This book examines the relationship between rapidly diffusing forms of global capitalism and global religion in emerging economies. Based on 12 months of ethnographic research and 200 interviews in Bangalore, India, and Dubai, UAE, Mercenaries and Missionaries explains how and why global corporate professionals straddle conflicting moral orientations in the realms of work and religion.

The “Mercenary” is the dominant normative model in today’s global corporate workplaces, and orients professionals to the relentless pursuit of upward mobility in environments of cutthroat competition. The “Missionary,” on the other hand, is the model generated by the global diffusion of evangelical and Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity even into mainstream traditions such as Catholicism. This model socializes people to seek above all the healing power of God in tightly knit faith communities. These two normative orientations, in spite of their stark differences, are embodied in the same persons—people who are leaders both in corporations and in religious communities.

Mercenaries and Missionaries uncovers a symbiotic relationship between an apprehensive individualism cultivated in global corporate workplaces and the therapeutic individualism of global charismatic Catholicism. The book shows how this relationship unfolds differently in two global cities—Dubai, in non-democratic UAE, which holds what is considered the world’s largest Catholic parish, and Bangalore, in democratic India, where the Catholic Church, though afflicted by ethnic and religious violence, runs many of the city’s elite educational institutions. In telling this story, Mercenaries and Missionaries yields new insights into the relationship between religion and capitalism.

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