New religious movement
From Wikinfo
- For criticism see Criticism of New_religious_movement
A new religious movement appears as a religious, ethical or spiritual grouping that has not (yet) become recognised as a standard demonination, church or body.
Some sociological observers prefer the term to the pejorative term of "cult" .
Examples of new religious movements might include:
- Neopaganism, in which followers seek to revert back to the pre-Christian earth and nature worship of Western Europe, as in polytheistic reconstructionism.
- Eclectic and sycretistic movements, such as Tenrikyo and Theosophy, which attempt to combine elements to all religions.
- New-World African hybrid religions, such as Rastafarianism, Voodoo or Vodun, and Santeria, which combine African naturalistic religions with Judeo-Christian traditions.
- Japanese new religious movements, many of which have sprung up in the Post-World War II era, including Soka Gakkai, Church of Perfect Liberty, and Makuya. Some of these groups have been heavily influenced by Christianity, Buddhism or traditional Japanese beliefs, including Shinto.
Some New Religious Movements have attained a degree of acceptance, especially those religious movements that have arisen in the past 150-200 years in Western Europe and the United States.
These include Swedenborgianism, The Mormon Church, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Christian Science Church.
Others, such as the Church of Scientology and the Unification Church (also known as the "Moonies") are still struggling for respectability and acceptance from the wider religious community, alhough they have attained a degree of both in the past few decades.
External Links
- Apologetics Index: research resources on cults, sects, and related issues. The publisher operates from an evangelical Christian point of view, but the site links to and presents a variety of viewpoints.
- ReligionNewsBlog.com Current news articles about religious cults, sects, and related issues.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "New_religious_movement" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_religious_movement, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
