| This dissertation is an ethnographic study of conversion to Christianity among Chinese American college students. Since the early 1990s, Chinese American young people have been showing an interest in and converting to Christian religion in increasing numbers. One of the primary goals of this dissertation is to answer the question, "Why?" For this project, I employ quantitative and qualitative research methods to study Chinese American college students from non-Christian backgrounds who got involved in a Chinese Christian group at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Some of these students went on to convert to Christianity, while others did not.; Many sociologists of religion have tended to explain religious conversion simply as a result of various individualistic traits that orient some people toward a religion, focusing particularly on the role that social bonds between potential converts and members of a religious group play in the conversion of nonbelievers to a new religion. While my study also confirms the significance of social bonds in the conversion of non-Christian Chinese Americans to Christianity, to explain conversion only as a result of individualistic traits fails to take into account the important role that various social and cultural traits may also be playing in predisposing Chinese American college-age people to be increasingly open and receptive to the Christian religion.; Using the popular Lofland-Stark Model of Conversion as a guide, I develop two models of conversion to Christianity among Chinese American college students, one that takes into consideration the important social and cultural background factors or "predisposing conditions" that are enabling Chinese American young people as a group to be open and receptive to Christianity, and the other that pinpoints the "situational contingencies" that are arising out of the interaction between Chinese Christians and Chinese non-Christians and that are prompting some of these Chinese American young people to actually convert to the Christian religion. |
