- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Alternative Spiritualities, New Religions, and The Reenchantment of the West
- The Sociocultural Significance of Modern New Religious Movements
- Science and Religion in the New Religions
- Virtually Religious: New Religious Movements and the World Wide Web
- Violence and New Religious Movements
- Legal Dimensions of New Religions
- The North American Anti-Cult Movement: Vicissitudes of Success and Failure
- Something Peculiar about France: Anti-Cult Campaigns in Western Europe and French Religious Exceptionalism
- Satanism and Ritual Abuse
- Conversion and “Brainwashing” in New Religious Movements
- Leaving the Fold: Disaffiliating from New Religious Movements
- Psychology and the New Religious Movements
- Millennialism
- The Mythic Dimensions of New Religious Movements: Function, Reality Construction, and Process
- Women in New Religious Movements
- Children in New Religious Movements
- Waiting for the “Big Beam”: UFO Religions and “Ufological” Themes in New Religious Movements
- Esotericism in New Religious Movements
- The Dynamics of Alternative Spirituality: Seekers, Networks, and “New Age”
- New Religions in East Asia
- Witches, Wiccans, and Neo-Pagans: A Review of Current Academic Treatments of Neo-Paganism
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This article criticizes approaches to new religious movements that view them in terms of reactions to secularization or in terms of certain other understandings of modernity. Instead, it argues that one should draw from more nuanced understandings of the modern world, particularly Anthony Giddens's analysis of modernity and globalization. Giddens is, however, overly simplistic in his portrayal of religion, and the article suggests how globalization theory might be modified to be applicable to the interpretation of contemporary new religions.
Keywords: religious movements, Anthony Giddens, modernity, globalization theory
Lorne L. Dawson is Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo in Canada. He is cofounder and Director of the Laurier-Waterloo Ph.D. Program in Religious Studies, focused on the multidisciplinary study of religious diversity in North America. He has written two books (e.g., Comprehending Cults, 2nd ed., 2006), edited three (e.g., with Douglas Cowan, Religion Online, 2004), and published over sixty articles and book chapters. In recent years his research has been focused on the related issues of charismatic authority, millennialism and prophetic failure, and the comparative analysis of the process of radicalization in religious and terrorist groups.
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- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
- Alternative Spiritualities, New Religions, and The Reenchantment of the West
- The Sociocultural Significance of Modern New Religious Movements
- Science and Religion in the New Religions
- Virtually Religious: New Religious Movements and the World Wide Web
- Violence and New Religious Movements
- Legal Dimensions of New Religions
- The North American Anti-Cult Movement: Vicissitudes of Success and Failure
- Something Peculiar about France: Anti-Cult Campaigns in Western Europe and French Religious Exceptionalism
- Satanism and Ritual Abuse
- Conversion and “Brainwashing” in New Religious Movements
- Leaving the Fold: Disaffiliating from New Religious Movements
- Psychology and the New Religious Movements
- Millennialism
- The Mythic Dimensions of New Religious Movements: Function, Reality Construction, and Process
- Women in New Religious Movements
- Children in New Religious Movements
- Waiting for the “Big Beam”: UFO Religions and “Ufological” Themes in New Religious Movements
- Esotericism in New Religious Movements
- The Dynamics of Alternative Spirituality: Seekers, Networks, and “New Age”
- New Religions in East Asia
- Witches, Wiccans, and Neo-Pagans: A Review of Current Academic Treatments of Neo-Paganism
- Index
