brainwashing” in the 1950s. Later research became increasingly critical of this perspective and moved toward a more actororiented approach. This second approach stressed converts as active agents, weighing different religious alternatives and negotiating the requirements for conversion with the religious organization. Structural constraints on actors were included as, for example, socialization, personality, lifestyle, culture, economics, and politics.

The standard conversion model in sociology was developed by John Lofland and Rodney Stark. It was presented as an ever-narrowing funnel. For conversion to occur, three predisposing characteristics (acutely felt tensions, a religious problem-solving perspective, and self-definition as a “religious seeker”) had to combine with four situational factors: reaching a turning point when old solutions no longer worked, formation of affective bonds with one or more members, weakening affective ties with nonmembers, and intensive social interaction with members of the religious organization.

The Lofland-Stark model has been criticized as too static and too individualistic. The role of prior socialization was mostly ignored. Alienation and frustration were measured only after people had already become members. Variability in social availability of potential recruits was ignored, and there was a tendency to attribute affiliation with marginal groups to irrationality or emotional instability.

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