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Author: Timothy Miller
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438413114
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
This is a single-volume source of reliable information on the most important alternative religions, covering for each such essentials as history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. The chapters of the book were written by experts who study the movements they have written about.
Author: Timothy Miller
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438413114
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
This is a single-volume source of reliable information on the most important alternative religions, covering for each such essentials as history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. The chapters of the book were written by experts who study the movements they have written about.
Author: Lola Williamson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081479470X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
Yoga, karma, meditation, guru—these terms, once obscure, are now a part of the American lexicon. Combining Hinduism with Western concepts and values, a new hybrid form of religion has developed in the United States over the past century. In Transcendent in America, Lola Williamson traces the history of various Hindu-inspired movements in America, and argues that together they constitute a discrete category of religious practice, a distinct and identifiable form of new religion. Williamson provides an overview of the emergence of these movements through examining exchanges between Indian Hindus and American intellectuals such as Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and illuminates how Protestant traditions of inner experience paved the way for Hindu-style movements’ acceptance in the West. Williamson focuses on three movements—Self-Realization Fellowship, Transcendental Meditation, and Siddha Yoga—as representative of the larger of phenomenon of Hindu-inspired meditation movements. She provides a window into the beliefs and practices of followers of these movements by offering concrete examples from their words and experiences that shed light on their world view, lifestyle, and relationship with their gurus. Drawing on scholarly research, numerous interviews, and decades of personal experience with Hindu-style practices, Williamson makes a convincing case that Hindu-inspired meditation movements are distinct from both immigrant Hinduism and other forms of Asian-influenced or “New Age” groups.
Author: Eugene V. Gallagher
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313062919
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Wherever and whenever they appear, new religious movements always produce conflict. Even as they attract members who enthusiastically embrace their innovative teachings, new religions often provoke strongly negative reactions—often because they challenge established notions of proper religious action, belief, and morality. Opponents of new religious movements often brand them as cults and urge their fellow citizens, their own religions, and even the government to take action against what they see as suspicious and potentially dangerous movements; the members often complain that their motives have been misconstrued and argue that their groups are unfairly persecuted. The New Religious Movements Experience in America outlines the conflict between representatives of the status quo and new religions and examines how these groups appear both to their members and to their cultural opponents. This work is ideal for anyone—students, parents, and teachers—who wish to gain a deeper understanding of new religious movements in America. New religions have always been part of the American religious landscape, and this book moves beyond the contemporary period to discuss examples of new religions that have originated, survived or died, and sometimes prospered throughout U. S. history. Among the groups discussed are the Mormons, the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Soka Gakkai, the Nation of Islam, Wiccans and neo-Pagans, the Church of Satan, the Church of Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and the Raelians. The New Religious Movements Experience in America includes a glossary and a list of resources for those interested in doing further research on the experience of the followers of new religions.
Author: Timothy Miller
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791423974
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 488
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Book Description
This is a source of reliable information on the most important new and alternative religions covering history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. It includes a chapter on the Branch Davidians.
Author: Sarah M. Pike
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231124031
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Sarah Pike traces the history of New Age and Neopagan religions in the United States from their origins in the nineteenth century to their reemergence in the 1960s counterculture. She also considers the differences and similarities between the New Age and Neopagan movements as well as the antagonistic relationship between these two practices and other religions in America, particularly Christianity. Covering such topics as healing, gender and sexuality, millennialism, and ritual experience, she offers a sympathetic yet critical treatment of religious practices often marginalized yet soaring in popularity. Her book is a rich analysis of these spiritual worlds and social networks and questions why these faiths are flourishing at this point in American history.
Author: Robert C. Fuller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839581
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Nearly 40% of all Americans have no connection with organized religion. Yet many of these people, even though they might never step inside a house of worship, live profoundly spiritual lives. But what is the nature and value of unchurched spirituality in America? Is it a recent phenomenon, a New Age fad that will soon fade, or a long-standing and essential aspect of the American experience? In Spiritual But Not Religious, Robert Fuller offers fascinating answers to these questions. He shows that alternative spiritual practices have a long and rich history in America, dating back to the colonial period, when church membership rarely exceeded 17% and interest in astrology, numerology, magic, and witchcraft ran high. Fuller traces such unchurched traditions into the mid-nineteenth century, when Americans responded enthusiastically to new philosophies such as Swedenborgianism, Transcendentalism, and mesmerism, right up to the current interest in meditation, channeling, divination, and a host of other unconventional spiritual practices. Throughout, Fuller argues that far from the flighty and narcissistic dilettantes they are often made out to be, unchurched spiritual seekers embrace a mature and dynamic set of basic beliefs. They focus on inner sources of spirituality and on this world rather than the afterlife; they believe in the accessibility of God and in the mind's untapped powers; they see a fundamental unity between science and religion and an equality between genders and races; and they are more willing to test their beliefs and change them when they prove untenable. Timely, sweeping in its scope, and informed by a clear historical understanding, Spiritual But Not Religious offers fresh perspective on the growing numbers of Americans who find their spirituality outside the church.
Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520281187
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?
Author: Stephen J. Stein
Publisher: Turtleback Books
ISBN: 9781417655687
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Examines the history of comparative religions from colonial Puritans to twentieth century sects and cults.
Author: Dereck Daschke
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814707025
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
An original collection of primary documents conveying the wide array of ideas connected to new religious movements New Religious Movements is a highly unique volume, bringing together primary documents conveying the words and ideas of a wide array of new religious movements (NRMs), and offering a first-hand look into their belief systems. Arranged by the editors according to a new typology, the text allows readers to consider NRMS along five interrelated pathways—from those that offer new perceptions of existence or new personal identities, to those that center on relationships within family-like units, to those movements that highlight the need for recasting the social order or anticipate the dawn of a new age. The volume includes original documents from groups such as the Unification Church, Theosophy, Branch Davidians, Wicca, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Santeria, and Seventh Day Adventists, as well as many others. Each section is prefaced by a contextual introduction and concludes with a list of sources for further reading. New Religious Movements offers a rare inside look into the worldviews of alternative religious traditions.
Author: Stephen J. Stein
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197738665
Category : Cults
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Alternative religious groups have had a profound influence on American history-they have challenged the old and opened up new ways of thinking about healing, modes of meaning, religious texts and liturgies, the social and political order, and the relationships between religion and race, class, gender, and region. Virtually always, the dramatic, dynamic history of alternative religions runs parallel to that of dissent in America. Communities of Dissent is an evenhanded and marvelously lively history of New Religious Movements in America. Stephen J. Stein describes the evolution and structure of alternative religious movements from both sides: the critics and the religious dissenters themselves. Providing a fascinating look at a wide range of New Religious Movements, he investigates obscure groups such as the 19th-century Vermont Pilgrims, who wore bearskins and refused to bathe or cut their hair, alongside better-known alternative believers, including colonial America's largest outsider faith, the Quakers; 17th- and 18th-century Mennonites, Amish, and Shakers; and the Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Black Muslims, and Scientologists of today. Accessible and comprehensive, Communities of Dissent also covers the milestones in the history of alternative American religions, from the infamous Salem witch trials and mass suicide/murder at Jonestown to the positive ways in which alternative religions have affected racial relations, the empowerment of women, and American culture in general.
