George Fox and Some Theories of Innovation in Religion

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Claire Disbrey
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
George Fox

The histories of religions are notable for stories of innovators – people who feel compelled to rebel against the religious beliefs and practices of their time, who come up with novel religious ideas, and, whether intentionally or not, start new religious movements. Theories about the nature of religion need to give an account of religious innovation that accommodates these stories, and most claim that they do, even if only in retrospect. The baffling discovery is that the same historical characters are used to exemplify quite incompatible theories of innovation.

New Religious Movements

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Shame And Guilt ◽  
Emotion And Affect

New religious movements (NRMs), which are often popularly and pejoratively labeled “cults,” frequently become the sites for a multitude of conflicting emotions; they are cultural lightning rods as much for anger, shame, and guilt as for joy, excitement, and a sense of release and relief. Throughout NRM narratives, however, whether primary sources or secondary, whether affirmative accounts of one's affiliation and conversion or post-affiliation critiques of the group in question, two principal affective aspects emerge: emotional fulfillment and emotional abuse. As a heuristic framework to consider these more specific aspects of emotion in NRMs, this article uses the trajectory of participation suggested by David Bromley's affiliation-disaffiliation model. In particular, it examines the roles played by emotion and affect in the recruitment processes of different groups, focusing on affective enticement, affective coercion, and affective bonding. It also explores the link between affect and religious practices, the confirmation of religious beliefs, disaffiliation, and post-affiliation.

Environmental aspects of Religious Beliefs and Ritual Practices of the rural Population of Siberia (the 1920s. - Beginning of XXI Century) (Экологические аспекты религиозных воззрений и обрядовых практик сельского населения Сибири (1920-е гг. - начало xxi в.)

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-138
Author(s):  
Galina Lyubimova
Keyword(s):  
Rural Population ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Environmental Discourse ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Ritual Practices

Radical changes in the structure of rural population of Siberia became the result of transformation of peasant economic and ecological traditions in the xx century. Modern villagers, mainly engaged in the problems of survival, perceive environmental problems as something unrelated to them. However, the valuable relation to the natural environment is now a subject of reflection not only in traditional for Siberia Christian denominations, but also in the new religious movements. Being a response to the ecological utilitarianism which prevailed in the policies of the Soviet state since the 1930s, as well as to present-day worsening environmental problems, the mainstreaming environmental discourse in religious life of rural population is currently taking place. Based on the author’s field materials, archival documents and local periodicals the paper discusses the environmental aspects of religious beliefs and ritual practices of different groups of rural population of Siberia in Soviet and post-Soviet period.

scholarly journals Types of classification of new religious movements

2000 ◽  
pp. 78-88
Author(s):  
Vitaliy G. Solovyov
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Scientific Review ◽  
Methodological Research ◽  
True Science

An overview of current publications on new religious movements (NRWs) causes the researcher to feel uncertain. Whatever article or scientific review we have taken, everywhere we find diametrically opposite judgments about the same phenomenon, which is not even defined. The question arises: is there a general methodological research program for this phenomenon? Is there a comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, in particular, the construction of a satisfactory classification? Here we can recall the words of the famous researcher M. Mueller that the basis of all true science lies in the classification, and if we fail to classify religious beliefs, we will have to conclude that scientific study of religion is impossible

Corresponding to the Rational World

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 11-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Rapport
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Christian Science ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Social Controversy ◽  
Scientific Worldview ◽  
Twentieth Century America ◽  
Different Levels

This article employs the notion of legitimation strategy in new religious movements to explore and compare the use of scientific rationales and language in Christian Science and the Unity School of Christianity. I examine how Christian Science and Unity used science to present their beliefs and practices, and I focus on Christian Science testimonials and Unity's advocacy of vegetarianism to demonstrate their reliance upon scientific epistemologies. I argue that the two movements used scientific rationales and language as a strategy to validate themselves in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America, which had largely accepted the scientific worldview as a primary source of knowledge about the world. A key difference in the way they used science helps to explain the vastly different levels of social controversy involving the two movements.

New Religious Movements

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Hanretta
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The late twentieth century saw the rise of new forms of religiosity and a growing consensus about the utility of the concept of ‘religion’ to describe a wide range of beliefs and practices. The idea that Africa was perpetually in need of modernization and socio-economic ‘development’ influenced the theological and practical evolution of Christianity, Islam, and various ‘indigenous’ spiritual traditions. Pentecostalism and reformist Islam shared a turn towards the personalization of spiritual quests and a sense of rupture with the recent past. New movements attacked existing institutions, paths to religious knowledge and authority, and the perceived routinization of spiritual guidance. New patterns of connection between Africa and the rest of the world produced complex mixings and inventions separate from the movement of peoples or the territorial expansion of empires. Further research is needed into the links between the political and financial institutions shaping recent forms of globalization and the intellectual and social content of new religious movements.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document