Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520238008)

In a world of swift and sweeping cultural transformations, few have seen changes as rapid and dramatic as those experienced by the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea in the last four decades. A remote people never directly "missionized," the Urapmin began in the 1960s to send young men to study with Baptist missionaries living among neighboring communities. By the late 1970s, the Urapmin had undergone a charismatic revival, abandoning their traditional religion for a Christianity intensely focused on human sinfulness and driven by a constant sense of millennial expectation. Exploring the Christian culture of the Urapmin, Joel Robbins shows how its preoccupations provide keys to understanding the nature of cultural change more generally. In so doing, he offers one of the richest available anthropological accounts of Christianity as a lived religion. Theoretically ambitious and engagingly written, his book opens a unique perspective on a Melanesian society, religious experience, and the very nature of rapid cultural change.

Author: Joel Robbins
ISBN-10: 0520238001
ISBN-13: 9780520238008
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 04/12/2004
Pages: 383
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.08w x 1.03d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2005 pg. 1272
Books & Culture 01/01/2006 pg. 36