Controversial New Religions

by Lewis, James R.; Petersen, Jesper Aagaard

• ISBN13: 9780195156836
• ISBN10: 0195156838
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book complements Lewis's xford Handbook of New Religious Movements. The former provides an overview of the state of the field. This volume collects papers on those specific New Religious Movements (NRMs) that have generated the most scholarly attention. With few exceptions, these organizations are also the controversial groups that have attracted the attention of the mass media, often because they have been involved in, or accused of, violent or anti-social activities. Among the movements to be profiled are such groups as the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, Solar Temple, Scientology, Falun Gong and many more. The book will function as a reference for scholars, as a text for courses in NRMs, and will also appeal to non-specialists including reporters, law enforcement, public policy makers, and others.

Author Biography

James Lewis is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He is the author or editor of many books, including The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements (OUP, 2003), Legitimating New Religions (2003), and Odd Gods: New Religions and the Cult Controversy (2001). Jesper Aagaard Petersen is a Teaching Assistant in the Department of History of Religions at the University of Copenhagen. He edited a special issue of SYZYGY: Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture on modern Satanism.

Table of Contents

Contributors	ix
Introduction	3	(16)
James R. Lewis
Jesper Aagaard Petersen
PART I: GROUPS IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION
A Family for the Twenty-first Century	19	(24)
James D. Chancellor
Spirit Revelation and the Unification Church	43	(18)
James A. Beverley
Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories about Jonestown	61	(18)
Rebecca Moore
Explaining Militarization at Waco: The Construction and Convergence of the Warfare Narrative	79	(22)
Stuart A. Wright
PART II: ASIAN AND ASIAN-INSPIRED GROUPS
Family Development and Change in the Hare Krishna Movement	101	(18)
E. Burke Rochford, Jr.
When Leaders Dissolve: Considering Controversy and Stagnation in the Osho Rajneesh Movement	119	(20)
Marion S. Goldman
Soka Gakkai: Searching for the Mainstream	139	(14)
Robert Kisala
Aum Shinrikyo and the Aum Incident: A Critical Introduction	153	(42)
Martin Repp
The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China	195	(20)
David Ownby
Notes on the Aumist Religion	215	(12)
PierLuigi Zoccatelli
PART III: ESOTERIC AND NEW AGE GROUPS
Inventing L. Ron Hubbard: On the Construction and Maintenance of the Hagiographic Mythology of Scientology's Founder	227	(32)
Dorthe Refslund Christensen
The Theosophical Society	259	(36)
James A. Santucci
The Solar Temple ``Transits'': Beyond the Millennialist Hypothesis	295	(24)
James R. Lewis
From Atlantis to America: JZ Knight Encounters Ramtha	319	(12)
Gail M. Harley
Heart and Soul: A Qualitative Look at the Ethos of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness	331	(22)
Diana G. Tumminia
PART IV: OTHER GROUPS AND MOVEMENTS
``Come On Up, and I Will Show Thee'': Heaven's Gate as a Postmodern Group	353	(18)
George D. Chryssides
The Raelian Movement: Concocting Controversy, Seeking Social Legitimacy	371	(16)
Susan Palmer
White Racist Religions in the United States: From Christian Identity to Wolf Age Pagans	387	(36)
Mattias Gardell
Modern Satanism: Dark Doctrines and Black Flames	423	(36)
Jesper Aagaard Petersen
Index	459