Exploring New Religions

By George D. Chryssides

New religious movements - popularly know as 'cults'- arouse strong public opinion and most books on the subject are polemical, giving hostile reaction rather than informed exploration. Exploring New Religions provides an account of a wide variety of new religions, focusing on their origins, beliefs and practices, which are set out in a compelling but dispassionate way, leaving readers to form their own judgements. Chryssides provides important analysis of the 'killer cults' - the Jonestown Peoples Temple, Waco, the Solar Temple and Heaven's Gate - and examines the factors that made their followers willing to die for their cause. Older groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) are discussed, and the author traces the development of a variety of strands of spirituality, ranging from New Thought to Transcendentalism and Theosophy. Subsequent chapters include: the Baha'i, The Family (formerly Children of God), the Hare Krishna Movement (ISKCON), The jesus Army, the Rastafarians, the Church of Scientology, Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Unification Church ('the Moonies'). Some less well-known groups are also featured: est (Erhard Seminar Training), the new Kadampa Tradition, Brahma Kumaris, Sai Baba, Subud and the Western Buddhist Order. Also included is a study of the New Age phenomenon, and an account of responses to new religions, at religious, societal and political levels. This is an important new study of new religious movements, which should prove invaluable to scholars, students and clergy as well ak to those whose lives have been affected by new religions. George D. Chryssides is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He has had many years of direct acquaintance with new religions, and has written extensively on the subject. His definitive work on the Unification Church, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, was published in 1991.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826459595
• ISBN13: 9780826459596
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Continnuum-3PL
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

THOSE SCARY CULTS AGAIN

Many of the prominent 'cults' or new religious movements are discussed here. Chapters cover offshoot developments from the major religions and include well known groups such as the Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses and Hare Krishna. One chapter covers the 'death cults', and the last looks at the anti-cult movement. I very much enjoyed reading this book, and think others with similar interests will like it as well. It gives us an in depth look at the cults and is one of the few works to examine the issue in a detached, methodical way. Most books are written either to attack or defend particular groups in question. Chryssides desires only to learn about them. This is close to a five star book. Well, almost. The author suffers from a typical academic inability to make judgements, even in the easiest cases. No group can be condemned. Of course we understand that one must be open minded to the claims and arguments of these cults, and not believe everything said about them, but matters are taken to an absurd extreme here. Time and again crimes are excused and immoral practices played down. The worst examples are found in the section on the death cult Jonestown. Chryssides goes as far as to suggest that the sect was driven to mass suicide by a hostile and racist world. What nonsense! I suppose if he was writing about the Japanese cult responsible for the underground gas attack in 1995, he would say they were only seeking to reduce subway crowding. True enough, we shouldn't be too quick to attack new religions in our midst. But they shouldn't all be let off the hook either.

Objective and Informative

It would be easy for anyone embarking on a exploration into new religious movements to be swayed by the sensationalist media reporting that many of these groups have been subjected to. This book, however, deals with a host of faiths and belief systems in a subjective and unbiased way, however bizarre they appear to be. Even Jim Jones gets a fair hearing!A great source of information for anyone interested in NRM's which wets the appetite for further study.