Mystics and Messiahs

Serious and important -Library Journal Loaded with intriguing sketches of dozens of cults and distinguished by Jenkins' healthily nonjudgemental attitude, this is a superb historical primer on what, tomorrow, may be a hot topic again. -Booklist A fascinating look at the importance of the religious fringe in American life. Jenkins argues convincingly that cults and new religions are significant social and cultural contributors to the healthy development of society.... A fresh and thoughtful analysis that sheds much-needed light on an often overheated phenomenon. -Kirkus Reviews This study offers sweeping cultural breadth and fresh insights into the role of new religions, though it remains to be seen whether Jenkins's prediction of a cult resurgence around 2010 will pan out. -Publishers Weekly Philip Jenkins has provided a vital historical perspective to the contemporary conflict between new religious groups and those who condemn them as cults that destroy spiritual and moral values. It is a conflict that has persisted through the twentieth century, with roots as far back as the Reformation era of the sixteenth century, and is likely to continue many decades into the future. His research forces all of us to reexamine the price we pay for the freedoms we enjoy, both in our allowance of the creative ferment of new divergent faiths that erode attachments to stable institutions, and in our tolerance of widespread critique of the unfamiliar that ranges from the rational to the bigoted. -J. Gordon Melton, editor of The Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America An innovative, engaging portrait of recent American religious history that transposes traditional conceptions of foreground and background. Jenkins places religious movements, usually treated as peripheral, front and center. He demonstrates that religious movements have always been a primary source of religious vitality and of what ultimately becomes mainstream tradition. Organized outrage and panic at the challenges posed by these movements are an equally integral part of our tradition. His portrait compels us to see ourselves as representing both traditions and the contemporary cult wars as just the latest cultural rendering of a very ancient theme. -David Bromley, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Virginia Commonwealth University