Webb Keane 
Christian Moderns [EPUB ebook] 
Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter

Across much of the postcolonial world, Christianity has often become inseparable from ideas and practices linking the concept of modernity to that of human emancipation. To explore these links, Webb Keane undertakes a rich ethnographic study of the century-long encounter, from the colonial Dutch East Indies to post-independence Indonesia, among Calvinist missionaries, their converts, and those who resist conversion. Keane’s analysis of their struggles over such things as prayers, offerings, and the value of money challenges familiar notions about agency. Through its exploration of language, materiality, and morality, this book illuminates a wide range of debates in social and cultural theory. It demonstrates the crucial place of Christianity in semiotic ideologies of modernity and sheds new light on the importance of religion in colonial and postcolonial histories.

Table of Content

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments


Introduction

Part I. Locating Protestantism

1. Religion’s Reach

2. Beliefs, Words, and Selves

3. Religion, Culture, and the Colonies

4. Conversion’s Histories

Part II. Fetishisms

5. Umbu Neka’s Conversion

6. Fetishism and the Word

7. Modern Sincerity

8. Materialism, Missionaries, and Modern Subjects

Part III. Purifications

9. Text, Act, Objectifications

10. Money Is No Object


Afterword

References

Index

About the author

Webb Keane is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is author of Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society (UC Press).