This research project explores cultural formation, with special reference to modes of belonging, for three Turkish Protestant congregations in Istanbul, Turkey. Using empirical research the project will investigate how these Protestant believers with a Muslim background experience modes of belonging in everyday life and how religious and congregational practice foster Christian formation and a sense of belonging in their new context as Christians. Furthermore, how believers construct, combine and negotiate different modes of belonging as experienced in everyday life will be studied through narratives of believers. This qualitative research seeks to describe and understand how Turkish Protestants who have come from the Muslim Turkish mainstream society position themselves in terms of religious identifications, national belonging and family relations. Belonging is approached as a multiple concept, and considered as the outcome of practices that foster religious and ethnic identifications. In contrast to historic Orthodox churches in Muslim-dominated post-colonial contexts, most believers in these Protestant churches are Muslim converts with no Christian family history. Therefore, the question of belonging in a Muslim-dominated context differs substantively from Orthodox Christian minorities who, although often treated as second class citizens, have a historically-defined identity within Turkish society.
Charles Faroe is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Theology, VU University Amsterdam. He earned an MA in Turkish Language and Literature, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, from Ankara University (Thesis: Lutfullah Halimi’nin Bahru’l-Gara’ib’i) and a BA with honors in Turkish from the Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.
