WHY INTERMARRIAGE IS THREATENING TO SOME

Susan Jacoby, Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2016) ("Whatever the proportions of religious toleration and religious persecution at any point in history, it is never possible to eradicate the evidence that people of very different beliefs, given sufficient propinquity and proximity, often engage in sexual relations and adopt different religious loyalties as a result of those unions. 'Ethnic cleansing' can never fully succeed, because it is impossible to kill or exile everyone before men and women leave their unique genetic mark on the future. Absent force and violence, intermarriage has always been one of the most important secular causes of religious conversion. I say 'one of' only because mixed marriages have also been entangled, in proportions that vary greatly according to the level of tolerance within a society, with purposeful social climbing that leads to better financial and educational opportunities. Intermarriage really is a threat to unity of faith as well as purity of blood, if one cares about either." Id. at 99. "The issues raised today by either the frequency or the scarcity of religious conversions in the United States and Europe may be of critical concern to religious institutions, but they are luxury problems insofar as the progress of human liberty is concerned. Even from a devoutly religious standpoint, does it really matter if God appears dead to some, as long as others are perfectly free to reach a different conclusion? Are conversions of convenience--motivated more by some social need, including the desire for community, than by any deep spiritual conviction--harmful to either society or individuals? Can conscious and conscientious secular humanism offer coherent moral precepts that will be recognized in the public square by those who insist that only religion can serve as a basis for both private and public morality? How are we to educate children about the historical role of religion when fewer and fewer people are being exposed to a  serious education in their own faith--much less any other? None of these questions, debated with varying degrees of respect and rancor by theologians, politicians, and academics, mean as much to people's daily lives as persecution for choosing the wrong faith once did in the West, and still does in societies where people must continue to live with the knowledge that they may be thrown out of their homes, imprisoned, tortured, raped, or murdered for what they believe--or do not believe--about God!" "Although knowledge about religion, encompassing differences as well as commonalities among faiths, is essential from a cultural standpoint, concentration on the fine points of dogma does little to shed light on more important issues involving ethical values. . . . I am certain, though, that responsible citizenship in every democracy, on every continent, require knowledge and understanding of the long, tortuous battle for the liberation of men and women from religious compulsion. Both the modern American dream of absolute religious tolerance and the more limited ideal of toleration that emerged from the carnage of seventeenth-century Europe remain just that--dreams--in societies blind to the vision of a free conscience as a human right." Id. at 395-396.).