The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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Wallis’ typology has been criticized on numerous grounds. First, its detractors have pointed to its elevation of social orientation over doctrine as a serious shortcoming. Ignoring doctrine, they have contended, unhelpfully allows groups from entirely different traditions, with entirely different histories, to be put together. Critics have also argued that the Wallis typology does not allow for diversity within a particular movement, diversity that would place it in more than one category simultaneously. Sahaja Yoga for example, appears, on casual contact, to be world-affirming. However, the group has also displayed world-rejecting characteristics in certain circumstances. But, despite such criticisms, the typology remains the most cited in the field to this day.

NRMs and rapid social change

Another sociologist frequently referred to by scholars of NRMs, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, was Weber’s contemporary, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). According to Durkheim, social norms and values, especially those of religion, function as a kind of ‘glue’ to hold society together. In times of rapid social change, existing rules, habits, and beliefs no longer hold. New religious alternatives are, therefore, likely to be sought in order to provide new stability. On the basis that social change is always with us in one form or another, researchers used this idea to explain, at least in part, the emergence of what was estimated to be five new religions per day in different parts of the world. More broadly, a shared assumption of all the explanations put forward was that social change brings about religious change.

Researchers noted that in Africa most NRMs are based in urban areas, those typically populated with displaced families from rural villages, having to cope with new challenges and uncertainties. Over 6,000 Independent Churches have been counted, almost all of West African origin, the majority of which are said to have begun with a dream, a vision, or sickness. Their focus is on prophecy, prayer, and the Holy Spirit. Additionally, there are many new evangelical and charismatic churches that have recently been established by missionaries from North America. Africa has also imported some controversial new movements from other regions, including the Unification Church and the Children of God. But whether a movement is indigenous or imported, commentators have attributed its popularity to the need for stability experienced by members. The new groups have been seen as functioning to provide cohesion and a new sense of purpose after the throwing off of years of colonial repression, and following rapid urbanization (Jules-Rosette 1979).

Similarly, scholars of Southeast Asia have written of numerous NRMs emerging since the turn of the last century, a few of which have millions of followers, such as Cao Dai in Vietnam. Japanese scholars have pointed to diverse NRMs flourishing in urban areas in their country as well. Most of these movements are Buddhist, and it has been estimated that between 10 percent and 30 percent of the population belong to one or more of these groups. It is worth remembering that having multiple religious affiliations is not unusual in this region. In South Asia, NRMs have been described as coming into being all the time, coalescing around avatars, incarnations of the divine, and self-realized human beings, gurus and swamis, sants and Sufi pirs. Most of these groups are small, but some, like the Sai Baba movement, are substantial in size and have a considerable international following. The rapid social changes that came about following the end of colonial – or in the case of Japan, feudal – government were regularly invoked in explanations for the emergence of NRMs in all these regions. The concurrent increase in urbanization, communications and other forms of infrastructure was also seen as a contributing factor in the proliferation of new forms of religion.

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In the West as well, rapid social change was put forward, either implicitly or explicitly, as the most significant factor behind the rise in the number of NRMs from the 1950s onwards. Increasing globalization, scholars argued, led to an increased access to knowledge about religions, the net result being an increase of religious choice. Europe saw waves of immigration from South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Due to prohibitive legislation being lifted, there was also a marked increase in immigration from South Asia to the United States in the mid-1960s. Scholars additionally pointed to an increase in the number of travelers abroad, and to increased information from television and, more recently, the Internet. Some argued that, because this increase of information took place within a capitalist system, it gave rise to a situation in which a plethora of new and older religious movements sold their wares in a ‘spiritual supermarket’.

A different group of scholars emphasized the psychological and emotional effects of the rapid economic and cultural changes the West has undergone. Some early studies, in a move reminiscent of the psychologist Abraham Maslow’s theory of a ‘hierarchy of needs’, pointed to the increase in economic growth and leisure time in the 1960s. They explained that the ‘baby boomers’ of that era could afford to, and had the time to, indulge in the often ‘narcissistic’ pursuit of the spiritual. This pursuit was possible because their other, material, needs had already been satisfied. Such narcissism included far more widespread use of narcotics than before. The ingestion of psychedelic substances during the 1970s added to an already existing climate of questioning and ‘seekership’. Against this backdrop, some individuals were motivated to join NRMs that offered them clear-cut messages, be they about gender, or morality, or purpose, about the world.

Studies conducted by psychologists from the 1960s onward tended to find that such conversions resulted in damage. By contrast, a few sociologists speculated that NRMs, at times, act as a means by which people actually resolve personal and emotional confusion, and are rehabilitated. They pointed out that a number of groups in the 1960s emphasized that meditation could offer a better ‘trip’ with more ‘highs’ for those searching for Truth. The groups, they said, enabled ‘dropouts’ to re-integrate with mainstream society. Members were re-inculcated with respect for community values and were supported in breaking their addictive patterns of behavior. Nevertheless, most scholarly explanations for the emergence of NRMs during that period tended to assume that young people join NRMs because they were deprived in some way. Individuals who could not cope with the stresses and strains of modern life converted to them as a retreat from the ‘real world’.

More recent sociological commentators usually acknowledge that a complex of factors led to the increase in numbers from the 1950s onwards. But they affirm that new religion is hardly anything really new, or even particularly unusual. There are now well over 2,000 NRMs in North America, at least 2,000 in Europe, and over 700 in Britain alone. These NRMs have almost all been inspired by earlier religious forms (Melton 2009). Some are global organizations, and are represented in most major countries. Others have remained small and geographically limited, and have a low survival rate beyond one or two generations.

Researchers and new religious movements

Against the background of the strong feelings aroused by NRMs, a few of their researchers have been accused of being over-involved with their subject matter. Inspired by the desire to ‘set the record straight’ and to promote religious tolerance, they have been drawn into the role of public defenders of NRMs. They have attempted to counter publicly the depiction

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of NRMs as ‘brainwashing cults’. These scholars have argued their case in the press and on television, as well as in academic circles. Some have advised NRMs on how to improve their public profile, and have supported them as expert witnesses in court cases. As a result, outraged critics of NRMs have branded them as ‘apologists’. They have blamed them for being insufficiently aware that they have been used unscrupulously by cults for public relations purposes, and of unfairly using their academic credentials to invalidate opposing views from other expert witnesses. Some researchers have also been denounced on the basis that they have gained financially from their association with groups to which they gave their support. This issue is one to which scholars on all sides of the debate periodically return, in an attempt either to defend themselves, air grievances, or re-affirm the need for careful and well thought out research not driven by unacknowledged agendas (Sociological Analysis 1983; Nova Religio 1998; Zablocki and Robbins 2001).

One of the most well-known critics of academic-NRM relations has been Margaret Singer, an American psychologist, who concluded that academics should have no prolonged contact with NRMs for fear of undue influence. She has been publicly highly critical of the close relations other scholars have sometimes established with those they study. Rejecting the view that most people do not feel the attraction of cults, Singer argued that everyone is potentially susceptible, including those she termed ‘co-opted academics’ (Dawson 2003). Those who have disagreed with Singer and her supporters have pointed out that NRMs are often distrustful of outsiders. For this reason, in-depth participant observation is the best – and sometimes the only – way of gaining access. This method requires that scholars spend considerable time with members, in order to get behind the public relations façade that may exist, and to gain their trust. Those in favor of this kind of research have cast doubt on the assumption that all academics are at risk of becoming converts, or uncritical advocates. They have protested that scholars who have engaged in participant observation have mostly found the agendas of the movements they have studied, as Eileen Barker has put it, ‘eminently resistible’.

Cultural assumptions and NRMs

The scholarly advocacy of religious tolerance toward NRMs has reflected broader sentiments within the academic milieu and society in which such advocacy has been situated. Similarly, trends in popular areas of new religious scholarship – for example the increased study of gender and violence – have reproduced the increase of interest in these topics outside the study of religions rather than any change in NRMs themselves. Arguably, too, both scholarly consensus and controversy about these movements has been influenced at least as much by outside factors as by the NRMs. Larger cultural narratives and debates have had an impact on what kinds of questions are asked of NRMs. To examine the consequences of certain cultural assumptions is not to belittle the findings and conclusions of scholars. The point is that perceptions of NRMs held by the interest groups involved in debating them arise out of wider social contexts and concerns that need to be taken into account in an analysis.

For example, the hostility that has been generated towards NRMs in the West from the 1970s onwards cannot be divorced from Western cultural associations applied to the word ‘new’. This is especially when it is used in a religious context. Partly since the Western monotheistic religions uphold the notion of having one faith to the exclusion of all others, traditional religion is often represented as both ‘authentic’ and ‘orthodox’. As non-traditional movements, NRMs are therefore assumed to be ‘inauthentic’ and ‘unorthodox’, regardless

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of their merits or failings. Arguably, the upshot of this has been that similarities between the activities of new, and so ‘inauthentic’, religious movements, and older, ‘authentic’ traditions have largely gone unnoticed. Christian monks and nuns have often risen at dawn to chant or say prayers without fear of reproof. Members of NRMs, rising at the same time for the same purpose, have been vulnerable to the charge of ‘mind control’ resulting from sleep deprivation and sensory overload. It is seen as acceptable, and sometimes praiseworthy, that monks and nuns in most of the world’s religious traditions should give all their worldly goods to their respective organizations. Members of NRMs are likely to be described, at least in some quarters, as having been swindled for doing the same.

The concept of the ‘free individual’ upheld in both secular and religious narratives in the West has given rise to another arena of disagreement. Supporters of embattled NRMs have fought to ensure that the ‘religious liberty’ of members is protected. Critics have accused NRMs of removing freedom from individuals, and so have concluded that they are patently dangerous and subversive. The practice of ‘deprogramming’, common in the 1980s, was a byproduct of this rhetoric of subversion and danger. It involved anti-cultists in Europe and the United States being paid by anxious families and friends to ‘liberate’ converted loved ones. Deprogramming typically meant the kidnap and forcible holding of a cult member until they had renounced their allegiance to their movement.

These antagonisms have spilled over into the research arena. The most vexed debates between scholars have been on the issue of ‘brainwashing’, and on the related question of whether those who join new religions are victims of ‘mind-control’. Probably the best-known work on the subject is the comparative study of the Unification Church produced by Eileen Barker. In The Making of a Moonie, Barker concluded that the Unification Church members she studied were not simply the victims of insidious techniques of persuasion. However, there have been hundreds of other books and journal articles devoted to the issue. Some have taken a firm stand against the possibility of brainwashing occurring in religious movements, while others have argued strongly that the concept of brainwashing is a useful analytic tool of investigation (Zablocki and Robbins 2001; Dawson 2003).

Moving away from monoliths

Reference has already been made to the tendency to portray NRMs in oppositional terms. Often, members have been seen as either passive receptacles of pseudo-religious teachings, or as genuine spiritual seekers. Critics have been depicted as either champions against damaging and fascist religious regimes, or unreasonable bigots. Scholars who study them have been represented as either objective arbiters, or complicit dupes. Such depictions have served as rhetorical devices for deployment in order to legitimate or sanction. On the back of such rhetoric, NRMs are not always treated in the same way by civil governments, regardless of their location. Their treatment, instead, has depended on which country they are in, the relationship that religion enjoys with the state, the information networks between that country and others, and the degree of rupture the groups manifest with prevailing norms.

Indeed NRMs, depending on where they are located, have been seen very differently. They have been viewed as co-contributors to a healthy, pluralistic society. They have been seen as groups intent on subverting the very fabric of society, or as eccentric. Or they have been largely ignored as peripheral – but not necessarily dangerous – organizations. ISKCON, for example, has been viewed as a very controversial movement in Russia. The country has only a small South Asian population and a cautious attitude in its post-communist years to

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religions other than the Orthodox Church. In continental Europe, ISKCON is commonly viewed as a somewhat suspicious cult. In Britain and America, by contrast, it has recently successfully distanced itself from its earlier more controversial reputation. Instead it has developed a public image as an authentic upholder of traditional Indian religion in the West, and garnered widespread support from South Asian communities.

Similarly variously perceived, by the year 2000 the Church of Scientology had a number of Hollywood celebrities among its followers in the United States, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta. It was being seen as just one more acceptable spiritual path amongst many. In Britain, Scientology was allowed to promote its message on television. But it was being identified as a dangerous and subversive movement in a number of countries in continental Europe. Switzerland’s Supreme Court, for instance, dismissed an appeal in 1999 by Scientology. They upheld a Basel edict aimed at punishing ‘anyone who recruits or tries to recruit passers-by in a public place using deceptive or dishonest methods’. Tribunals in both Belgium and France have included the movement on their lists of disreputable cult organizations. In Germany, too, Scientology has been seen as sinister and overly aggressive in its methods of recruitment. The movement has never been allowed to apply for tax-exempt status there as a religious organization. In 1996, the German Social Democrat Party passed the measure that applicants for public service had to declare in writing that they were not Scientologists. They also decided that local politicians should not award contracts to companies owned or operated by members of the movement, and that companies applying for such contracts had to give written assurances that they were not associated with Scientology. Over a decade later, resistance has hardly eased. In January 2009, for example, a poster with a large stop sign went up outside the German headquarters of Scientology. It declared that the district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf ‘expresses its opposition to the activities of the Scientology sect in this district and in Berlin, and hopes that responsible parties in Berlin will watch the Scientology sect with a critical eye in the near future’ (Der Spiegel 2009).

The discrepancies in the treatment of NRMs by national governments are partly due to political and cultural differences that exist between countries. But they are also due to the diversity that scholars have noted exists within the movements themselves, especially those with an international following. Belying the uniformity of their popular image, this diversity is often visible at national and sometimes even local levels. Differences in emphasis and outlook are apparent due to particular local leaders, the closeness of the relationship with the international leadership, and the societies from which followers have come. Additionally, variety is apparent when one takes a closer look at the quite radical changes in course that can occur within movements, and at the degree of commitment an individual has to the norms of the movement to which he or she belongs. So, some degree of divergence is usually evident. This is so even in the face of common teachings, shared vocabularies, and, sometimes, considerable social pressure to conform. In the 1980s, for example, Rajneeshism went through a period in which its communes were ordered to abide by strict codes of conduct issued by the main commune in Oregon. Consequently, the breakfast bowls at the main commune in England were required to be set out in the exact manner in which they were arranged at all the other communes. Similarly, toilets were cleaned according to a rigidly prescribed directive. Despite such enforced consistency, commune members saw themselves as ‘the British’ manifestation of Rajneeshism, and distinct from their German, Italian, or American counterparts. Many followers, moreover, did not live in the communes and had a more relaxed approach to their allegiance to the guru.

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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.

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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:

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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)