Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1997, page 90
“slain in spirit” and lay on the floor “up to two hours.” The congregation of the interviewed
leader grew from 600 to “as much as 1300.”
This book is well referenced with sources mainly from within the movement. It does not
seek to bring to bear observers from the fields of religion or psychology from outside the
movement. This exerts a bias in favor of the movement which may disappoint some readers
who seek to place it in the broad context of religious ritual and theology and psychological
research and concepts.
Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.
Center for the Study of the Self
Gloucester, Virginia
The Dynamics of Religious Conversion. V.B. Gillespie. Religious Education
Press, Birmingham, AL, 1991, 261 pages.
This paperback has 10 chapters, a name index, a subject index, and footnotes of source
material on most pages. There is no information about the author‟s credentials, but he
dedicated the book to his students and gave special thanks to a graduate assistant “in the
Department of Church and Ministry,” which suggests a faculty position at a religious
institution.
Conversion is described as a “dramatic religious experience” (p. 3) that can be sudden or
gradual, a shift into a “rich type of identity experience providing ideology, fit, purpose, and
worldview” (p. 1). It occurs in a context that can include “political, social, economic, and
religious centers of a person” and “never takes place outside a cultural context” and is
therefore “of almost infinite variety” (p. 3). Though Christian-based, the text includes
references to conversion from and to most major religions and overcomes what would
otherwise be the disadvantage of too narrow a scope. It examines conversion from both
religious and psychological perspectives, with about equal footnotes and references of
classic and current literature in both fields.
The book is easily read and flows smoothly with a rich assortment of references such as
Augustine and Merton, William James and John Wesley, John Dewey and Paul Tillich, Gandhi
and Freud, Jung, Erikson, and Maslow, demonstrating the author‟s deep understanding and
command of the literature, both classic and current.
Chapter I is a comprehensive introduction to the concept of conversion, followed by a
chapter describing Old and New Testament examples and exploring historical, functional,
developmental, and feminist models for the phenomenon. Chapter 3 delves into
psychological factors and features, its unifying quality, resultant behaviors, and its effect on
the self concept. Chapter 4 focuses on the qualitative nature of change, cognitive and
emotional Chapter 5 explores growth factors, age and personality, individual, social, and
cultural. Chapter 6 concentrates on identity, relying heavily on Erikson and building on the
personal growth theme of Maslow and Tillich‟s insights. Chapter 7 continues this exploration
of the self concept, especially in conflict situations, with references to Erikson‟s biography of
Martin Luther, Allport‟s insights into conflict in personality development, and current
developmental psychology concepts. Chapter 8 describes the quality, role, and effect of
religious instruction on conversion chapter 9 focuses on pastoral counseling. The book ends
with chapter 10, which offers practical advice on managing change in people and in the
church.
Unfortunately, the author sometimes omits risk factors that might point toward negative
experiences. “Religious faith,” he writes, “provides an identity for believers through
ideology” (p. 240). What if the identity is skewed by an ideology that is grossly distorted,
such as Koresh in Waco or Jones in Guyana? “le religious conversion may well be a profound

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1997, page 91
and positive life-changing experience, regrettably it has at times resulted in much suffering,
violence, and death. More on preventing such extremes would have greatly strengthened
this book.
Overall, this is a positive and powerful book-positive because it places religious conversion
on a firm foundation of personality development, identity, and personal growth and
powerful because it buttresses the author‟s knowledge and experience, evident throughout
the book with strong references from classic and current religious leaders and psychological
theorists and researchers. Future editions should include biographical data on the author,
who merits praise and recognition. This book‟s scope and depth, readable style, generous
footnoting and referencing more than compensate for the negatives reported here. If you
could have but one book on the subject of religious conversion, this is it. Highly
recommended.
Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.
Center for the Study of the Self
Gloucester, Virginia
The Prophet’s Children: Travels on the American Left. Tim Wohlforth.
Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1994, 332 pages.
Groups that make extensive use of unethical influencing techniques proliferate on both the
extreme left and right of politics. Yet, relatively little has been published that explores the
world of political cults, and examines both what they have in common with more
mainstream groups and what sets them apart. A partial exception is this enormously
readable book by Tim Wohlforth. His book explicitly addresses political cultism only in
passing nonetheless, it is an important contribution to debate among political activists
concerned with the need for political action on the one hand (democratic life would be
impossible without such a commitment from many people), and the need to avoid the
fanaticism and factionalism of groups such as those described in this book.
Wohlforth is a well-known figure in socialist politics. He became involved in the Trotskyist
movement in the United States as a young man in the 1950s, and remained active, usually
at a senior level, in one group or another until the 1980s. At one point, he led his own
group, the Workers League, which was associated internationally with one of the most
interesting characters in this book-Gerry Healy, leader of the Workers Revolutionary Party
(WRP) in Britain. The group counted among its members such luminaries as Vanessa
Redgrave, and the group had ambitions more than equal to its high media profile.
The book‟s fide is derived from Isaac Deutscher‟s masterful biography of Leon Trotsky, co-
leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which canonized the foremost opponent of Stalin as
a prophet, eventually outcast from the Communist movement and, in the ultimate act of
political censorship, murdered in 1940 by a Stalinist agent in Mexico. As Wohlforth makes
clear, this martyrdom helped Trotskyist groups acquire a moral authority as democratic
opponents of totalitarianism, an authority which grew after the Hungarian Revolution was
suppressed by Russian tanks in 1956 and traditional Stalinism began its unwilling slide
toward the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Nevertheless, as shown in this book,
Trotskyist groups have by and large reproduced within their ranks the same
authoritarianism they criticized so well in Stalinism. Although the book is laced with humor
(oddball groups seem to attract some wonderfully eccentric characters), this wider paradox
means that the predominant tone is one of tragedy and loss.
This book is a fascinating record of life on the far left during the McCarthy period, the
trauma and exhilaration of the an6-Vietnam War protests, and the conservative era which
set in during the mid-1970s. Throughout that period no shortage of minuscule grouplets
became convinced that they, and they alone, had the definitive answer to society‟s