Sex and New Religions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Goodwin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Sexual Practice ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
New Religions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual Experimentation

New religions have historically been sites of sexual experimentation, and popular imaginings of emergent and unconventional religions usually include the assumption that members engage in transgressive sexual practices. It is surprising, then, that so few scholars of new religions have focused on sexuality. In this chapter, I consider the role of sexual practice, sexual allegations, and sexuality studies in the consideration of new religions. I propose that sex both shapes and haunts new religions. Because sexuality studies attends to embodied difference and the social construction of sexual pathology, the field can and should inform theoretically rigorous scholarship of new religious movements.

The Role of Women in the Development of New Religious Movements in Latin America

2021 ◽  
pp. 346-364
Author(s):  
Angel Belzunegui Eraso ◽  
David Dueñas Cid
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Latin American Countries

In this chapter we focus on the growth of “new religions” and new religious movements in Latin America and attempt to find explanations for this growth. Although other explanations for the increase in religious plurality exist, we focus on the role of women in this development. The expansion of movements such as Pentecostalism is challenging the centrality of Catholicism in many Latin American countries. Basically, we therefore aim to answer the following question: Why has Pentecostalism grown so much in some Latin American countries while Catholicism has experienced a certain decline? One possible explanation for this is the role of women in this expansion, which has fostered greater social cohesion within families and communities. Pentecostalism has led to a certain empowerment of the women living in precarious conditions, affording them greater visibility and importance within their communities and giving them a role in the re-education of behaviours that are rooted in male domination.

The Role of Women in the Development of New Religious Movements in Latin America

2016 ◽  
pp. 224-247
Author(s):  
Angel Belzunegui Eraso ◽  
David Dueñas Cid
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Latin American Countries

In this chapter we focus on the growth of “new religions” and new religious movements in Latin America and attempt to find explanations for this growth. Although other explanations for the increase in religious plurality exist, we focus on the role of women in this development. The expansion of movements such as Pentecostalism is challenging the centrality of Catholicism in many Latin American countries. Basically, we therefore aim to answer the following question: Why has Pentecostalism grown so much in some Latin American countries while Catholicism has experienced a certain decline? One possible explanation for this is the role of women in this expansion, which has fostered greater social cohesion within families and communities. Pentecostalism has led to a certain empowerment of the women living in precarious conditions, affording them greater visibility and importance within their communities and giving them a role in the re-education of behaviours that are rooted in male domination.

Children in New Religions

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-206
Author(s):  
Amanda Van Eck Duymaer van Twist
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
New Religions ◽  
The Social

New religious movements (NRMs) often have a marginal position in society, for a variety of reasons. This is generally accepted within diverse democracies as long as the groups consist of law-abiding consenting adults. But once children are involved the social dynamics are likely to change as a result of contested duties of care. Parents have a right to raise their children within their religion, while state authorities have a responsibility towards minors within their jurisdiction. This article highlights some of the main concerns about children in NRMs, focusing on teachings and practices relating to health and education within movements that chose relative seclusion.

Rethinking New Religious Movements beyond a Social Problems Paradigm

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Feltmate
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
New Religions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Heaven's Gate

This article argues that the field of new religions studies is driven in large part by a paradigm based in the assumption that new religious movements are comparable because they are social problems. It outlines a social problems paradigm drawing upon the work of Joel Best, illustrates how the paradigm is taught in textbooks on new religious movements, shows its value through the recent work of Stuart A. Wright and Susan J. Palmer, and offers a criticism of the paradigm through Benjamin E. Zeller’s study of Heaven’s Gate. The question of what makes each movement and its study significant is raised and challenged. The article concludes with reasons for moving new religions scholarship beyond the social problems paradigm in favor of a paradigm of social possibilities.

scholarly journals The Anti-Cult Discourse of Print Media: Problematization of the Role of the Anti-Cult Movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Vladimir Martinovich
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
The Press ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Republic

This article is devoted to analyzing the anti-cult discourse in the Republic of Belarus in 1996–2000. The print media and the anti-cult movement are selected as objects of research because of their significant role in this discourse. The main features when it comes to covering the topic of new religious movements by both actors are investigated by method of standardized survey of texts on a sample of 521 anti-cult articles from 57 Belarusian newspapers. The range of variability of religious organizations identified as new religious movements is revealed, and their distribution by type of structure is analyzed. The results are compared to the estimated population universe of new religions of the Republic of Belarus. The frequency of their mentions is established, as well as a group of organizations that are criticized by actors, but have never operated in the country. The range of variability and frequency of use of special terminology is disclosed. The influence of the anti-cult discourse on changes in the evaluative connotations of special terms is analyzed. Different facts from the history and modern practice of the anti-cult movement are examined, all of which are particularly important in terms of understanding the specifics of its representatives’ attitudes towards non-specialized print media. The ambivalent nature of the coverage of the topic of new religions in the press and its influence on the anti-cult movement is noted. Special care is taken defining the place and role of print media and the anti-cult movement in the complex system of society’s anti-cult discourse. Based on the data obtained, the dominant theory of the unilateral influence of the anti-cult movement on print media is criticized. An alternative hypothesis on the complex genesis of anti-cult discourse is proposed, in which the specifics of its main features as perceived by each subject are influenced by many different factors. Two methodological problems related to searching for and recording materials relevant for analyzing this discourse and verifying this theory are identified.

The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
New Religions ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
Book Award ◽  
The Status ◽  
Social Scientific

The first edition ofThe Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movementsappeared in early 2004. At the time, it was a much-needed overview of a rapidly-expanding area of study; it received recognition in the form of aChoicebook award. The second edition brings this task up to date. In addition to updating most of the original topics, the new edition takes in more topics by expanding the volume from 22 to 32 chapters, and enlarges the scope of the book by doubling the number of contributors from outside of North America. Following an introductory section devoted to social-scientific approaches to New Religious Movements (NRMs), the second section focuses on what has been uppermost in the minds of the general public, namely the controversies that have surrounded these groups. The third section examines certain themes in the study of NRMs, such as the status of children and women in such movements. The fourth section presents religious studies approaches by looking at NRM mythologies, rituals and the like. The final section covers the subfields that have grown out of NRM studies and become specializations in their own right, from the study of modern Paganism to the study of the New Age Movement. Finally, the present volume has a thematic focus; readers interested in specific NRMs are advised to consult the second edition of James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen’s edited volume,Controversial New Religions(Oxford University Press 2014).

scholarly journals Play! A Special Issue

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110136
Author(s):  
Caroline Bem ◽  
Susanna Paasonen
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Sexuality Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sexual Representation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual Play ◽  
Sex Toys

Sexuality, as it relates to video games in particular, has received increasing attention over the past decade in studies of games and play, even as the notion of play remains relatively underexplored within sexuality studies. This special issue asks what shift is effected when sexual representation, networked forms of connecting and relating, and the experimentation with sexual likes are approached through the notion of play. Bringing together the notions of sex and play, it both foregrounds the role of experimentation and improvisation in sexual pleasure practices and inquires after the rules and norms that these are embedded in. Contributors to this special issue combine the study of sexuality with diverse theoretical conceptions of play in order to explore the entanglements of affect, cognition, and the somatic in sexual lives, broadening current understandings of how these are lived through repetitive routines and improvisational sprees alike. In so doing, they focus on the specific sites and scenes where sexual play unfolds (from constantly morphing online pornographic archives to on- and offline party spaces, dungeons, and saunas), while also attending to the props and objects of play (from sex toys and orgasmic vocalizations to sensation-enhancing chemicals and pornographic imageries), as well as the social and technological settings where these activities occur. This introduction offers a brief overview of the rationale of thinking sex in and as play, before presenting the articles that make up this special issue.

scholarly journals The Closed Religious Community: the Strategy of Forming аnd the Principles of Functioning

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-100
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Riazanova
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
World View ◽  
Popular Religion ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Total Community

The point of the author’s research interest is mechanisms for the formation of a private religious community on the example of the Intersession brotherhood. A group of believers was emerged as part of the revival of the Orthodox life of the Kama region, but transformed into specific organization with features of popular religion, new religious movements and so-called “historical sects.” Author reconstructs the history of the community involving elements of the biographical method. The study is based on interviews and correspondence with former members of the community, close people of the residents of the commune, as well as analysis of the materials of the closed group on the social network, some audio of the groups’ seminars, photocopies of the working notebooks of the group and a series of photographs made by the believers. The investigation is based on the theoretical constructions of E. Goffman and the concept of total community. Intersession brotherhood appears as a community with the features of totality – territorial and communication closure of the residents, their employment in internal jobs, perception of the group as a family. Lack of privacy is combined with the presence of “mother-child” connection to the leader. The practice of naming for adults, the creation of new marriages, participation in gender-oriented councils create a special micro-environment with the unification of the world view. The system of privileges for advanced residents is supplemented by a developed system of fines. It makes possible to speak about special tools that lead to a change of values, a narrowing of the set of social roles and a reduction of critical thinking.

scholarly journals Freedom for me and, perhaps, you – but surely not them? Attitudes to new religions in contemporary democracies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Barker
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
European Convention ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
Freedom Of Belief

Throughout history, new religious movements (NRMs) have been treated with suspicion and fear. Although contemporary democracies do not throw members of NRMs to the lions or burn them at the stake, they have ways and means of making it clear that pluralism and freedom of religion have their limits. The limits to pluralism are evident enough in countries such as Saudi Arabia or North Korea that have regimes stipulating that citizens must adhere exclusively to their one and only True religion or ideology. Limitations to pluralism have also been manifest in countries such as Northern Nigeria, Sri Lanka or Myanmar (Burma), where terrorists have used violence to eliminate religions other than their own. Even otherwise peaceful democracies – that have signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and other statements affirming freedom of belief (and non-belief) for all – can discriminate against religions, especially the new religious movements in their midst, and this they do in a variety of ways [Richardson 1994; Lindholm 2004; Kirkham 2013]. This paper outlines, from the perspective of a sociologist of religion, some of the ways in which such attitudes toward, and treatment of, NRMs can demonstrate more subtle, but nevertheless marked and serious limitations to freedom, even in societies that pride themselves on their progressive and inclusive approach to diversity.

Psychology and New Religious Movements

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Saliba
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Fourth Edition ◽  
Statistical Manual ◽  
Positive Approach ◽  
Diagnostic And Statistical Manual ◽  
New Religions

In “Psychology and the New Religious Movements,” John Saliba begins by contrasting psychology/psychiatry’s traditional antagonism toward religion with the newer, more positive approach reflected in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994). After a brief survey of relevant studies, he then explores the problems involved with psychological approaches to members of new religions through the example of studies of followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh. He concludes by outlining a series of unresolved issues regarding the psychology of NRM membership.

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