Syllabus: Religion and Society
News in short:
The Gujarat government said it would approach the Supreme Court challenging the stay granted by the High Court on certain Sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act 2021 that seeks to stop religious conversion through interfaith marriages using force or allurement or fraudulent means.
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Syllabus: Religion and Society
In sociological perspective conversion refers to a change in belief and personal identity. Conversion to another religion implies a transformation of identity or orientation in behavioural and cognitive referents. This could include a conscious shift in one’s sense of grounding, the displacement of one universe of discourse by another, or the ascendancy of a formerly peripheral universe of discourse to the status of a primary authority.
Fundamentally, conversion is religious change.
Attachment theory
Some scholars of conversion assert that human beings form emotional ties reflecting the connection of an individual with their original primary caregiver. Building on some of the foundational notions of Freud and evolutionary theory, John Bowlby’s work asserts that conversion in part compensates for severely deprived and distorted parenting patterns or it can be congruent with parental modes of relating to the dependent child. Attachment theory emphasizes the primacy of affective and emotional relationships as formative.
Attribution theory
Attribution theory is based on the universal human need to create and/or find meaning in life, including meaning for inexplicable daily events as well as more profound issues of the human predicament, such as undeserved suffering and death. Adopting a new system of attributions about the nature of self, others, and God is a significant aspect of what happens for many converts. Attribution theory asserts that religion or a religious perspective provides meaning and a sense of purpose to those issues that haunt human consciousness. This theory stresses the cognitive and intellectual spheres of conversion processes.