Vendassi, Pierre <br/><br/>
Traditions and Transcendence 

 -  2018.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 13 
<br/><br/> Explaining contemporary Christian growth in China requires not only to identify contextual factors allowing for conversions to happen, but also to carefully analyse believer’s conversions process. The results of a research conducted among believers affiliated to a diversity of Churches from China raise questions about the supposedly traditional foundation of the religious. They show that conversions imply a tradition shift based on continuity in individuals representations. This shift occurs through an incremental process during which the religious organisation’s legitimacy and its underlying social and moral patterns are gradually transformed. While a certain commensurability of Christian and Chinese traditions facilitates individuals affiliation, the religious initiation generates a specific experience that allows the newly affiliated to adopt the beliefs promoted by the religious organisation. The latter, along with its underlying social and moral patterns are therefore provided with a new“subjectively transcending” legitimacy.