People are obsessed with religion: The definitional dissonance of evangelical encounters in Myanmar
Accepted version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
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
1474-0680
Volume Title
52
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publisher DOI
Rights
All rights reserved