Is Germany Different? A Comment on Hexham and Poewe's Interpretation of German Anticult Policy

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Hubert Seiwert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Actual Policy

The article comments on Irving Hexham and Karla Poewe's analysis of German anticult policy. It argues that the concept of verfassungsfeindlich (hostile to the constitution), which according to Hexham and Poewe is central in German anticult rhetoric, is used only against Scientology, and it does not play any significant role in other cases. The anticult climate in German public and government reactions to minority religions does not appear to be more intense than in many other European countries. It is not convincing, therefore, to explain them with specific German historical experiences. However, religion does hold a lower position on the scale of constitutional rights than in the United States. Freedom of religion may not impinge upon other constitutional rights. Government involvement in anticult activities does not seem to be due to shortcomings of the political or legal system. Rather it reflects deficiencies in actual policy-making and in particular lack of reliable information about new religious movements.

Notes and Comments

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES C. GARAND ◽  
MARCI GLASCOCK LICHTL
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Growth Industry ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Media

In recent years the study of divided government has been a growth industry. Numerous scholars have sought to explain patterns of divided government in the United States, while others have attempted to explore the consequences of the phenomenon. No doubt this scholarly interest in the subject is due in large part to the attention paid by the political media to divided control of the presidency and Congress during the 1980s, as well as the resulting ’gridlock‘ that dominated policy making in Washington during that time period.

The Violence of Inequality: Race and Lobbying in the Politics of Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-93
Author(s):  
Sappho Xenakis ◽  
Leonidas K. Cheliotis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Us

There is no shortage of scholarly and other research on the reciprocal relationship that inequality bears to crime, victimisation and contact with the criminal justice system, both in the specific United States context and beyond. Often, however, inequality has been studied in conjunction with only one of the three phenomena at issue, despite the intersections that arguably obtain between them–and, indeed, between their respective connections with inequality itself. There are, moreover, forms of inequality that have received far less attention in pertinent research than their prevalence and broader significance would appear to merit. The purpose of this chapter is dual: first, to identify ways in which inequality’s linkages to crime, victimisation and criminal justice may relate to one another; and second, to highlight the need for a greater focus than has been placed heretofore on the role of institutionalised inequality of access to the political process, particularly as this works to bias criminal justice policy-making towards the preferences of financially motivated state lobbying groups at the expense of disadvantaged racial minorities. In so doing, the chapter singles out for analysis the US case and, more specifically, engages with key extant explanations of the staggering rise in the use of imprisonment in the country since the 1970s.

“Groaning for the Latter Day”

2021 ◽  
pp. 212-246
Author(s):  
John Howard Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Inequities ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Two new religious movements, Mormonism and Millerism, established a foundation upon which a heretofore invisible, gloomy eschatology that had long occupied the margins of American Protestantism stepped out into the limelight in the late nineteenth century. Gaining popularity during and after the Civil War, dispensationalist premillennialism posited that the world is fundamentally fallen, and that only Christ’s personal intervention could bring on the Millennium. To some among this growing band of radical evangelicals, the United States’ spiritual failings, political corruption, and social inequities meant that it was beyond redemption. Others still clung to the belief in America’s millennial destiny, arguing that only the United States may stand against the Antichrist at the latter day, joining with Christ and his angels in the final assault against Satan in the inevitable Battle of Armageddon.

New Religious Movements in the United States: a Review

1983 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements

Cet article synthétise la littérature sociologique et psychologi que concernant les nouveaux mouvements religieux aux États- Unis. Il accorde une attention particulière aux études basées sur des enquêtes et ayant fait usage d'une procédure standardisée dans la collecte des données.

New Religious Movements in the Long Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
Lydia Willsky-Ciollo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Foreign Missions ◽  
New Religions ◽  
The Impact

This introduction provides a brief overview of the period known as the “long nineteenth century,” which played host to and helped to shape numerous new religious movements. Highlighting the impact and occasional convergence of various political, social, and religious movements and events in both the United States and globally, this essay seeks to show that the examination of new religious movements in the nineteenth century offers a means of applying scholarship in new religious movements to religions that may be defined as “old,” while simultaneously opening new ways of understanding new religions more broadly. In the process, this overview provides background for the articles included in this special issue of Nova Religio, which explore subjects including religious utopianism; gender, politics, and Pentecostalism; Mormonism and foreign missions; and the relationships of new religious movements to visual art.

Shamanism in Motion, Pentecostalism on Hold, and Maya Mormonism

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
C. James MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religion And Ethnicity ◽  
Community Attachments

This article examines how religion, including new religious movements as well as older options in new contexts, combines with ethnic and community attachments in shaping the identity of Guatemalan economic migrants in southern California. While the literature on transnationalism tends to view religion and ethnicity as different though sometimes overlapping means by which migrants seek incorporation into new social and political contexts, the ethnographic evidence presented here suggests more complicated dynamics. These are reflected in the experiences of three migrants from a single indigenous community in Guatemala, each with different backgrounds of faith and ethnic identity: a nominal Catholic in his early 20s who is sympathetic to Mesoamerican shamanism though ambivalent about Maya ethnic identity; a middle-aged Pentecostal Christian who is ambivalent about religious practice and belief in the United States and rejects the Maya ethnic label; and a convert to Mormonism in his 30s who has attenuated his ties to his home community while adopting a broader Maya ethnic identity. To interpret these experiences, I develop an analytical framework which draws upon some of Thomas Csordas’ ideas about religion in globalization but stresses a renewed attention to community as a persistent, if ambivalent and perhaps inherently conflictive, site for identity formation, especially in the context of migration.

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