Lincoln Mullen, an assistant professor of history at George Mason University, writes about the distinctively American fascination and struggle with conversion experiences in his new book, The Chance of Salvation. Throughout the country’s history, he argues, people have been choosing their religion. This shows up even in today’s demographic data: According to Pew Research Center, more than one-third of Americans currently identify with a religion that’s different from the one they grew up with, and that number is much higher depending on how you count. It’s particularly fascinating to watch this trend among the young people who are turning away from religious institutions in large numbers, as we wrote about in our “Choosing My Religion” series last spring.
Mullen and I spoke about the attraction—and myths—of conversion in America. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Emma Green: There’s a myth out there about American religion which goes something like this: We have reached a crisis point in religious affiliation. Everyone is running away from traditional religious observance, and religion is going to die.
Your book significantly undermines that myth. You describe a period in the early 19th century when many Americans weren’t very religious, followed by a period of religious revival, largely driven by aggressive proselytism. What have you learned about the myth of the so-called “nones”—people who aren’t any religion in particular—through your study of conversion?
Lincoln Mullen: In many ways, the early 19th century was more like the period we’re living in today than the 20th century. If you asked people to draw a chart of religious affiliation in history, I think most would say it’s gone down constantly over time. It’s simply not the case that everybody, or even the majority of people, were associated with a Christian denomination or other religion.
In the early 19th century, Christian missionary organizations were really quite worried about the lack of Christian affiliation they saw in society. There was this tremendous effort to reach people and convert them to Christianity. Over the course of the 19th century, through their missionary effort, more people became affiliated.