I do not intend to provide full book reviews here at this time, but I do think it is nonetheless appropriate to inform our readers about two new books that discuss American Orthodox converts. Studying converts was the area of my own dissertation research (which I’m editing in order to get that published some day!) and I hope it will be an area of interest to our readers as well. First, what spurred this posting was receiving the following announcement:
Dn. Gregory Roeber has co-authored a book with Mickey L. Mattox. Mattox presents why he converted to Roman Catholicism and Roeber why he converted to Orthodoxy. Both discuss it within the context of what Lutherans see in those churches (as both are former Lutherans) and what the larger theological issues are. This event will happen March 8th at Marquette University.
Likewise, last fall Amy Slagle published The Eastern Church in the Spiritual Marketplace: American Conversions to Orthodox Christianity which is an ethnographic study of converts from parishes in the Pittsburgh area and Mississippi. I have read this and would highly recommend it.
I believe they have relevance for those of us looking at this question historically (or from any other vantage point) and hopefully these books will be of interest to many of our readers.
