Robert L. Montgomery

Born in China of missionary parents; worked in Taiwan as missionary primarily among aboriginals, particularly the Amis language group. They make up about 2% of the population, but due to a Christian movement among them, they make up about 40% of the membership of the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan. This open receptivity compared to the relative resistance of most majority populations in Asia. This experience drove me back to graduate school and the study of social scientific studies of religion. I wanted to discover reasons for variations in the response of peoples to religions brought to them from the outside. I found that three religions had spread more widely that other religions crossing many social and national borders. These religions were Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. My writings reflect my findings and break new ground in uncovering the reasons why religions spread at varying rates.