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Cultural Significance

Cultural Significance. RELS 225 Cults and New Religious Movements. Cultural Significance of NRMs. Our Skewed Perspective Why study NRMs? NRMs are intrinsically interesting Permit the study of religion on a manageable scale

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Cultural Significance

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  1. Cultural Significance • RELS 225 • Cults and New Religious Movements

  2. Cultural Significance of NRMs Our Skewed Perspective Why study NRMs? NRMs are intrinsically interesting Permit the study of religion on a manageable scale Are they smaller representations of what is happening to religion as a whole? predict larger social transformations in the world? ACM turned them into a social problem Reliable information on NRMs is needed Stark & Bainbridge: NRMs will become World Religions.

  3. NRMs and secularization • Secularization theory presents religion as reactive: • NRMs are seen as pre-modern, if not anti-modern. • People turn to religions to provide meaning and structure, to construct a nomos. • People who turn to NRMs have a greater desire to live in a coherent meaningful world. • Religious life has become increasingly subjective, about individual expression. • Options for religions: • Accommodate to modernity • Entrench against modernity • A New Religious Consciousness that is not a reaction to modernity…

  4. Features of a New Religious Consciousness • Religious individualism • Religions of experience (not doctrines) • Authority is given to those who can evoke such experiences. (pragmatic) • Accepting of relativism; tolerant • Holistic; Monistic rather than dualistic • Organizationally open • Individuals select their level of involvement (like client cults)

  5. Significance of a New Religious Consciousness • Two kinds of NRMs: • Totalistic (exclusive commitment, communal lifestyle): Moonies; • Open (to parallel commitments) (but not just “audience cults”) • The totalistic NRMs have been studied more. • If people have profound personal experiences in a religious setting; they will call them religious experiences. • These people cohere with others who affirm, expect, appreciate, and promote such charismatic religious experiences • New religious consciousness more compatible with findings of science and social sciences, and with the new social order. • Individualistic nature is flexible, compatible with hectic lifestyles. • Science is not purely material. • science and religion can be combined as never before

  6. Modernism and the NRMs • Are NRMs reactions against modernity or adaptations to the modern social world? • Lucas: The Surprising Similarities of “Anti-Modern” and “Modern” NRMs • Pentecostals compared to New Age Movement • Experience sacred power in everyday lives • Create new structures of social cohesion (trans-national, -ethnic) • Spiritual healing • Arrival of new age • Anti-institutional; decentralized.

  7. Stark’s 10 Factors Affecting NRM Success Retention of cultural continuity (to get converts) Non-empirical doctrines Tension with culture (a moderate level) Legitimate leaders (justified doctrinally; other members appreciated) Have a volunteer labour force Maintain fertility Local competition is weak Maintain strong internal attachments Maintain medium levels of tension with society Socialize the young to keep them involved

  8. Postmodernism and NRMs • Beckford’s 3 characteristics of New Spirituality • Holistic (emphasize inter-connectedness) • Power (new sources to help others) • Compatible (with other ideologies) • Are NRMs postmodern? • In some ways, but even more modern.

  9. NRMs: Anti-Moderns, Modern, or Postmodern? • Postmodernity: • Insufficiency of reason to find worthwhile knowledge • Eclecticism (combine symbols) • Sponteneity • Abandon over-arching myths and triumphalist narratives • Religion not a social institution but a cultural resource.

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