Religious suasion: introduction to the special issue

Abstract

In this introduction, we outline a comparative tool for studying communicative ideologies and practices, which we call ‘religious suasion’. Developing a conversation about religious forms of ‘suasion’ is important because it provides a vocabulary for comparing parallel practices of religious influence across different religious communities, allowing for more nuanced understandings of what might commonly – and negatively – be termed ‘proselytizing’. The proposed analytical frame is not concerned with how the ‘convert’ might experience religious change, nor with how social and religious change unfolds on a grand scale. Rather, it interrogates and puts into dialogue multiple forms of discursive practice, demonstrations of virtue, and material forms of religion to reach beyond suasive strategies based on formal doctrines about religious propagation that tend to be associated with traditionally evangelistic religious communities, especially with Christianity. Focusing on the rhetorical strategies, religious imaginaries, and ethical evaluations that underpin how religious actors pursue change in others and in and of the world, ‘religious suasion’ contributes to the development of an anthropology of influence.