I'm particularly intrigued by something mentioned in your blurb:

American Jews largely resisted evangelism while at the same time winning converts to Judaism.

Which sounds fascinating! Who were their converts, and what about Judaism appealed to them? How were converts received by the Jewish community writ large.

If I may ask an additional question, how were Mormons perceived by mainstream Protestants?

Hi! Thank you for coming to answer our questions. How did religious movements like New Thought and Christian Science proselytize, in comparison to other contemporary sects?

Thanks so much for joining us today.

In my own studies, I focus a lot on racial politics, such as the KKK. A big part of that is their ideas about Protestantism and "all-americanism". How did that view play into wider conversion motivation in the late 19th to early 20th centuries? How much conversion was driven by attempts to conform to nativist ideas of "Americanism"?

Your synopsis looks fascinating! As my eye was immediately drawn to your passage about American Judaism, I had a few questions, as this is a subject that I know of in passing but haven't read much about in depth-

1. When you say "resisting evangelism [but] winning converts," do you mean to compare explicitly evangelical Christian movements (which were certainly a factor, and one that Jewish communities did a great deal to counter, as you note) to any kind of specifically evangelical Jewish movements (which I'm not specifically aware of)? Or do you just mean general inflow/outflow in terms of conversions?

1a) Have there been any particular moments in which Jewish conversion to Christianity was a notable phenomenon, or is it mostly a general trickle? If so, what was the reason?

2. I'd be curious to know your take on other kinds of Jewish groups, such as various Black Hebrew groups, Noahides, etc- do you consider groups such as these part of a study on conversion, or some other phenomenon?

3. Have you studied Jewish conversion to other religions? I specifically think of Buddhism, though "conversion" may not necessarily be the best way to discuss that. (Rereading your post it looks like you're focusing on 19-early 20c, in which case this might not be your area- but just in case it is...)

Thank you!

Thank you for this AMA! I'm interested in American religious conversion from the perspective of those confessions that were on the "losing end" of conversions in the nineteenth century. How did the remaining members and leaders of Christian denominations that were losing members to other denominations conceptualize the act of conversion? Did they think of it in starkly different social or theological terms? Were their ideas about conversion changed at all by the experience?

You are so well-informed, this feels like a true blessing.

My question regards the politicization of American faiths. Particularly, the trends different sects of Protestantism, and Evangelism, have taken toward supporting more liberal or more conservative ideologies. I've read vaguely that a major transition from abstention from politics to intense conservatism among evangelicals became more apparent during the 1970s, especially under Nixon, but I'm hazy as to the origins of this transformation. From my uneducated standpoint, it's a chicken vs egg problem, since I don't know which had the more influence: region in the US or the sect, itself, or if it's a more complex blend.

Thank you so much for sparing your time for us. You truly make /r/AskHistorians a better place.

Thanks everyone. That was fun, and I appreciate your interesting questions and generous responses. Hope I got to everything. If any other questions come in I'll see if I can answer them, but I'm going to step away. Thanks!

The history of "cults" in America (by the modern definition) seems to start in the 20th century, but are there any earlier overlooked religious groups that fit?

How did conversion across religious traditions compare to ones to other denominations- ie were converts from Protestant sects more trusted as true converts compared to a convert from Christianity to Islam? Or would there be even more suspicious if someone converted between monotheistic and polytheistic traditions?

I've really enjoyed reading your still in-progress textbook on Computational History! I'm sure you've probably seen Ben Schmidt's essay about Time on the Cross from AHA 2019 (link here). He's very complimentary of your work, but he's very pessimistic toward computational history in general. In fact, he even says: "Computational history is dead for good." I'm curious: Do you have a response for him? Also, do you have thoughts on how we (historians) should train our grad students? For example, do think History grad students should have to learn coding? Thanks!

Thanks for the AMA! My question is: knowing how much of the anti-catholic sentiment of the 19th century was tied up in anti-immigrant sentiment, were Catholic communities/individuals who had been in the United States for a long period of time (i.e - Maryland Catholics) perceived differently, or were they subject to the same prejudicial rhetoric and treatment as immigrant Catholics?

Hello and thank you for this fascinating AMA! I find the topic fascinating, and have a couple of questions. Firstly, for some only lightly familiar with it, could you explain Digital History? Is it scholarship using digital sources, history of the digital world itself, or something else?

Secondly, are there many cases of Americans modifying a faith to incorporate more Native American elements?

You mention that Americans switch between Churches relatively easily and in larger numbers than other nations, but how long does this trend take to manifest in immigrant communities? Especially immigrants that historically have come from countries with single dominant religious traditions, ie Catholics from Italy, Lutherans from Scandinavia, etc... is the shopping around for churches a phenomenon that is seen as soon as people arrive off the boat or does it take time/generations?

From a more contemporary perspective (since perhaps the 1980s), the perception has been that religion is a more overt element of American culture and society than in Europe. To what extent was this true during, say, the nineteenth century? How far would a recent migrant or traveller from Europe encounter American religious practice and consider it strange in either form or perceived importance?

Hi, really like the work you have been doing. I am entering my PhD program in History up in Canada next Fall. My question for you is, where do you get funding to digitize the sources you want to look at? I research alternative medicine and vaccine resistance through alternative media sources since 1980, I am interested in digitizing these sources to encourage their use, but as a PhD student my options for funding a project like this seem limited.

Thank you for this AMA! I admit to not knowing much about this subject, but I was taken aback when you said that certain native American tribes accepted Christianity in their own terms. Is it not true that for many, religion was never offered as a personal choice, but rather as an imposition, often violently? I admit this question is a bit personal, since here in Latin America the catholic church has a long list of atrocities against the native population, so I'm interested in understanding how were things different in the US.

Just wanted to thank you for doing this! My mom is in the religious pluralism field, and we actually own your book, I believe. I’m not going to mention her name, as not to dox us, but you probably run in similar circles.

Is there a trend in the American religious history of backlash towards conversion? I’ve heard of forced conversions in other places, such as in the Spanish Inquisition, but has something similar happened in the United States? Also, how much of the Native population in the United States has been estimated to convert away from Native religion?

Thanks again!

Hi, Thanks for the AMA!

Could you discuss if what if any interaction\conversion attempts there were between Protestant's expanding westward and existing Spanish/native Christian populations? Was there any impact from Eastern Orthodoxy via Russian Fur Trappers?

OH, so many questions. I'll start with a few:

"Cherokee, who adopted Christianity on their own terms."

What exactly does this mean? Were there specific ways in which Native American nations adapted colonial religious practices to their own ends, either within explicitly religious contexts or other contexts, or formed their own religious communities intentionally? Or explicitly did the opposite and sought leadership roles in white denominations? Adding on to this, I was flipping through God's Red Son and I dimly recall it mentioned non-Natives who affiliated with parts of the Ghost Dance-do you know much if anything about this?

​

Second, Islam-At what point do we start seeing conversion to Islam in the US, especially mainstream-is non-American groups(i.e. not NOI, but Sunni/Shia/Ahmadiyya/etc)? And does your research look at the survival or demise of Islam among West African slaves who were Muslim?

You also mention deconversion-how common was that and were some people or communities more likely to experience this?

Last, what were responses of religious groups to limit conversion out, especially smaller groups(Jews, but also groups like Catholics in majority non-Catholic areas, Orthodox Christians, and Moravians)? I'm especially curious about Eastern Catholics since leaving that community might formally not be a conversion but might well feel like one. (which leads I suppose to a further question-how do we treat changes that might not formally be conversions but are socially experienced like ones, such as major shifts in personal religiosity, or Muslims moving between religiously conservative and non-conservative communities without being formally converted).

Awesome AMA! My question is that Scientology has been widely criticised and considered dangerous? Were there any new religions or sects of pre-existing religions the general American public were critical towards?

According to my father, a great-grandfather of mine was persecuted for being Catholic sometime around the early 1900s. How common was anti-Catholic prejudice in the early 1900s and to what extent did it affect Catholics in America? Where was it most common? Was it on par with prejudicial acts based on other factors such as race and sex during that time period? Thank you so much for taking the time to do this AMA, this is fascinating information!

Hi, thanks for doing the AMA! I’m curious about what were the underlying social causes of the Second Great Awakening? Were they internal to the religions that people were leaving, e.g., with people being dissatisfied with what their institutional church’s had to offer, or were the driving causes primarily external social trends, e.g., industrialization and alienation, a better educated population.

A related question, can we find a relationship between those underlying social trends and the Catholic Church’s response to what it called the heresy of Modernism? Was Modernism as the Church saw it an outgrowth of those same trends?

Thanks!

Hi Professor Mullen, thank you for taking the time. I was raised in a very devout Mormon family, then later left that religion in my mid 20s. (I'm now in my mid 30s). I also did a Mormon "mission", proselytizing in Brazil for a couple years after high school.

One demographic trend within American Mormonism, accelerated in the last 5-10 years, is that fewer converts are signing up. There could be several factors. However, there appears to be an increasing correlation between growth rate and birth rate: a growing share of growth is due to children born to Mormon parents instead of due to newcomer adults.

With this shrinking convert rate comes a parallel trend of the religion adjusting many of its core norms and doctrines to adopt a more modern stance. For example, in January 2019 major revisions were made to temple rites, including a fundamental restructuring of how a female participates in these rites. (I can go into detail on this and other examples of anyone wishes to PM me)

Many in the exmormon community suspect these and other changes are because the Mormon church leadership feels pressure to make the religion more appealing to modern sensibilities in order to improve the growth rate.

With this in mind, can you speak to anything in your research that addresses how American religions have historically conformed to or retreated from outside social/progressive pressure, and what effect such reactions have had on religious growth patterns?

It's not exactly on topic, but do you mind if I ask what Computational History is? I've never heard of the discipline before.

Hello,

I don't know if this is the correct way to ask this, but are we permitted to ask questions about Canada in here or is that outside your expertise?

I apologize if it's a dumb question, but some refer to us as "Americans" due to North America which sometimes confuses the topic.

Thank you either way!

Thanks for doing this. Have you done any research on Joseph F. Rutherford? He strongarmed his way into becoming the president of the Bible Students movement after the death of Charles Taze Russell. This caused a schism and lead to them rebranding as Jehovah's Witnesses under Rutherford's tenure.

Rutherford has a questionable past that no one has really been able to unearth. His living relatives do not want contact from what I've read from others researching Jehovah's witnesses.

Theres a lot of unverifiable info floating around the web on him but I was wondering if you know anything of his life in Missouri prior to becoming Russell's/watchtower's attorney?

Was he ever actually a Judge, as he claimed? Was he actually a believer or did he scheme to take over the corporation behind the Jehovah's Witnesses due to Russell's naivety?

Religion had changed from a family inheritance to a consciously adopted identity.

Looking back at government persecution of Church of Christ in the early 1900s:

Such expressions attracted the attention of the Federal Government, which had recently passed the Espionage Act of 1917, and it silenced many people associated with the Churches of Christ with, in Casey’s (1992a:382) words, “brute force.” The government had recently given “U.S. district attorneys...broad powers to shut down pacifist publications,” and in the last year of Lipscomb’s life, the government set its sights on his paper. The government threatened to close the publication, and it threatened Lipscomb’s co-editor “J.C. McQuiddy, publisher of the Gospel Advocate, with arrest if he continued to publish articles judged ‘seditious’ and that discouraged ‘registration of young men under the Selective Service...Act.’” McQuiddy backed down (Hughes, 1992:201), and “By mid-August, 1917, the journal dropped pacifist articles and any discussion of the Christian and civil government from its columns” (Collins, 1985:151). The U.S. government also imprisoned Churches of Christ draftees who refused to fight, stating that their religious tradition had no official creed in opposition to war (never mind the fact that the Churches of Christ was against having official creeds). (PDF)

Have you seen newer examples of US government actively threatening religious institutions for preaching transcendence without pledging devotion to government?

Have you other examples of Espionage Act of 1917 being used to strip away freedoms guaranteed by US Constitution?

Thanks so much for this response!!

I’m getting here late, but I’d like to ask if you can make a couple of book recommendations. First, a text on the beliefs of the founders and/or framers, and second, a general history of religion in America. Thanks!

Why did Transcendatalism die out?

How has the work of missionaries/preachers in prisons affected the leadership and theology of their denominations of origin? For example, how has the work of priests and nuns in the prison system affected the Roman Catholic Church ministry among free people?

What is the legal/political history of a secular state giving privileges to vulnerable people in its prison system who participate in Bible study?

This is a fascinating topic! Definitely will need to pick up your book on my next stocking up. This line jumped out especially:

Enslaved and freed African Americans similarly created a distinctive form of Christian conversion based on ideas of divine justice and redemption.

I was hoping you could expand on what made their ideas of conversion so unique. What is it that stands out compared to their white contemporaries? And did these bliefes bleed into other groups and influence them? The Church still is seen as such a pillar within African-American communities today, but I know so little about how it came to be.

Additionally, and this might be outside your purview, but how was this influenced, if at aal, by Islamic beliefs that were brought over by first generation enslaved populations. Was this retained to some degree and did it impact the distinctive development of Af-Am religious developments?

When did Catholicism become more accepted in America?

How has Mormonism evolved to gain more acceptance by mainstream American culture? There are the obvious examples of the church issuing the 1890 Manifesto ("officially") ending plural marriage and the announcement in 1978 that men of African descent to gain the priesthood, but what other adaptations have they made?

Do you think the recent decision to allow American and Canadian members have both civil and temple wedding ceremonies without a waiting period is a concession to American/Canadian culture or rather something for the benefit of the actual church members?

How do you think the church's treatment of LGBT individuals will change, both of LGBT church members and of LGBT students at the BYU campuses?