Public Confessions
The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics
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Public Confessions
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Narrated by:
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Vayu O'Donnell
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By:
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Rebecca L. Davis
About this listen
Personal reinvention is a core part of the human condition. Yet in the mid-twentieth century, certain private religious choices became lightning rods for public outrage and debate.
Public Confessions reveals the controversial religious conversions that shaped modern America. Rebecca L. Davis explains why the new faiths of notable figures including Clare Boothe Luce, Whittaker Chambers, Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Colson, and others riveted the American public. Unconventional religious choices charted new ways of declaring an "authentic" identity amid escalating Cold War fears of brainwashing and coercion. Facing pressure to celebrate a specific vision of Americanism, these converts variously attracted and repelled members of the American public. Whether the act of changing religions was viewed as selfish, reckless, or even unpatriotic, it provoked controversies that ultimately transformed American politics.
Public Confessions takes intimate history to its widest relevance, and in so doing, makes you see yourself in both the private and public stories it tells.
©2021 by Rebecca L. Davis. (P)2021 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control - sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very thorough
- By Ellen Gilmartin on 10-12-19
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Freethinkers
- A History of American Secularism
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than 200 years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential history of free thought in America
- By Clark Savage on 11-27-17
By: Susan Jacoby
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The Fire Is upon Us
- James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America
- By: Nicholas Buccola
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 153
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Story5 out of 5 stars 131
On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America's most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was "the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro", and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola's The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sadly, the story is timeless.
- By Edward P. Cerne on 01-17-20
By: Nicholas Buccola
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The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
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Speak of the Devil
- How the Satanic Temple Is Changing the Way We Talk About Religion
- By: Joseph P. Laycock
- Narrated by: Thomas Allen
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 368
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 322
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Story5 out of 5 stars 323
Speak of the Devil is the first book-length study of The Satanic Temple. Joseph Laycock, a scholar of new religious movements, contends that the emergence of "political Satanism" marks a significant moment in American religious history that will have a lasting impact on how Americans frame debates about religious freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book about a misunderstood topic!
- By Deena M Engelmann on 09-24-20
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The Long March
- How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America
- By: Roger Kimball
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
The architects of America's cultural revolution of the 1960s were Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and celebrated figures like Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, and Susan Sontag. In examining the lives and works of those who spoke for the 1960s, Roger Kimball conceives a series of cautionary tales, an annotated guidebook of wrong turns, dead-ends, and blind alleys.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Long March
- By Suzanne on 05-16-06
By: Roger Kimball
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The Craft
- How the Freemasons Made the Modern World
- By: John Dickie
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 200
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best book about Freemasonry out there.
- By Isaac Pea on 02-19-21
By: John Dickie
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Strange Gods
- A Secular History of Conversion
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
In this original and riveting exploration, Susan Jacoby argues that conversion - especially in the free American "religious marketplace" - is too often viewed only within the conventional and simplistic narrative of personal reinvention and divine grace. Instead, the author places conversions within a secular social context that has, at various times, included the force of a unified church and state, desire for upward economic mobility, and interreligious marriage.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Our own fabrications
- By David E. Felker on 01-03-17
By: Susan Jacoby
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The Sword and the Shield
- The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
- By: Peniel E. Joseph
- Narrated by: Zeno Robinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 393
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 333
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Story5 out of 5 stars 331
To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals. The struggle for Black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Helpful contribution to civil rights history.
- By Adam Shields on 05-13-20
By: Peniel E. Joseph
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What Were We Thinking
- A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era
- By: Carlos Lozada
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 154
It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Useful book
- By Kindle Customer on 11-22-20
By: Carlos Lozada
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Unholy
- Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump
- By: Sarah Posner
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 298
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 247
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 244
In this taut inquiry, Posner digs deep into the radical history of the religious right to reveal how issues of race and xenophobia have always been at the movement’s core, and how religion often cloaked anxieties about perceived threats to a white, Christian America. Fueled by an antidemocratic impulse, and united by this narrative of reverse victimization, the religious right and the alt-right support a common agenda.
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5 out of 5 stars
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How We Got Here
- By D. Sooley on 06-16-20
By: Sarah Posner
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It's Dangerous to Believe
- Religious Freedom and Its Enemies
- By: Mary Eberstadt
- Narrated by: Margaret Winston
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
In It's Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith - especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs - face widespread discrimination in today's increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not about Freedom of Religion
- By A. A. Gunnarsdóttir on 01-29-19
By: Mary Eberstadt
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White Too Long
- The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 609
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 511
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Story5 out of 5 stars 508
“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for White Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The scourge of White Christian Supremacy
- By Buretto on 07-30-20
By: Robert P. Jones
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A Pope and a President
- John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century
- By: Paul Kengor
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 23 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 320
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 279
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Story5 out of 5 stars 279
Even as historians credit Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the end of the Cold War, they have failed to recognize the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the two leaders. cclaimed scholar and best-selling author Paul Kengor changes that. In this fascinating book, he reveals a singular bond - which included a spiritual connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president - that drove the two men to confront what they knew to be the great evil of the 20th century: Soviet communism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A wonderful account of two amazing lives and their impact on us all!
- By Lesia Petrizio on 01-25-18
By: Paul Kengor
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The Trouble with White Women
- A Counterhistory of Feminism
- By: Kyla Schuller, Brittney Cooper - foreword
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Mela Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story5 out of 5 stars 67
Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their White feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves. In The Trouble with White Women, Schuller brings to life the 200-year counter-history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against White feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Reframes the past by today’s standards
- By Dianne on 02-21-23
By: Kyla Schuller, and others
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Liberal Fascism
- The Secret History of the American Left
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,183
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 767
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 767
"Fascists", "Brownshirts", "jackbooted stormtroopers" - such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book
- By Mark on 05-10-08
By: Jonah Goldberg
What listeners say about Public Confessions
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- DVHCMH
- 02-08-22
A rather cynical account
This audiobook was for the most part interesting and well narrated, but the author takes rather a cynical view of religion generally and of the conversion experiences she discusses. I think she gets a lot wrong in her discussion of the interplay between religion and politics. I am particularly troubled by her discussion of Chuck Colson, whose prison ministries have done an incalculable amount of good for prisoners and their families.
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