NRMs in Western societies I: Movements of Christian origin

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NRMs in Western societies I Movements of
Christian origin

• 18.03.2004

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Readings

• Bergman The Adventist and Jehovah's Witness
  Branch of Protestantism (in Miller 1995)
• Introvigne Latter Day Revisited Contemporary
  Mormon Millenarianism (in Robbins and Palmer 1997)

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Discussion topics

• Waves of NRMs of Christian origin
• On terminology
• Protestantism
• Evangelicalism
• etc.
• Fundamentalism
• Examples
• Christian
• Protestant
• Jehovahs Witnesses, Pentecostals
• Catholic
• Liberation Theology, Dalit Theology, Opus Dei
• Feminist Theology
• Anti-Christian
• Satanism

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin I

• Reformation (fiest half of the 16th c.)
• Protestant churches
• Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists
• Wesleyan revival (1720s and 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"
• insulting nickname of a society of students at
  Oxford
• gt Methodist church

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin II

• Great Awakening (1730s and 1740s)
• Religious revival colonial America
• Jonathan Edwards
• returning to the Pilgrims' strict Calvinist roots
  
• reawakening the fear of God
• New lights vs Old lights
• Foundation of universities
• gt strengthening of the new churches
• Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin III

• Second Great Awakening (first half of the 19th
  century)
• Shopkeepers millennium
• New England (US)
• gt increased social activism
• promotion of Christian education
• American Bible Society (1816)
• Society for the Promotion of Temperance
• gt new forms of religious expression
• camp meetings
• gt growing differences within Protestantism
• strengthening of the relatively new churches
• Baptists and Methodists
• emergence of new churchers
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
  (Mormons)
• gt The Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovas Witnesses

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Waves of NRMs of Christian origin IV

• Pentecostalist wave (early 20th century)
• doctrines
• baptism of the Holy Spirit
• speaking in tongues (glossolalia)
• faith healing
• 11,000 different churches
• Assemblies of God
• Cults (1950s/60s)
• Peoples Temple, Children of God, Church of Satan
  etc

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General characteristics

• Reformative and revivalistic
• Protest against the existing relaxed faith
• Purification of doctrine
• Revitalization óf faith
• gt Fundamentalism

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On terminology

• Various terms in case of Christian NRMs
• Protestant churches
• Evangelical churches
• Reformed churches
• Neo-protestant churches
• Para-Christian churches
• Para-churches
• Fundamentalist Christian churches

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Terminology Protestantism

• Wider religious definition
• All non-Catholic Christian churches
• Proper religious definition Historical
  Protestants
• Western European Christian churches of origin
• broke with the Roman Catholic Church during
  Reformation
• as a result of the influence of
• Martin Luther (Lutheran churches)
• John Calvin (Calvinist movement)
• Radical Reformation, or Anabaptists
• in conflict also with the other two

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Terminology Protestantism II

• Lutheranism
• Bible as the inspired word of God
• the priesthood of all believers
• efficacy of infant baptism
• Calvinism
• total dependence on God
• predestination
• Max Weber
• Condition for rationalization gt capitalism
• Created necessary value system
• Individualism, diligence, asceticism/puritanism
• Anabaptism
• "re-baptizers
• baptism of adults
• general term given by their enemies
• "radical wing" of the Protestant Reformation
• Various contemporary descendants
• Amish, Baptists, Brethren, Hutterites,
  Mennonites, Quakers

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Terminology Envangelicalism I

• Evangelical
• belonging or related to the Gospel of the New
  Testament
• Evangelicalism
• belief that Jesus Christ is the savior
• Bible as ultimate authority
• the doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide
• fundamentalism
• social and political attitudes of the
  Evangelical churches
• politically conservative

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Terminology Envangelicalism II

• Europe
• synonym of Protestant
• original self-description of Protestant churches
• e.g. Evangelical Lutheran Church, Evangelical
  Methodist Church
• US
• emphasis on biblical instruction, i.e. the sermon
  
• eg. Televangelism (TV radio)
• Catholic in the north
• Protestant in the USA Midwest and South
• Controversies
• faith healing pseudoscience
• financial scandals
• Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell
• September 11 - a divine retribution provoked by
  sexual immorality

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Other terms I

• Reformed churches
• various national churches of calvinist doctrine
• eg. Hungarian Reformed Church
• Neo-Protestant churches
• vs Historical Protestant churches
• eg. Pentecostals
• Para-Christian churches
• Para-Protestant churches
• eg. Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons

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Other terms II

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

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Terminology Fundamentalism I

• Religious fundamentalism
• Global phenomenon
• religious response to
• secularization
• modernism
• globalization
• social change
• resacralization
• often takes fundamentalistic forms
• Political fundamentalism
• often linked with religious fundamentalism
• Eg. temperance movement, McCarthyism, John
  Ashcroft etc.

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Terminology Fundamentalism II

• The origin of the term
• 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
• coining of the term "fundamentalist" (1920)
• those who are ready "to do battle royal for the
  Fundamentals"

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Terminology Fundamentalism III

• 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 - Dayton, Tennessee)
• Broadcast live on radio
• Clarence Darrow vs William Jennings Bryan

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Examples

• Christian
• Protestant / Para-protestant
• Jehovahs Witnesses, Pentecostalism
• Catholic
• Liberation Theology, Dalit Theology, Opus Dei
• Feminist Theology
• Anti-Christian
• Satanism
• Church of Satan
• Temple of Set

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Jehovahs Witnesses I

• 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 II

• most attacked NRM for various reasons
• 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."
• Lack of nationalism
• do not vote, salute the flag, or participate in
  military duty
• other
• prohibition of smoking, alcohol, coffee,
  celebration of holidays or birthdays
• Mexico
• 29th article of The Law of Religious Associations
  and Public Cult (1992)

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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
• women allowed in ministry
• Agnes Ozman
• received the first gift of tongues in 1901
  (Kansas)

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Pentecostalism glossolalia

• evidence of receiving the spiritual gifts of
  the Holy Spirit
• New Testament (the book of Acts)
• "tongues of fire" descended upon the heads of the
  Apostles
• miraculous occurrence of speaking in unknown
  languages
• a miracle of universal translation
• linguistic explanation
• unintelligible utterances
• lacking semantics, syntax, or morphology
• unpatterned 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
• spontaneous remission healing without treatment
• crediting the most recent treatment for the cure
• post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning

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Pentecostalism statistics

• 11,000 different pentecostal denominations
  worldwide
• Assemblies of God (1914)
• 41 million members worldwide
• Church of God in Christ
• International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
• Fastest growing churches
• 20 million in the US
• 120-400 million worldwide
• majority in the Third World countries
• gt Pentecostalism "third force of Christianity"
  
• Africa 41.1 million
• Nigeria 12.1 million
• South America 32.4 million
• Brazil 13.5 million
• Asia 15.3 million
• Indonesia 5.0 million

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Pentecostalism Charismatic Movement

• Adoption of certain Pentecostal beliefs and
  practices
• By mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches
• eg. speaking in tongues, faith healing, ecstasy,
  dance, music
• Charismatic Catholicism
• second largest distinct sub movement within Roman
  Catholicism

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Liberation Theology

• also
• theology of progress, theology of development
• Christian theology (Roman Catholic) political
  activism
• areas of social justice and human rights
• Marxist leaning
• 1960s
• development, underdvelopment and dependency
• Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)
• focus on social mission of Catholicism
• working with the poor and third world development
• Latin America
• Jesuit influence
• Christian base communities (comunidades de base)
• comunidad eclesial de base (CEB)

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Dalit theology

• Branch of Christian theology
• India in the 1980s
• similarities with the liberation theology
• Dalits
• "outcastes" and "untouchables"
• ritually impure
• not included in the four-fold varna categories
• constitute 20 of the Indian population (200
  million)
• Dalit theology as consequence of
• Dalit Panther Movement of Maharashtra (1970s,
  secular)
• impact of Liberation Theology
• 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
• controversies
• authoritarian cult
• mortification of the flesh (whipping)
• 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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Feminist theology

• Aims
• reconsideration of the traditions, practices,
  scriptures, and theologies
• increasing the role of women among the clergy and
  religious authorities
• reinterpreting the male-dominated images of God
• including more female imagery among the myths and
  language of the faith
• Occurrence
• liberal branches of Protestant Christianity
• women ordained as clergy
• Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist
  Judaism
• women ordained as rabbis and cantors
• Islam
• (rarely) women as imams but cannot lead men in
  prayer
• Resisted in
• Orthodox strains of Judaism, the Catholicsim,
  conservative Protestantism, Islam

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Satanism I

• heterogeneous group
• worship of Satan
• or some other supreme (evil) being
• first used by Thomas Harding (1565)
• to describe Martin Luther's teachings
• The Church of Satan
• San Francisco (1966) by Anton Szandor LaVey
• Black Pope
• The Satanic Bible
• "Satan" as a symbol and metaphor rather than an
  actual deity
• Doctrine
• everyone is their own God and responsible for
  their own destiny
• Autotheism (self-deification)

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Satanism II

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

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Satanism III

• "Satanic panic" in the 1980s
• various accusations (mostly no evidence)
• kidnapping, torture and murder
• sexual abuse, pornography, necrophilia,
  cannibalism
• Satanic ritual abuse, or SRA
• abuse of children, brainwashing
• various personal accounts of SRA
• Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder (her
  psychiatrist)
• Michelle Remembers (1980)
• Nancy with E. Peterson and L. Freeman
• Nightmare uncovering the strange 56
  personalities of Nancy Lynn Gooch (1987)
• witch hunts
• Satanism and popular culture
• Graffiti, heavy metal rock groups, role-playing
  games (Dungeons Dragons)
• Proctor and Gamble and 666" (1980)