NRMs in Western societies I: Movements of Christian origin

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NRMs in Western societies I Movements of
Christian origin

• 10.11.2005

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Readings

• Stark and Iannaccone Why the Jehovahs
  Witnesses Grow so Rapidly A Theoretical
  Application (in Journal of Contemporary Religion
  12 (2) 1997)
• Jenkins The Devil Rides in Charismatic
  Christians and the Depiction of a Satanic Menace
  in Contemporary Great Britain (In Religiogiques
  11, 1995)

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Discussion topics

• Waves of NRMs of Christian origin
• On terminology
• Examples
• Christian
• Protestant
• Jehovahs Witnesses, Pentecostals
• Catholic
• Liberation Theology, Dalit Theology, Opus Dei
• Anti-Christian
• The Church of Satan, Temple of Set
• Feminist Theology

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin

• Late Roman period, 4. c., 12. c.
• Reformation (first half of the 16th c.)
• Rise of first Protestant movements
• Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists
• Wesleyan revival (1720s/30s)
• reaction against the Church of England
• John Wesley, Charles Wesley and George Whitefield
  
• focus on Bible study
• enthusiastic sermons and open-air preaching
• methodical approach to scriptures
• gt "Methodist" nickname of a society of
  students at Oxford
• gt Methodist church

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin

• Great Awakening (1730s/40s)
• Religious (Protestant) revival in colonial
  America
• Jonathan Edwards
• returning to the Pilgrims' strict Calvinist roots
  
• reawakening of the fear of God
• new style of sermons
• New lights vs Old lights
• gt Foundation of Ivy League universities

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin

• Second Great Awakening (1820s/30s)
• increased social activism among Christians
• promotion of Christian education
• American Bible Society (1816)
• Society for the Promotion of Temperance
• new forms of religious expression
• camp meetings
• strengthening of the established churches
• Baptists and Methodists
• Foundation of new churchers
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Disciples of Christ
• Church of Christ

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin

• Third Great Awakening (1880s/1900s)
• Missionary awakening
• Eg. Salvation Army
• Fourth Great Awakening (1960s - )
• Eg. Peoples Temple, Children of God, Church of
  Satan etc
• (Pentecostalist wave)
• Strengthening throughout the 20th c

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General characteristics

• Reformative and revivalistic
• Reaction to social changes
• Protest against the relaxed faith
• Purification of doctrine
• Revitalization of faith
• gt Fundamentalism

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On terminology Protestant churches

• Protestant churches
• All non-Catholic Christian churches (wide
  meaning)
• Historical Protestant churches (narrow meaning)
• Western European Christian churches
• Originate in the break from Catholicism during
  Reformation
• Martin Luther (Lutheran churches)
• John Calvin (Calvinist movement)
• Radical Reformation, or Anabaptists
• Eg. Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists,
  Presbyterians etc
• Also Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, Mennonites,
  Quakers

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On terminology other

• Neo-Protestant churches
• vs Historical Protestant churches
• eg. Pentecostals
• Para-Protestant churches
• ( Para-Christian churches)
• eg. Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons

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On terminology para-churches

• Para-churches para-church organisations
• church-based and church-related organisations
• denomination specific or interdenominational
• Examples
• World Vision
• Worldwide relief agency
• Samaritan's Purse
• interdemoninational disaster relief aid
• Heifer Project International
• Agricultural mission for third world countries

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On terminology evangelical churches

• Evangelical churches (Europe)
• Evangelical
• Anything related to the Gospel of the New
  Testament
• Protestant
• Esp. Germany and Scandinavia
• synonym of Protestant church originating in
  Reformation
• original self-description of Protestant churches
• e.g. Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical
  Methodist Church

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On terminology evangelical churches

• Evangelical churches (US)
• Evangelicalism (or neo-evangelicalism)
• Fundamentalist revival within US Protestantism
  (1920s/30s)
• Emphasis on evangelism
• Preaching of the Christian gospel
• Personal experience of conversion
• Strictly biblical
• Bible as the ultimate authority
• Relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues

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On terminology evangelical churches

• Evangelical churches (US)
• emphasis on biblical instruction, i.e. the sermon
  
• eg. Televangelism (TV radio)
• Esp. in the Midwest and South
• Controversies
• faith healing pseudoscience
• financial scandals
• Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell
• 9/11 a divine retribution provoked by sexual
  immorality

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On terminology evangelical churches

• Evangelical churches (US)
• Relevance of Christian faith to social and
  cultural issues
• gt Christian fundamentalism
• gt conservative social and political attitudes
• Religious/Christian Right ? Republican Party
• Political ? religious fundamentalism
• Eg. temperance movement, McCarthyism, John
  Ashcroft etc.

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On terminology Christian fundamentalism

• Early 20th century
• liberalizing trends of German biblical criticism
• Darwinian theories of evolution
• gt a response by conservative churchmen
• pamphlets "The Fundamentals A Testimony to the
  Truth" (1910-15)
• Curtis Lee Laws
• journalist and Baptist layman
• coined the term "fundamentalist" (1920)
• those who are ready "to do battle royal for the
  Fundamentals"

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On terminology Christian fundamentalism

• Christian fundamentalism
• Bible is to be understood as literally true
• Fundamentalists themselves as the guardians of
  the truth
• Characteristics
• Antimodern
• Rejection of philosophical rationalism and
  individualism
• Opposition to Enlightenment values
• Anti-scientific
• macroevolution does not occur
• Scopes Monkey Trial (1925)
• Intelligent Design Movement

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Examples

• Christian
• Protestant
• Jehovahs Witnesses, Pentecostals
• Catholic
• Liberation Theology, Dalit Theology, Opus Dei
• Anti-Christian
• The Church of Satan, Temple of Set
• Feminist Theology

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Jehovahs Witnesses

• Charles Taze Russell
• 1869 (Pennsylvania)
• Bible study group
• The name "Jehovah's Witnesses" not until 1931
• The Watchtower and Awake!
• Worldwide presence
• 5.1 million members
• 25 in Latin America
• growth rate of over 5 per year
• most recruits from the poor

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Jehovahs Witnesses

• failed prophecies
• 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, and 1941 for Armageddon
• rejection of blood transfusions
• Leviticus 1710 "God told Noah that every living
  creature should be meat unto him but that he
  must not eat the blood, because the life is in
  the blood."
• Anti-nationalist
• do not vote, salute the flag, or participate in
  military duty
• Other particularities
• prohibition of smoking, alcohol, coffee,
  celebration of holidays or birthdays
• Back door policy

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Jehovahs Witnesses

• Anthropological and sociological studies scarce
• J. Beckford The Trumpet of Prophecy (1975)
• H. G. Botting The Orwellian World of Jehovah's
  Witnesses (1984)
• A. Holden Jehovahs Witnesses Portrait of a
  Contemporary Religious Movement (2002)

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Pentecostalism

• Core doctrines
• Belief in the gifts of the Holy Spirit
• Glossolalia speaking in tongues
• Faith healing
• Other
• greater emphasis on personal spiritual experience
  
• importance of emotions, trance, dance, music
• women allowed in ministry
• Agnes Ozman
• received the first gift of tongues in 1901
  (Kansas)

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Pentecostalism

• Glossolalia
• unintelligible utterances
• lacking semantics, syntax, or morphology
• evidence of receiving the spiritual gifts of
  the Holy Spirit
• New Testament (the Book of Acts)
• "tongues of fire" descended upon the Apostles
• miraculous speaking in unknown languages
• Linguistic explanation
• reorganizations of phonemes from the primary
  language
• gt glossolalia is language-specific

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Pentecostalism

• Faith healing "laying on of hands"
• use of solely spiritual means in treating disease
• refusal of modern medical techniques (sometimes)
• Medical explanation
• placebo effect

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Pentecostalism

• 11,000 different pentecostal denominations
  worldwide
• Fastest growing Christian churches
• 120-400 million worldwide
• majority in the Third World countries
• gt Pentecostalism "third force of Christianity"
  
• Syncretic mixes
• Especially Latin America
• Central America 2 (1930s) gt 1/3 (1960s) gt 1/5
  (1980s)
• David Martin
• Rise of Pentecostal churches in LA Cultural
  revolution

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Pentecostalism

• Widely studied in anthropology and sociology
• W. Hollenweger The Pentecostals (1972)
• H. Cox Fire from Heaven The Rise of Pentecostal
  Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the
  Twenty-First Century (1994)
• D. Martin Tongues of Fire The Explosion of
  Protestantism in Latin America. (1990)
• D. Martin Pentecostalism The World Their Parish
  (2002)

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Liberation Theology

• Theology of Progress, Theology of
  Development, Christian Socialism
• Christian theology (Roman Catholic) political
  activism
• Emphasis on social justice and human rights
• Marxist leaning
• 1960s
• development, underdevelopment and dependency
• Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)
• focus on social mission of Catholicism
• working with the poor and third world development
• gt Especially Third World (Latin America)

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Dalit theology

• Branch of Christian theology
• Among the Dalits in India in the 1980s
• similarities with the Liberation Theology
• Dalits
• "outcastes" / "untouchables"
• ritually impure
• not included in the four-fold varna categories
• constitute 20 of the Indian population (200
  million)
• Doctrine
• Christian God a Dalit god
• Jesus himself was a Dalit outcaste
• Dalits "no people" gt "Gods people

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Opus Dei

• "The Work of God"/ "God's Work"
• Roman Catholic organization
• founded in 1928 by St. Josemaría Escrivá
• 85,000 members in 60 countries, based in Rome
• schools, universities, hospitals
• supported by Pope John Paul II / Benedict XVI
• Controversies
• authoritarian cult
• conservative, fascist ideas
• focus on recruiting students from prestigious
  universities
• several Francos and Aznars ministers in Spain
• various higher officials in the US

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Satanism

• Heterogeneous group
• worship of Satan
• or some other supreme (evil) being
• First used by Thomas Harding (1565)
• to describe Martin Luther's teachings

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Satanism

• The Church of Satan
• San Francisco (1966) by Anton Szandor LaVey
• Black Pope
• The Satanic Bible
• "Satan"
• a symbol and metaphor rather than an actual deity
• Doctrine
• Autotheism (self-deification)
• Everyone is their own God
• Everyone is responsible for their own destiny

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Satanism

• Temple of Set
• San Francisco (1975) by Michael Aquino
• former member of the Church of Satan
• The Book of Coming Forth By Night
• Set
• ancient Egyptian god (brother of Osiris)
• the original precursor to the Judeo-Christian
  Satan
• Doctrine
• fulfilment of individual potential through the
  Black Arts
• quest for knowledge and self-improvement

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Satanism

• "Satanic panic" of the 1980s
• various (mostly unbased) accusations
• kidnapping, torture and murder
• sexual abuse, pornography, necrophilia,
  cannibalism
• Satanic ritual abuse (SRA)
• abuse of children, brainwashing
• personal accounts of SRA
• Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder (her
  psychiatrist)
• Michelle Remembers (1980)
• Nancy Gooch with E. Peterson and L. Freeman
• Nightmare uncovering the strange 56
  personalities of Nancy Lynn Gooch (1987)

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Satanism

• "Satanic panic" of the 1980s
• gt Witch hunts
• Popular culture
• Graffiti
• Heavy metal / punk groups
• Role-playing games (Dungeons Dragons)
• Satanic companies
• Procter Gamble
• Walt Disney
• Apple

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Feminist theology

• Aims
• Feminist revision of religious doctrines
• gt reconsideration of traditions, practices, and
  scriptures
• gt reinterpretation of the male-dominated images
  of God
• eg. Elizabeth Stantons Womans Bible (1898)
• Increasing female presence
• gt bigger role of women among the clergy and
  religious authorities
• gt more female imagery among the myths and
  language of the faith

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Feminist theology

• Occurrence
• liberal branches of Protestant Christianity
• women ordained as clergy
• Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism
• women ordained as rabbis and cantors
• Resisted in
• Orthodox strains of Judaism, the Catholicsim,
  conservative Protestantism, Islam