Synopses & Reviews
Using a historical and cultural approach, New Religious Movments takes the approach that new religious movements are neither new nor inherently evil or dangerous. The Introduction colorfully demonstrates the variety of NRMs today and how our first impressions of them may be wrong. Also, this text argues that NRMs are a normal response to cultural and social change, not just something that has "happened" to the Western World since the 1960s. This book's topics include Defining New Religious Movements, Modern Heresy, Esoteric Revival, Asian NRMs, African NRMs, Islamic NRMs, and the Global Future of NRMs. An interesting read for those interested in New Religious Movements.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Timeline
1: What Are New Religious Movements?
Stereotyping NRMs
Defining NRMs
Explaining NRMs
Social change
Historical continuity and cultural context
Studying NRMs
2: NRMS as Modern Heresy
A Short History of Heresy
Christian heresy after the Reformation
The End of Heretics and the Beginning of Enthusiasts and Cults
Development of the modern cult stereotype in nineteenth-century America
The Christian Countercult Movement
The current anticult movement
Brainwashing
Close-up: The Unification Church
3: NRMs as Esoteric Revival
The Ancient and Medieval Worlds
From Renaissance to Enlightenment
NRMs in the nineteenth century
Mormonism
Spiritualism
Theosophy
Mind Cure movements
Where are the nineteenth-century new religions now?
Esoteric Currents in the Twentieth Century
UFO movements
Esotericism meets science
Neopaganism
The New Age
Close-up: Channeling NRMs: Lazaris and Ramtha
4: NRMs as Asian Missions to the West
The Missionary Impulse
Global Buddhism
Modern Hinduism
Sikh influences
East Asian traditions
Asian “NRMs” in the West Before 1965
The World’s Parliament of Religions and its Aftermath
Asian NRMs in the West: The Post-1965 Boom
Buddhism
Hinduism
Sikhism
Close-up: Soka Gakkai
5: New Religions in East Asia
China
From prehistory to the early twentieth century
The early twentieth century
Religion in China today
NRMs and qigong
Vietnam
Korea
Japan
The history of Japanese NRMs
Close-up: Konkokyo
Close-up: Falun gong
6: New Religions of Africa and the African Diaspora
African Neo-traditional NRMs
African Initiated Churches
Christianity in Africa: background
The development of AICs
Understanding AICs
NRMs of the African Diaspora
Afro-Catholic NRMS
African NRMs in North America
Rastafarianism
Nation of Islam
Close-up: The Kimbanguist Church
7: Islamic New Religions
Mystical Islamic NRMs: Sufism
Revivalism and Scriptural Fundamentalism
Al-Qaeda as NRM
Close-up: Baha’i
8: The Global Future of New Religious Movements
NRMs and Globalization
Global Connections: NRMs and the Internet
Global Fears: NRMs and Violence
Is There a Future for NRMs?
Notes
Glossary
Suggested Further Reading
Internet Resources
Index