New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction

Richardson, James T.; Barker, Eileen

doi:10.2307/3511265

Cited by 3 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Eileen is a prominent and influential British sociologist of religion who pioneered the movement in the sociology of religion away from loaded and problematic theoretical frameworks like ‘cults’ or ‘brainwashing’ towards more politically neutral terminologies for the sociological study of religion 14. She did this not only in her academic and popular writing, but also through founding INFORM, the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements, which receives funding from the Home Office and works to dispel, in her own words, ‘ignorance’ and bad information, therefore working to end ‘unnecessary suffering’ (Barker 1989: 1) 15. She takes her work seriously and is a staunch defender of religion and religious pluralism in public life.…”

Section: Vindicating Jehovah God At An Academic Conferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Epiphenomenal suasion: Jehovah's Witnesses and the politics of preaching against the state

Cardoza

2024

Royal Anthropological Inst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The individual is the conventional way religious change is figured when considering ‘conversion’. This essay argues this is rooted in the soteriological focus of Christian evangelism and shifts what are typically taken to be the objects of change to view them as agents of change. As an example of this, the essay compares two ethnographic examples of Jehovah's Witnesses’ evangelism: the ways that Witnesses preach with mobile literature carts; and the way three Witnesses ‘preached’ at an academic conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In order to make sense of these examples, it is necessary to unpack the theopolitical context underlying the common suasive strategy, and doing so is revealing in both instances of different objects and agents of evangelism, allowing for a comparison that explores how causality and agency are distributed in Witness preaching work. This leads to a consideration of the ways Witnesses’ public evangelism subtly preaches against the state as a process of ‘vindicating the name of God’.

show abstract

Section: Vindicating Jehovah God At An Academic Conferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Epiphenomenal suasion: Jehovah's Witnesses and the politics of preaching against the state

Cardoza

2024

Royal Anthropological Inst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Public religions encompass religious traditions actively engaging with and exerting influence within the public sphere, participating in political debates, social movements, and the formation of public policies. By focusing on how religious actors and institutions navigate power dynamics and contribute to shaping socio-political landscapes, these studies expanded the exploration of religious politics (Barker 1989). Epistemologically, these studies had a profound impact on central questions, approaches, and categories within the field of political Islam.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Political Islammentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Islam as an Incomplete and Contested Category: A Post-Foundationalist Revision

Jong

Ali

2023

Religions

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The exploration of the quiddity of political Islam and the diverse range of categories and terms associated with it has emerged as a prominent research agenda within the social and political sciences. The application of these terms to a wide array of heterogeneous phenomena and currents among Muslim populations worldwide, coupled with the utilization of multiple theoretical approaches to define and formulate them within the realm of social studies, has posed significant challenges to their usage. The inherent ambiguity and lack of determinacy surrounding the dominant categories and definitions prevalent in the study of political Islam have led to a decline in their explanatory capacity, giving rise to a host of theoretical, methodological, normative, and political dilemmas and predicaments. This problematic state, compounded by the extensive body of research in the field of political Islam, necessitates an epistemological interrogation into the prevailing categories and definitions within this scholarly domain. Through a critical examination of prevailing definitions within the field, particularly in relation to the idea of foundation, the present article draws on the post-foundationalist approach to propose a distinctive conceptual apparatus for understanding and interpreting the phenomena categorized under political Islam. By juxtaposing the notions of discursive tradition and social configuration, the article endeavors to construct a nuanced understanding of political Islam that not only incorporates and comprehends the singular characteristics of the objects of inquiry but also encompasses varying levels of universality in elucidating the social phenomena observed among Muslims and in the Islamic world.

show abstract

“…In the 1980s, researchers proposed the term 'new religious movements' to analyse new small religious organisations (Barker 1989). While this terminology may not be ideal either, it at least avoids some of the normative analyses associated with earlier research based on the threefold typology of church-sect-cult.…”

Section: Religious Minorities Sects Cults Alternative Spiritualties A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this terminology may not be ideal either, it at least avoids some of the normative analyses associated with earlier research based on the threefold typology of church-sect-cult. Barker (1989), a specialist in new religious movements, defines these as small-scale religious organisations with charismatic leaders and various religious origins. Their members are converts and mostly educated young adults from middleclass backgrounds who are generally critical of society and propose its change.…”

Section: Religious Minorities Sects Cults Alternative Spiritualties A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, some scholars analyse Buddhist organisations in Europe, especially Soka Gakkai, Zen Buddhism and some Tibetan Buddhism organisations, as new religious movements (Barker 1989;Beckford and Levasseur 1986;Clarke, 2006;Lužný 1997;Scherer 2009;Vojtíšek 2007;Wallis 1984;Wilson and Dobbelaere 1994;Wuthnow 1986). This classification shows that Buddhist engagement can be associated with 'potentially dangerous situations' (Barker 1989, 137) and with public opinion charges of brainwashing, financial misconduct and living a reclusive life, particularly where Soka Gakkai and New Kadampa Tradition are concerned, as they are treated as sects in public discourses and media (Baumann 2002;Hourmant 2019;Obadia 2007;Obadia 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Between Strangeness and an Alternative Buddhist Lifestyle: An Expression of Religious Non-Conformity in Consumer Culture

Bártová¹

2022

RASCEE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study contributes to the sociological understanding of the social perceptions of religious engagement and its self-presentation in consumer culture. Drawing on three years of comparative ethnographic research on the Buddhist lifestyle in five different organisations in France and the Czech Republic, it reveals that Buddhist engagement, through its practices, is considered peculiar or even potentially dangerous by the participants’ environment. Remarks of the people surrounding them reflect typical features of the popular understanding and the literature on sects, cults and new religious movements and express social pressure to respect different social norms. They also partly represent social demands to adopt a conformist lifestyle because of their often individualised and activity-centred character. At the same time, Buddhist practitioners’ self-presentation of their engagement is in line with alternative lifestyle discourses since it challenges different social practices, forms of sociability, ethics and other values. The importance, diversity and positive image associated with this alternative stance can be considered an expression of the value of non-conformity that reflects the individualism and disdain of conformism typical of consumer culture.

show abstract

New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Epiphenomenal suasion: Jehovah's Witnesses and the politics of preaching against the state

Epiphenomenal suasion: Jehovah's Witnesses and the politics of preaching against the state

Political Islam as an Incomplete and Contested Category: A Post-Foundationalist Revision

Between Strangeness and an Alternative Buddhist Lifestyle: An Expression of Religious Non-Conformity in Consumer Culture

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About