Another Reason to Become Christian

One of the most interesting assertions that the author makes is that the profound cultural change and shift towards Christianity was actually spurred on by marginalization on different fronts by their neighbors. It is very interesting that in many senses, the world is getting more globalized and that distances are getting smaller, but the Urapmin were becoming more and more peripheral religiously and economically to their neighbors. The lack of an airstrip made the Urapmin more and more distant and as a response, they began to change how they interacted with their neighbors. The author uses a great example of how the Urapmin actually asserted their religious dominance over an even more fragmented, peripheral group, the Atbalmin. The Urapmin went to areas without much contact to Christianity and became pastors and evangelists.

The way this concept was framed was intriguing. It seemed that as this one group was becoming less and less important, and because its role in the region was becoming more diminished, it used Christianity as a way to reestablish its importance. In a sense, the fierce and devote beliefs to Christianity was a way to distinguish themselves. They point out their own sins and strive to become morally perfect in the eyes of God, and use this experience to affect how they interacted with others in the area. By becoming missionaries and pastors, they could assert some type of moral dominance through their beliefs in Christianity.

Although this was not a main point that the author makes, the observation that a group's conversion to Christianity can be useful and far removed from the spirituality its is normally linked with paints a completely different story. Instead of looking at the transformation in a supernatural light, there were obvious driving factors that predisposed this group to drastically change their beliefs, even without prerequisites such as a high concentration of missionaries in the area, or a long term colonization period where the colonial power imposes beliefs onto a certain group.