People are obsessed with religion: The definitional dissonance of evangelical encounters in Myanmar

Abstract

This article responds to recent calls to consider how religion is defined and deployed in and about Myanmar. Discussing local Pentecostal efforts to evangelise to Buddhists in contemporary Yangon, it presents the encounter with the religious other as one ground from which definitions of religion might emerge. I show that, by taking up new opportunities to share the gospel, believers entered into a long conversation between Christianity and Buddhism dating back to the colonial period. Tracing the different definitions of religion that this conversation generates, and attuning to the dissonances between them, might offer alternate ways for approaching what gets termed the religious and the secular in the study of Myanmar.

Circulating in difference: performances of publicity on and beyond a Yangon train

“…3 On the ways in which some legacies of Judson's translation work inflect contemporary evangelism in Myanmar, see Edwards (2021b).…”

“…Holding outdoor revival meetings, distributing pamphlets, preaching on trains: these were novel activities that brought Jesus into a public sphere whose contours had long been shaped by state regimes of surveillance and censorship. The hope was that Myanmar's political salvation – its transition from dictatorship to democracy – would be accompanied by a spiritual salvation that would deliver its population to Christ (Edwards 2021 a ).…”

Traditional culture as a vehicle for Christian future‐making: ethnic minority elites pioneering self‐representations in northern Myanmar

“…Many of the country’s ethnic minorities are Christian, including the Christian‐dominated Kachin. Accordingly, inter‐ethnic tension and conflict between the Bamar and many of these minority groups often unfold along with religious encounters back to the colonial period (Edwards 2021). The concern about Christian minorities’ loyalty has been a key factor of Burmese Buddhists’ hostility towards Christianity; as a Burmese scholar recently wrote, ‘Buddhist nationalists typically characterise Christianity as a Western religion and accuse Burmese Christians of being disloyal to their own people and country’ (Mang 2016: 157).…”