Open air prayers at the Pentecostal 'Church in Bishkek.' The picture astonished my Muslim Kyrgyz acquaintances for whom the hats and the slaughtering of the cow signified Muslim practices. However, for the participants it proved that Christians did not have to compromise their national identity. They could be simultaneously real Kyrgyz and true Christians. (Photo: M. Pelkmans)

The collapse of socialism and the severe socio-economic crisis in the former mining-town Kok-Jangak provided fertile soil on which Pentecostal forms of Christianity could prosper. (Photo: M. Pelkmans)

The research project looks at changes in the frontier between the Muslim and Christian realms after socialism in Kyrgyzstan. Employing the concept frontier as a zone of contact and interaction between different religions, the project analyzes the impact of ‘new’ religious movements in Kyrgyzstan. The project shows that the destabilization of Soviet and Muslim space has allowed Evangelical and Pentecostal Christian groups to make significant inroads into Kyrgyz society. By comparing missionary encounters in the two fieldwork settings – the capital Bishkek and the former southern mining-town Kok-Jangak – it is not only possible to understand the dynamics of conversion, but also to explain increased resistance to missionaries as they move from anonymous urban space to the socially denser environment of a small post-industrial town.
One recurring theme in the project is the uneasy relation between Pentecostal Christianity and Kyrgyz national ideals. Most Kyrgyz tend to equate their national or ethnic identity with being Muslim. A basic strategy of Pentecostal churches to overcome this ‘ethnic barrier’ is to disconnect religious and ethnic categories by introducing and stressing differences between faith, religion and culture. Moreover, by building on ideas of ‘modernity’ and the appeal of the West, Pentecostal churches are able to attract significant followings. The rapid growth of Pentecostal churches worldwide has often been associated with the attractiveness of the ‘Gospel of Prosperity.’ Likewise, part of the attraction of the largest and fastest growing Pentecostal church in Kyrgyzstan is that it offers not only salvation, but also stresses universal access to prosperity, health and success by faithful prayer. The message proves particularly attractive to the poorer layers of society, especially to those who are in one way or the other outsiders to their own community. The narratives of converts contain important critiques of post-socialist change – in particular of gender inequality, economic deprivation, and social exclusion. Initially, the converts’ turn toward the “power of Jesus” does not necessarily imply a radical transformation of spiritual convictions. Indeed, there are remarkable similarities between the worldview promoted by Pentecostal churches and indigenous notions about spirits, as well as between “Christian” faith-healing and traditional “Muslim” healing.
But in spite of such apparent continuities, the act of conversion draws explicit reactions from Muslim neighbors, kin, and local leaders. As individual religious choices are deeply entwined with the larger social environment, social repercussions of conversion quite often leads to a renunciation of one’s newly found belief. Moreover, the influx of rich missionary organizations and the increasing numbers of Kyrgyz converts are perceived as endangering the integrity of the nation and the state, and as such have provoked reinterpretations of the content (and interrelation) of ethnicity, religion, and statehood. As such, conversion to Protestantism in Kyrgyzstan results not only in the creation of special Christian niches in a predominantly Muslim environment, but also in the appearance of new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion which in turn engender a complex frontier between the Muslim and Christian realms.