Review: Lincoln A. Mullen. The Chance of Salvation: A History of Conversion in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.

Authors

Ben Wright

Keywords

conversion, religious choice, nineteenth century, Lincoln Mullen, American religion

Abstract

This bold and exciting book convincingly demonstrates how the crucible of the nineteenth century transformed American religion from something inherited to chosen. Conversion drove this rise of religious choice, and Lincoln Mullen asserts that despite the great variety of conversion experiences, “conversions have created a common understanding of religion as choice” (p. 9). Mullen even acknowledges that most Americans in the nineteenth century remained in the religious tradition into which they were born, but by the end of the century, Americans came to think of even this stasis as a conscious choice. Whether they changed traditions or remained, by the end of the nineteenth century, “the defining feature of what American religions had in common” was “a burden to choose one’s religion” (p. 22).

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Wright, Ben (2019) "Review: Lincoln A. Mullen. The Chance of Salvation: A History of Conversion in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 26.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol6/iss1/26