When the Spirits are Angry, God Gains in Popularity: Exploring the Emergence of Bunong Protestantism in the Highlands of Cambodia

Abstract

The two-fold aim of this paper is to outline a hitherto largely unknown history of evangelical Christianity among the Cambodian Bunong and to reflect upon aspects that may have been relevant in the encounters between Protestant missionaries and this minority population living in the highlands bordering with Vietnam. Relying on historical missionary accounts and on Bunong narratives gathered during fieldwork in Mondulkiri province, I will explore three moments of this meeting of different " thought-worlds"-from the lack of success of early evangelisation efforts during the colonial and post-independence era, over the first conversions during the Vietnam War, to the installation and limited spread of Christianity in liberated Cambodia from the 1980s to the 1990s. In these various political and socio-environmental contexts, particular attention is given to the part of ritual practice in the dynamic of conversion, as it appeared to be a topic shared by the animist highlanders and the evangelical emissaries.