Legitimating New Religions
- ISBN-10
- 0813533244
- ISBN-13
- 9780813533247
- Category
- Religion
- Pages
- 272
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2003
- Publisher
- Rutgers University Press
- Author
- James R. Lewis
Description
James R. Lewis has written the first book to deal explicitly with the issue of how emerging religions legitimate themselves. He contends that a new religion has at least four different, though overlapping, areas where legitimacy is a concern: making converts, maintaining followers, shaping public opinion, and appeasing government authorities. The legitimacy that new religions seek in the public realm is primarily that of social acceptance. Mainstream society's acknowledgement of a religion as legitimate means recognizing its status as a genuine religion and thus recognizing its right to exist. Through a series of wide-ranging case studies Lewis explores the diversification of legitimation strategies of new religions as well the tactics that their critics use to de-legitimate such groups. Cases include the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, Native American prophet religions, spiritualism, the Church of Christ-Scientist, Scientology, Church of Satan, Heaven's Gate, Unitarianism, Hindu reform movements, and Soka Gakkai, a new Buddhist sect. Since many of the issues raised with respect to newer religions can be extended to the legitimation strategies deployed by established religions, this book sheds an intriguing new light on classic questions about the origin of all religions.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Controversial New Religions
By James R. Lewis, Jesper Aa. PetersenBy presenting decades of scholarly work on new religious movements written in an accessible form by established scholars as well as younger experts in the field, this book will be an invaluable resource for all those who seek a view of new ...
-
The Odyssey of New Religious Movements: Persecution, Struggle, Legitimation : a Case Study of the Unification Church
By John T. BiermansPresenting the thesis that all new, conversion-oriented religious movements which call their members to a radical change of life normally receive persecution, this study includes reference to contemporary researchers in...
-
The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation
By Robert Wuthnow, Robert C. LiebmanThis book of original essays provides an objective and enlightening analysis of the emergence and changing forms of the New Christian Right.
-
The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
By James R. Lewis, Inga B. TollefsenWe address only the social science typological use here. From a social science perspective, cults differ from both churches/denominations and sects in several important ways. Cults are “culture writ small,” the product of either ...
-
Sacred Schisms: How Religions Divide
By James R. Lewis, Sarah M. LewisThough they are an important component of many analyses, schisms in general have not been subjected to systematic analysis. This volume provides the first book-length study of religious schisms as a general phenomenon.
-
The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death
By James R. LewisThis is the first book-length study of the Order of the Solar Temple to be published in English.
-
A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion
By Craig MartinA Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion introduces the key concepts and theories from religious studies that are necessary for a full understanding of the complex relations between religion and society.
-
Reclaiming African Religions in Trinidad: The Socio-political Legitimation of the Orisha and Spiritual Baptist Faiths
By Frances HenryExploring various African religions as part of a cultural system, relevant to national identity in Trinidad, this text deals with the dynamic doctrinal and ideological changes that have occurred within the religions and documents the ...
-
Controversial New Religions
By James R. Lewis, Jesper Aa. PetersenIn a similar manner, Hall, Schuyler, and Trinh stress in Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in ... of the “apocalyptic tensions between the established social order and countercultural religious movements” (Hall, ...
-
Women in New Religions
By Laura VanceThis is especially true within new religions, which frequently set roles for women in ways that help the movements to define their boundaries in relation to the wider society.