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? [...]
Mullen: This missionary effort I’ve been talking about creates an obligation to choose your religion. It works like this: Somebody has a religious affiliation, and then an encounter with a missionary or person of a different background makes them realize that there are other options out there. Those other options might not be appealing, but the presence of all those different options creates a sense that if you stay in the religion to which you’re born, you’re staying in it because you’ve made a choice to remain affiliated and reject other options.
All of this is unequally distributed. If you’re a Christian growing up in a place with a lot of Christians, you’re much less likely to be affected by the knowledge that there are other options available to you. For instance: If you’re a Catholic in a Catholic enclave, then your religion is closely related to your ethnicity and neighborhood. But if, for instance, you’re an American Jew, you’re probably in a very small minority. You’re almost certain to be approached by Christian missionaries. So there’s a kind of asymmetric experience here. [...]
Religion is a kind of perpetual-motion machine. For many people, it brings stability, but it brings destabilization as well. While there is freedom in that system of American religion, I think it also comes at a tremendous cost.
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