Stories of religious conversion have been told for millennia. Yet many prominent figures such as Ronald Reagan, Hillary Clinton, and Rick Perry have also used stories of their change from one political worldview to another as a communication strategy aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the public. This book is about political conversion stories in public discourse, in their evolution from and interactions with religion. From a historical perspective, it charts the development of conversion narratives from religious contexts to their contemporary applications as specifically political messages. Since these narratives continue to be used in the culture wars, this book examines several related autobiographies that contributed to the use of this strategy in contemporary U.S. politics. Each case shows how shifts during the postwar period called for conversion texts under varying guises, and illustrates how and why the majority of these stories have been of conversions from the ideological left to the right. Examining political conversion as a form of public persuasion, Political Conversion ultimately provides insight into what these types of civic-religious stories mean for democratic communication and communities.

This book approaches the concept of tenkō (political conversion) as a response to the global crisis of interwar modernity, as opposed to a distinctly Japanese experience in postwar debates. Tenkō connotes the expressions of ideological conversion performed by members of the Japanese Communist Party, starting in 1933, whereby they renounced Marxism and expressed support for Japan’s imperial expansion on the continent. Although tenkō has a significant presence in Japan’s postwar intellectual and literary histories, this contributed volume is one of the first in Englishm language scholarship to approach the phenomenon. International perspectives from both established and early career scholars show tenkō as inseparable from the global politics of empire, deeply marked by an age of mechanical reproduction, mediatization and the manipulation of language. Chapters draw on a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies, from political theory and intellectual history to literary studies. In this way, tenkō is explored through new conceptual and analytical frameworks, including questions of gender and the role of affect in politics, implications that render the phenomenon distinctly relevant to the contemporary moment. Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan will prove a valuable resource to students and scholars of Japanese and East Asian history, literature and politics.

Using reflections, exercises, and suggestions for prayer and group sharing, this practical book explores five forms of conversion, the seven dynamics that structure the process and the significance for conversion of sacramental worship.

This volume considers the concept of conversion as a tool for understanding transformations to modernity. It examines conversions to modernity within the Ottoman domain, India, China, and Japan as a reaction to the pressures of colonialism and imperialism.

This book focuses on the philosophy, politics and impact of the 'New Right' which originated in France and has since influenced activism, ideology and policy in a number of European countries. This book explores the idea that revolutionaries do not necessarily need to come from the left, nor use arms in order to overturn liberal democracy. In the post-World War Two era, the extremists of the revolutionary right took three different paths: 1) parliamentary; 2) extra-parliamentary; and 3) metapolitical. The New Right (nouvelle droite – ND in France) took the metapolitical path, but that did not mean it abandoned its revolutionary desire to smash liberal democracy throughout Europe. The book examines four interpretations of the New Right. These interpretations include the following: 1) The New Right as a fascist or quasi-fascist movement; 2) The New Right as a challenge to the traditional right-left dichotomy, which has structured European political debates for more than 200 years; 3) The New Right as an alternative modernist movement, which rejects liberal and socialist narratives of modernity; accepts the technical but not political or cultural effects of modernity; and longs for a pan-European political framework abolishing liberal multiculturalism and privileging ethnic dominance of so-called original Europeans; and 4) The New Right as a variant of political religion and conversionary processes. The book concludes by analysing the positions, cultural and political impact, and relationship to democracy of the New Right. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of racism, fascism, extremism, European politics, French politics and contemporary political theory.

Pentecostal scholars from four continents here offer constructive theological proposals focusing on the role of the Holy Spirit in diverse cultural and religious contexts. Typical Pentecostal topics Spirit-baptism, healing, and other charisms are interwoven with such themes as post-colonialism, religious plurality, racial diversity, and cultural heritage.

The Writing of Innocence explores the topic of innocence and the peculiar relationship to Christianity in the writing of Maurice Blanchot. Its starting point is that innocence is not a condition relegated to a mythical past but rather one resulting from the construction of the subject in and through language. Hence, we don't lose innocence; instead, we are lost by innocence. It is an excess, not a lack. This inverted notion of innocence raises new ethical and political issues that Aïcha Liviana Messina unfolds through vigorous re-readings of a series of biblical motifs, including law, grace, and apocalypse. The closing chapter turns to the convergences and divergences between Jean-Luc Nancy's and Blanchot's understandings of the deconstruction of Christianity. With a foreword by philosopher Serge Margel, The Writing of Innocence offers a fresh perspective on Blanchot's writings in general and on his dialogue with Hegel in particular. While staging innocence in its philosophical and literary dimensions, The Writing of Innocence provides singular readings of works by Kierkegaard, Agamben, Derrida, Nancy, Camus, Hugo, and Kafka.

Process, Praxis, and Transcendence is a North American philosophy of liberation that defends both metaphysics and philosophy of religion. The book moves from an existential phenomenology of the knowing and choosing subject through affirmation of a processive and liberating Christ to a critique and overcoming of neo-imperialism. Its ultimate theme explores what the appropriate theory and praxis of liberation is for those of us living "in the center of the empire" in North America and Western Europe.

The spread of Islam and the process of Islamisation (meaning both conversion to Islam and the adoption of Muslim culture) is explored in the twenty-four chapters of this volume. Taking a comparative perspective, both the historical trajectory of Islamisation and the methodological problems in its study are addressed, with coverage moving from Africa to China and from the seventh century to the start of the colonial period in 1800. Key questions are addressed. What is meant by Islamisation? How far was the spread of Islam as a religion bound up with the spread of Muslim culture? To what extent are Islamisation and conversion parallel processes? How is Islamisation connected to Arabisation? What role do vernacular Muslim languages play in the promotion of Muslim culture? The broad, comparative perspective allows readers to develop a thorough understanding of the process of Islamisation over eleven centuries of its history.

This book investigates the interplay of the recent transformation of working life and the growing appeal of political right-wing populism and extremism in Europe. It explores the individual and collective reactions and the strategies people develop in order to come to terms with socio-economic change. It raises the question of whether, and to what extent, changes in the employment system and in working life contribute to making people receptive to xenophobia, nationalism and racism. Based on an eight country study using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this volume makes a significant contribution to the deeper understanding of the subjective reactions to socio-economic change and its political reverberations.