Product Description: New Religious Movements tend to start their lives with a number of unequivocal statements, not only of a theological nature but also about the world and appropriate behaviours for the believer. Yet these apparently inalienable Truths and their interpretations frequently become revised, ’adjusted’ or selectively adopted by different believers...read more

Product Description: New Religious Movements (NRMs) came into being as a distinct subfield of academic study in the 1970s in response to the explosion of non-traditional religions that took place in the waning years of the Sixties counterculture. (The designation ‘New Religion’ is a direct translation of a Japanese term coined for the many new religions that emerged in the wake of the Second World War, and was adopted by Western scholars in the late Sixties/early Seventies in preference to the pejorative term ‘cult’...read more

Product Description: James A. Beckford's work is internationally acclaimed not only in the sociology of religion, but also in other fields of the social sciences. Beckford has long been arguing that the barriers that have grown up between the different sub-disciplines should be broken down, with those specialising in religion becoming more cognisant of new theoretical developments, and sociologists in general becoming more aware of the significance of developments in the religious scene...read more

Product Description: RENNER Studies on New Religions is an initiative supported by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. The series was established to publish books on alternative spiritual movements from a wide range of perspectives. The books will appeal to an international readership of scholars, students, and professionals in the study of religion, theology, the arts, and the social sciences...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The London School of Economics and Political Science has embraced the full range of the social sciences and its related disciplines. Contributors to this book were invited to write on the subject of freedom. The volume is an exemplary reflection of the variety, the individuality, the different interests, and the range of assumptions found in the scholars of the LSE...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: How secular is contemporary society? Are pockets of sectarianism embedded in societies of developed countries? This timely book examines the interweaving of politics and religion, and of tradition and innovation in a variety of cultural settings...read more

Product Description: 1992 HMSO SOFTCOVER

Examines the way the Unification Church recruits its members, describes church activities, and investigates charges of brainwashing

Product Description: This is a collection of 19 papers that treat new religious movements as "strategic sites for understanding societal patterns". The focus of this volume is on five topics: comparative perspectives, historical patterns, societal responses to cultural imports, what new religious movements signify about a society, and social perceptions of new religious movements...read more