Emma Milerud Sundström: Narratives of Power, Home, and Liberation: Conversion Narratives of Lutheran Christians from a Muslim Background in Tanzania and Sweden

Abstract

This dissertation examines conversion narratives of Lutheran Christians from a Muslim background in Tanzania and Sweden. Based on 33 semi-structured narrative interviews, complemented by ethnographic observations, the study analyzes how converts in these narratives present their journey from Islam to Christianity. The analysis uses thematic narrative analysis and is informed by narrative theory, particularly Margaret Somers’ multidimensional theory of narrativity. The dissertation argues that the conversion narratives serve to link Christianity to a specific meta-narrative of modernity (“the moral narrative of modernity”) in which Christianity is associated with progress, self-actualization, and emancipation, while Islam is frequently positioned as an un-modern or anti-modern Other.

The analysis of these narratives demonstrates both shared patterns and important contextual differences. Among the Tanzanian participants, Christianity is commonly represented as a religion of power, success, healing, and progress, while Islam is often associated with malevolent spiritual forces and patriarchal structures. For those interviewed in Sweden, Christianity (specifically the church) is more often narrated as a space of home, belonging, self-actualization, and liberation. Islam in contrast, is presented as regressive, constraining, or incompatible with the convert’s authentic self. At the same time, the narratives also reveal more ambivalent and complex relationships with Islam.

By placing Tanzanian and Swedish Lutheran conversion narratives in dialogue, the dissertation shows how individual accounts of religious change are shaped by community narratives, public narratives, and broader meta-narratives. It argues that these narratives differ from many previously studied Christian conversion narratives by placing comparatively little emphasis on sin, guilt, and repentance. The study contributes to research on conversion, conversion narratives, Muslim–Christian relations, and World Christianity by showing how Lutheran Christians from a Muslim background narrate conversion not only as a change of religious affiliation, but as a movement toward moral modernity.