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Chapter 4: Who Joins NRMs and Why?

Chapter 4: Who Joins NRMs and Why?. RELS 225 Cults and New Religious Movements. Joining NRMs : Who and Why?. Stark & Bainbridge say not: Gullible Losers Everyone Not the dregs; more like the best & brightest. One early theory. What were people lacking? What does the movement offer?

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Chapter 4: Who Joins NRMs and Why?

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  1. Chapter 4: Who Joins NRMs and Why? • RELS 225 • Cults and New Religious Movements

  2. Joining NRMs: Who and Why? • Stark & Bainbridge say not: • Gullible • Losers • Everyone • Not the dregs; more like the best & brightest.

  3. One early theory • What were people lacking? • What does the movement offer? • Where do they overlap? • That is where the ‘reason’ is to be found. • Derived from deprived classes converting to Christian sects.

  4. Then: the 60’s NRMs • The converts in the 1960’s were privileged. • So the theory was modified by Glock: • Relative deprivation: • Economic (poor) • Social (power, prestige) • Organismic (health, physical, & mental) • Psychic (love & affection) • Ethical (dissatisfaction with dominant values)

  5. 1965 Lofland & Stark • John Lofland & grad student Rodney Stark • (Stark published a recent book: Rise of Christianity) • Best early work on conversion. • Studied a group called “Divine Precepts” (Unification Church) • The very first cell of “Moonies” 12-15 of them. • Proposed two kinds of conditions necessary for conversion to a NRM

  6. 1965 Lofland & Stark • Predisposing conditions: • Experiencing Tensions • Religious orientation (predisposed) • Seeker (already reading, investigating)

  7. 1965 Lofland & Stark • Situational Contingencies: • Encounter • Bonds-making • Bond-breaking • Interacting

  8. Who in fact joins? • Join through social networks. • Affective ties • They liked the people. • Intensive interaction • Left when people disappointed them. • No other commitments (family, mortgage) • No ideological alignment • With history of seekership • People looking for rewards & compensations: • Needs (Affirmation, belonging, empowerment) • Meaning • Status (job opportunities; opportinity for advancement; leadership roles) • Other: • hostile environment (Christianity?) • Competition

  9. Joiners are not: • Brainwashed • making us all equally as susceptible • loners, social outcasts, or religious radicals.

  10. Characteristics • Young • Even younger in the 1970’s • Higher educated • Middle-upper middle class • No appeal to working class • Balanced male-female • Although varies by NRM: Moonies started male • More secular religious backgrounds • But large Jewish representation, especially in Zen.

  11. 1984: Two Resources • Radical Departures, by Saul Levine. • North American psychiatrist • Good for parents of cult members. • 800 interviews • The Making of a Moonie by Eileen Barker • British sociologist • Interviewed/surveyed all Moonie attendees for 10 years. • Compared with a control group.

  12. Barker’s findings: • Respectable families • Overachievers • Disrupted at university (disappointed with larger world)

  13. Levine’s findings: • No more psychopathology than normal • Overacheivers • Quietly suffering in frustration for years • Identify too strongly with parents • They like their parents. • Try to please them • No strong romantic relationship in adolescence • No all-nighters stoned, pondering metaphysics. • 90% of joiners left voluntarily in less than 2 years.

  14. Further Factors • 2. rationality of conversions • Same as other large decisions • e.g., what college to attend • determine benefits outweigh perceived costs. • 3. religious experience • Or perhaps people join because they have indeed experienced some sort of enlightenment

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