ABSTRACT
The history of religion and sexuality in the United States may best be understood as a history of narratives—sometimes competing, sometimes not—that are as personal as they are political. Let me explain what I mean by starting with two narratives of conversion—one from a white Calvinist woman living in colonial New England and the other from a work of fiction set in 1930s Harlem recounting the conversion of a black Pentecostal teenager. Both narratives demonstrate the power of religious affect. Both suggest the erotic potential of religious experience.
