In the face of the increasingly variegated ideological landscape of contemporary America, cults have become the focus of public controversy. The growth of new religions has been matched by the development of an organized and vocal opposition, the anti-cult movement. This in turn has prompted an extensive investigation of new religious movements (NRMs) by sociologists and psychologists of religion, as well as historians and religious studies scholars. The readings collected here contribute to the debate about cults by sampling some of the best and most accessible publications from the academic study of NRMs.
The contributors address the questions most commonly asked about cults, such as: What brought about the emergence of new religious movements? What is a cult or new religious movement? Who joins new religious movements and why? Are converts to new religious movements brainwashed? Why did the Jonestown and Waco tragedies happen? Are cults inclined to be violent? What does the emergence of so many new religious movements say about our society? What does it say about the future of religion?
Cults in Context surveys the descriptive typologies, theories, and data accumulated by sociologists and psychologists studying new religious movements over the last twenty years. It serves to defuse many popular fears and misconceptions about cults, allowing the reader to develop a more reasonable and tolerant understanding of the people who join new religious movements and the functions of these movements in contemporary society.
By:
Lorne Dawson
Imprint: Transaction Publishers
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 24mm
Weight: 703g
ISBN: 9780765804785
ISBN 10: 0765804786
Pages: 482
Publication Date: 31 August 1998
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
A / AS level
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
A: The Nature and Study of Cults; One: The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!; Two: Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative; Three: Three Types of New Religious Movements; B: The Historical and Sociological Context of Cults; Four: A Time when Mountains were Moving; Five: The New Religions: Demodernization and the Protest Against Modernity; Six: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation; C: Who Joins New Religious Movements and Why?; Seven: The Role of Deprivation in the Origin and Evolution of Religious Groups; Eight: On Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective; Nine: The Joiners; D: The Coercive Conversion Controversy; Ten: The Seduction Syndrome; Eleven: A Critique of “Brainwashing” Claims About New Religious Movements; Twelve: Clinical and Personality Assessment of Participants in New Religions; E: The Satanism Scare; Thirteen: The Construction of Satanism as a Social Problem in Canada; Fourteen: Magical Therapy: An Anthropological Investigation of Contemporary Satanism; Fifteen: Teenage Satanism as Oppositional Youth Subculture; F: Violence and New Religious Movements; Sixteen: Sects and Violence: Factors Enhancing the Volatility of Marginal Religious Movements; Seventeen: The Apocalypse at Jonestown; Eighteen: Cult Extremism: The Reduction of Normative Dissonance; G: The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements; Nineteen: Women’s ‘Cocoon Work’ in New Religious Movements: Sexual Experimentation and Feminine Rites of Passage; Twenty: The New Age Movement and the Pentecostal/Charismatic Revival: Distinct Yet Parallel Phases of a Fourth Great Awakening?; Twenty-One: Cultural Consequences of Cults; Appendix: Cults and the Internet; Twenty-Two: NRMS, the ACM, and the WWW: A Guide for Beginners
Lorne L. Dawson teaches in the Departments of Sociology and Religious Studies at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of Reason, Freedom and Religion as well as numerous articles that have appeared in such journals as Studies in Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Reviews for Cults in Context: Readings in the Study of New Religious Movements
<p> [This volume deserves to find its way onto the syllabi of many an undergraduate course on NRMs. <p> --Peter Beyer, Sociology of Religion The book will be a welcome addition to courses in religion . . . [A great resource for anyone interested in understanding the nature and significance of new religious movements. <p> --Reginald Bibby, University of Lethbridge Professor Dawson has put together a truly remarkable collection of articles that span the field of new religions. <p> --James T. Richardson, University of Nevada
