Spiritual Siblings

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-64
Author(s):  
Kristian Klippenstein
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Religions

For years after Peoples Temple ceased to exist, both scholars and the public debated the Temple’s status as a new religious movement. These debates left out an important perspective: Jim Jones’ own evaluation of the Temple’s relation to new religions. This article uses Doug McAdam’s work on social movement formation to organize Jones’ commentary on new religions. Expanding Stephen Kent’s concept of spiritual kinship lineage, this article argues that Jones identified the same political changes as giving rise to, as well as contesting, both Peoples Temple and various new religious movements. By identifying this plethora of reactions to the same political cause, Jones legitimated the Temple’s worldview and subsequent mobilization. Moreover, Jones leveraged this kinship to avail himself of the variety of strategies utilized by these groups while pointing out their doctrinal, organizational, and political flaws, thus asserting the Temple’s superiority in the process.

scholarly journals Means of communication of new religious movements in the Republic of Belarus

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Martinovich
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
New Religions ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Republic ◽  
High Level

This article is devoted to the analysis of the means of communication of new religious movements in the Republic of Belarus. Due to the high level of closeness of the overwhelming number of new religions for questioning, interviews, observation and experiment, their means of communication with society are the most accessible documentary source of primary sociological information for research. As part of the monitoring of the confessional space of the country, conducted since 1997, information was collected on 1113 new religious movements. The means of communication used by them to broadcast religious ideas and teachings, including in the public space of the Republic of Belarus, are documented. A number of methodological problems related to the analysis of the means of communication of new religious movements are identified. The frequency of appeals of new religions to print media, the Internet, leaflets, books and specialised periodicals has been established. The entire set of means, depending on the target audience, is divided into internal, external and universal. The degree of informativeness of external and universal means of communication for scientific analysis, is analysed. It is noted that the openness of the new religious movements to society, which implies the disclosure of a significant part of their internal information, does not automatically mean recognition and acceptance of society, readiness for a constructive dialogue with it. The connection between the type of structure of the new religious movements and the number of different means of communication used by them is revealed. The minimum provable number of new religious movements working in the public space through means of communication accessible to the general population has been established.

scholarly journals Pentecostal Forms across Religious Divides: Media, Publicity, and the Limits of an Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marleen de Witte
Keyword(s):  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Representation ◽  
Mega Church ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Being Religious

Scholars of Pentecostalism have usually studied people who embrace it, but rarely those who do not. I suggest that the study of global Pentecostalism should not limit itself to Pentecostal churches and movements and people who consider themselves Pentecostal. It should include the repercussions of Pentecostal ideas and forms outside Pentecostalism: on non-Pentecostal and non-Christian religions, on popular cultural forms, and on what counts as ‘religion’ or ‘being religious’. Based on my ethnographic study of a charismatic-Pentecostal mega-church and a neo-traditional African religious movement in Ghana, I argue that neo-Pentecostalism, due to its strong and mass-mediated public presence, provides a powerful model for the public representation of religion in general, and some of its forms are being adopted by non-Pentecostal and non-Christian groups, including the militantly anti-Pentecostal Afrikania Mission. Instead of treating neo-Pentecostal and neo-traditionalist revival as distinct religious phenomena, I propose to take seriously their intertwinement in a single religious field and argue that one cannot sufficiently understand the rise of new religious movements without understanding how they influence each other, borrow from each other, and define themselves vis-à-vis each other. This has consequences for how we conceive of the study of Pentecostalism and how we define its object.

On the Volatile Relationship of Secularization and New Religious Movements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Holland
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the complex relationship between secularization and the emergence of new religious movements. Drawing from countervailing research, some of which insists that new religious movements abet secularizing processes and some of which sees these movements as disproving the secularization thesis, the chapter presents the relationship as inherently unstable. To the extent that new religious movements maintain a precarious balance of familiarity and foreignness—remaining familiar enough to stretch the definitional boundaries of religion—they contribute to secularization. However, new religious movements frequently lean to one side or other of that median, either promoting religious power in the public square by identifying with the interests of existing religious groups, or emphasizing their distinctiveness from these groups and thus provoking aggressive public action by the antagonized religious mainstream. This chapter centres on an illustrative case from Christian Science history.

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 GERAKAN KEAGAMAAN BARU DALAM INDONESIA KONTEMPORER: Tafsir Sosial Atas Hizbut Tahrir

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Syamsul Arifin
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Islamic Movement ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Fundamentalist Movement ◽  
Religious Thoughts

<p>New various religious movements in Islam have emerged in several Muslim countries, including in Indonesia. Many consider them to be a blatant manifestation of radicalism and fundamentalism of Islam although their proponents reject such a label. One of the rising movements in Indonesia is Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI).  Fundamentalism is a common and widespread religious phenomenon since it is found trans-nationally. HTI represents the form of trans-national Islamic movement. This article seeks to examine HTI as a new rising trans-Islamic movement in contemporary Indonesia. By focusing on the HTI’s religious outlooks, ideology and social movement, this article argues that HTI is representation of fundamentalist movement. Fundamentalism here is defined as a form of religious movement that attempts to preserve fundamental tenets laid down in the Scripture, and reinterprets them in contemporary socio-political realms. The feature of fundamentalism in HTI is expressed in its religious thoughts and understanding and in the ways in which it re-appropriates Islamic doctrines in modern and contemporary socio-political contexts. </p><p>Keywords: Hizbut Tahrir, fundamentalism, religious movements</p>

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 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.

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.

“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.

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