MISSION AND CONVERSION: EXPLORING THE THEOLOGICAL IN LITERARY TRANSFORMATION

This article looks into both the theological themes of mission and conversion in modern literature and also mentions their development in the following two books: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin and The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The research, by the detail and in-depth analysis of these books, exposes the spiritual growth and the quest for meaning in the narratives that are associated, on the one hand, with individual belief and, on the other hand, with widersocial contexts. The issue of conversion in these publications is a very fertile source for the understanding of the complicated link between private faith and communal identity as well as how mission literature progresses to addressing the current existential dilemmas. Among everything else, the paper dissects the theological cloth through which such stories are woven, and brings up many issues related to the role of these stories in the distribution of faith, the way to salvation, and the idea of personal transcendence.