Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells
New religious movementsâ 351â
Scholars have noted a further reason for differences between the ways NRMs are viewed in different countries. This is the decision some take to accommodate their message to new environments when they expand. Dada Lekraj, the leader of the Brahma Kumaris, taught initially that the world would soon be devastated by nuclear holocaust. He believed that his followers had a spiritual mission to prepare humanity for its aftermath. Over time, and with the expansion of his movement into Europe, however, this message has been downplayed. The group now emphasizes its association with the United Nations. It encourages newcomers to try its meditations in order to bring peace and wholeness into their lives, aiming to foster love and peace on a global level. Another example is Mahikari, a Japanese movement. Mahikari tends to emphasize its links with Christianity to its Western converts more strongly than to its Japanese ones. The popular image of NRMs is that they are homogeneous entities peopled with followers who indiscriminately adopt the norms of the international leadership. However, everyday practices usually reveal a degree of differentiation once a movement has expanded abroad, or even within national borders. The differences that can occur are often then fed back into the variety of ways in which they are regarded across the world.
Concluding remarks
If NRMs look very different depending on the historical conditions under which they are constituted, can this argument be taken one step further to query the assumption that NRMs are always with us? In the 1970s and 1980s, social change was seen as being responsible for their appearance. More recently, Gordon Melton has argued that the emergence of NRMs is simply ‘a normal, ongoing process in a free society’. In his view, ‘ It may be that the type of new religions may change from era to era, but the production is fairly steady relative to population and urbanization. The emergence of new religions seems to be one sign of a healthy and free society’ (Melton 2007: 109).
It may be that Melton is correct. However, evidence for the steady creation of NRMs is debatable. Fewer NRMs appear to be starting up in contrast to thirty or even twenty years ago and, with some significant exceptions, the majority that have been set up are led by older teachers rather than by a new young generation of spiritual leaders. In other words, it is not clear that the early twenty-first century, despite the freedoms many are said to enjoy and the rapid social change occurring is as fertile a ground for the appearance of NRMs as was the case at the end of the previous century. This point, ironically however, may save NRMs as a critical category. For if it is the case that specific historic conditions have given rise not only to the waves of NRMs that have been identified but indeed to their very identification itself, that is an interesting and suggestive point of departure for further enquiry. In other words, rather than being bound together by shared characteristics, NRMs become a coherent field of study when using a historical approach that engages with how and why groups have been socially constituted in this way at very particular times and places. Whether this kind of historical scholarship will be pursued remains to be seen. It is to be hoped, however, that fruitful new avenues for research on contemporary religion will ensure that scholars of NRMs are not doomed to spend twenty more years debating the contours and merits of the category.
Summary
Scholarship on new religious movements (NRMs) has taken place in a hotly contested arena. Disagreements over the nature of these groups and the levels of danger they pose are apparent
352â Key topics in the study of religions
among academics as well as other interested parties. The chapter comprises a discussion of the history of the category of ‘new religious movement’, examining the characteristics that have been attributed to NRMs, explanations offered for their emergence, and the conditions under which scholarship in the field has taken place. It ends by looking at the different public perceptions of NRMs around the world, and closes with a suggestion of how the term NRMs might be retained as a critically useful category.
Bibliography
Barker, E. (1984) The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? New York: Basil Blackwell.
—— (2004) ‘What are we studying? A Sociological case for keeping the “Nova”’ in Nova Religio 8, 1: 88–102.
Bryner, J. (2008) ‘Is Texas group a religious sect or clear-cut cult?’ MSNBC.com April 9 2008. Chryssides, G. E. and Wilkins, M. Z. (eds) (2006) A Reader in New Religious Movements: Readings in the
Study of New Religious Movements. London, Continuum International Publishing Group.
Dawson, L. L. (ed.) (2003) Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader. Second edition. Oxford and Boston: Blackwell.
Der Spiegel online (2009) ‘Berlin District Posts Warning About Scientology.’ Jan. 23, 2009. Gallagher, E. (2007) ‘Compared to What? “Cults” and “New Religious Movements”’ in History of
Religions 47,2:205–220.
Introvigne, M. (1997) ‘Religious Liberty in Europe’ in ISKCON Communications Journal 5, 2: 37–48. Jules-Rosette, B. (ed.) (1979) The New Religions of Africa. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company. Melton, J. G. (2004) ‘Toward a definition of “New Religion”’ in Nova Religio 8, 1: 73–87.
——2007) ‘New New Religions: Revisiting a Concept’ in Nova Religio 10, 4: 103–112.
——(ed.) (2009) Encyclopedia of American Religions, 8th Edition. Detroit: Gale Research Inc.
Nova Religio Symposium (1998) ‘Academic Integrity and the Study of New Religious Movements’. 2, 1: 8–54.
Sociological Analysis (1983), 44, 3.
Weber, M. (1968) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Volumes One and Two. G.ÂRoth and C. Wittich (eds). New York: Bedminster Press.
Wilson, B. (1992) The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism. New York: Oxford University Press. Zablocki, B. and Robbins, T. (2001) Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial
Field. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Suggested reading
Barker, E. (1984) The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? New York: Basil Blackwell.
A comparative and widely cited study of conversion to the Unification Church by a leading scholar in the field.
Chryssides, G. E. and Wilkins, M. Z. (eds) (2006) A Reader in New Religious Movements: Readings in the Study of New Religious Movements. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
A very useful reader offering not only selected writings from NRMs but also passages from pertinent legislation and publications about NRMs by outside agencies.
Dawson, L. L. (ed.) (2003) Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader. Second edition. Oxford and Boston: Blackwell.
An excellent and readable compilation of some of the most influential scholarly work on new religious movements, including articles by Wallis, Beckford, Stark and Bainbridge, Barker, Singer and Wuthnow, among others.
New religious movementsâ 353â
Introvigne, M. (1997) ‘Religious Liberty in Europe’ in ISKCON Communications Journal 5, 2: 37–48. An argument by the Director of CESNUR, a centre for the academic study of new religions, for such movements to be seen as religious minorities and studied in those terms.
Jules-Rosette, B. (ed.) (1979) The New Religions of Africa. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Company. An edited volume offering a good overview of the diversity of new religion in Africa.
Melton, J. G. (ed.) (2009) Encyclopedia of American Religions, 8th Edition. Detroit: Gale Research Inc. A formidable three volume reference work offering detailed profiles of over two thousand religions in North America.
Nova Religio Symposium (1998) ‘Academic Integrity and the Study of New Religious Movements’. 2, 1: 8–54.
The symposium comprised a debate between scholars with close relationships with new religions and their critics.
Sociological Analysis (1983). 44, 3.
The issue was devoted to articles on the relationships academics have with the groups they study.
Weber, M. (1968) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Volumes One and Two. G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds). New York: Bedminster Press.
The volumes include Weber’s classic writings on charismatic authority.
Wilson, B. (1992) The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism. New York: Oxford University Press
The book is a characteristically careful and wide-ranging example of the work of this major proponent of the ‘secularization thesis’.
Zablocki, B. D. and Robbins, T. (2001) Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
An edited volume presenting different scholarly opinions on objectivity and ‘brainwashing’.
Chapter 21
Fundamentalism
Henry Munson
On May 24, 2001, the Jerusalem Post printed an article entitled ‘THINK AGAIN: God didn’t say “You might want to …”’. In this article, ‘ultra-Orthodox’ columnist Jonathan Rosenblum castigates a prominent Conservative rabbi for asserting that the exodus from Egypt did not in fact occur. ‘No plagues, no splitting of the sea – all a fairy tale’, as Rosenblum puts it. He suggests that what the Conservative rabbi is actually saying is that ‘It doesn’t really matter that the Torah’s claim to be the word of God to man is false’, because the Torah is nevertheless ‘divinely inspired’ and embodies important ‘spiritual values’. Rosenblum asks why should Jews look to the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) for moral guidance if it consists of ‘some really huge whoppers – the Exodus from Egypt, the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the stories of the alleged Patriarchs’. Rosenblum notes that the president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the principal seminary of Conservative Judaism, which is in fact less conservative than Orthodox Judaism, has dismissed the book of Leviticus as having being superseded by our ‘modern sensibility’. Rosenblum observes that if the Torah is simply the product of human authors, and if Jews can discard those parts of it they regard as incompatible with their ‘modern sensibility’, they can pick and choose those aspects of religious law they want to follow much as shoppers pick and choose in a supermarket. The result is moral chaos. This critique of Conservative Judaism would be qualified by many as ‘fundamentalist’ insofar as it insists on strict conformity to a sacred text believed to be in some sense the word of God.
Some scholars argue that the term fundamentalism should be used only to refer to those conservative Protestants who refer to themselves as fundamentalists. To speak of fundamentalism in other contexts, they argue, is to confuse analysis and attack, scholarship and polemic. This argument is made by people on both the theological and political right and left. From the right, scholars argue that religious liberals (those who pick and choose the commandments they will obey) use the term fundamentalist to denigrate those who insist on adhering to and upholding the traditional doctrines of a religion. From the left, scholars often argue that Westerners speak of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ in order to undermine the legitimacy of Islamic movements that seek to overcome Western domination of the Islamic world. From both perspectives, the term ‘fundamentalist’ is seen as illegitimate because it serves to delegitimize.
Conservative Lutheran sociologist Peter Berger suggests that what needs to be explained is not that many people insist on defending their traditional religious beliefs, but that many liberal academics find this strange (Berger 1997). Sociologist Steve Bruce elaborates on this theme as follows:
Fundamentalismâ 355â
In the broad sweep of human history, fundamentalists are normal. What we now regard as religious ‘extremism’ was commonplace 200 years ago in the Western world and is still commonplace in most parts of the globe. It is not the dogmatic believer who insists that the sacred texts are divinely inspired and true, who tries to model his life on the ethical requirements of those texts, and who seeks to impose these requirements on the entire society who is unusual. The liberal who supposes that his sacred texts are actually human constructions of differing moral worth, whose religion makes little difference in his life, and who is quite happy to accept that what his God requires of him is not binding on other members of his society: this is the strange and remarkable creature.
(Bruce 2000: 116–17)
Bruce goes on to say that ‘Fundamentalism is a rational response of traditionally religious peoples to social, political and economic changes that downgrade and constrain the role of religion in the public world’ (Bruce 2000: 117).
Edward Said approaches the subject of fundamentalism from a different perspective. He has argued that the terms terrorism and fundamentalism are both ‘derived entirely from the concerns and intellectual factories in metropolitan centers like Washington and London’:
They are fearful images that lack discriminate contents or definition, but they signify moral power and approval for whoever uses them, moral defensiveness and criminalization for whomever they designate … By such means the governability of large numbers of people is assured …
(Said 1993: 310)
Despite this condemnation of fundamentalism as an artifact of the Western imperial imagination, Said has himself used the term. In discussing Karen Armstrong’s Islam: A Short History in a review essay published in 1992, he writes:
Her book’s most valuable section is that in which she discusses the varieties of modern fundamentalism without the usual invidious focus on Islam. And rather than seeing it only as a negative phenomenon, she has an admirable gift for understanding fundamentalism from within, as adherence to a faith that is threatened by a strong secular authoritarianism. As an almost doctrinaire secularist myself, I nevertheless found myself swayed by her sympathetic and persuasive argument in this section …
(Said 1992: 74)
So here we find Said using the very term and concept he has often condemned as an egregious example of Western ‘Orientalism’. Yet in this same essay, and on the same page, he reverts to his more usual position regarding ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ in particular:
above all, look with the deepest suspicion on anyone who wants to tell you the real truth about Islam and terrorism, fundamentalism, militancy, fanaticism, etc. . . . leave those great non-subjects to the experts, their think tanks, government departments, and policy intellectuals, who get us into one unsuccessful and wasteful war after the other.
(Said 1992)