Synopses & Reviews
In a groundbreaking historical work that addresses religious conversion
in the West from an uncompromisingly secular perspective, Susan Jacoby
challenges the conventional narrative of conversion as a purely
spiritual journey. From the transformation on the road to Damascus of
the Jew Saul into the Christian evangelist Paul to a
twenty-first-century “religious marketplace” in which half of Americans
have changed faiths at least once, nothing has been more important in
the struggle for reason than the right to believe in the God of one’s
choice or to reject belief in God altogether.
Focusing on the
long, tense convergence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — each
claiming possession of absolute truth — Jacoby examines conversions within
a social and economic framework that includes theocratic coercion (unto
torture and death) and the more friendly persuasion of political
advantage, economic opportunism, and interreligious marriage. Moving
through time, continents, and cultures — the triumph of Christianity over
paganism in late antiquity, the Spanish Inquisition, John Calvin’s dour
theocracy, Southern plantations where African slaves had to accept their
masters’ religion — the narrative is punctuated by portraits of
individual converts embodying the sacred and profane. The cast includes
Augustine of Hippo; John Donne; the German Jew Edith Stein, whose
conversion to Catholicism did not save her from Auschwitz; boxing
champion Muhammad Ali; and former President George W. Bush. The story
also encompasses conversions to rigid secular ideologies, notably
Stalinist Communism, with their own truth claims.
Finally,
Jacoby offers a powerful case for religious choice as a product of the
secular Enlightenment. In a forthright and unsettling conclusion linking
the present with the most violent parts of the West’s religious past,
she reminds us that in the absence of Enlightenment values, radical
Islamists are persecuting Christians, many other Muslims, and atheists
in ways that recall the worst of the Middle Ages.
Review
“A vivid picture of the ways in which conversions happen and the myriad reasons behind their happening.” Booklist
Review
“In a work blending culture, religion, history, biography, and a bit of
memoir (with more than a soupcon of attitude), the author of The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought
returns with a revealing historical analysis of religious
conversions….The author…impressively combines thorough research and
passionate writing. Jacoby draws the first detailed maps of a terrain
that has been very much in need of intelligent, careful cartography.” Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Review
“The modern wave of secularist books has seen no author more
historically erudite than Susan Jacoby. Immensely learned, yet with a
lightly witty style, she smoothly surveys the whole phenomenon of
religious conversion, from ancient times to our own. The section on
slavery in America is especially moving, giving the lie to the myth that
abolitionism was primarily motivated by religion. And — a blessed
bonus — she has no truck with that pretentious gimmick favoured by so many
historians, the historic present tense.” Richard Dawkins, author of Brief Candle in the Dark
About the Author
SUSAN JACOBY is the author of eleven previous books, most recently Never
Say Die, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought,
The Age of American Unreason, Alger Hiss and the Battle for
History,Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, and Half-Jew: A Daughter’s Search for Her Family’s Buried Past. Her newest work, Strange Gods, will be released by Pantheon Books in February 2016. Her articles have appeared frequently in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and in forums that include The American Prospect, Dissent, and The Daily Beast. She lives in New York City. For more information, visit www.susanjacoby.com.
Susan Jacoby on PowellsBooks.Blog
"What's an atheist doing writing about religious conversion?" is usually the first question I am asked about my new book,
Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion. The answer is straightforward. No one knows better than an atheist that freedom to reject...
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