Recognizing Child Abuse Neglect and Emotional Abusehttpc.docx

Recognizing Child Abuse: Neglect and Emotional Abuse
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Description:
After watching this program, viewers will be able to clearly
define what constitutes neglect and emotional abuse, give
several examples of neglect and emotional abuse and their
effects on children, describe the responsibility that
professionals have in identifying and reporting neglect and
emotional abuse, understand the context and prevalence of
neglect and emotional abuse in society, describe some of the
behaviors that abusers may exhibit when communicating with
caregivers, and discuss some of the behaviors that children may
exhibit that could be indicative of a neglected or emotionally
abused child.
Producer: Cinema House Films Inc.
College of Social Sciences
Master of Science in Counseling
Treatment Plan
Client Name:
Date:
Clinical Placement Student:

Type of service (check one): FORMCHECKBOX
Individual FORMCHECKBOX
Family FORMCHECKBOX
Child FORMCHECKBOX
Couple
1. Target Problem
Specific/Short Term Goals:
Objectives:
Strategies/Interventions to Achieve Goals:
2. Target Problem
Specific/Short Term Goals:
Objectives:
Strategies/Interventions to Achieve Goals:
Monthly Review date:
___________________________________
Client Signature:
_______________________________________ Date:
Counseling Student Signature:
____________________________ Date:
Supervisor Signature:
___________________________________ Date:
1
College of Social Sciences

Master of Science
in Counseling
Biopsychosocial Assessment
NAME(S):
DATE OF BIRTH:
PRIMARY LANGUAGE:
REFERRED BY:
INTAKE DATE:
EVALUATED BY:
DESCRIPTION OF CLIENT(S):
Write what you observe about the client—age, sex, ethnicity,
appearance, behaviors, and impressions.
PRESENTING PROBLEM:
Describe the problem as the client has presented it, including
perspective, function impairment, and symptoms.
HISTORY OF PROBLEM:

Describe the course of the problem and specific onset and
symptoms.
MENTAL STATUS:
Activity:
Mood and Affect:
Thought Process, Content, and Perception:
Cognition, Insight, and Judgment:
Suicidal and Homicidal Assessment
If a more thorough suicide/homicide evaluation is conducted, it
may be documented in a separate section.
SOCIAL HISTORY:
Describe the client's present living situation:
Family:

School:
Health:
Occupational/Work:
Spiritual/Religious:
Legal:
Social History (include history of abuse/trauma):
HEALTH & WELLNESS HISTORY:
Substance use (including alcohol, drugs, tobacco and
caffeine intake):
Sleep habits:
Exercise habits:
Eating habits and appetite:
PREVIOUS THERAPY / PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES:
Name of Provider Clinic Year Diagnosis / Problem

_____________________________________________________
________________________________
_____________________________________________________
________________________________
_____________________________________________________
________________________________
Have you ever seen a P
Name of MD: _______________________________________
Clinic: _____________________________
Was any of your previous therapy related to substance abuse?
Have you ever had serious thoughts of suicide or homicide?
Explain: ____________________________
_____________________________________________________
________________________________
Do you presently feel suicidal or
Explain: __________________________________
FAMILY RELATIONSHIP HISTORY:
Describe the client's current and historical family status and
relationships, including during childhood/adolescence.
STRENGTHS:
Describe assets that will facilitate progress and change, such as
motivation, intelligence, self-discipline, and willingness to
utilize resources.

CHALLENGES
Describe aspects’ of the client’s life circumstance that may
impede progress/change, such as homelessness, major
psychiatric disorder, financial hardship, etc.
DIAGNOSIS:
Using the information gathered thus far, make a diagnosis using
DSM 5.
DISCUSSION/CLINICAL FORMULATION:
Provide your rationale for the provided diagnosis. Describe the
appropriate theory to consider using with this client. Note the
basics of this theory and how it might apply to this client.
_________________________________________________
__________________

Student/Counselor in Training
Date
_________________________________________________
__________________
Supervisor Date
© 2008 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Religion Compass 2/6 (2008): 1139–1158, 10.1111/j.1749-
8171.2008.00116.x
The Anthropology of Christianity
Jon Bialecki*
Reed College
Naomi Haynes and Joel Robbins
University of California, San Diego
Abstract
This article surveys the literature that constitutes the newly
emergent anthropology
of Christianity. Arguing that the development of this sub-
discipline was impeded
until recently by anthropology’s theoretical framing and
empirical interests, this
article explains that demographic and world-historical forces
have made it such that
anthropology has had to recently come to terms with
Christianity as an ethnographic
object. In doing so, anthropology also has had to address its
problematic relationship with

Christianity, either in the religion’s direct effect on the
formation of the discipline,
or as reflected by Christianity’s influence on modernity itself,
which has been vital
for anthropology as both a category and as a style of cognition.
In addition to these
meta-theoretical questions, the anthropology of Christianity has
become a space in
which anthropology has been able to re-examine issues of social
and cultural con-
tinuity and discontinuity in light of conversion to Christianity.
Specifically, the issue
of social change (often thought through or against the issue of
‘modernity’) has
involved specific ethnographic examinations of fields, such as
the relation between
linguistic ideology and language use, economic practice,
changing formations of
gender and race, and the modes through which the person is
culturally structured,
and how that category of the person stands in relation to the
social. Rather than
presenting an overarching theoretical narrative, however, this
review notes that these
issues play out in divergent ways in differently situated
communities, especially where
Christianity’s individuating effect may be muted where is it
functions as an anti- or
counter-modern force; this dynamic and contingent nature of
Christianity under-
scores that Christianity itself is a heterogeneous object, and
thus promises to be an
area of rich empirical research and theoretical focus that should
be beneficial not
only for this sub-discipline, but also for the field of
anthropology as a whole.

Within the past decade, a comparative, self-conscious
anthropology of Chris-
tianity has begun to come into its own. This claim is of course
subject to
some qualification; it would be incorrect to say that prior to this
time there
had been no works treating Christianity in descriptive,
ethnographic terms,
and some have taken it up as a regional challenge (Glazier
1980; Barker
1990) or as a comparative thematic (Saunders 1988). Moreover,
institutions
1140 Jon Bialecki, Naomi Haynes and Joel Robbins
© 2008 The Authors Religion Compass 2/6 (2008): 1139–1158,
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
central to many Christian traditions, such as conversion (Hefner
1993) and
missionization (e.g. Hvalkof & Aaby 1981; Huber 1988;
Comoraff & Comar-
off 1991, 1997; Rafael 1992), have in the past attracted some
anthropological
attention. However, only recently has there been a concerted
call from
anthropologists for their discipline to consider seriously the
possibility of
routinely putting the religion of Christian populations at the
centre of eth-
nographic accounts. This call has been accompanied by an
emerging com-

mitment to thinking comparatively and theoretically about
similarities and
differences in the shapes and histories of Christianity in various
Christian
populations (Robbins 2003a, 2007a; Scott 2005; Cannell 2006;
Engelke &
Tomlinson 2006; Keane 2007). While not everyone who is a
part of this
emerging conversation would necessarily recognize themselves
in the descrip-
tor of ‘Anthropologist of Christianity’, and several important
contributions
regarding the relationship between Christianity and
anthropological knowl-
edge predated the subfield’s establishment, it is fair to say that
the anthro-
pology of Christianity is finally receiving a degree of
anthropological attention
that has previously escaped it.
To say that the anthropology of Christianity has only emerged
in the last
decade is also to say that until that time anthropologists had,
despite the
few kinds of exceptions noted above, largely neglected the
study of this world
religion. The reasons for the original anthropological rejection
of Christi-
anity as an object of research are numerous, and many of them
are related
to fundamental disciplinary tendencies. Most obvious in this
regard is the
way the seemingly ‘ready-at-hand’, familiar nature of the
religion for most
American and European anthropologists has led to a sense
among them that

Christianity lacks the degree of cultural alterity that has until
quite recently
been definitional of an apt disciplinary object. In more complex
terms, one
can argue that it is not so much Christian familiarity that
accounts for this
history of avoidance, as it is that for secular anthropologists
Christians appear
confusingly to be at once too similar and too different to be
easily amenable
to study (Robbins 2003a). Taking their similarity as a given,
any enumeration
of the ways in which Christians are considered to be too
different has to
include the conservatism or political quietism of so many of the
Christian
communities anthropologists encounter in the Global South.
Anthropolo-
gists often find such Christians to be ‘disappointing subalterns’
(Maxwell 2006,
p. 10), who vote for the wrong parties and seem more concerned
with
private devotion than public engagement. By virtue of their
political views
(and in some cases what anthropologists take to be their anti-
modernism),
anthropologists have often defined them as, to use Harding’s
terms from
an important article that anticipated the new wave of interest
Christianity,
culturally repugnant others whom it is best to avoid (Harding
1991). A
final deep seated disciplinary reason for the anthropological
resistance to
studying Christianity, particularly among populations of recent
coverts,

may be found in the tendency within cultural anthropology to
foreground
long-standing cultural continuities over recent cultural changes,
thus
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
The Anthropology of Christianity 1141
rendering anthropologists suspicious of the claims converts
make to have
radically transformed their lives and societies. From this
vantage point, the
Christianity of converts is often treated as epiphenomenal,
merely a thin
veneer laid over an enduring prior culture and as such not
worthy of
research (Robbins 2007a; cf. Barker 1992).
Given these disciplinary barriers to the study of Christianity,
the question
arises as to what has changed in recent years to allow
anthropologists to
overcome them. Perhaps the most important change has been the
extent
to which fieldworkers have come to confront devout Christian
populations
in the field. The past century – and particularly the last 50 years
– has seen
a tremendous expansion of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa,
Asia, and
Oceania (see Barker 1990; Brouwer et al. 1996; Walls 1996;

Jenkins 2002),
and a parallel explosion of Protestantism in Latin America
(Martin 1990).
Much of this growth has been of Pentecostal and charismatic
groups whose
members practice their faith in ways that make their
commitments hard to
ignore, and whose frank supernaturalism aligns them more
closely to the kinds
of religions anthropologists more often study (Douglas 2001).
Furthermore,
the return of various forms of Christianity into the public sphere
during the
last quarter of the twentieth century (Casanova 1994), both in
the West and
elsewhere, has had an effect on the anthropological imagination
that should
not be underestimated. The combined force of political
prominence, demo-
graphic growth, and visible piety has made Christianity
unavoidable in many
ethnographic settings, as well as newly important at home, and
has therefore
made the development of the anthropology of Christianity not
only possible,
but also something many anthropologists have come to see as
necessary.
We devote the remainder of this review to a survey of some key
concerns
of this emerging sub-discipline. Although too new to have
produced much
in the way of settled traditions of research, we hope to show
that a decade’s
worth of work has already begun to uncover important trends
that will shape

this area of study into the future. Specifically, this review will
highlight the
common claim that in cultures that have recently adopted
Christianity, conver-
sion often triggers a partial abandonment of social and cultural
forms oriented
toward the collective in favor of individualist models of social
organiza-
tion. This transformation from quintessentially traditional
models of social
embeddedness towards individualism is in turn often interpreted
as a step
towards modernity or towards globalization. Debates about the
accuracy of
these claims regarding the individualizing and modernizing
force of Chris-
tianity have been important in much of the contemporary
anthropological
literature on Christianity. So too have discussions of the
possible mechanisms
behind, and limits to, the transformations ascribed to Christian
conversion.
This review will highlight some of the areas in which these
debates about
the influence of Christianity have been most fully developed.
First, however,
we will briefly examine another important feature of the
anthropology of
Christianity literature: reflexive discussions concerned with the
ways Chris-
tianity has shaped the discipline of anthropology.

10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
Christianity, Anthropology, and Modernity
Anthropology has long had a commitment to exploring the way
its own
western background has shaped its concepts, and in many cases
shaped them
in ways that make them inapplicable in the cross-cultural
contexts in which
they are used. Since the late 1970s, this impulse has seen
practices of disci-
plinary self-reflection becoming routine, and this in turn has
helped open the
door to the anthropology of Christianity in two ways. First, as
we demon-
strated by our own way of approaching matters in the last
section, it has
encouraged anthropologists to be willing to ask questions about
their own
practice, such as why they have for so long ignored the presence
of a major
world religion in the areas they study. Second, and this point
provides the
focus of this section, the reflexive turn has given the cultural
study of aspects
of the Western tradition either in the West or abroad a new
relevance to the
discipline at large. In this spirit, one of the anthropology of
Christianity’s
first successes has been in initiating widely read debates about
both the
Christian influence on anthropological thought itself – what
Cannell (2005)

has called ‘The Christianity of Anthropology’ – and, more
broadly, about the
Christian contribution to the formations of Western modernity
that have
shaped the discipline.
One of the key themes in the discussion of the links between
Christianity
and anthropological thought has been the claim Christian ideas
have con-
strained anthropological conceptions of religion more generally,
and even
of Christianity as it is practiced outside the liberal tradition in
the West.
The key voice in this discussion has been Asad (1993), who has
argued that
the anthropological view of religion has been colored in
particular by the
peculiar nature of post-Enlightenment Christianity. In
comparison to earlier
(especially medieval) forms of the religion, post-Enlightenment
Christianity
is characterized, Asad argues, by an at best limited role in the
public sphere
and a lack of access to police powers to enforce proper
disciplinary modes
of subject formation that were formerly particular to the
religion. Banished
from these larger social arenas, Christianity ceased to be
defined by formal
exterior practices, and instead became concerned with the
internal, private
assent to particular propositions understood as ‘belief ’. This
emphasis has,
in turn, been absorbed by anthropology, most notably for Asad
in Geertz’s

(1973) famous definition of religion, and has resulted in a
disciplinary
definition of ritual in terms of subjective meaning and of
religion in terms
of adherence to internalized representations. This argument has
been taken
up by others studying the anthropology of Christianity, and has
led to the
claim that modern Protestant definitions of religion as primarily
a matter
of belief can lead anthropologists to misrepresent not only the
lives of people
who practice other religions, but even those of many Christians
whose
engagement with their faith is not matched by an equal
immersion in
other facets of Western modern culture (Kirsch 2004; Keller
2005; Robbins
2007a).
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
A second hypothesis concerning the relation between
anthropology and
Christianity holds that the link is less direct, having been
mediated by
Western modernity, itself shaped by Christianity. The result of
this indirect
connection is a crypto-Christian influence in contemporary
Western forms

of knowledge, including the social sciences. Within
anthropology, perhaps
the greatest contemporary exponent of a connection between
Christianity,
social science, and modernity is Sahlins (1996), who argues that
many of
modernity’s most distinctive traits, such as the nature-culture
divide, the
valorization of economistic reasoning, the sense of society as an
external,
coercive force that is counter-posed against a natural, free
individual, and the
imagination of selfish desire as the animating force behind
human action,
all have their roots in the Biblical narrative of the Fall.
Contrary to Asad and Sahlins, who see internalized forms of
Christianity
as a hindrance to proper concept formation in anthropology,
Burridge (1973)
suggests that Christianity had provided necessary (though not
sufficient)
prerequisites for the formation of the discipline. For Burridge,
the importance
of Christianity extends beyond the mere establishment of social
institutions,
such as missions, which engaged with cultural others. The
religious content
of Christianity was essential for the reflexivity and sociological
perception
that stand at the heart of anthropology, as Christianity ‘insisted
that man
step outside himself and view himself dispassionately (as God
might) at the
same time as it has decidedly affirmed the participatory life of
interrelated-

ness in community’ (1973, p. 12). Even in an era of
anthropological suspi-
cion of Christianity, the Christian trace continued in Burridge’s
eyes, because
anthropologists ‘have been and are imbued with missionary
purpose’ aimed
at highlighting a shared humanity and promoting intercultural
exchange
(1973, p. 18). Burridge’s argument is idiosyncratic and has had
little uptake
in current debates. We note it here nonetheless, because it
deserves to
be seen as an early entrant into the field of reflexive study of
the Chris-
tian influence on anthropology, and indeed as one that grounds
the very
reflexivity upon which it depends on Christian ways of thinking
about
self-formation.
Christians qua Christians – Problems in the Ethnography of
Christian
Populations
CONVERSION: CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY
The observation that Christian conversion is often tightly linked
to changing
forms of sociality is not limited to anthropological discussions
of Christianity.
Those groups who have converted to this religion during the last
century
have also been quick to note that this process has brought about
a trans-
formation in social relations – a ‘complete break with the past’
(Meyer 1998)

– that they find impossible to ignore. It is this local sense of
social discon-
tinuity after the adoption of Christianity that this section will
address.
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
Until recently, anthropologists have displayed a marked
tendency to read
Christianity outside the West as a form of syncretism, a
continuation of
previous forms of religious logic under a new, more
cosmopolitan set of names.
The problem with this picture is that according to current
research, it is not
in accord with the experience of those ‘convert cultures’ who
have recently
adopted some form of Christianity. From the standpoint of these
Christians
and the anthropologists who document them, conversion is
understood as point
of rupture from a pre-Christian past and a new orientation to a
brighter future
in which they will participate in a modern and global religious
order (Meyer
1999a; Engelke 2004; Robbins 2003b, 2004; Keller 2005; Keane
2007).
That the upheavals of modernity and globalization should be
thought
through in terms of conversion to a ‘world’ religion like

Christianity is per-
haps unsurprising. However, the problem becomes more
interesting when
we include the possibility that Christianity is particularly well-
suited to allow
those experiencing temporal and ontological transitions to
thematize their
experience of change. This is so because Christianity in many of
its forms is
a religion centered on sharp discontinuities, displayed in such
elements as
the incarnation, personal conversion, and the sometimes
imminent apocalypse.
This trope of rupture, when utilized in local readings of the
social, is
rendered extremely complex by the way the transitions being
indexed are
usually only partial in nature; continued pre-Christian
indigenous theories
of society and politics (Robbins 2004), models of proper modes
of exchange
with and responsibility for kin (Keller 2005; Keane 2007;
Schram 2007), and
the continued belief in the power of pre-Christian spiritual
entities (Meyer
1999a) often cause painful ethical, social, psychological, and
representational
conflicts for Christian populations in areas of relatively recent
conversion,
such as Melanesia, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Indeed, the
tension inherent in
the dialectic between the advent of a new ‘Christian’ way of life
and the
continuation of cognitive and social forms that are thought to be
inimical

to Christianity has been a fertile object of research and is likely
to continue
to be for some time.
As this tension between new Christian practices and prior non-
Christian
practices indicates, while conversion may mark a break, it does
not neces-
sarily mark an unproblematic reduplication of missionary
beliefs in converted
people. Rather, there is an inherent creativity in the process of
(re)appro-
priation of Christian words and themes by those at the receiving
end of
missionary activity. For example, Meyer points out the way that
the message
of German Pietist missionaries was translated by Ewe converts
into a form
of Christianity that, at least in part, ‘evaded missionary control’
(Meyer 1999a,
p. 82). Christianity may be mobilized to re-imagine local
cultural sensi-
bilities in Christian terms that afford them a new ethical or
political charge
(Austin-Broos 1997); or to give new ends to key local
structures, as in
peripheral populations that find in the religion a kind of
prestigious foreign
plunder similar to other cultural material and technological
imports from
the metropole (Rutherford 2003).
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x

The presence of such localized readings and re-appropriations
of the
Christian message has led, in some cases, to the argument that
Christianity
ultimately cannot be understood as marking a sharp break with
the past (e.g.,
Scott 2005). As people in non-Christian cultural milieus never
encounter
the religion whole cloth, but rather in particular, disparate
elements (shards
of catechisms, hymns, and texts) that must be interpreted in
relation to local
cultural material, conversion in these contexts can only be
understood in
terms of continuity with pre-existing cultural forms.
Furthermore, given
that these recent converts may not necessarily conceive of
Christianity as
a self-contained or internally consistent system, the ‘ethno-
theologies’ forged
by indigenous Christians must be seen as the work of
theological bricoleurs
who seek to make sense of Christian claims through a series of
juxtaposi-
tions with non-Christian material that radically alter the
representations
of Christianity as well as of local society. By stressing the
idiosyncratic nature
and entirely contingent grounding of ‘Christian’ understandings
that are
achieved within such a society, this claim places into question
whether such

ideas can constitute a sharp break in local logic in the same
manner that
conversion has been understood by others.
While not unreasonable, such arguments are vulnerable to
several objec-
tions. First of all, they ignore the possibility that the adoption
of Christi-
anity is not simply a transformation or addition to local cultural
material
in the way of representation or ethics, but is also often a
transformation in
the way that subjects and communication are formally
structured (Keane
2007, also see Comaroff & Comaroff 1991, 1997). Second, this
emphasis on
local Christians as bricoleurs ignores the possibility that the
hybrid readings
they produce may allow them to enter larger, transcultural
discussions with
other self-identified Christians; participation in these larger
discussions, even
though they are initially made possible by hybrid readings, can
have their
own normative anti-syncretistic effects (Zehner 2005). Third,
there is the
question as to whether the shift in emphasis suggested by Scott
would in
practice result in merely an effective return to viewing forms of
Christianity
as syncretistic continuations of prior indigenous sensibilities. If
the emphasis
is solely on continuity rather than rupture, on local forms rather
than trans-
local commonalities, then Christianity as a comparative object
disintegrates in

the face of an ‘object dissolving critique’ (Robbins 2003a, p.
193) – regardless
of what the ethnographic subjects imagine their religious
identity and
allegiance to be. Finally, such approaches tend to discount the
active work
many converts do to see their new Christian believes and
practices as different
from those of the past; in essence, they suggest that people are
incapable
of ever learning anything new (Robbins 2007a). In light of these
concerns,
it is perhaps most fair to suggest that approaches that rely on
normal science
anthropological ideas about the unyielding hold of traditional
culture on
people’s perceptions of the new may capture a single moment in
a longer
process of Christian cultural transformation, or one modality of
it, but perhaps
should not be taken as covering all stages or cases of
conversion. More
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
importantly, anthropological debate about the balance of
continuity and
change in convert cultures is likely in the future to be a key site
in which
broader anthropological models of cultural change come to be

worked out.
LINGUISTIC PRACTICE, THE CHRISTIAN PERSON, AND
INDIVIDUALISM
One area in which the cultural and social break associated with
Christian
conversion has been most clearly documented that of language
use, language
change, and the transformation of models of the speaking and
hearing person.
The special importance of language change in this regard is not
surprising,
given the particular emphasis that Christians place on language
in their focus
on the biblical text, their understanding of Christ as the word,
and the
centrality of speech in Protestant ritual life and social
understanding (see
Ammerman 1987; Crapanzano 2000; Harding 2001; Robbins
2001, 2004).
In addition to these factors, the emphasis contemporary
anthropologists of
religion place on language as a mode of constructing the divine
(Samarin
1972; Rappaport 1979, 1999; Keane 1997a; Engelke 2007)
makes this topic
an increasingly central preoccupation in the emerging literature.
Many discussions of language and Christianity have focused on
the way
Christian models of the nature and use of language (its
‘language ideology’)
stress the importance of truth-telling and sincerity in Christian
speech, and
on the assertion that the speaker’s intentionality plays the

crucial role in the
production of meaning that such an ethic of speech underlies
(Keane 1997b,
2002, 2007; Robbins 2001, 2004; Shoaps 2002; Schieffelin
2002). Viewed
cross-culturally, this particular language ideology is
idiosyncratic, and one
of the most developed bodies of research in the anthropology of
Christi-
anity has explored the way converts raised in language
ideologies that stress
other matters (such as politeness, indirection, poetic artistry, or
formality)
struggle to adopt these Christian tenets (Keane 2002; Robbins
2007b; Schi-
effelin 2007). More broadly, one of the first major collections
of work in
the anthropology of Christianity has focused on the ways that,
on the basis of
these kinds of ideas about language, Christians find themselves
compelled
to find the world religiously meaningful at all times and in all
particulars
– learning to interpret it for the sincere intentions that
determine its shape
(Engelke & Tomlinson 2006). This too can constitute a change
for converts
whose previous outlooks were more tolerant of ignorance and
absurdity, or
placed less emphasis on a hermeneutical approach to daily life.
Christian language ideology not only shapes the way Christians
produce
and interpret messages, it also goes a long way toward defining
the nature
of the Christian self (Stromberg 1993; Harding 2001). The role

of language
in the creation of the converted self is central to Csordas’
(2001) discussion
of the Catholic charismatic renewal, and Harding (2001) has
gone so far as
to note that for the fundamentalist Christians she studied
conversion is under-
stood to be a matter of producing correct speech – as she nicely
puts it, for
them ‘speaking is believing’. Looking at other ritual contexts,
anthropologists
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
have also shown how preaching (and listening to sermons)
(Robbins 2004;
Engelke 2007), praying (Robbins 2001; Keane 2002; Shoaps
2002), studying
the word (Crapanzano 2000; Keller 2005; Bielo 2008) and
verbal confession
(Robbins 2004) are central to the construction of Christian
personhood.
Across these various contexts of language use, a set of broad
themes are
in play that make Christian personhood paradigmatic of that
formation of
personhood scholars recognize as individualism. Indeed,
although not always
focused on the speaking subject, many analyses of Christianity

as an ethno-
graphic object have been offered under the aegis of Weber’s
classic connec-
tion of Protestantism to individualism. Dumont (1986) has been
the most
influential anthropologist to have taken this up. He treats
individualism as
a value, a cultural focus on the construction above all else of
saved individuals
who owe their salvation to no one but themselves and God. In
his analysis,
the individual who stands alone before God is the paradigm of
‘the inde-
pendent, autonomous, and thus essentially non-social moral
being who
carries our [the west’s] paramount values’ (Dumont 1986, p.
25).
As we will show in what follows, individualism is anchored in
Christian
ideas about more than just language, and is influential across
many domains
of Christian life. We have chosen to discuss it first in relation
to Christian
language ideology, because the ideal Christian speaker provides
such a clear
example of the kind of individual Christians who often want to
make of
themselves. This is most evident in the way that Christian
models of speech
highlight the individual subject as the moral point of origin of
meaning –
a non-social point of origin to the extent that they alone
produce meanings,
do so without regard for their interlocutors (as in previous
Western models

that saw speech as about deference and politeness – Burke
1987), and are
responsible for its sincerity and truth (Robbins 2001; Keane
2007). Allied
to this are overriding concerns for linguistically disembedding
actors as
individuals from their collective pasts by producing new forms
of speech
and even new vocabularies to sharply demarcate the present
from the past
and herald new temporalities (Schieffelin 2002). Thus, the
individualization
that is linked to Christian conversion and marked in Christian
speech is often
one of the most salient indexes of the discontinuity with the
pre-conversion
self and society noted by Christians and analysts alike.
CHRISTIAN POLITICAL FORMATIONS: GENDER AND
RACE
In addition to shifting language ideologies, and despite the
abovementioned
fact that anthropologists often find Christians frustratingly
apolitical, the
individualizing force of Protestantism can contribute to a
critique of human
power in both family and state politics. This happens because
Christian
conversion shifts the primary locus of obligation away from
lateral social bonds
among consociates toward dyadic bonds between an individual
and a divine
alter. Once this shift takes place, relationships with both human
peers and
superiors become less important than an individual’s

relationship with God,
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
and are therefore subjected to the tenets of Christianity over
against the
obligations of social relationships (Burridge 1973). To take one
example from
Africa, Pentecostal conversion in Malawi has presented a
challenge to geronto-
cratic power, as young people are able to circumvent traditional
paths to
authority through life experience and instead mobilize the
power of the Holy
Spirit to command a following while still in their youth (van
Dijk 1992).
The subordination of human relationships and obligations to
divine authority
therefore serves not only to individualize the Christian subject,
but to
empower him or her to challenge existing social hierarchies by
emphasizing
the equality of all people before God (see also Errington &
Gewertz 1995).
Another instance of this critique of standing political situations
is seen in
the differences between recently converted Brazilian Protestants
and their
Catholic neighbors. These new converts, who are largely

Pentecostal, draw on
their belief in an individual’s accountability to God to stand in
opposition to
government officials they may see as ‘[tools] of the Devil.’ In
contrast, Cath-
olics in the same community, for whom individualism is not
such an integral
part of Christianity, are more inclined to ‘think in conciliatory
terms’ when
it comes to the question of political responsibility (Burdick
1993, p. 218).
That the individualizing force of particular kinds of Christianity
empowers
people to subvert existing authority structures is also evident in
the challenge
that Protestant conversion presents to traditional gender
relationships, particu-
larly in Latin America. In this part of the world, women who
convert to
Protestantism are often empowered to offer a critique of male
behaviors
that do not conform to Christian norms (Brusco 1993). They do
so on the
basis of their new moral orientation under a faith that treats
them as indi-
viduals primarily responsible to God, and only secondarily to
the authority
of men, and their case is strengthened by the fact that Christian
norms are
generally oppose male prestige activities – drinking, gambling,
promiscuity
– that work against the interests of women and of family life
(Brusco 1993;
Mariz & das Dores Campos Machado 1997; Smilde 1997, 2007,
also see

Austin-Broos 1997). Paradoxically, while Pentecostalism
enables women
converts to step away from particular social obligations toward
male authority,
the same moral critique that affords them a degree of individual
autonomy
works to re-embed male converts in their network of family and
social rela-
tions. Among Latin American Protestants, Martin (1995) has
found that, when
men convert to Pentecostalism and abandon such vices as
gambling, drinking,
and extra-marital relationships, thereby freeing up funds they
can then chan-
nel back into the home. They also embrace the role of male
breadwinner,
and ‘put the family back together as an effective unit of
economic co-
operation’ (Martin 1995, p. 107, cf. Maxwell 1998, p. 353). In
this context,
Christianity not only serves to challenge existing relationships
of power
or socially acceptable ideas of authority through the
individualization of
its subject, but in so doing it alters social relationships in such a
way as to
connect people to other institutions of modernity, including the
market,
to which we now turn.
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x

(POST)MODERN CHRISTIAN ECONOMIES
While the above example of gendered sin and economically
advantageous
redemption illustrates the capacity of Christianity to facilitate
market par-
ticipation by re-embedding its adherents in a network of
financial obligations,
this Latin American pattern is unusual in discussions of the
relationship
between Christianity and the market. Most anthropological
discussions of
Christianity have instead emphasized the way that it fosters
market partic-
ipation among its adherents through the familiar process of
individualization
that we have been discussing. The individualizing force of
Protestantism is,
of course, a crucial tenet of Weber’s spirit of capitalism, and
the elective
affinity between Christian conversion and market participation
has figured
prominently in anthropological analysis. For example,
discussions of Pente-
costalism in Africa have highlighted the way that the
abovementioned trope
of rupture, of breaking with one’s past, contributes to the
severing of kin-
ship ties and the economic obligations that come with them,
thereby freeing
believers to participate more fully in emerging market
economies (Meyer
1998, 1999b; van Dijk 1998, cf. Annis 1987). Similarly,
historical analyses

of missionization have been quick to point out the relationship
between
the Christianization of a community and its parallel integration
into the
capitalist market (e.g., Comaroff & Comaroff 1991, 1997;
Meyer 1999a,b; Pels
1999). Protestant conversion is also connected to more
contemporary market
participation in the way it inculcates particular behaviors that
are useful in
the flexible labor conditions of the post-Fordist economy
(Martin 1995, 1998),
and generates ‘redemptive uplift’ by promoting literacy and
leading believers
to shun credit (Maxwell 1998, p. 354).
With these links between capitalism and Christianity kept well
in view,
a number of anthropologists have begun to analyze the fantastic
growth
of the prosperity gospel, or ‘faith gospel’, in Pentecostal circles
around the
world. This form of Pentecostal Christianity turns on the notion
that small
gifts given to God – often called ‘seed faith’ offerings (see de
Boeck 2004,
p. 198) – will cause him to lavish extravagant blessings on the
believer in
return. These mechanisms are easily placed into a capitalist
framework – seed
faith offerings are often described as ‘investments’ (e.g., Ukah
2005, p. 263),
the promised blessings as ‘dividends’ and ‘miraculous [returns]’
(Comaroff
& Comaroff 2000, p. 315), and the faith gospel itself as ‘an
elaborate trans-

action’ (Ukah 2005, p. 263). Adherents to the prosperity gospel
often appear
‘intensely entrepreneurial’ (Martin 1995, p. 115) – witness the
Nigerian
businessmen who find in prosperity churches not only a form of
Christi-
anity that complements their sense of capitalist vocation, but a
ready plat-
form for the promotion of their products (Ukah 2005).
Alternately, for the
millions of prosperity adherents unable to effectively enter the
market, the
faith gospel represents an attempt to supernaturally access the
wealth of
the world economy when conventional modes of participation
fail (Comaroff
& Comaroff 1999, 2000, 2002; Gifford 2001, 2004). In the
prosperity gospel,
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
then, it seems that we have a new Protestant ethic to match a
new, neolib-
eral spirit of capitalism. In an era when consumption is the
driving force of
the market, rather than its ‘hallmark disease’ (Comaroff &
Comaroff 2002,
p. 111), the prosperity gospel appears to be an appropriate
Christian coun-
terpart, as a religion in which personal wealth, as opposed to

diligence and
inner-worldly asceticism, indexes salvation.
However, while there is undoubtedly a relationship between the
faith
gospel and individual participation in the capitalist market,
several discus-
sions of this form of Pentecostalism have emphasized the ways
in which it
is re-embedding its adherents in social networks rather than
encouraging
them to see themselves as unencumbered selves seeking riches
by selling
their labor on the market (e.g., van Dijk 2002, 2005). These
observations
not only problematize the notion that Protestantism more often
than not
runs contrary to the existing networks of social obligation; by
illustrating
the capacity of Christianity to work against capitalist
individualism, such
interpretations also relate the prosperity gospel to non-capitalist
forms of
exchange. The circulation of words and things among prosperity
believers
in Sweden, for example, is characterized by the inalienability of
these gifts,
which in turn creates something of a de facto gift economy
among these
followers of the faith gospel (Coleman 2004, 2006). Indeed,
much of the
language of prosperity preachers is shot through with references
to quin-
tessentially Maussian notions of debt-incurring, relationship-
generating gifts.
The pastors of Nigeria’s Redeemed Christian Church of God

encourage
people to, ‘do something special to God that will compel Him to
do more
than what He wanted to do for them’ (quoted in Ukah 2005, p.
262), and
Filipino followers of the Catholic prosperity El Shaddai
movement ‘become
initiators of [a] reciprocal relationship with God,’ and in so
doing ‘lay claims
to the power of God by indebting God to them’ (Wiegele 2005,
p. 9). Pros-
perity believers are urged to ‘ “[sacrifice]” all they can to the
movement’
(Comaroff & Comaroff 2000, p. 314) in presentations of
widow’s mites that
may force open the windows of heaven. This emphasis on
exchange rela-
tionships among prosperity believers therefore indicates that the
elective
affinity between Christianity and capitalism is by no means a
foregone con-
clusion. Rather, even those forms of Christianity that seem most
committed
to individual capitalist accumulation, such as the prosperity
gospel, merit
a non-capitalist re-examination, particularly as the promises of
capitalist
prosperity ring increasingly hollow for many believers (Meyer
2004, p. 460).
CHRISTIANITY, PLURALITY AND (AGAIN) MODERNITY
‘Un-modern’ gift economies such as we have just discussed
require un-
modern subjects. However, this anti-modern aspect of
Christianity is not

limited to exchange alone; it is important for us to relate in
closing the
anti- or counter-modern aspects of Christianity to the
individuating and
modernizing aspects previously discussed. As we shall see, the
fact that
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
Christianity can serve at once as a vector for modernity and as
counter-
narrative to modernity not only emphasizes the relative
autonomy of Chris-
tianity as a cultural complex, but it also underscores how
multifarious
Christianity is as an anthropological object. This awkward
positionality of
Christianity is also related to the manner in which certain
voices have been
arguably precluded from contributing to the emerging
discussion of the
anthropology of Christianity – and therefore brings us full
circle to the issue
of institutional barriers to the anthropology of Christianity and
the question
of the Christian influence on anthropological practice itself. To
illustrate this,
we begin with a discussion of Christianity’s counter-modern
aspects.

Perhaps due to the tendency during the late twentieth and early
twenty-
first century for Christians, and particularly Protestants, to
devote themselves
to what at first blush may be characterized as reactionary
political projects
in Europe and North America (see, for example, Ginsburg 1998;
Harding
2001; Coleman 2005), it primarily has been ethnographers
working in these
localities who have framed Christianity as a self-consciously
anti-modern
project of subject formation (Ammerman 1987; Coleman 2000;
Csordas
2001; Crapanzano 2000; Faubion 2001; Harding 2001; Harding
& Stewart
2003; Ault 2004), and concomitantly, have attested to the
decentered con-
struction of subjects (Stromberg 1993; Csordas 1994, 2001;
Coleman 2004,
2006; Luhrmann 2004a,b, 2005, 2006; for parallel descriptions
of decen-
tered or disjunctive economic or philanthropic North American
Christian
subjects, see Bielo 2007; Bialecki 2008; Elisha 2008). The
specificities of the
underlying mechanisms that create these non-modern
subjectivities have varied
in different accounts, ranging from phenomenological models of
embodied
cultural practices (Csordas 1994), claims predicated on a
capacity for trance
inherent in the human psyche (Luhrmann 2004a,b, 2005, 2006),
or processes
of self-narration (Stromberg 1993; Harding 2001).

These accounts of non-modern subjectivities and anti-modern
politics
seemingly complicate other overarching narratives in the
anthropology of
Christianity that would emphasize a parallel, if not an identity
or a causal
nexus, between Christianity and other individuating social
processes. How-
ever, there is a way in which these two seemingly conflictual
tendencies can
be harmonized. The individuating force of Christianity seems
strongest in
‘convert cultures’ (Robbins 2007a), where Christianity is
marked as an
imported foreign object that believers must come to terms with,
while
Christianity is more likely to be invoked to oppose the social
forces that
are collectively read as ‘modernity’ in societies where
Christianity has been
present for a longer duration, and the ‘break’ in Christian
history is read as
part of a transition from Christian to post-Christian rather than
the inverse
(e.g., Coleman 2000). This is not surprising – as both Donham
(1999) and
Friedman (2007, p. 427) have observed, forms of Christianity
that look fiercely
anti-modern when seen in the context of the developed West
appear to
be strong upholders of modernity when placed in other contexts;
Keane
(2007) has also noted that Protestantism functions in the
interstitial space

10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
between non-modern practices and a fully realized secular
modernity. This
situated difference does not necessarily mean that we should
read these
differently located Christianities as entirely unrelated
constructs, however.
What is common to all these descriptions of counter-modern
Christianity
is that, while sharing similarities to the individuating structures
of subjec-
tivity observed in convert-cultures, these forms of Christianity
foreground
a different aspect of that structure. Rather than highlighting
how a relation-
ship with the divine functions to disembed the subject from
lateral social
ties for new believers, as occurs in ‘individualizing’
Christianities, in areas
where both modernity and Christianity have long taken hold
what is empha-
sized is the way in which a hierarchical relationship with a
transcendent
other foregrounds the dependent and contingent nature of the
individual
in relation to that authority. This latter, equally Christian
formulation stands
in sharp contrast with the self-identical heroic subject valued in
many streams
of modernity.

The fact that Christianity can at once be read as championing
modernity
and challenging is indicative of Christianity’s deep
heterogeneity. This hetero-
geneity means that numerous different forms of Christianity
have to be
accounted for, a project that the ethnography of Christianity has
only begun
to undertake; many forms of Christianity have yet to be fully
addressed. To
date, it is Pentecostalism that has been the chief recipient of (a
perhaps
inordinate amount of) anthropological attention, which Howell
(2003) suggests
has affected analytic trends and prevented anthropologists from
discovering
how other Christian religious traditions may have handled the
problematics
of social transformation that we have covered here. Particularly
lacking is
self-conscious comparative work on non-charismatic forms of
Catholicism
(but see Cannell 1999; Mosse 2006) and Eastern Orthodox
Christianity (but
see Caldwell 2004). At the same time, this heterogeneity has
also created
space for anthropologists, such as Cannell (2005), whoes
project has been
to use the open nature of the occurring constellations of
Christian ideology
and practice to reframe the questions of the anthropology of
Christianity
in terms other that a dialectic between the imminent and the
transcendent.
A similar push for heterogeneity not only in subject matter, but

in analytic
practice has been made by Chris Hann (2007), who has not only
criticized
the anthropology of Christianity for its already noted failure to
address Eastern
Orthodox inflected forms of religious practice, but has also
suggested (in
a way reminiscent of the point made by Asad about the
anthropology of
religion in general) that the current form of the anthropology of
Christi-
anity is too dominated by an idealist mode of analysis that is
historically
derived from the Protestant tradition, and that is often mirrored
in the
Protestant populations that anthropologists of Christianity tend
to study.
Only by studying other forms of Christianity, as well as
engaging in problem-
orientated comparative conversations with the anthropologists
of other
religions traditions, can we grasp and unpack the full range of
Christian
heterogeneity, according to Hann.
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
Christian heterogeneity is a challenge for more than
anthropologists, how-
ever; it is also a challenge for Christianity’s stated project of

forging a global
ecumene. From an anthropological perspective, this means that
moments
of incommensurability between differing Christian groups and
attempts to
overcome this apparent incommensurability are also a proper
object of study,
not just in the historic mission encounter, but in the global
flows of the
contemporary world as well (Howell 2003; Priest 2006). In our
examination
of the way in which Christians (who are tautologically
influenced by their
own logic) make sense of alterity, we should not be surprised if
their thought
traces contours similar to those found in the anthropological
struggle with
questions of cultural difference; this especially should be
expected when we
consider the influence Christianity has had on the discipline.
Given this
fact, there remains that the possibility that the work done by
Christian
intellectuals focused on understanding issues of similarity and
difference among
various by Christian groups may assist anthropologists in
thinking through
some of the challenges that anthropology faces (Robbins 2006).
Until this
point, however, just as anthropology has previously
marginalized Christianity
as an object of study, it has also marginalized Christian
thinkers, including
Christian anthropologists – insisting that they refrain from
bringing their
Christian identities to bear on their work aimed at an

anthropological audi-
ence. Such a move runs counter to the reflexive trend in the
discipline
mentioned earlier, which has seen many other anthropologists in
the last
several decades come to link their personal backgrounds very
successfully
to their research foci (see Priest 2001; Howell 2007). The
absence of such
a link in the work of Christian anthropologists has largely
prevented a
particularly motivated population from fully engaging in, and
contributing
a valuable perspective to, an incipient anthropology of
Christianity and has
until recently further contributed to the anthropological neglect
of the subject
(Howell 2007).
So once again, the study of Christianity, in addition to opening
up a rich
empirical field, and addressing a force shaping the global flow
of material
and ideologies, holds out the possibility for benefiting not just
those engaged
in this particular, quickly evolving sub-discipline of the
anthropology of
religion, but of helping clarify and strengthen the discipline as a
whole.
Short Biographies
Jon Bialecki is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
at Reed College,
Portland, Oregon. His research and writing has been on the
logic of self

implicit in the charismatic practices of Southern Californian
Third Wave and
Emergent Christians, and the relationship that these
constructions of per-
sonhood have had on their political and economic practice.
Naomi Haynes is a PhD candidate in the Department of
Anthropology
at the University of California, San Diego. She is currently
conducting field-
work in independent Pentecostal churches on the Zambian
Copperbelt. Her
10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00116.x
research interests include the anthropology of Christianity,
urban social
organization, neoliberalism, and exchange.
Joel Robbins is Professor and Chair of the Anthropology
Department at
the University of California, San Diego. His research and
writing have focused
on the globalization of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity,
the devel-
opment of a comparative anthropology of Christianity, and the
construction
of theories of cultural change. His primary field research has
been carried
out in Papua New Guinea. His is the author of the book

Becoming Sinners:
Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society,
editor or co-editor
of a number of volumes including The Making of Global and
Local Modernities
in Melanesia: Humiliation, Transformation and the Nature of
Cultural Change, and
co-editor of the journal Anthropological Theory.
Note
* Correspondence address: Jon Bialecki, Department of
Anthropology, Reed College, 3203
SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, OR 97202-8199, USA.
Email: [email protected],
[email protected]
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Introduction to the Symposium
What is a Christian? Notes toward an anthropology of
Christianity
What would it take to get a viable anthropology of Christianity
o! the ground? By posing this
question at the outset, I of course indicate that I do not think
that the anthropology of
Christianity is already a going concern. This should not, I
assume, be a controversial perception.
But if one did want to trouble it, one could point out that we do
in fact have a fair number of
ethnographies of Christian people, even quite a few that focus
on their religion. Moreover, one
could add that there have been several pioneering edited
collections that bring together
anthropological studies of various Christian communities (e.g.
Glazier, 1980; Hefner, 1993; James
and Johnson, 1988; Saunders, 1988; Schneider and Lindenbaum,
1987). I would not dispute these

points. Yet even as I would concede that there might exist
something like an anthropology of
Christianity in itself, or at least an ethnography of Christianity
in itself, I would still hold to the
point that there is certainly no anthropology of Christianity for
itself. And it is precisely the
grounds for establishing the anthropology of Christianity as a
self-conscious, comparative project
that I hope to uncover in this introduction.
One can take the measure of what is missing in the way of an
anthropology of Christianity by
examining the success of recent e!orts to establish an
anthropology of Islam. These e!orts
arguably began with el-Zein’s 1977 Annual Review article,
entitled ‘Beyond Ideology and
Theology: The Search for the Anthropology of Islam.’ In short
order, others followed el-Zein
in making programmatic statements, most notably, Asad with
his 1986 paper, ‘The Idea of
an Anthropology of Islam.’ At the same time, several prominent
scholars such as Gellner (1981)
and Gilsenan (2000 [1982]) followed Geertz’s (1968) lead by
writing broad comparative
examinations of Islam in a variety of settings. Following el-
Zein’s initial pronouncement, then,
it did not take long for a literature self-consciously focused on
the anthropology of Islam to
develop.
I will return below to one of the key debates in this literature,
for it suggests a way around one
of the major obstacles to establishing an anthropology of
Christianity. At the moment, however,
I only want to point out what the rapid establishment of the
anthropology of Islam has meant for

those who work in that field. By 1992, Launay (1992:2), who
studied the Islamic neighborhood of
Koko in Cote d’Ivoire, could write that while ‘until recently
anthropologists did not set out to
study Islam per se, but rather the religion of some particular
culture, society, or locality,’ now
anthropologists of Islam can be seen to be ‘engaged in a
common enterprise and grappling with
a common set of questions’ (Launay, 1992:3). This
development, he notes, has created a situation
in which studying ‘the religious beliefs and practices of
Muslims in the neighborhood of Koko
Religion 33 (2003) 191–199
RELIGION
www.elsevier.com/locate/religion
0048-721X/03/$ - see front matter ! 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All
rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0048-721X(03)00060-5
constitutes a reasonable, valid, and significant way of
contributing to the understanding of the
religion of Islam’ (Launay, 1992:1).
Even the jacket of Launay’s book bears out his point: not only
does it reveal that it is volume
15 in the University of California Press’s Comparative Studies
on Muslim Societies series, but of
the two blurbs, one is by John Bowen, an anthropologist of
Islam not in West Africa but in
Indonesia. It is this kind of scholarly community—one in which
people working in di!erent

geographic areas publish in the same fora, read one another’s
work, recognize the relevance of
that work for their own projects, and seek to develop a set of
shared questions to be examined
comparatively—that does not yet exist in relation to the
anthropological study of Christianity.
The existence of such a community and the work that would
follow from it would, in the terms
I used above, constitute the development of an anthropology of
Christianity not just in itself but
also for itself.
Given that the success of the anthropology of Islam proves that
it is possible to construct
a viable comparative enterprise around the study of a world
religion, one pressing question to
ask is why an anthropology of Christianity has not yet arisen.
Even recognizing that absences
are notoriously hard to explain, in this case the e!ort to do so
proves instructive. Speaking
broadly, one can distinguish two kinds of factors that might
have suppressed the development
of an anthropology of Christianity. We can call one kind of
factor cultural and the other
theoretical.1
On the cultural side are all of those aspects of the culture of
anthropology that make it di"cult
for anthropologists to study Christians. Enumerating all of these
aspects would take an essay in
itself—one that ranged from examining the struggles between
missionary and anthropological
purposes that so often takes place in the field (and in
circumstances where anthropologists
routinely and quite frustratingly find themselves dependent on
missionary infrastructure) to

considering the personal motives that bring anthropologists to
the discipline in the first place.
But at the heart of such an essay would have to be a discussion
the curious fact that Christians,
almost wherever they are, appear at once too similar to
anthropologists to be worthy of study
and too meaningfully di!erent to be easily made sense of by the
use of standard anthropological
tools.
Christians are too similar by virtue of drawing on the same
broad cultural tradition as
anthropologists, and too meaningfully di!erent by virtue of
drawing on a part of that tradition
that in many respects has arisen in critical dialogue with the
modernist ideas on which
anthropology is founded. Both the similarities and the pointed
nature of the di!erences make
Christianity more di"cult than other religions for
anthropologists to study. Since the traditional
religion of, say, the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea does not
take any position on modern claims
concerning the bases of knowledge or the importance of
tolerance, an anthropologist can
endeavor to understand that religion on its own terms without
challenging one’s own. But when
studying many kinds of Christians, including Urapmin
charismatics, anthropologists have to
reckon with the fact that they do have universalist arguments
about the bases of truth and the
limits of tolerance ready to hand. Because of this, to claim, as
anthropologists must, that
1 I am making this distinction between cultural and theoretical
factors in a rough and ready way for the purposes of
laying out the argument that follows. My usage is broadly in

accordance with some anthropological folk models of this
distinction. I would not want to be read as suggesting that
theory is not itself culturally shaped.
J. Robbins / Religion 33 (2003) 191–199192
Rebecca Bartel
Christians make sense in their own terms is at least to admit
that it is possible to argue in a
reasonable way that anthropologists do not make sense in their
own. Anyone who has been told
in the course of fieldwork that to understand is to convert has a
visceral sense of the force of such
Christian challenges to the modernist tradition. Given the risks
involved in recuperating this kind
of world view to sense, it is not surprising that mostly
anthropologists do not go out of their way
to do so.
The argument that many kinds of Christians are threatening
because they challenge liberal
versions of modernity of the kind most anthropologists
subscribe to is at the heart of Harding’s
(1991) seminal discussion of the di"culties of ‘Representing
Fundamentalism.’ She suggests that
this threatening quality accounts for why Christians in general,
and Christian fundamentalists in
particular, are ‘repugnant cultural other[s]’ who, unlike those
whose di!erences are constituted
along lines of ‘race/sex/class/ethnicity/colonialism’, are not
suitable subjects of anthropological
attention (Harding, 1991:375). I take Harding’s article to be a

crucial text to look back to in
developing an anthropology of Christianity. Drawing on my
point above, I would extend her
argument only by pointing out explicitly something I think she
leaves implicit: it is not just the
otherness of Christians that makes them so di"cult; it is also the
similarities. It is the closeness of
Christianity that makes its otherness so potent: repugnance in
this case can be explained in classic
anthropological terms as a response to an anomalous mixture of
the similar and the di!erent
(Douglas, 1966). Neither real others nor real comrades,
Christians wherever they are found make
anthropologists recoil by unsettling the fundamental schemes by
which the discipline organizes
the world into the familiar and the foreign.
Along with these cultural factors that militate against the
development of an anthropology of
Christianity, there are also some theoretical factors that inhibit
its growth. Chief among these is
the current anthropological suspicion of all comparative
projects. Fearful of resting their e!orts
on groundless essentialisms, anthropologists are not these days
inclined to accept that there is a
single thing called Christianity that they might make the object
of comparative investigation.
There are many kinds of Christianity, and when the number of
di!erent kinds is multiplied by the
number of di!erent situations in which they have been spread
and the number of di!erent cultures
to which people have adopted them, it is hard to escape the
conclusion that at best we are dealing
with Christianities rather than with Christianity, and that at
worst these Christianities really have
rather little in common with one another.

Founded as it is on fundamental disciplinary ideas about the
diversity of cultures, this kind of
object-dissolving argument is always a potent force in
anthropological debate. It is worth noting,
however, that these arguments behave di!erently in di!erent
contexts. When object-dissolving
arguments are applied to areas of study that already have a large
literature, a set of outstanding
issues to address, and some kind of institutional foothold within
the discipline—areas like kinship
(e.g., Schneider, 1984) or the anthropology of religion in
general (e.g., Asad, 1993), for example—
they often lead to an e#orescence of creative work focused on
the very object they would banish.
But when object-dissolving critiques are applied in areas where
no sense of comparative project
has ever existed—as is the case in the anthropology of
Christianity—the e!ects can be withering
and can prevent comparison from ever getting o! the ground.
Another glance at the development of the anthropology of Islam
can be useful at this point, for
the issue of the validity of Islam as a cross-cultural category
was on the table from the outset of
that development. In fact, el-Zein ended his famous article on a
skeptical note, claiming that Islam
J. Robbins / Religion 33 (2003) 191–199 193
did not hold its shape su"ciently across cultures to count as an
object of comparative research
and proposing that anthropologists had to conceive of
themselves as studying not Islam but

Islams. What is most interesting in the present context is not el-
Zein’s skepticism per se but rather
the fact that ever since he expressed it, his position has been
routinely rejected by all of the most
prominent contributors to the growth of the anthropology of
Islam (e.g., Asad, 1986; Bowen,
1993; Eickelman, 1987; Launay, 1992; Ro!, 1987:32).
As striking as this blanket rejection of the notion that the
existence of many separate Islams
makes the development of an anthropology of Islam untenable
has been the fact that none of the
arguments against el-Zein’s position have been particularly
sophisticated in theoretical terms.
Indeed, none of them would count for much in a high level
theoretical debate over whether or
not it is possible to establish objects that can be examined
cross-culturally. But then again,
anyone reading this literature quickly realizes that contributing
to such debates has not been the
point—rather, the point has been getting on with the
anthropology of Islam. Thus Asad’s
(1986:14) cross-culturally portable definition of Islam as a
‘discursive tradition that includes and
relates itself to the founding texts of the Qur’an and the Hadith’
might not survive careful scrutiny
aimed at determining if it included just those people whom we
would want to count as Muslim
and none whom we would not. Similarly, Bowen’s (1993:7; see
also Eickelman, 1987:20)
proclamation that ‘[O]ne treats Muslim tradition as distinct
local “Islams” only at the risk of
overlooking both the historic connections across di!erent
Muslim societies and many Muslims’
strong sense of an external, normative reference point for their
ideas and practices’ might be seen

as trying to establish connection and a sense of external
constraint as su"cient to define Islam
without fully arguing for this position. But the fact remains that
Asad and Bowen make what are
very good points within the anthropology of Islam, points that
allow good comparative
conversations to develop. And in this literature that seems,
quite rightly I think, to have been all
that matters.
What the history of the anthropology of Islam teaches us is that
the intellectual obstacles that
confront any e!ort to establish the anthropology of a world
religion can be overcome. What is
more, they can be overcome even in the absence of fully
developed theoretical arguments for why
disciplinary strictures against any devaluation of local variation
should be relaxed in order to
allow comparison to take place in these cases.
Yet despite the fact that the intellectual obstacles can be
overcome, they have not been
overcome in the study of Christianity. Although so baldly
phrased as to appear flip, a bit of
controlled comparison might be instructive here. The
anthropology of Islam clearly has not
faced the same kind of cultural obstacles to its development as
has the anthropology of
Christianity: Islam, particularly in its non-fundamentalist forms,
is in other ways that most
anthropologists find naturally worthy of study. In the absence of
cultural obstacles to its growth,
anthropologists have been able to develop an anthropology of
Islam despite the intellectual
obstacles that they, like those who would establish an
anthropology of Christianity, have had to

face. And since the anthropologies of Islam and Christianity
share intellectual obstacles but not
cultural ones, one has to take the success of the anthropology of
Islam as some indication that
it is the cultural and not the intellectual barriers that most hold
back the anthropology of
Christianity today.
This conclusion suggests that the anthropology of Christianity
is unlikely to move along unless
the cultural factors are tackled alongside of, if not before, the
intellectual ones. The question on
the table then becomes that of how to get around the cultural
barriers that hold the anthropology
of Christianity back. It is a well-known social scientific finding
that in the absence of a good deal
of consciousness-raising people who hold stigmatized identities
tend not to rush to socialize
publicly with others who hold the same identities, and that they
certainly do not rush to do so on
the basis of their shared stigmatized status. The cultural
obstacles to studying Christianity render
the status of anthropologist of Christianity a stigmatized one.
How many anthropologists who
study Christianity have been asked, as Harding (1991:375)
reports that she repeatedly has been,
Are you now or have you ever been a Christian? In the face of
this stigma, anthropologists who
study Christianity have tended to associate most regularly with
people who study other things and
to pass themselves o! as anthropologists of such and such a

region, or of religion in general, or
of history, or of language, or of capitalism or of politics, or of
whatever. A first step toward
for an anthropology of Christianity would be to move past this,
to have anthropologists who
study Christianity be able to say that whatever else they are,
they are also anthropologists
of Christianity. Only once they take this step can the
intellectual work of establishing an
anthropology of Christianity for itself begin.
For the purposes of their articles that appear here, all of the
contributors have taken this
step. All of them make the Christianity of the people they
discuss central to their articles, and
this despite the fact that in all cases they are also addressing
important, mainstream topics in
contemporary anthropology and could have with ease made
those topics their focus. Lester, for
instance, makes a substantial contribution to the study of
temporality and its role in the
construction of the self through narrative. Otero engages
currently much discussed issues of
the relationship between state projects and class and indigenous
identities. Droogers o!ers an
ambitious theoretical piece that could easily be read as an e!ort
to use current work in
cognitive anthropology to put the project of cultural comparison
in general on a new footing,
and Howell’s and Robbins’ pieces both contribute to heated
debates surrounding processes of
globalization and localization. The fact that all the contributors
have been able productively to
thematize the Christianity of the peoples they are discussing
while at the same time taking up
central topics in anthropology more generally speaks both to the

possible coming of age of
the anthropology of Christianity and to the contributions it can
make to the discipline at
large.
But the papers collected here do more to put the anthropology
of Christianity on a solid
footing than simply demonstrating the viability of focusing on
Christianity while at the same time
addressing core anthropological concerns. They all also feature
explicit comparisons among
Christian groups and thus make it over the many-
Christianities/no-anthropology-of-Christianity
hurdle that so holds back the anthropology of Christianity in
theoretical terms. In several cases,
contributors draw comparisons encompassing both di!erent
geographic areas and di!erent
Christian traditions (Droogers, Howell, Lester), where in others
they either hold the traditions
constant but vary the geographic location (Robbins) or vary the
tradition but hold the location
constant (Otero). The result is a set of papers that demonstrate
the viability of Christianity as an
object of comparative study and begin to outline a map of the
kinds of topics studies focused on
such comparison might be particularly well suited to discuss.
There is no space here to treat all of the areas of overlap among
these papers or to draw out
all of the topics they collectively put on table. Instead, I will
just mention a couple of themes that
appear, from the vantage of this small group of papers, to be
important to an emergent
J. Robbins / Religion 33 (2003) 191–199 195

anthropology of Christianity and let my discussion stand as an
example of how comparative
questions might be phrased in this field.
One major theme is the tension that the Christians discussed in
almost all of these papers face
between the world of daily life and the world of ultimate
religious meaning. Recognition of the
importance of a tension between the mundane and the
transcendental order in Christianity is not
new, and the fact that it marks not only Christianity but also
many other world religions is central
to the literature on the so called ‘axial age’ traditions (e.g.,
Eisenstadt, 1982; Jaspers, 1953). What
is new in these papers, however, is a demonstration of how
many forms this opposition can take
within Christian cultures and how fruitful it can be to compare
these forms across cases. For
example, in both Lester’s and Robbins’ discussion the tension
manifests itself in the temporal
dimension, though di!erently in each case (see Eisenstadt,
1982:306). For the nuns Lester worked
with, one must learn to live in transcendental time and to
recuperate one’s past into a narrative
that unfolds within that time. For the recent converts to
Pentecostalism Robbins discusses, the
past become identified with the mundane, and the goal is to
jettison it so as to be better able to
realize transcendent values in the future.
Howell’s paper is particularly intriguing for the way it reads
Philippine Baptist e!orts to
negotiate the tension between the mundane and the
transcendental as also a struggle to find a

productive relationship between the local and the global—
situating the conflict this time, we
might say, in the dimension of space rather than that of time. It
is evident from Howell’s work
that the split between the orders takes on a di!erent kind of
force when the transcendental is also
linked to the humanly foreign. One e!ect is that those in touch
with foreigners also become the
representatives of transcendental values, as the pastors do in
Howell’s account. Another outcome
of the alignment of the global and the transcendent, apparent in
many cases, is that moderniza-
tion and salvation become linked. Clearly, figuring out in
di!erent ethnographic cases how the
transcendent and the global are related is a productive line of
research for anthropologists of
Christianity.
Howell’s paper is also a clarion call for more subtle accounts of
the way Christianity
becomes local and forms relations with the cultures with which
it comes into contact, and this
is another major theme that runs through many of these papers.
Otero’s paper is a fine
account of the inner structure of such relations, especially
within the Espiritualismo tradition.
In the Espiritualismo case, indigenous spirits figure importantly
in possession. At the same
time there are rituals in which Christian deities also appear and
these rituals are more highly
valued. Otero notes that this ranking of Christian above
indigenous deities renders the
Espiritualismo world a mirror of the hierarchical Mexican
society that surrounds it and it
becomes clear through his analysis that the religion’s existence
in such a social context helps

make sense of its complex blending of the Christian and the
indigenous. It is particularly
noteworthy in the context of the present volume that in making
his argument Otero does not
simply dismiss the Espiritualistas’ claim to be Christian on the
basis of their religion’s
obviously syncretic character. Instead, as Ames (1964) long ago
suggested one should in
dealing with cases of apparent ‘syncretism’, he attends carefully
to how the Espiritualistas’
valuation of their Christian identity structures the relations
between the indigenous and
Christian traditions in their belief and practice. Had he not
attended to the importance the
Espiritualistas place on seeing their religion as Christian, he
would not have been able to
delineate the fine structure of the mesh of Christian and
indigenous ideas or to make the
argument he does about how that mesh reproduces the
hierarchical structure of the surrounding
society.
Droogers’ paper is the most geographically wide ranging in the
set and the most explicitly
theoretical in orientation. He proposes that anthropologists
examine local Christianities along
three dimensions: those of beliefs, of internal relations, and of
external relations. In each of
these dimensions power relations come into play, and there may
also be di!erent hierarchies of
influence among the di!erent dimensions. To this way of parsing

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