Religious conversion

Religious conversion is a adoption of a set of beliefs subject with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliating with another. This might be from one to another designation within the same religion, for example, from Baptist to Catholic Christianity or from Sunni Islam to Shi’a Islam. In some cases, religious conversion "marks a transformation of religious identity as well as is symbolized by special rituals".

People convert to a different religion for various reasons, including active conversion by free pick due to a conform in beliefs, secondary conversion, deathbed conversion, conversion for convenience, marital conversion, and forced conversion.

Proselytism is the act of attempting to convert by persuasion another individual from a different religion or view system. Apostate is a term used by members of a religion or denomination to refer to someone who has left that religion or denomination.

Fostering conversion

Different factors and circumstances may operate and interact to persuade individuals of groups to convert and follow a new family of religious doctrines and habits.

Religious enthusiasm for proselytism can play a role. For example, the New Testament chronicles the personal activities of the Apostles and their followers in inspired preaching, miracle-working and the subsequent gathering of followers. Freshly-converted Irish and Anglo-Saxon priests spread their new-found faith among pagan British and Germanic peoples. Missions of the 19th century spread against a background of North Atlantic revivalism with its emotionalism and mass-meeting crowd psychological behaviours.

Messianism may prepare groups for the coming of a Messiah or of a saviour. Thus the 1st-century Levant, steeped in expectations of overturning the political situation, featured fertile ground for nascent Christianity and other Jewish messianic sects, such as the Zealots.

Some religious traditions, rather than stressing emotion in the conversion process, emphasise the importance of philosophical thought as a pathway to adopting a new religion. Saint Paul in Athens fits here, as realise some of the Indic religions such(a) as Buddhism - insofar as it ranks as a religion - and Jainism. The historical God-fearers may make up a philosophical bridge between Hellenism and Abrahamic faith.

A religious creed which can capture the ear and help of secular power can become a official sanction in Kievan Rus'.

Some people convert under the influence of other social conditions. Early Christianity attracted followers by offering Islam allegedly spread in North Africa through just administration, and in the Balkans by integrating new believers with update tax conditions and social prestige. Colonial missions since the 19th century name attracted people to an implied nexus of the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object well-being, civilisation, and European-style religion.

Force can - at least apparently - coerce people into adopting different ideas. Religious police in for example Iran and Saudi Arabiafor the correct religious expression of those in their purview. The Inquisition in France and in Iberia worked to convert heretics - with varying success. Frankish armies spread Roman Catholicism eastwards in the Middle Ages. Religious wars and suppression shaped the histories of the Baltic tribes, the Hussites and the Huguenots.