Creator:
Language:
English
Audience:
Academics
Geographical focus:
Arab World, Persian World, Diaspora
Date First Published:
2014
Resource Type:
Thesis/dissertation
Topics / Themes:
Contextualisation, Conversion, Identity
Overview:
The research emphasizes some of the challenges BMBs encounter, including their longing to find a community in the church, their liminality, and their efforts for identity formation through theologizing.
Content:
This thesis asks whether BMBs engage in the process of theology-making and, if so, it asks what these theologies claim to know about God and humans’ relation to God. Miller argues that ex-Muslim Christians are engaged in theology-making, that areas of interest to them include theology of the church, salvation, and baptism, and that the dominant metaphor in these theologies is a conceptualization of love and power that sees the two divine traits as inseparable from each other. BMBs represent a knowledge about who God is and what he is like, which, in their understanding, is irreconcilable with their former religion, Islam. Miller highlights that without a mature and welcoming church (something BMB’s rarely find), assimilation into a new community and the maturation and development of a convert identity is unlikely to take place. In other words, without a church there can be no end to the stage of liminality, in that one cannot be reincorporated into any other community. This dissertation is also published in the format of a book (ISBN: 9781498284165).
Academic Discipline
Missiology, Theology
Academic Framework
Research Method
Qualitative Approach (General), Survey Data Analysis and Estimation