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People are obsessed with religion: The definitional dissonance of evangelical encounters in Myanmar

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Edwards, M 

Abstract

jats:pThis article responds to recent calls to consider how religion is defined and deployed in and about Myanmar. Discussing local Pentecostal efforts to evangelise to Buddhists in contemporary Yangon, it presents the encounter with the religious other as one ground from which definitions of religion might emerge. I show that, by taking up new opportunities to share the gospel, believers entered into a long conversation between Christianity and Buddhism dating back to the colonial period. Tracing the different definitions of religion that this conversation generates, and attuning to the dissonances between them, might offer alternate ways for approaching what gets termed the religious and the secular in the study of Myanmar.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

Burma/Myanmar, Religion, Secularism, Definition, Dissonance, Christianity, Buddhism

Journal Title

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0022-4634
1474-0680

Volume Title

52

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Rights

All rights reserved