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New Scholarship in Conversion Studies: Case Studies from Contemporary Israel and the Early U.S.

Submitted to Program Units
1: Religious Conversions Unit

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Marc Pugliese, Saint Leo University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

Featuring cutting edge scholarship this panel examines how conversion shapes individual and community identity in complex, often surprising ways.  Our first paper advances scholarship on the fraught nature of religious conversion under slavery in colonial Americas by examining representations of the conversion of Rose Binney Salter (1771), who was brought to Stockbridge by the family of prominent churchman Jonathan Edwards,  and eventually became a full member of the Stockbridge Church. Our second paper investigates the conversion career of Frederick Willis (1830–1914)  to argue that far from being a secret, esoteric religion, the Spiritualism that Willis embraced did not prevent his vigorous participation in liberal religious public sphere. Our third paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork to focus on the Bene Menashem originally from northeastern India who migrated to Israel, where they must negotiate a fine line between integration and assimilation into Israeli society where their Jewishness is not always recognized. 

Papers

  • Kalvin Cummings,

    Jonathan Edwards and Mid-Eighteenth Century Afro-Protestant Conversion

    Abstract

    Jonathan Edwards, among several churchmen between 1680 and 1760, expressed views against the slave trade, colonial slavery, or masters’ abuse of slaves (Sallient). While very little has been written on the regional development of anti-slavery in the American colonies before and leading into the mid-eighteenth century, exploring Edward’s involvement in and treatment of slavery illuminates changes in Afro-Protestant conversion. The emergence of evangelical revivalism and the Great Awakening gave enslaved people new religious choices while underlining commitments to maintaining proper patterns of subordination (Glasson). Rose Binney Salter is owned by Jonathan Edwards and brought to Stockbridge with the family in 1751, and becomes a full member of the Stockbridge church and no longer a slave by 1771. Attention to Jonathan Edwards’ shifting thinking on slavery and the slave trade forces us to rethink the traditional timelines for the development of antislavery thought in New England and Rose’s confession of spiritual freedom (conversion) following her baptism and church membership, suggests new and different ceremonial connections to Christianity and freedom within the period.

  • Daniel Gorman, University of Rochester

    Toward a Spiritualist Theology: The Counter-Esotericism of Frederick Willis, 1830–1914

    Abstract

                This paper examines Frederick Llewellyn Hovey Willis’s Spiritualist theology. Abandoning his family’s Calvinism over his belief in free will, Willis created a personal religion that fused Unitarianism, Bronson Alcott’s Transcendentalism, séance Spiritualism, mind cures, and possibly Theosophy. He consistently identified as a Christian Spiritualist—even after he was dismissed from Harvard for leading séances. Drawn to Spiritualism’s combination of metaphysical religion and liberal seeking, Willis found a supportive community and a compelling alternative to orthodox Protestantism. Yet Willis’s career challenges our understanding of Spiritualism as esoteric. Willis lectured and preached widely on Spiritualism and ran a Spiritualist church for several years. He wrote in liberal religious periodicals for decades. His private séances were not secret. His allies defended him publicly during the Harvard scandal. Ultimately, Willis’s Spiritualist ministry was counter-esoteric: Although it dealt with abstract ideas, it was never a hidden tradition of religious knowledge.

  • Gideon Elazar, Bar-Ilan University

    From Upland Southeast Asia to the Israeli Periphery: The Conversion and Immigration of the Bene Menashe

    Abstract

    Originally known as the Kuki-Chin-Mizu, or Shinlong and most commonly referred to today as the Bene Menashe (sons of Menashe), originating from the Eastern Indian states of Mizuram and Manipur. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily among the Bene Menashe community Israel, this lecture  deals with the ways in which the group's history of culture loss and social marginalization are reflected in their assimilation into mainstream Jewish and Israeli society. In particular I examine the ways in which the  Bene Menashe's background as recent coverts to Judaism from East Asia, play a central role in the ongoing negotiation between cultural preservation and assimilation. Thus, efforts to integrate into contemporary Israeli society and strategies of culutral preservation contrast with the drive of Israeli cultural agents to emphasize the group's lost tribal heritage, simultaneously emphasizing and discarding their previous ethnic identity. 

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen

Sabbath Observance

Saturday (all day)
Sunday morning

Comments

I'm submitting this under the wire. I didn't have time to update my profile to reflect that I've graduated from the University of Rochester and am currently an independent scholar. | Sabbath includes Friday evening

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes
Schedule Info

Wednesday, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM (June Online Meeting)

Tags

#Conversion#Abolition
spiritualism
esotericism
liberal religion
Unitarianism
Christianity
transcendentalism

Session Identifier

AO26-302