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.

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.

“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.

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.

Of God and Neighbors

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-107
Author(s):  
Jason Paul Greenberger ◽  
Lee Gyungwon
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
National Sovereignty

Historically, Korea and Vietnam have been in the unenviable position of being surrounded by powerful neighbors who at times descend upon them as colonizers or occupying forces. East Asian new religious movements such as Daesoon Jinrihoe and Caodaism offer unique insights into each country’s national sentiments regarding such historicities. In particular, the painting in Daesoon Jinrihoe titled Five Immortals Playing Baduk (五仙圍碁 Oseon Wigi), and the painting in Caodaism titled The Three Saints (三聖 Tam Thánh) are strikingly similar in the manner in which both countries depict a national representative alongside foreign representatives. Generally speaking, Five Immortals Playing Baduk can be seen as providing a subtle and provocative critique of foreign interference, whereas The Three Saints has integral, reconciliatory, and diplomatic overtones. Sociological insight can be gained from analyzing the national sovereignty depicted in these paintings and related scriptural passages as a supernatural compensator as understood in Rational Choice Theory.

The children of converts: Beyond the first generation of contemporary Pagans

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-306
Author(s):  
Julie Fennell ◽  
Laura A Wildman-Hanlon
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Internet Sample ◽  
Contemporary Paganism

Very little is known about the adult religious retention of children and adolescents in New Religious Movements (NRMs). The current study seeks to examine the factors that determine the success of one NRM, contemporary Paganism, at retaining the children of its first generation of converts. Using a small convenience internet sample (n=183), we found that 45% of our sample continued to practice Paganism as adults, and a further 25% remained spiritually Pagan. We find that children and adolescents who were very religious Pagans are much more likely to remain members of the religion as adults, controlling for age, gender and sexual orientation. We also find that children who grew up in more specifically defined Pagan paths, such as Wicca or Druidism, are more likely to remain Pagan and in those paths, than children who were raised in more vaguely defined ways such as ‘eclectic Pagan’.

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