Conversion

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), religious conversion is a fundamental human right. Not all religious traditions accept this. Some allow conversion only to their religion but deny it to their own members. Some distinguish between voluntary conversion, which they accept, and organized proselytism, to which they object. Some accept it as a fact, which they regret, and others threaten converts with the death penalty for leaving the religion into which they were born. However, there are many kinds of conversion: philosophical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, and there are many kinds of religious conversion. The 32nd Conference of Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University in 2011 addressed this complex issue from religious, legal, philosophical and theological perspectives.