OUTWARD AND VISIBLE SIGNS OF CONVERSION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY KWAZULU-NATAL

Author: Etherington N.

Source: Journal of Religion in Africa, Volume 32, Number 4, 2002 , pp. 422-439(18)

Publisher: BRILL

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $35.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

The article argues that the perpetually vexing question of identifying and verifying religious conversion in mission history can be approached by taking outward texts and signs more seriously. The examples chosen for study are the various missions active in KwaZulu-Natal in the period 1835-1885. Over time African evangelists and churchgoers responded to missionary injunctions to value the materiality of printed texts and to 'put on the raiment of the Lord' in a literal sense. Signs, which might on the surface be regarded as trivial, came in time to be widely regarded as evidence of conversion to a new belief.

Document Type: Regular paper

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006602321107630

Publication date: 2002-12-01