“What if it is actually true?”

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 74-100
Author(s):  
Joanna Urbańczyk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
General Characteristic ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Common Elements ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Generational Shift ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

The Siberian community of Vissarion (Last Testament Church) is a new religious movement established at the beginning of 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among its members (estimated at several thousand), who come mainly from Russia and former Soviet republics, there is also a large group of Vissarion’s followers from Eastern Europe. In this article, I present a general characteristic of the movement and four stories from adherents. I indicate common elements in their narratives of coming to and living in the community, such as belief in continuing spiritual development, the importance of living close to nature, the focus on feelings, and concern for future generations. I also point out a “generational shift” among members of the importance of the breakup of the Soviet Union and suggest the need for scholarly consideration of its decreasing significance for adherents of new religious movements in the post-socialist region.

scholarly journals New Religious Movements: A Bibliographic Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Zeller
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movement ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Book Series ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Academic Study

This article provides a map to the bibliographic landscape for the academic study of new religious movements (NRMs). The article first considers the development of the scholarly subfield, including debates over the nature of the concept of ‘new religious movement’ and recent scholarship on the nature of this key term, as well as the most salient research areas and concepts. Next, the article introduces the most important bibliographic materials in the subfield: journals focusing on the study of NRMs, textbooks and reference volumes, book series and monographic literature, online resources, and primary sources.

scholarly journals The articulation between evolutionism and creationism in New Religious Movements: Two South American case studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-194
Author(s):  
Vitor Campanha
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
New Age ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Internet ◽  
South American ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
American Case

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how certain religious perspectives present nuances between the concepts of creation and evolution. Although public debate characterizes them as polarized concepts, it is important to understand how contemporary religious expressions resignify them and create arrangements in which biological evolution and creation by the intervention of higher beings are presented in a continuum. It begins with a brief introduction on the relations and reframing of Science concepts in the New Religious Movements along with New Age thinking. Then we have two examples which allows us to analyze this evolution-creation synthesis. First, I will present a South American New Religious Movement that promotes bricolage between the New Age, Roman Catholicism and contacts with extraterrestrials. Then, I will analyze the thoughts of a Brazilian medium who disseminates lectures along with the channeling of ETs in videos on the internet, mixing the elements of ufology with cosmologies of Brazilian religions such as Kardecist spiritism and Umbanda. These two examples share the idea of ​​the intervention of extraterrestrial or superior beings in human evolution, thus, articulating the concepts of evolution and creation. Therefore, in these arrangements it is possible to observe an inseparability between spiritual and material, evolution and creation or biological and spiritual evolution.

scholarly journals Armed conflict and population displacement as drivers of the evolution and dispersal ofMycobacterium tuberculosis

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (48) ◽  
pp. 13881-13886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vegard Eldholm ◽  
John H.-O. Pettersson ◽  
Ola B. Brynildsrud ◽  
Andrew Kitchen ◽  
Erik Michael Rasmussen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Resistance Mutations ◽  
Population Displacement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Asian Clade ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
Lineage 2 ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

The “Beijing”Mycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb) lineage 2 (L2) is spreading globally and has been associated with accelerated disease progression and increased antibiotic resistance. Here we performed a phylodynamic reconstruction of one of the L2 sublineages, the central Asian clade (CAC), which has recently spread to western Europe. We find that recent historical events have contributed to the evolution and dispersal of the CAC. Our timing estimates indicate that the clade was likely introduced to Afghanistan during the 1979–1989 Soviet–Afghan war and spread further after population displacement in the wake of the American invasion in 2001. We also find that drug resistance mutations accumulated on a massive scale inMtbisolates from former Soviet republics after the fall of the Soviet Union, a pattern that was not observed in CAC isolates from Afghanistan. Our results underscore the detrimental effects of political instability and population displacement on tuberculosis control and demonstrate the power of phylodynamic methods in exploring bacterial evolution in space and time.

scholarly journals Sergey Rumjancev, “Патриотический примордиализм”: воображение этничности и нации в постсоветском Азербайджане. Социологическое эссе / “Patriotic Primordialism:” Imagining Ethnicity and Nation in Post-Soviet Azerbaidzhan. A Sociological Essay

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-110
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Republic ◽  
Soviet Socialist Republic ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

The last years of existence of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, as well as the two Post-Soviet decades, became the time of invariable interest and steadfast attention to the phenomena of ethnic and national identity. The growth of this interest, of course, cannot be a great surprise. The collapse of the Soviet Union, for the majority of Azerbaijanis, including (but not only) politicians, experts and social researchers, was directly connected with the nationalistic movements in the former Soviet republics.

Significance and Purpose of the “Anti-Cult Movement” in Facilitating Disaffiliation From a New Religious Movement

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-244
Author(s):  
Dominiek Coates
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Identity Function ◽  
Study Report ◽  
The Way

The current study investigates the experiences of 23 former members of New Religious Movements (NRMs) or cults with anti-cult practices and discourses in Australia. All the participants in this study report some involvement with anti-cult practices and/or engagement with brainwashing explanations of NRM affiliations; however, they describe the significance of these anti-cult resources for their sense of self in different ways. The findings suggests that for some former members anti-cult resources, in particular the brainwashing discourses, merely served as a convenient account through which to explain or justify their former NRM affiliation and manage embarrassment or possible stigmatisation, while for others these resources served an important identity function at a time of loss and uncertainty. These participants describe their involvement with anti-cult practices as a much needed identity resource in which they could anchor their sense of self following the dramatic loss of identity associated with NRM disaffiliation. To make sense of the variations in the way in which anti-cult practices and discourses informed the participants” sense of self Symbolic Interactionist understandings of the self are applied.

scholarly journals The Unificationist Funerary Tradition

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 258
Author(s):  
Lukas Pokorny
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
South Korean

This paper explores the distinctive funerary tradition of the Unification Movement, a globally active South Korean new religious movement founded in 1954. Its funerary tradition centres on the so-called Seonghwa (formerly Seunghwa) Ceremony, which was introduced in January 1984. The paper traces the doctrinal context and the origin narrative before delineating the ceremony itself in its Korean expression, including its preparatory and follow-up stages, as well as its short-lived adaptation for non-members. Notably, with more and more first-generation adherents passing away—most visibly in respect to the leadership culminating in the Seonghwa Ceremony of the founder himself in 2012—the funerary tradition has become an increasingly conspicuous property of the Unificationist lifeworld. This paper adds to a largely uncharted area in the study of East Asian new religious movements, namely the examination of their distinctive deathscapes, as spelled out in theory and practice.

“After the Putsch”: Prospects for Independent Ukraine

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
David R. Marples
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Winter Wheat ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
European State ◽  
Grain Crops ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Former Soviet Republics

There has been considerable speculation as to which of the former Soviet republics could become viable economic entities following the Putsch of August 19-21, 1991, and the resultant dissolution of the USSR. The consensus is that after Russia, Ukraine has the best chances of survival as a European state with a highly developed economy. Yet the picture remains a bleak one. Although Ukraine has advanced industry and has been a major source of grain crops (of winter wheat in particular), a declining standard of living had been forecast by its economic experts for the period 1991-1995, even before the August 24 declaration of independence. The following study will show Ukraine's major advantages and weaknesses, and what sort of prospects lie ahead for an independent Ukraine. As with any statements on the future of the former territories of the Soviet Union, they have to be qualified with the phrase “pending future political developments.” For the most part, the assumption is made that relations between Ukraine and its once and future economic partners will be amicable.

Good Works and the Question of Self-Presentation in Tenrikyo

2005 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saburo Morishita
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Welfare Work ◽  
Good Works

As one of the older "new" religious movements in Japan, Tenrikyo has often struggled with its self-presentation to the public. This was especially so in its quest for legal recognition at certain times in its long history, but also in response to broader public suspicions. However, work by Tenrikyo members to benefit society should not be seen as public relations efforts to create a positive image for institutional growth and acceptance. A case in point is social welfare work undertaken quite early in the movement's history. Drawing on in-progress research and interviews focusing on Tenrikyo members' work with people suffering from Hansen's Disease (leprosy) in Japan, this essay makes the case that good works are not carried out to create a positive public image, but rather are pursued for the betterment of society and personal spiritual development.

scholarly journals A Joke, Mockery, or Something More? The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – an Invented Religion or a New Movement?

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Siarhei A. Anoshka ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Short History ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

This article attempts to analyse a contemporary phenomenon from the sphere of alternative religiosity in the form of joke religions. The main subject of the analysis is a new religious movement called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (CFSM), founded in the USA in 2005. By referring to the theory of carnival fun, joining the sacrum and profanum, and passing through the various doctrinal threads of this religious movement, the author attempts to answer the question of whether the CFSM can be considered a genuine religion or only a joke. The article begins with a short reflection on the possibility of joking about religion and faith, and the response to religious humour by people of faith, which may range from anger to disgust and sometimes even to aggression. Then, after a short history of this new (pseudo-)religious movement, a perspective is developed. It emerges that the whole structure of the so-called doctrine of this (quasi-)religion refers to other known religions and beliefs, including other new religious movements.

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