Chapter 7: New Religions and Movements Defining New

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Chapter 7New Religions and Movements
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Defining New Religions, Sects, and Cults

• During the early 1900s, sociologists of religion
  used the word sect to refer to Christian splinter
  groupsnew institutionalized movements that had
  broken away from mainstream denominations,
  usually in order to practice what they considered
  to be a purer form of the faith.
• In time, however, sectarian movements usually
  either faded away or moved back towards the
  mainstream.
• The term cult was originally a neutral term, used
  as a synonym for worship or even religion.
• Today it has mostly negative connotations, at
  least in the popular media.
• However, the definitional lines between a cult
  and a sect (or new religion) are quite vague.
• For example, the Hare Krishna movement was a sect
  of Hinduism in India, but in the West its
  members unusual practice and dress soon led to
  their branding as a cult.

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Defining New Religions, Sects, and Cults, contd.

• There are some traits that many cults share
• They typically claim some special knowledge.
• Their practice often includes rituals designed to
  promote ecstatic experiences.
• They tend to focus more on individual spiritual
  experience than institutional organization.
• They tend to have a charismatic leader who
  demands extreme loyalty.
• Many are also millenarianbelieving in an
  imminent End of Times leading to the dawning of
  a New Age.
• New religions tend to appear at times of serious
  cultural disruption or change.
• Hundreds of new religions and movements have
  established themselves in the West over the past
  two centuries.

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New Religions from the East

• Soka Gakkai
• The roots of Soka Gakkai lie in the Japanese
  Buddhist tradition of the controversial 13th
  century monk, Nichiren.
• Today Soka Gakkai International (SGI) claims 12
  million members across Asia, Europe, and the
  Americas.
• At the core of Soka Gakkai is the belief that,
  through the practice of Nichiren Buddhism, a
  personal transformation can be achieved that will
  empower the individual to take effective action
  towards the goals of peace, justice, social
  harmony, and economic prosperity.
• Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)
• Falun Dafa (Energy of the Wheel of Law),
  popularly known as Falun Gong, arose out of a
  Buddhist Qigong tradition in China in the early
  1990s.
• Qigong refers to various techniques of breathing
  and movement designed to permit energy (qi/chi)
  to flow properly through the body in order to
  promote healing, health, and long life.

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New Religions from the East, contd.

• Growth in popularity attracted the attention of
  the Communist Party, which saw Falun Dafa as a
  threat.
• It was banned on the grounds that it was an
  unregistered religion and had the effect of
  discouraging people from seeking proper medical
  attention.
• Falun Dafa practitioners seek both physical and
  spiritual purification through mediation and
  qigong exercises.
• Practitioners are said to develop a falun or law
  wheel in the abdomen.
• Once acquired, the falun spins in synchrony with
  the rotations of the planets, the milky way, and
  other objects in the universe.
• The energy cluster emitted by the falun is called
  gonghence the alternative name Falun Gong.
• Outside of China, Falun Dafa is openly practiced
  and has mounted a campaign of severe criticism of
  The Chinese government.

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New Religions from the East, contd.

• International Society for Krishna Consciousness
  (ISKCON)
• In 1965, a seventy-year old Hindu holy man, A.C.
  Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, arrived in New
  York.
• Within a year of his arrival he had established
  ISKCON and the Hare Krishna movement began to
  take root in America.
• The Hare Krishna movement was new to the West,
  but it was not a new religion.
• Instead it was a Western mission of Vaishnava
  Hinduism, the school that emphasizes devotion to
  Vishnu.
• Like other forms of Hinduism, ISKCON teaches that
  the soul is eternal and subject to reincarnation
  according to each individuals karma.
• However, those who practice loving devotion to
  Krishna will go to his heaven when they die and
  thus escape the cycle of rebirth.
• The fundamental texts for ISKCON are the Bhagavad
  Gita and a collection of stories about Krishnas
  life called the Srimad Bhagavatam.

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New Religions from the East, contd.

• Following Prahupadas death, ISKCON vested
  authority not in a new guru, but in a Governing
  Body Commission of eleven devotees who had risen
  to high position under Prabhupadas leadership.
• The heart of ISKCON tradition are the ideas that
  Krishna is the supreme God and that devotional
  faith is the best spiritual path, combined with
  the mystical practices of chanting the praises of
  Krishna while dancing in ecstasy.
• Pujas, or devotional services, to Krishna are
  held several times a day.
• Devotees are given a Sanskrit name by the guru.
• They wear saffron-coloured robes and show their
  devotion to Krishna by adorning their bodies with
  painted marks called tilaka, made of cream
  coloured clay.
• Their diet is strictly vegetarian and
  recreational drugs, including alcohol and
  caffeine, are avoided.

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New Religions from the East, contd.

• The Hare Krishna movement provoked strong
  reactions, both negative and positive.
• On the positive side, enthusiasm was shown by
  celebrities like George Harrison of the Beatles.
• On the negative side there was the concern that
  the movement was too foreign to Western culture.
• They were also, in the early years of ISKCON,
  discouraged from keeping any contact with former
  friends and family.
• Thus, they were branded as a cult.
• ISKCON now runs approximately 350 temples and
  centres worldwide.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS
  or Mormons)
• The founder of the LDS, Joseph Smith, Jr.
  (180544), claimed that in 1820, he had
  experienced a vision of God and Jesus in which he
  was told not to join any of the existing
  religious denominations.
• In a subsequent vision, an angel of God named
  Moroni had persuaded him that he had been
  divinely chosen to restore the true Church of
  Christ.
• Smith then published the Book of Mormon.
• Smith and his small band of followers faced
  ridicule and persecution from mainstream
  Christians in New York, and so Smith led them
  westward in search of a safe place.
• They eventually moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, on the
  Mississippi River where Smith secretly introduced
  plural marriage.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• A number of the traditionalist, anti-polygamy
  Mormons stayed in the Midwest as the Reorganized
  Church of Latter-Day Saints (RLDS).
• In 2001 they renamed themselves the Community of
  Christ.
• The larger branch of the Mormons, the LDS, moved
  to Utah in 1847 under the leadership of Brigham
  Young.
• The Mormons set their community apart with a code
  of behaviour that included not only a rigid
  sexual morality, but strict abstinence from
  stimulants, including tea and coffee, as well as
  alcohol and tobacco.
• The most controversial Mormon practice was plural
  marriage which was officially adopted in 1852 and
  officially dropped in 1890.
• Whether Mormons constitute a new religion or
  merely a new denomination of Christianity is open
  to question.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• The Bahai Faith
• Bahai developed out of Islam in the
  mid-nineteenth century.
• The main point of divergence is that Bahais
  believe that their leader Bahaullah was a new
  prophet, whereas Muslims believe there can never
  be another prophet after Muhammad.
• The roots of Bahai lie in Iranian Shiism.
• In 1844, Sayyid Ali Muhammad declared himself to
  be the Bab.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• The leadership of the movement passed to Mirza
  Husayn Ali Nuri (181792), whose religious name
  was Bahaullah (Glory of God).
• The transfer to the Mediterranean world expanded
  the sphere of Bahaullahs spiritual activity
  well beyond the horizon of Iranian Shiism.
• Bahaullah wrote more than a hundred texts.
• Bahais believe his writings to be Gods inspired
  revelations for this age.
• Bahais teach that the soul is eternal, a
  mystery that is independent both of the body and
  of space and time it can never decay.
• Yet this soul becomes individuated at the moment
  of the human beings conception.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• Bahaullah wrote that he came to unify the
  world.
• Various religions are seen as corroborating the
  Bahai faith.
• Bahais are also advocates of economic, sexual,
  and racial equality.
• Bahais follow a distinctive calendar.
• Beginning with the spring equinox, Irans
  traditional time for the new year, there are 19
  months of 19 days each, with four additional days
  to keep up with the solar year.
• Personal devotions are similar to Islamic
  practice.
• The faithful wash their hands and face before
  praying, and pray five times a day.
• The Bahai faith now claims some 7 million
  adherents in 235 countries.
• This includes 750,000 in North America.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• The Nation of Islam (NOI)
• Wallace D. Fard established NOI in Detroit in the
  1930s around the idea that Islam was the
  appropriate religion for African Americans.
• Fards version of Islam bore little resemblance
  to either the Sunni or the Shii traditions.
• The most fundamental difference lay in the NOIs
  claim that Allah took human form in the person of
  Fard.
• Fard soon authorized Elijah Poole, who changed
  his name to Elijah Muhammad, to teach Islam with
  his blessing.
• The men who developed the theology of the NOI
  were more familiar with the Bible than the
  Quran, but the story they told was no more
  familiar to mainstream Christians than it was to
  Muslims.
• An economic as well as a religious movement, NOI
  advocates black economic self-sufficiency and
  teaches a strict ethical way of life.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• A key disciple of Elijah Muhammad was Malcolm
  Little, who changed his surname to X to protest
  the absence of an African name and to recall the
  X branded on some slaves.
• In 1964 he broke away from NOI and founded Muslim
  Mosque, Inc.
• The early 1970s also saw a softening of NOIs
  attitude toward whites and an increasing
  willingness to work with other black
  organizations.
• When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, the leadership
  passed to his son Wallace who declared an end to
  the idea that all whites were devils.
• Not all members of the former NOI agreed with
  these reforms
• Among dissenters was Minister Louis Farrakhan,
  who, in 1978, broke with WCIW and formed a new
  organization that restored the original name of
  the Nation of Islam.
• Farrakhan dropped the doctrine that identified
  Fard as Allah and Elijah Muhammad as his
  Messenger and publically affirmed that Muhammad
  was the last and greatest prophet of Allah.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• The Kabbalah Centre
• The National Institute for the Research of
  Kabbalah (later renamed the Kabbalah Centre) was
  founded in 1965 by Rabbi Philip S. Berg.
• The Kabbalah Centre teaches a new form of
  spirituality based on traditional Jewish
  mysticism.
• Bergs Kabbalah is not new, but his approach to
  it is radically different.
• Traditionally, the study of Kabbalah was
  restricted to mature male Jews, aged 40 or older,
  who had already completed years of Talmudic
  study.
• Berg set out to make Kabbalah available to the
  world at large.
• Kabbalists experience God in the world as the
  energy that underlies and imbues all things.
• To illustrate the way God and the material world
  interrelate, Kabbalah uses a diagram usually
  referred to as the Tree of Life.

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Religions Arising from the Abrahamic Lineage,
contd.

• Kabbalah practitioners believe that their
  practices using the tree of life facilitate the
  flow of divine energy into the world.
• In Kabbalah God needs human effort to work in the
  world.
• An important practice involves meditation on the
  72 names for God, based on combinations of Hebrew
  letters the Kabbalah finds hidden in Exodus
  141921.
• Like many other religious institutions, the
  Kabbalah Centre claims that its spiritual
  understanding can replace any other religious
  belief.
• However, it does not require its members to give
  up their former religious identities.
• The Kabbalah Centre has benefited from the media
  attention attracted by some of its adherents,
  such as Madonna.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of Spirituality

• Wicca The Witchcraft Revival
• Around WWII, a movement emerged in England that
  claimed witchcraft to be the original religion of
  Britain and sought to revive the tradition.
• The first modern use of the Old English word
  Wicca is attributed to Gerald Gardner in 1959.
• Gardners initiate, Ray Buckland, is credited
  with introducing Wicca to the United States.
• Soon people with no connection to the Gardner
  lineage were establishing covens, and the name
  Wicca was becoming known outside of the movement
  itself.
• The feminist movement had a major impact on Wicca
  in North America.
• In general, this kind of neopagan witchcraft
  seeks a return to primal nature and repudiates
  the classical Western religions that it holds
  responsible for repressing human sexuality.
• It also challenges the patriarchal traditions of
  Judaism and Christianity.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of
Spirituality, contd.

• Wiccans celebrate as many as 8 sabbats
  (festivals) during the annual cycle, or wheel of
  the year.
• Four have fixed dates Candlemas (Feb. 1), May
  Day (May 1), Lammas (Aug. 1), and Samhain (Oct.
  31).
• The other four mark the important days of the
  solar cycle the Spring and Autumn equinoxes and
  the Summer and Winter solstices.
• Standard practice includes healing rituals and
  celebrations of important events in the life
  cycle.
• The most important symbols are the circle, the
  four directions, and the four elements (earth,
  air, water, and fire).
• It is difficult to estimate the current size of
  the Wicca movement, but there are at least 85 000
  adherents in North American and perhaps four
  times as many around the world.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of
Spirituality, contd.

• Scientology
• The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954 by
  L. Ron Hubbard (191186).
• He advocated a new theory of what the soul does
  to the body, which he called Dianetics, from the
  Greek dia (through) and nous (mind or soul).
• Scientologists understand the universe to consist
  of eight intersecting planes or dynamics,
  beginning with the self, the family, and so on at
  the bottom plane and moving up to the spiritual
  universe and the Supreme Being or Infinity.
• Scientologist use the term thetan for the soul.
• Each thetan is thought to be billions of years
  old.
• Like the atman of Hindu belief, the thetan is
  reincarnated, passing from one body to another at
  death.
• In the 1960s, Hubbard developed a step-by-step
  method for clearing the mind or thetan of mental
  blocks (called engrams) and restoring it to a
  state referred to as clear.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of
Spirituality, contd.

• Another important practice is the study of
  Hubbards thoughts and writings, known as
  training.
• After sufficient progress has been made to be
  called a Clear, the advanced training begins,
  which introduces some of the more imaginative
  concepts of Scientology.
• Scientology has come under intense public
  scrutiny and criticism for several reasons.
• Professional psychologists and other scientists
  are not sympathetic to the underlying claims of
  dianetics.
• The fact that every step along the bridge costs
  additional money has given rise to accusations
  that it is just a pyramid scheme.
• Scientology now claims more than 12 million
  followers in over 100 countries.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of
Spirituality, contd.

• The Raëlian Movement
• The Raëlian Movement traces its origins to 1973
  when a French journalist and racing enthusiast
  named Claude Vorilhon drove to the site of an old
  volcano where he saw a small flying saucer
  hovering near the ground.
• As a result of his UFO encounter, Vorilhon was
  told to change his name to Raël, messenger of
  the Elohim, to write down the alien message in
  book form, and to spread the word in anticipation
  of the Elohims return.
• By 1980 the International Raëlian Movement had
  taken on most of the features of an organized
  religion scripture, rituals, festival days, and
  a communal building.
• It is organized hierarchically on the model of
  the Roman Catholic Church, with Raël himself at
  the pinnacle.
• The Elohim are expected to return by 2035, but
  only on the condition that humans are ready to
  welcome them, have tolerance for one another, and
  show respect for the environment.

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Religions Inspired By Other Forms of
Spirituality, contd.

• Raëlians celebrate sensuality, advocate free
  love, and discourage traditional marriage
  contracts.
• Becoming a Raëlian involves two ceremonies
• Initiates must renounce all ties to theistic
  religions in an Act of Apostasy.
• Then comes a baptismal ceremony in which
  information about the initiates DNA is
  supposedly transmitted to the Elohim.
• Although Raëlians reject the concept of the soul,
  they believe that a kind of everlasting life can
  be attained through cloning.
• The movement claims more than 65 000 members in
  84 countries.

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The New Age Movement

• By the late 1980s, New Age had become a kind of
  shorthand term for a cluster of trends that
  included a quest for individual spiritual
  insight expectations of both personal
  transformation and worldly success the pursuit
  of physical healing and psychological peace
  through various self-help disciplines and, in
  some cases, reliance on astrology and psychic
  powers.
• Subjects that had been left on the sidelines of a
  scientific and technological ageastrology,
  hypnosis, alternative healingwere resurrected
  and, at a time of growing interest in subjects
  such as nutrition, ecology, and altruistic
  business-ethics, entered the mainstream
• In the 1960s, a prominent feature of the search
  for alternative modes of consciousness was a
  fascination with depths of awareness that
  traditions of Muslim Sufism, Hindu yoga, and
  Japanese Zen Buddhism, in particular, were
  believed to offer.

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The New Age Movement, contd.

• The New Age movement is thoroughly eclectic, and
  its diversity is part of its appeal
• It is open to many possibilities, including
  exploration, expression, and leadership by women.
• As such, it stands in sharp contrast to the
  male-dominated structures of the established
  religions and professions.
• The concept of holism, implying a quest for
  wholeness, sometimes with an overtone of
  holiness, was coined in the context of
  evolutionary biology to refer to the whole as
  something more than the sum of its parts.
• Thus, holistic diets and therapies seek to treat
  the whole person, body and mind, and holistic
  principles are fundamental to the ecological
  movement.