The John and Jane Wold Program in Religious Studies and the Department of Anthropology will present Andrew Abel, a sociologist of religion at Keene State College, on Friday, Oct. 20, at 3:30 p.m. at Reamer Campus Center, Room 410.
Abel will address “Chinese Conversion to Protestant Christianity: Implications for the Study of Conversion and Church Growth.”
Abel is completing a Ph.D., titled “Morals, Symbols and Ritual in Microinteraction: A Study of Conversion, Church Growth and Congregational Life in the Chinese Christian Community,” at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
His most recent publication is an article, “Favor Fishing and Punch-Bowl Christians: Ritual and Conversion in a Chinese Protestant Church” in Sociology of Religion 67:2 (Summer 2006). In addition to his work on religion, Abel has conducted research on historical changes in patterns of uxorilocal marriage in urban Taipei.
His knowledge of Chinese language and culture comes from nearly six years experience working and conducting research in Taiwan and mainland China, and he has written and delivered professional papers in Chinese.