Christian Encounters with Others

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Biographical Note: John C. Hawley is Associate Professor of English at Santa Clara University. He is the editor of several books, including "Cross-Addressing: Resistance Literature and Colonial Borders" and "Writing the Nation: Self and Country in Postcolonial Imagination."Publisher Marketing: Why does Christianity feel the need to impose its customs and beliefs on the rest of the world? And why has an impulse driven at least partially by sincere concern for the "salvation" of others so often played into the hands of ruthless colonizers with more cynical aims? Bringing together scholars in literature, history, and religion, Christian Encounters with the Other Approaches these questions by analyzing literary accounts of historically famous sites of conversion. Covering the Renaissance through to the present and spanning much of the globe, the volume discusses a range of authors and their works--from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Stephen Riggs's ethnographic representations of the Sioux, to Salvation Army pamphleteers and Victorian missionaries, to China, to the works of Cameroonian novelist Mongo Beti, Guatemalan Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu, and Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo. Using a cultural studies approach, each account discusses the missionaries' intentions, how these were perceived, and what social forces helped to shape the messages that were preached, as well as fascinating accounts of counter-conversions, in which "the other" is not only exoticized but valorized and empowered." Contributor Bio:  Hawley, John C John C. Hawley is Associate Professor of English at Santa Clara University. He is the editor of several books, including "Cross-Addressing: Resistance Literature and Colonial Borders" and "Writing the Nation: Self and Country in Postcolonial Imagination". Contributor Bio:  Kestenbaum, Clarice Clarice J. Kestenbaum is Director of training, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia Univerisity's College of Physicians and Surgeons. Contributor Bio:  Williams, Dan Williams serves as pastor of New Life Community Church in Burnaby, British Columbia, and as administrator of the Equippers, a lay training network.