Controversial New Religions

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199315310
Total Pages : 495 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Controversial New Religions written by James R. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organization often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience. This updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at those groups that have generated the most attention, including some very well-known classical groups like The Family, Unification Church, Scientology, and Jim Jones's People's Temple; some relative newcomers such as the Kabbalah Centre, the Order of the Solar Temple, Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, and the Falun Gong; and some interesting cases like contemporary Satanism, the Raelians, Black nationalism, and various Pagan groups. Each essay combines an overview of the history and beliefs of each organization or movement with original and insightful analysis. By presenting decades of scholarly work on new religious movements written in an accessible form by established scholars as well as younger experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable resource for all those who seek a view of new religions that is deeper than what can be found in sensationalistic media stories.

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199394369
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Controversial New Religions written by James R. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-16 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organization often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience. This updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at those groups that have generated the most attention, including some very well-known classical groups like The Family, Unification Church, Scientology, and Jim Jones's People's Temple; some relative newcomers such as the Kabbalah Centre, the Order of the Solar Temple, Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, and the Falun Gong; and some interesting cases like contemporary Satanism, the Raelians, Black nationalism, and various Pagan groups. Each essay combines an overview of the history and beliefs of each organization or movement with original and insightful analysis. By presenting decades of scholarly work on new religious movements written in an accessible form by established scholars as well as younger experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable resource for all those who seek a view of new religions that is deeper than what can be found in sensationalistic media stories.

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195156836
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Controversial New Religions written by James R. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring the new religious movements (NRMs) that have attracted the most scholarly attention over the past few years, this text includes groups such as the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate and Falun Gong, explaining their ethos and beliefs, as well as examining more controversial accusations.

Author : Olav Hammer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521196507
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements written by Olav Hammer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses the key features of new religions, such as Scientology, the Moonies and Jihadist movements, from a systematic, comparative perspective.

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780190258245
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Controversial New Religions written by James R. Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organisation often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience. This book looks at those groups that have generated the most attention.

Author : Christopher Hugh Partridge
Publisher : Lion Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Encyclopedia of New Religions written by Christopher Hugh Partridge and published by Lion Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and authoritative guide to over 200 new religions, sects and alternative spiritualities

Author : Hugh B. Urban
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691158053
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Church of Scientology written by Hugh B. Urban and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientology's long and complex journey to recognition as a religion Scientology is one of the wealthiest and most powerful new religions to emerge in the past century. To its detractors, L. Ron Hubbard's space-age mysticism is a moneymaking scam and sinister brainwashing cult. But to its adherents, it is humanity's brightest hope. Few religious movements have been subject to public scrutiny like Scientology, yet much of what is written about the church is sensationalist and inaccurate. Here for the first time is the story of Scientology's protracted and turbulent journey to recognition as a religion in the postwar American landscape. Hugh Urban tells the real story of Scientology from its cold war-era beginnings in the 1950s to its prominence today as the religion of Hollywood's celebrity elite. Urban paints a vivid portrait of Hubbard, the enigmatic founder who once commanded his own private fleet and an intelligence apparatus rivaling that of the U.S. government. One FBI agent described him as "a mental case," but to his followers he is the man who "solved the riddle of the human mind." Urban details Scientology's decades-long war with the IRS, which ended with the church winning tax-exempt status as a religion; the rancorous cult wars of the 1970s and 1980s; as well as the latest challenges confronting Scientology, from attacks by the Internet group Anonymous to the church's efforts to suppress the online dissemination of its esoteric teachings. The Church of Scientology demonstrates how Scientology has reflected the broader anxieties and obsessions of postwar America, and raises profound questions about how religion is defined and who gets to define it.

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781851096183
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cults written by James R. Lewis and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With overviews of the principal cult groups, personalities, and issues, this second edition offers an up-to-date, concise, yet thorough coverage of this fascinating and controversial topic. Over half of U.S. religions have formed since 1960, but the term "cult" applies only to a few high-demand religious groups. In the 1990s, a series of violent incidents involving alternative religious groups reactivated the controversy in the United States, Europe, and East Asia. High-profile terrorist violence such as the September 11 attacks has prompted interest in the issue of religion and violence, which in turn has stimulated new work on the cult issue. This volume surveys the cult controversies from the early 1970s to the present. Included is an in-depth look at brainwashing and the issue of alternative religions and violence. The principal controversial religions, movements, and individuals that have made the headlines are also examined. - Excerpts from reports issued by European governments on dangerous sects - Comprehensive index of cult issues, groups, and personalities, as well as a map of the United States showing distribution of nontraditional religions

Author : James R. Lewis
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780813533247
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Legitimating New Religions written by James R. Lewis and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work deals explicitly with the issue of how emerging religions legitimate themselves. It contends that a new religion has at least four different, though overlapping, areas where legitimacy is a concern: making converts, maintaining followers, shaping public opinion and appeasing government authorities. The legitimacy that new religions seek in the public realm is primarily that of social acceptance. recognizing its status as a genuine religion and thus recognizing its right to exist. Through a series of wide-ranging case studies James Lewis explores the diversification of legitimation strategies of new religions as well as the tactics that their critics use to de-legitimate such groups. Cases include the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, Native American prophet religions, spiritualism, the Church of Christ-Scientist, Scientology, Church of Satan, Heaven's Gate, Unitarianism, Hindu reform movements and Soka Gakkai, a new Buddhist sect. to the legitimation strategies deployed by established religions, the book sheds light on classic questions about the origin of all religions.

Author : Philip Jenkins
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195127447
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mystics and Messiahs written by Philip Jenkins and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this full-length account of cults and anti-cult scares in American history, Jenkins gives accurate historical perspective and shows how many of today's mainstream religions were originally regarded as cults.