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Chapter 3: Why Did NRMs Emerge?

Chapter 3: Why Did NRMs Emerge?. RELS 225 Cults and New Religious Movements. Why did NRMs Emerge?. Response to something unique in history, or They are not unique in history. Response to Cultural Change?. (Robert Bellah ) 1960’s changes in: Values Love for others life environment

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Chapter 3: Why Did NRMs Emerge?

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  1. Chapter 3:Why Did NRMs Emerge? RELS 225 Cults and New Religious Movements

  2. Why did NRMs Emerge? • Response to something unique in history, or • They are not unique in history.

  3. Response to Cultural Change? • (Robert Bellah) • 1960’s changes in: • Values • Love for others • life • environment • Self-awareness • Social structure • Role and character of religious institutions

  4. Distinct youth culture Political protest Civil Rights movement Vietnam War Drug experimentation Liberal lifestyles Background: Changes after WW2

  5. 1. Changes in Values • NRMs are successor movements to political protest and cultural experimentation of the 1960s. • Rises in: • Affluence • birth rates • Education • Rejection of 2 American pillars of ideological understanding: • Biblical religion • Utilitarian individualism, rejected for being unsatisfying, in light of their new ideals.

  6. 1.a Baby Boomer values in 1970’s • Me generation • Guidance no longer from church • Had to “grow up”; reintegrate into society • How to redirect revolutionary spirit? • Turned to NRMs for guidance • Human potential movement • Conservative Christian groups • Neo-Oriental groups

  7. 1.b appeal of 1970s NRMs over conventional religion • NRMs appealed to various classes • Provided a variety of religious beliefs and ways of life • Provided a feeling of control over own lives • Permitted reintegration into society while retaining idealism.

  8. 1.c Social Reintegration • Thomas Robbins, Anthony, & Curtis • NRMs are a method of social reintegration, providing: • Adjustive socialization • resocializing individuals to mainstream values and norms, • Combination • combining expressive and utilitarian orientations together • Compensation • renewing commitment to vocational routines (religion fulfills the needs jobs can’t) • Redirection • substituting stigmatized activities and satisfactions for those deemed to be socially legitimate (“highs”)

  9. 2. Changes in Social Structure • Three varieties of change: • Family / community • young adults search for ‘surrogate families’ to replace ‘mediating structures’ (social clubs) • deinstitutionalization • alienating expectations • Public/private sphere blurred • Adapting life in late modernity • Response to uncertainty: turn inward and cultivate close personal relationship and a heightened sense of subjective identity in the form of self-actualization

  10. 2.a Family changes • Society moved from community-oriented to nuclear family • What about when you move away from your family of origin? • Family-like system missing in private lives • Work isolates people from others • NRMs transform into something positive: • Childish expressivity • Instrumentalism and adult functionality • NRMs reconcile the two

  11. 2.b Deinstitutionalization • Hunter and Johnson (1981) build on Berger • Social life became polarized between private and public.

  12. 2.c Modernity • Modernity created • Dependence on experts • Continual self-reflection • A heightened sense of risk • Search for meaning • In intense cultivation of personal relationships • When that fails, in religion. • NRMs provide hope

  13. 3. Changes in Religion • Secularization • Independent institutions • Economic • Political • Medical • Educational • Transferred authority away from religious institutions

  14. NRMs as Cultural Continuity • NRMs not a “New” phenomenon. • Christianity began as a “cult” • Other religions, too. • Were met with skepticism, hostility, persecution • NRMs are a normal part of religious history, not a recent anomaly.

  15. Great Awakenings (McLouglin; Wilson) • 1st 3 Great Awakenings since middle of 18th century • American religious dissent • Protestant Christianity • Each show shift in self-conception • In cyclical patterns • Natural • Needed for dynamic growth of nation. • A 4th “Great Awakening” in American religious history? • NRMs since the 1960s

  16. NRMs not so “New” (Ellwood & Partin) • NRMs have their roots in older religious traditions. • NRMs are the result of society continuing to seek to fulfill its needs. • What are those needs? • How do NRMs meet these needs?

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