The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements

Cambridge Companions to Religion

by Olav Hammer (Editor), Mikael Rothstein (Editor)

New religions emerge as distinct entities in the religious landscape when innovations are introduced by a charismatic leader or a schismatic group leaves its parent organization. New religious movements (NRMs) often present novel doctrines and advocate unfamiliar modes of behavior, and have therefore often been perceived as controversial. NRMs have, however, in recent years come to be treated in the same way as established religions, that is, as complex cultural phenomena involving myths, rituals and canonical texts. This Companion discusses key features of NRMs from a systematic, comparative perspective, summarizing results of forty years of research. The volume addresses NRMs that have caught media attention, including movements such as Scientology, New Age, the Neopagans, the Sai Baba movement and Jihadist movements active in a post-9/11 context. An essential resource for students of religious studies, the history of religion, sociology, anthropology and the psychology of religion.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction

346 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I found the general organization of the chapters appealing.

The first few chapters cover general themes of New Religious Movements (e.g. apocalypse, ritual, leadership) and discuss the differences and commonalities seen among New Religious Movements. In these chapters, the themes are also contrasted with the patterns seen in established religions like Christianity. These general introduction chapters give the reader the opportunity to identify these common themes throughout the second half of the book and provide a working vocabulary to classify and categorize the seemingly diverse movements (e.g. world-affirming vs. world-rejecting movements). In the second half of the book, each chapter is dedicated to a specific movement (Scientology, Satanism, New Age, etc.) or to a collection of movements (e.g. the development of New Religious Movements in Russia after the end of the Soviet Union).

The variety of topics and religions covered in this book kept me interested during the entire reading process and I appreciated the authors’ neutral and rather objective stance on the movements they were discussing. With the book being best classified as a sociology book, the authors’ aim was not to discuss the validity of the beliefs and practices of each individual movement, but rather provide an overview of the movement including the history, beliefs, and member characteristics and relate these aspects to other movements as well as putting them into a societal context. What I learned from this book is best summarized by saying that after reading, the world of 'sects' and 'cults' does not seem as strange to me as it did before. I was surprised how much in common these new movements have with traditional religions and that even though not all the movements are harmless, the view of the 'evil, brainwashing cult' seems to be mostly misguided. New religious movements are not necessarily more harmful than traditional religions.

Two minor points of criticism:
1. What I would have liked, is an overarching goal or direction of the book, which could have been achieved by for example relating the discussed movements to the themes mentioned in the first half of the book. The fact that the chapters on the specific religions were all structured differently and all had an individual approach to their specific movement made for an interesting read, but also made it seem more like a collection of essays, rather than a cohesive book.
2. The selection of movements that received their own chapter, rather than being just passingly mentioned in the general text, seemed quite random. Even though I enjoyed reading about the religions discussed, I cannot help but wonder why infamous movements such as The People’s Temple or Heaven’s Gate were left out.

Despite these minor complaints, I would give this book 5 stars. However, as the individual chapters are written by different authors, writing quality does vary. The overall writing quality is excellent, much better than I have encountered in previous books from multiple authors. Nonetheless, this makes the two chapters that in my opinion were not well written at all - The Sathya Sai Baba movement and Neo-Sufism - stand out even more. I would give those chapters 2.5 stars and the rest of the book 5, so an overall 4 it is.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

As delightful, wonderful, and worrisome as the religions it describes. But, alas, it's never a good sign when a researcher of new religions seemingly doesn't grasp even the basic dogmas and distinctions of old ones, even mixing up Jesus's virgin birth and Mary's immaculate conception in the introduction. The slim size is a plus--but it also draws attention to the particular choices and omissions of the generally insightful, sometimes-confused editor. A subjective qualm, but I guess all are.

[Martine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book but its structure has some clear drawbacks that are common to the Cambridge Companions. This is mostly due to the chapters being written by different authors and therefore lacking an overall vision. The quality of the chapters can also vary dramatically.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part Social Perspectives thries to give an overview of new religious movements (NRM) as seen from the social sciences. Chapter 1 is about sociology and it gives a very interesting overview of NRM in general. It is a very good and structured introduction into the subject. The second chapter about the internet and NRM, however, starts out about NRM but ends up being a ramble of internet paranoia. The next chapter, number 3, on Controversies is again very interesting, looking at some of the fears that NRM have created in society.

The next part, called Themes, is a mixture of different subjects. This section suffers from the problem that it tries to make general statements about NRM, while NRM are by their nature very diverse. Chapter 5 on charismatic leaders tries to solve this by working with very theoretical catergories, but has to create so many to fit in all the NRM that they loose meaning. Chapter 6 on rituals picks four different NRM as examples. Chapter 4 about history and end of time ends up saying little more than that NRM use and abuse history to fit their own ideologies, but uses an incredible amount of big words in the proces. Chapter 7 on canonical literature is the best chapter in this part of the book.

The last part has each chapter focussing on a different NRM. This is a good approach and gives the most practical information, but again the quality varies per chapter. Chapter 8 for instance tells more about the controversies surrounding Scientology than the actual movement. And chapter 12 on Neosufism manages to leave its readers still wondering what neosofist believe in and what the boundary is between sufism and neosufism. On the other hand chapter 10 on the Raelian movement is very good, giving a short overview of the movement for those who are unfamiliar with it. Chapter 17 on NRM in Russia is interesting just for the situation, the rise of NRMs in an area where all religion has been suppressed during communism, which has created a religious vacuum and a disruption of traditional beliefs. This part of the book does make one wonder how they selected which NRM would be included. Where are the Moonies for instance? What is the purpose of the chapter on neosufism. Why is there a chapter on neopaganism and one on New Age? Choosing to focuss on Satanism in chapter 13 however, does show a sense of humour.

All in all, I recommend chapters 1,3 and 7. And if you want to know more about a specific NRM the relevant chapter might prove useful.