Conversion To, and Conversion From
I was baptized at the age of nineteen. Soon after, a significant part of my life was muted and slowly removed.
Like many new believers, I was taught to separate from my former life and cling fully to the family of God. I attended church whenever the doors were open. I learned how to study Scripture, how to pray, how to speak in ways that affirmed my conversion. Over time, I adopted a Christian language that verified my belonging.
At the same time, I was encouraged to avoid anything connected to my Hindu background that might compromise my testimony. This meant leaving not only cultural practices, but also my community, extended family, and even my immediate family. With both gentle persuasion from the church and a deep desire to be a faithful Christian, I withdrew from events tied to my language and heritage.
Scripture reinforced this separation. I read Luke 9:62 as a warning not to look back. I reflected on Lot’s wife in Genesis 19:26, reminding myself that even a moment’s hesitation could lead to failure.
I married and raised two children, giving them names that could belong to both cultures. Occasionally, I cooked Indian food. I kept a few sarees in a suitcase, still carrying the scent of incense and sandalwood. These items transported me back to my childhood, stirring grief so profound that I could hardly acknowledge it without feeling guilt.
By the age of forty, I had earned a master’s degree in theology, yet I had not spoken my mother tongue for over half my life. My relationships with my parents and siblings were broken. To those around me, including my lovely American in-laws, colleagues and church friends, my pre-conversion life was understood primarily as a sinful past, rather than as a meaningful part of my identity.
Calling to, and Calling From
Ten years ago, I found myself reluctant to call myself a Christian. This was not because I had abandoned belief. It was because the cultural expectations of conversion no longer aligned with my lived faith or calling.
That realization forced a deeper question. What, exactly, are we asking people to leave behind when they come to Christ? And what are we asking them to become? I began to see how often the gospel response was assumed to be fully realized only within a Western context.
For many Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Buddhist background believers . . . the structures that shaped our conversion . . . have also contributed to Christian lives marked by isolation.
For many Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Buddhist background believers, including those now serving as leaders in theological and academic spaces, the structures that shaped our conversion have also shaped our loneliness. These structures, often created by others and reinforced by ourselves, have contributed to Christian lives marked by isolation.
Statistics often highlight that groups such as Muslims and Hindus are among the hardest to reach. Because conversions from major world religions are often considered rare, many of us feel a continual need to prove the authenticity of our faith to other Christian leaders. This expectation reveals a deeper issue: the gospel has too often been bound to Western language, culture, and expression.
The loss [of cultural practices] is not only spiritual or philosophical-it is relational, linguistic, and deeply embodied.
This was not intentional. It was shaped by well-meaning efforts, including my own, that prioritized conversion decisions and rapid replication. In the process, the complexity of a convert’s past, present, and future was often overlooked or treated as a liability rather than a gift.
For many Hindus, leaving cultural practices is not as straightforward as it may appear from the outside. The loss is not only spiritual or philosophical. It is relational, linguistic, and deeply embodied.
Listening to the Loneliness
In 2015, I conducted ethnographic research among Gujarati Christians in Britain, gathering narratives from two hundred individuals within a community of over eight hundred thousand. These stories revealed not only personal loss, but also the suffering experienced by families and communities when someone chose to identify as Christian.
Although contextual approaches to evangelism and discipleship have sought to address cultural differences, very few converts are encouraged to name or process their isolation. The loneliness remains largely unspoken.
Perhaps addressing this begins with something simple yet profound: the willingness to listen. To hear stories without immediately interpreting or correcting them, and to allow the lived experiences of converts to shape how we understand mission.
As I studied the Gujarati community,1 I gathered narratives of what families and communities, including my own, experienced when someone chose to step away from their Hindu culture to identify as Christian. One captured story captures this clearly.
Raksha and I are in her rented upper floor rooms of a semi-detached house in N. London. We are both in the kitchen when our eyes are drawn to the street below. Cars are arriving. We see women pour out into the street, dressed in beautiful saris; little girls in bright sharwal kamees or lengha; men in fine suits or traditional sherwani or kurta paired with designer jeans. Raksha is wearing mismatched fluffy pyjamas and I am in my husband’s old oversized grey t-shirt that bears the words, ‘Every Tribe, Every Tongue, Every Nation’. Diwali morning and we are alone. Here we are, far from our family, unfamiliar with our mother tongue and somewhat deracinated (emphasis mine).
Back to the bustle outside, people greet one another. Some are carrying packages of gungra and different types of mithai. An older woman adjusts the sari of a younger one. Teenage girls huddle together, adjust a pleat here, stretching their hands through the flowing piece of fabric over the shoulder. Teenage boys step back and allow the elders to pass by into the house first. ‘Selfies’ are clicked. Cheeks are pinched. Kisses are shared as babies are passed from hip to hip.
As some disappear into the house, others arrive. Slowly the crowd, oblivious of our voyeurism, vanishes into the house. We take a couple of gungra from the fridge and heat them up in the microwave. As British Gujarati Christian converts this was as close as we might ever get to celebrating Diwali. (October 2016)
This is loneliness.
As I began listening more carefully to others, this experience proved to be far from unique. Another story states:
I stare at my computer and prepare for a zoom gathering at the London Church. The small hall seems unusually crowded. As I try to spot Raksha, I see women in colourful saris looking for friends and saving seats, giggling girls in party dresses or sparkly sharwal kamees and lovely lengha, and young men dressed in jeans or khaki pants paired with a kurta or a sports T-shirt. As the crowd settles down and the announcements are made, I realise it is Diwali. From my secluded basement room in Oxford, I sing along with the crowd.
The unstable internet connection blurs the faces so it is hard to differentiate between Raksha, Rani, Mohan, Vina, my custom British Gujarati Christian family from their friends and family members. A young woman I recognised from my field visits stands up and shares the story of Diwali. ‘Ram travelled through many dangerous dark places to rescue his wife Sita . . . Light overcomes the darkness and shows us the way.’
As the presentations end the chairs are moved back, some people disappear to prepare for the shared meal. Everyone else prepares for garba, the traditional dance of Diwali. The electric keyboard strikes a chord and Sunita Darji takes the handheld microphone and begins the call and repeat style of Prabhu Isu bhajan. (October 2022)
Perhaps this begins to unmute our loneliness.
Considering the Loneliness of Conversion
Intercultural theologies have begun to move toward hybrid spaces rather than foreign ones. This shift recognizes that neither culture nor language is static. It also acknowledges that lived experience must shape theology.
The structures of discipleship that once guided us may now need to be reexamined. Not discarded, but reconsidered alongside those who have lived the realities of conversion across cultures.
If the loneliness of conversion is to be addressed, it will not be solved by better strategies alone. It will require shared attention, careful listening, and the courage to let these stories reshape how the church understands belonging.
Only then can the gospel be experienced not as a departure into foreignness, but as good news that can truly dwell within every culture, every language, and every life.
Endnotes
- Transcultural Insights into the Christian Conversion of British Gujarati Hindus’ in Studies in World Christianity Edinburgh University Press, 2019