The Anthropology of Christianity

(also available as an eBook). An influential (and formative for the discipline of anthropology of Christianity) study of conversion among the Urapmin people of Papua New Guinea, with a focus on the community's newfound conception of sin.

This study interrogates the anthropological category, often applied to the study of religion, of conversion and rupture. The author argues that anthropologists should rethink the application of this category due to the persistent themes of continuity within cultures converted to Christianity.

A nuanced and historically persuasive exploration of Christianity's remarkable trajectory as a social and cultural force in southern India. Starting in the seventeenth century, when the religion was integrated into Tamil institutions of caste and popular religiosity, this study moves into the twentieth century, when Christianity became an unexpected source of radical transformation for the country's 'untouchables' (dalits).