Paul Christopher Johnson is professor of history and Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan and editor of Comparative Studies of Society and History. His books include Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé and Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa.

"Johnson has created a groundbreaking, significant, and provocative addition to scholarship on how people conceive of religion. And... he is also the first in religious studies to broach the neglected subject of agency—which should be a key term in the academic study of religion—in a book-length study... Any writers who embark on future forays into the subject of agency and religion will be fortunate to have Johnson’s Automatic Religion as a resource with which they can start."

Paul Christopher Johnson is professor of history and Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan and editor of Comparative Studies of Society and History. His books include Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé and Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa.

"Johnson has created a groundbreaking, significant, and provocative addition to scholarship on how people conceive of religion. And... he is also the first in religious studies to broach the neglected subject of agency—which should be a key term in the academic study of religion—in a book-length study... Any writers who embark on future forays into the subject of agency and religion will be fortunate to have Johnson’s Automatic Religion as a resource with which they can start."

Paul Christopher Johnson is professor of history and Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan and editor of Comparative Studies of Society and History. His books include Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé and Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa.

"Johnson has created a groundbreaking, significant, and provocative addition to scholarship on how people conceive of religion. And... he is also the first in religious studies to broach the neglected subject of agency—which should be a key term in the academic study of religion—in a book-length study... Any writers who embark on future forays into the subject of agency and religion will be fortunate to have Johnson’s Automatic Religion as a resource with which they can start."