Religious Identity and Social Change by David Radford

Author:David Radford [Radford, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781317691723
Google: _ajwCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-06-19T05:59:08+00:00

In one of the Bible studies I completely felt brave [and] courageous. I was not afraid of anything. I have made a lot of Kyrgyz friends who were believers. I went to church for about six to seven months before I accepted Christ. I went there just so that I could see friends, just because I wanted to make new friends. I made Kyrgyz friends there. We met there. We would hang out. We would go to the mountains. That community was just drawing me. It was a different community.

(Twenty-six-year-old woman)

Different kinds of social capital have been identified in the social science literature, including ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ capital. Bridging capital refers to strong ties within close-knit networks, such as family, intimate friends, neighbours and work colleagues. In some cases, ‘closed’ networks reinforce exclusive identities and maintain homogeneity within particular communities (Baron, Field and Schuller 2000). Bridging social capital refers to weaker ties that can potentially draw people together across varied social divisions. The contribution of Granovetter (1995) is significant in this regard, highlighting the power of indirect influences outside the immediate circle of family and close friends.

I have already noted that high value is placed on converts remaining within their Kyrgyz community. Kyrgyz conversion is largely about attachments to Kyrgyz Christians and maintaining social connections with one’s family and community. This stratagem affirms ethnic identity. In light of the place of deviance in Kyrgyz Christian conversion and the violation of normative Kyrgyz identity, both bonding and bridging social capital are evident. Bonding capital can be seen in the strong emphasis on maintaining existing family and community relationships. Bridging capital can be identified in the new Christian community with whom Kyrgyz Christians are building attachments. Although I suggest there is an emphasis on the Kyrgyz ethnic factor in these new Christian attachments, it is not exclusively so. The wider Christian community is not just Kyrgyz; it also provides a level of access to other non-Kyrgyz Central Asian Christian communities, such as the Russian, German, Korean, Kazakh and Uzbek communities. It also provides some access to foreign Christian communities, particularly those from South Korea, the USA and Europe.

Given that Christianity is not a normative religious identity for the Kyrgyz, it is necessary to understand the conditions that facilitate its growth. The research indicated that the greater the social tolerance of Kyrgyz Christians in the Kyrgyz community and the greater the number of family members who also became Christians, the stronger the potential development of new (Protestant Christian) religious capital. Social attachments, especially blood relatives, appear to have a stronger ‘power’ in affirming social solidarity than religious attachments. This tolerance, I suggest, has facilitated the growth of Kyrgyz Christians and affirmed a place within general Kyrgyzness (Kyrgyz identity), even if it is considered marginal by the wider community. In this light, Stark and Bainbridge (1980, p. 1382) suggest that, historically speaking, many people lacking acute deprivation may well be attracted to cults and sects in periods when established faiths are organisationally weak and when little disapproval is directed towards novel religious movements.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.