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Author Mullen, Lincoln A., 1984- author.

Title The chance of salvation : a history of conversion in America / Lincoln A. Mullen.

Publication Info. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.
©2017

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  248.32 MUL    Check Shelf
Description xii, 365 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-354) and index.
Contents Introduction : Religion as choice -- Prayer : Protestant converts and the sinner's prayer -- Gift : Cherokee converts and the reception of missions -- Hope : African American converts and the jubilee -- Kingdom : Mormon converts and the primitive gospel -- Sincerity : Jewish converts and resistance to missions -- Repose : Catholic converts and the sect system -- Conclusion : "Maybes are the essence of the situation".
Summary The Chance of Salvation offers a history of conversions in the United States which shows how religious identity came to be a matter of choice. Shortly after the American Revolution, people in the United States increasingly encountered an expanded array of religious options. Evangelical Protestants began an effort to convert Americans, while developing new practices that emphasized conversion as an immediate choice. Their missionary effort extended to Native American nations such as the Cherokee in the Southeast, who received Christianity on their own terms. Enslaved and newly freed African Americans likewise created a variety of Christian conversion that was centered on religious hope and eschatological expectation. Mormons, drawing on earlier Protestant practices and beliefs, enthusiastically proselytized for a new tradition that emphasized individual choice and free will. By uncovering the way that religious identity is structured as an obligatory decision, this book explains why Americans change their religions so much, and why the United States is both highly religious in terms of religious affiliation and very secular in the sense that no religion is an unquestioned default.-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Conversion -- Christianity -- History.
United States -- Church history.
Proselytizing -- United States -- History.
Religious pluralism -- United States -- History.
Christianity and other religions -- United States.
Christianity. (OCoLC)fst00859599
Conversion -- Christianity. (OCoLC)fst00877229
Interfaith relations. (OCoLC)fst01353343
Proselytizing. (OCoLC)fst01079381
Religious pluralism. (OCoLC)fst01094200
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Genre/Form Church history. (OCoLC)fst01411629
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Standard No. 40027386264
ISBN 9780674975620 (hardcover)
0674975626 (hardcover)
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