'Cult Wars' in Historical Perspective provides a broad characterization of the shifting religious contours over the past several decades. Offering an assessment of several important topics in the study of new religions, this book explores developments in well-known groups such as the Unification movement, The Family International (Children of God), the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and the Church of Scientology. Bringing together both insiders and outsiders from various academic disciplines and personal perspectives, this book takes account of the ways in which the cult question is defined and addressed in different countries. It offers a vivid depiction of how the cult wars or cult controversies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries first took shape; the transformation of deeply entrenched positions on cults and sects as at least some members of new groups, cult watchers, and academics entered into serious and sustained conversations about topics of mutual concern; the shifting foci and concerns of the general public, law enforcement and the courts, and academics in various countries; and the complex histories of individual groups in which many dramatic transformations have occurred despite their comparatively short life spans.

'Cult Wars' in Historical Perspective provides a broad characterization of the shifting religious contours over the past several decades. Offering an assessment of several important topics in the study of new religions, this book explores developments in well-known groups such as the Unification movement, The Family International (Children of God), the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and the Church of Scientology. Bringing together both insiders and outsiders from various academic disciplines and personal perspectives, this book takes account of the ways in which the cult question is defined and addressed in different countries. It offers a vivid depiction of how the cult wars or cult controversies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries first took shape; the transformation of deeply entrenched positions on cults and sects as at least some members of new groups, cult watchers, and academics entered into serious and sustained conversations about topics of mutual concern; the shifting foci and concerns of the general public, law enforcement and the courts, and academics in various countries; and the complex histories of individual groups in which many dramatic transformations have occurred despite their comparatively short life spans.

Examining contemporary understandings of the term 'cult', this book brings together scholars from multiple disciplines, including sociology, anthropology and religious studies. Focusing on how 'cult rhetoric' affects our perceptions of new religious movements, the contributors explore how these minority groups have developed and deconstruct the language we use to describe them. Ranging from the 'Cult of Trump' and 'Cult of COVID', to the campaigns of mass media, this book recognises that contemporary 'cult rhetoric' has become hybridised and suggests a more nuanced study of contemporary religion. Topics include online religions, political 'cults', 'apostate' testimony and the current 'othered' position of the study of minority religions.

This is the first history of the Plymouth Brethren, a conservative, nonconformist evangelical Christian movement whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland in the late 1820s. The teachings of John Nelson Darby, an influential figure among the early Plymouth Brethren, have had a huge impact on modern evangelicalism. However, the credit for Darby's work went to some of the first generation of his students, and as evangelicalism has grown it has completely ignored its origins in Darby and the Brethren. In this book, Massimo Introvigne restores credit to John Nelson Darby and his movement, and places them in a contemporary sociological framework based on Introvigne's participant observation in Brethren communities. The modern-day Plymouth Brethren emphasize sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the supreme authority for church doctrine and practice. Brethren see themselves as a network of like-minded independent assemblies rather than as a church or a denomination. The movement has also refused to take any formal denominational name; the title "the Brethren" comes from the Biblical passage "one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren" (Matthew 23:8). The Plymouth Brethren offers a typology of differing branches of this reclusive movement, including a case study of the "exclusive" branch known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, and reveals the various ways in which Brethren ideas have permeated the modern Christian world.

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.

Believers’ Churches have their origin in the Radical Reformation of the sixteenth century. Over the past 450 years the movement has included the Brethren, Mennonites, Hutterites, various types of Baptists, and the Restoration Movement. While never a unified denominational structure, the Believers’ Churches together have been characterized by a strong personal faith in Christ, a call to discipleship and Christian activism, a high view of the authority of Scripture, and profession of faith in believers’ baptism. The Believers’ Churches have represented their beliefs in various ecumenical settings, missionary gatherings, and theological conversations. In the late 1950s, representatives of the several Believers’ Churches began to meet in a series of conferences to explore their common views on doctrine, history, and ethics. Topics at the conferences have included baptism, Lord’s Supper, the nature of the church, and religious voluntarism. In 2016, the 17th Believers’ Church Conference was held at Acadia University and sponsored by Acadia Divinity College. The theme was 'The Tendency Toward Separationism Among the Believers’ Churches', a key recurring characteristic. This volume includes the papers presented at the conference and examines the theme from an immediate post-Reformation perspective, including Baptists, Black Baptists, Restorationists (including the Churches of Christ), the Hutterites, Pentecostals, the role of women, and significantly, the separationist tendency as it occurs in New Religious Movements. Typologies and analyses are provided by leading historians, theologians, and social science specialists.

How professionalization and scholarly “rigor” made social scientists increasingly irrelevant to US national security policy To mobilize America’s intellectual resources to meet the security challenges of the post–9/11 world, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates observed that “we must again embrace eggheads and ideas.” But the gap between national security policymakers and international relations scholars has become a chasm. In Cult of the Irrelevant, Michael Desch traces the history of the relationship between the Beltway and the Ivory Tower from World War I to the present day. Recounting key Golden Age academic strategists such as Thomas Schelling and Walt Rostow, Desch’s narrative shows that social science research became most oriented toward practical problem-solving during times of war and that scholars returned to less relevant work during peacetime. Social science disciplines like political science rewarded work that was methodologically sophisticated over scholarship that engaged with the messy realities of national security policy, and academic culture increasingly turned away from the job of solving real-world problems. In the name of scientific objectivity, academics today frequently engage only in basic research that they hope will somehow trickle down to policymakers. Drawing on the lessons of this history as well as a unique survey of current and former national security policymakers, Desch offers concrete recommendations for scholars who want to shape government work. The result is a rich intellectual history and an essential wake-up call to a field that has lost its way.

This book offers a clear, concise introduction to the meaning of problematic terms, and the ways in which they should legitimately be used. Each entry considers the following: – Why is this concept problematic? – What are the origins of the concept? – How is it used or misused, and by whom? – Is it still a legitimate concept in the study of religion and, if so, what are its legitimate uses? – Are there other concepts that are preferable when writing on religion? Concepts covered include: – Belief – Religion – Magic – Secularisation – Violence This is a jargon-free indispensable resource for students and scholars that encourages the critical use of terms in the study of religion.

Restrictions with respect to religious freedom have been in place in authoritarian states for a number of years. We can observe a new period of co-operation between authoritarian states and "state" churches. Some churches have assumed a clearly political position, even in belligerent conflicts, by justifying wars, criminalizing their religious competitors and, thereby, exploiting the Christian Gospel for non-Christian purposes. In this volume, scholars from Europe and North America discuss the core objective of religious freedom in the West and East seeking measures to encourage religions to act and interact, independent of deliberate political stances - to maintain their distance from territorial governments and to strengthen the principle of religious freedom and, thereby, their own denomination as well.

The Church of Scientology is one of the most recognizable American-born new religions, but perhaps the least understood. With academic and popular interest on the rise, many books have been written about Scientology and surely more will follow. Although academics have begun to pay more attention to Scientology, the subject has received remarkably little qualitative attention. Indeed, no work has systematically addressed such questions as: what do Scientologists themselves have to say about their religion's history, theology, and practices? How does Scientology act as a religion for them? What does "lived religion" look like for a Scientologist? This is not so much a book about the Church of Scientology, its leaders, or its controversies, as it is a compilation of narratives and histories based on the largely unheard or ignored perspectives of Scientologists themselves. Drawing on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among members of the Church of Scientology, this groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion's history, theology, and praxis in ways that move discussion beyond apostate-driven and expos� accounts.