Author: Thomas Robbins
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN: 9780803981591
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.
Cults, Converts, and Charisma
Author: Thomas Robbins
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN: 9780803981591
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN: 9780803981591
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252
Book Description
Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.
Cults, Converts and Charisma
Cults, Converts, and Charisma
Author: Thomas Robbins
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.
Understanding New Religious Movements
Author: John A. Saliba
Publisher: AltaMira Press
ISBN: 0585483108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Discussions of any religion can easily raise passions. But arguments tend to become even more heated when the religion under discussion is characterized as new. Divisions around the study of new religious movements (NRMs), or cults, or nontraditional or alternative or emergent religions are so acute that there is even controversy over what to call them. John Saliba strives to bring balance to these discussions by offering perspectives on new religions from different academic perspectives: history, psychology, sociology, law, theology, and counseling. This approach provides rich descriptions of a broad range of movements while demonstrating how the differing aims of the disciplines can create much of the controversy around NRMs. The new second edition has been updated and revised throughout and includes a new foreword by noted historian of religion, J. Gordon Melton. For classes in religion or the social sciences, or for interested individuals, Understanding New Religious Movements offers the most objective introduction possible.
Publisher: AltaMira Press
ISBN: 0585483108
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Discussions of any religion can easily raise passions. But arguments tend to become even more heated when the religion under discussion is characterized as new. Divisions around the study of new religious movements (NRMs), or cults, or nontraditional or alternative or emergent religions are so acute that there is even controversy over what to call them. John Saliba strives to bring balance to these discussions by offering perspectives on new religions from different academic perspectives: history, psychology, sociology, law, theology, and counseling. This approach provides rich descriptions of a broad range of movements while demonstrating how the differing aims of the disciplines can create much of the controversy around NRMs. The new second edition has been updated and revised throughout and includes a new foreword by noted historian of religion, J. Gordon Melton. For classes in religion or the social sciences, or for interested individuals, Understanding New Religious Movements offers the most objective introduction possible.
The Charismatic Community
Author: Maria Massi Dakake
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480348
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The Charismatic Community examines the rise and development of Shiite religious identity in early Islamic history, analyzing the complex historical and intellectual processes that shaped the sense of individual and communal religious vocation. The book reveals the profound and continually evolving connection between the spiritual ideals of the Shiite movement and the practical processes of community formation. Author Maria Massi Dakake traces the Quranic origins and early religious connotations of the concept of walayah and the role it played in shaping the sense of communal solidarity among followers of the first Shiite Imam, Ali b. Abi Talib. Dakake argues that walayah pertains not only to the charisma of the Shiite leadership and devotion to them, but also to solidarity and loyalty among the members of the community itself. She also looks at the ways in which doctrinal developments reflected and served the practical needs of the Shiite community, the establishment of identifiable boundaries and minimum requirements of communal membership, the meaning of women's affiliation and identification with the Shiite movement, and Shiite efforts to engender a more normative and less confrontational attitude toward the non-Shiite Muslim community.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480348
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The Charismatic Community examines the rise and development of Shiite religious identity in early Islamic history, analyzing the complex historical and intellectual processes that shaped the sense of individual and communal religious vocation. The book reveals the profound and continually evolving connection between the spiritual ideals of the Shiite movement and the practical processes of community formation. Author Maria Massi Dakake traces the Quranic origins and early religious connotations of the concept of walayah and the role it played in shaping the sense of communal solidarity among followers of the first Shiite Imam, Ali b. Abi Talib. Dakake argues that walayah pertains not only to the charisma of the Shiite leadership and devotion to them, but also to solidarity and loyalty among the members of the community itself. She also looks at the ways in which doctrinal developments reflected and served the practical needs of the Shiite community, the establishment of identifiable boundaries and minimum requirements of communal membership, the meaning of women's affiliation and identification with the Shiite movement, and Shiite efforts to engender a more normative and less confrontational attitude toward the non-Shiite Muslim community.
Charisma and Community
Author: Mary Jo Neitz
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412819411
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
Since Comte, social scientists have tended to assume that modèrnization, along with a trièµ´mphant scientific rationality, has destroyed the legitimacy of religion as a social reality. However, this crisis of legitè¹macy has never been examined in a setting where religious realè¹ty is affirmed. This book fills that gap, exploring the meaning of religious reality in the lives of a group of Catholic Charismatics to discover how belief is created, developed, and maintained. Charismatics, or Neo-Pentecostals, tend to be white, relaè² ively affluent, well educated, and believe that they possess certain gifts including the power of healing, prophesy, discernè¡«ent of evil spirits, and speakè¹ng in tongues. In describing and analyzing this religious minority, the author provides a basis for reevaluating sociological asè²umptions about religion and modernity. She asks: to what exè² ent can religion define the soèial world? Are religious values necessarily irrelevant to most institutional contexts? Is reè¡igious reality only persuasive in the context of family and priè¡«ary group relations? What are the tensions between religious realities and other beliefs? Her answers have implications for all ways of making sense of the world, including common sense or science. Neitz situates the Charismatic Renewal in a broader social and historical context. She examines the antecedents of Neo-Pentecostalism in American culture and compares this movement with the secular, self-awareness movement. In so doing she shows what is unique about the Charismatics, and what they share with religious predeèessors and members of contemè¨orary secular movements.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412819411
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336
Book Description
Since Comte, social scientists have tended to assume that modèrnization, along with a trièµ´mphant scientific rationality, has destroyed the legitimacy of religion as a social reality. However, this crisis of legitè¹macy has never been examined in a setting where religious realè¹ty is affirmed. This book fills that gap, exploring the meaning of religious reality in the lives of a group of Catholic Charismatics to discover how belief is created, developed, and maintained. Charismatics, or Neo-Pentecostals, tend to be white, relaè² ively affluent, well educated, and believe that they possess certain gifts including the power of healing, prophesy, discernè¡«ent of evil spirits, and speakè¹ng in tongues. In describing and analyzing this religious minority, the author provides a basis for reevaluating sociological asè²umptions about religion and modernity. She asks: to what exè² ent can religion define the soèial world? Are religious values necessarily irrelevant to most institutional contexts? Is reè¡igious reality only persuasive in the context of family and priè¡«ary group relations? What are the tensions between religious realities and other beliefs? Her answers have implications for all ways of making sense of the world, including common sense or science. Neitz situates the Charismatic Renewal in a broader social and historical context. She examines the antecedents of Neo-Pentecostalism in American culture and compares this movement with the secular, self-awareness movement. In so doing she shows what is unique about the Charismatics, and what they share with religious predeèessors and members of contemè¨orary secular movements.
Reaganism, Thatcherism and the Social Novel
Author: C. Hutchinson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230594905
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
The social novel is the traditional haunt of the liberal conscience. What does the triumph of the New Right mean for this type of fiction in Britain and the US? Should the liberal left seek consensus or assertion? This book examines these issues, and assesses the state of both nations, as well as that of the contemporary novel.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230594905
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
The social novel is the traditional haunt of the liberal conscience. What does the triumph of the New Right mean for this type of fiction in Britain and the US? Should the liberal left seek consensus or assertion? This book examines these issues, and assesses the state of both nations, as well as that of the contemporary novel.
Historicizing "Tradition" in the Study of Religion
Author: Steven Engler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110901404
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
This collection of essays analyzes ‛tradition’ as a category in the historical and comparative study of religion. The book questions the common assumption that tradition is simply the “passing down” or imitation of prior practices and discourses. It begins from the premise that many traditions are, at least in part, social fabrications, often deliberately serving particular ideological ends. Individual chapters examine a wide variety of historical periods and religions (Congolese, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Cree, Esoteric, Hawaiian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, New Religious Movement, and Shinto). Different sections of the book consider tradition's relation to three sets of issues: legitimation and authority; agency and identity; modernity and the West.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110901404
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
This collection of essays analyzes ‛tradition’ as a category in the historical and comparative study of religion. The book questions the common assumption that tradition is simply the “passing down” or imitation of prior practices and discourses. It begins from the premise that many traditions are, at least in part, social fabrications, often deliberately serving particular ideological ends. Individual chapters examine a wide variety of historical periods and religions (Congolese, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Cree, Esoteric, Hawaiian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, New Religious Movement, and Shinto). Different sections of the book consider tradition's relation to three sets of issues: legitimation and authority; agency and identity; modernity and the West.
The Politics of Religious Apostasy
Author: David G. Bromley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313370680
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
The current controversy surrounding new religions has brought to the forefront the role of apostates. These individuals leave highly controversial movements and assume roles in other organizations as public opponents against their former movements. This volume examines the motivations of the apostates, how they are recruited and play out their roles, the kinds of narratives they construct to discredit their previous groups, and the impact of apostasy on the outcome of conflicts between movements and society.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313370680
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
The current controversy surrounding new religions has brought to the forefront the role of apostates. These individuals leave highly controversial movements and assume roles in other organizations as public opponents against their former movements. This volume examines the motivations of the apostates, how they are recruited and play out their roles, the kinds of narratives they construct to discredit their previous groups, and the impact of apostasy on the outcome of conflicts between movements and society.
Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion
Author: Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042917545
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
In the terms of Durheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Although they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can obviously be examined for the norms, values and presuppositions of the cultures in which they take place. Thus conversion can help us to shed light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conversion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defining a new - religious - identity. From 21-24 May 2003, the University of Groningen hosted an international conference on 'Cultures of Conversion'. The contributions have been edited in two volumes, which pay special attention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetorical tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to religious or political conventions and idealizations. The present volume contains theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion, with special attention to the rational choice theory, and on the history of research into conversion. It also offers stimulating case studies, ranging from the late Middle Ages to present times and taken from Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. The other volume, Cultures of Conversion, offers in-depth studies of conversion that are mainly taken from the history of India, Islam and Judaism, ranging from the Byzantine period to the new Muslimas of the West.
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042917545
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
In the terms of Durheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Although they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can obviously be examined for the norms, values and presuppositions of the cultures in which they take place. Thus conversion can help us to shed light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conversion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defining a new - religious - identity. From 21-24 May 2003, the University of Groningen hosted an international conference on 'Cultures of Conversion'. The contributions have been edited in two volumes, which pay special attention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetorical tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to religious or political conventions and idealizations. The present volume contains theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion, with special attention to the rational choice theory, and on the history of research into conversion. It also offers stimulating case studies, ranging from the late Middle Ages to present times and taken from Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. The other volume, Cultures of Conversion, offers in-depth studies of conversion that are mainly taken from the history of India, Islam and Judaism, ranging from the Byzantine period to the new Muslimas of the West.