Title:
Strange gods : a secular history of conversion
Author:
Publication Date as Range:
2016
ISBN:
9780375423758
Edition:
First edition.
Physical Description:
xl, 464 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
General Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [419]-438) and index.
Contents:
Young Christendom and the fading pagan gods. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) ; The Way, the Truth, the Life, the Empire ; Coercion, conversion, and heresy -- From Convivencia to the stake. Bishop Paul of Burgos (c. 1352-1435) ; Impureza de sangre : the crumbling of the Convivencia ; The Inquisition and the end -- Reformations. John Donne (1572-1631) ; "Not with sword ... but with printing" ; Persecution in an age of religious conversion -- Conversions in the dawn of the Enlightenment. Margaret Fell (1614-1702) : woman's mind, woman's voice ; Religious choice and early Enlightenment thought ; Miracles versus evidence : conversion and science ; Prelude: O my America! -- The Jewish conversion question : where Christianity stumped its toe. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) : convictionless conversion ; The varieties of coercive experience ; Edith Stein (1891-1942) : the sainthood of a converted Jew -- American exceptionalism : toward religious choice as a natural right. Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) : anti-intellectualism and the battle for reason ; Remaking the Protestant American compact -- Interregnum : absolutism and its discontents. True believers -- The way we live now. "The greatest" : Muhammad Ali and the demythologizing decade ; American dreaming ; Darkness visible.
Abstract:
In this original and riveting exploration, Susan Jacoby argues that conversion-- especially in the free American "religious marketplace"-- is too often viewed only within the conventional and simplistic narrative of personal reinvention and divine grace. Instead, the author places conversions within a secular social context that has, at various times, included the force of a unified church and state, desire for upward economic mobility, and interreligious marriage-- the latter as critical in the early Christian era as in the United States today, where half of Americans have switched faiths at least once in their adult lives. The sometimes tragic, sometimes inspiring story is shaped by the competing absolute truth claims of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam and their impact on Jews-- the only monotheistic believers with an older historical stake. Moving through time, continents, and cultures-- dealing with the often-ignored forced conversion of American slaves to Christianity as well as with the better-known story of the Spanish Inquisition and the persecution of both atheists and Christians in modern Islamic theocracies--the story also includes conversions to authoritarian secular ideologies, notably Stalinist Communism, that resemble traditional, unquestioning faith. Finally, the author examines true religious choice-- a product of the Enlightenment pioneered by the U.S. Constitution. This history is punctuated by portraits of individual converts, including the Catholic Church father Augustine of Hippo; the German Jewish convert to Catholicism Edith Stein, murdered at Auschwitz and canonized by the Church; boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who scandalized white Americans in the 1960s by becoming a Muslim, and even politicians such as George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair. In a forthright conclusion to this enthralling history, Strange Gods takes on the question of why the freedom to choose a religion-- or to reject religion altogether-- is a fundamental human rights issue that remains a breeding ground for violence in areas of the world that never experienced an Enlightenment. --Publisher
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