The conversion as social phenomena and a linguistic event: Analysing the reasons of folk religious believers for converting to christianity in late qing dynasty

In late Qing, especially from 1860 onwards, conversions from Chinese folk religions to Christianity increased significantly. This article uncovers the reasons for the increase by applying the following methodology: firstly, it uses insights from the sociology of religion to suggest that in particular historical situations, believers are incentivized to convert because they need to pay comparatively little social capital; secondly, it deploys the narratology to text theory to interpret the following narrative elements: the image of God, the narrative structure and the metaphorical reference. This approach allows us to understand to what extent the symbolic worlds of Chinese folk religions and Christianity are interchangeable.