Journal of religious culture = Journal für Religionskultur
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Religious conversion has become a dangerous social and individual problem. In Latin America, a traditional Catholic area, Protestant sects are successfully con-verting more and more Catholics into their own communities. Therefore the Pope demands a strict control of these activities. In India e.g., the Catholic hierarchy is critizising the Indian governments which have forbidden conversion on non-spiritual reasons. Hindu organizations have started even very successfully to re-convert Indian Christians particularly of Dalit and tribal background. Buddhists are very successful in indirect and even direct conversion of many Westerners. Wah-habit missionaries spread their Neo-Islam in the Muslim societies and get more and more even non-Muslim converts. We should add the forcible and sometimes ex-tremely cruel conversions the atheistic states had executed since the last century. ...
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Methodology and Objects: Methodologically, from a diachronic linguistics perspective regarding the concept of the shin, spirits in folk belief in China and neighbouring cultures, we compare texts that comprise meanings a) historically in the local language and b) compared to the meanings of equivalent terms in languages of other cultures. Comparing sources of this belief, we examine if and how the shin belief can serve as an example of communication across cultural borders including practical forms of worshipping. Argumentation: We argue that the concept of the shin is across cultural and national borders a result from folk culture transcending political or cultural borders transmitted via migration of ethnic groups. Although similar, mind concepts of different cultures and groups never melted; evidence for this independence gives the Islamic distinctive separation between shin and jinn in this area in the Chinese Quran and other spiritual Chinese writings. On the other hand, the practice of worshipping is similar. Conclusions: A spiritual concept like shin varies in practice in different areas. Central Asia as the melting pot of Chinese and Middle East culture shows the cultural practice of Shamanism with shin belief, complex mind concepts like in Daoism, and religions incorporating shin belief (Islam). Observed changes in the particular local languages show the continuity of the local set of meanings. Multilingual and multicultural areas such as Central Asia rather integrate new words to increase their thesaurus with new meanings than to change the set of previous existing meanings in the languages. Arabic as a language of conquerors in Central Asia is a typical example for such a language that serves as a tool to set up new meanings.