RLST-- New Religious Movements

Defining features of NRMs

Defining features of NRMs

1. Charismatic leader 

2. Sharp distinctions between “us and them” 

3. “New” social strictures (family, sexuality, vocation, aesthetics) 

4. Apocalyptic or Millenarian eschatology 

5. Demand a high level of communities 

6. Secretary (not always)

Charisma

• 1) Compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others

• 2) A divinely conferred power or talent (‘gift of grace)

Apocalypse

• The complete and final destruction of the world, as described in the Biblical book of revelation 

  • Christian roots

Millenarianism

• The doctrine of or a belief in a future thousands year age blessedness, beginning with or culminating in the Second Coming of Christ 

• Central teachings of groups such as Plymouth Brethren, Adventists, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses

Eschatology

• Part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and humankind 

• Christian roots 

What is religion?

• Fundamentally religion provides a solution to a perceived problem 

• Perceived problem: 

  • Crops won't grow → god of the sun (no control over nature) 

  • Bad things happen to good people (no control over our destiny) 

  • Evil is the world (no control over others) 

• Solutions: faith, worship, penitence, rituals, devotions. etc.

What is the difference between a cult and a religion?

• No difference depends on perspective! 

Perspective: NRMs

• argue back that there is nothing wrong with their religious and personal choices only is there nothing wrong, but that these choices are ultimately better 

• Seek to distance devotees from negative & dissenting voices around them (results in separating devotees from external friends and family)

Perspective: ACM

• Often driven by family members and friends who are angry and mourning the loss of a relative [son/daughter]

• Often they want the cult stopped. Revealed and they want their child back (the way s/he used to be) -not the way they have been transformed

Perspective: Media 

• Pro-normative behavior (“gate-keeper” of the centers)= often anti-cult

• sensationalistic= highlights unconventional behaviors

• Distorted view due to limited second- hand knowledge & time/$ constraints

Perspective: Law

• Aimed at justice (according to the law of the land), but also winning the case for the individual 

• Adversarial, confrontational, positive vs. negative, definitional (wants concrete definitions: abuse, religion, spirituality, etc.)

• Invites expert witnesses to prove argument (may ignore data that does not fit within the case they are attempting to put forward)

Perspective: Therapy

• Goal: to help the client get better and develop coping strategies 

• Listen, accept, and/or construct the client’s version of reality (even if not based in fact) 

• Directs clients to other resources (courts, media)

• Competition-based professional enterprise

NRMs Demands

• Self-sacrifice 

• Hard labor 

• Public ridicule 

• Postponed childbearing (separation from children) 

• Separation from external family and friends 

Altruism

“Each sacrifice individual interests and survival potential for the group’s benefit”

“The Relief Effect”

When people get involved in a charismatic group, an inverse relationship exists between their feelings of emotional distress and the degree to which they are affiliated with that group… a member is therefore poised between reward for closeness and punishment for alienation”

• The reward for being in a group/ closeness 

• Encouragement to stay in the center of the group and reinforce that 

• As you go closer to the group = positive; away= negative

• Closer to the group → get opportunities, money, advancement opportunities

more distress=

the more likely to join the group/ theology

Boundary Control

• Us vs. them mentality 

• Persecution narrative

• Attacks/ critiques from outside only further solidarity within

• Boundaries are heavily monitored to ensure conformity and identity threat

• disassociation

Isolation

• No internet, TV, public school, contact with the outside world, job

• Inputted with doctrine from mater/prophet/guru/

  • Doctrine from family 

  • Doctrine from leaders and administrators

“Pincer effect” 

The agent inflicting distress on the dependent person is also perceived as the party who can provide relief

“Stockholm syndrome”

• When Individuals are cast together as hostages and their lives are threatened, they can develop a positive bond with hostage takers

• A coping strategy to find hope in an otherwise hopeless environment (base of fear gives rise to love for oppressor)

What gives hope to people?

Both ideas (the pincer effect and Stockholm syndrome)

Voodoo Death Syndrome

• Staying inside the group is protection and away from fear 

• Intense fear of fleeing and separate from the group

“Deprogrammed” ex-members

• Exhibited more animosity (anger, bad feelings) toward the group than those who had left voluntarily

• Becomes aggressively “anti-cult”

Brainwashing 3 Tactics

• Destabilize sense of self 

• Get the person to drastically reinterpret his or her life’s history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality 

• Develop a dependence on the organization 

Margaret Singer’s 6 Conditions of Brainwashing: 

1. Keep the person unaware that there is an agenda to control or change the person 

2. Control time and physical environment 

3. Create a sense of powerlessness, fear, and dependency 

4. Suppress old behavior and attitudes 

5. Instill new behaviors and attitudes 

6. Put forth a closed system of logic 

Robert Liftom’s Conditions of Brainwashing

1. Milieu control 

   1. Total control of communication in the group

2. Loading the language

   1. Language serves the purpose of constructing members’ thinking 

3. Demand for purity

   1. Us vs. them  

4. Confession

   1. Used to lead members to reveal past and present behavior

5. Mystical manipulation 

   1. The group manipulates member to think that their new feelings and behavior have arisen spontaneously in this atmosphere

6. Doctrine over Person

   1. Rewriting personal history 

7. Scared Science

   1. Adding a credible layer to his central philosophy

8. Dispensing of Existence 

   1. Emphasized that members are part of an elite movement

Schein’s three stages 

1. Unfreezing: identity crisis

2. Changing: solutions offered by the group provide a path to follow

3. Refreezing: The group reinforces you in the desired behavior with social and psychological rewards, and punishes unwanted behavior

Problems with Brainwashing Theories 

1. They serve the people who create them 

2. Sometimes are not based on facts/ science

3. NRMs can have positive effects on people 

4. Self- perpetuating theory (produce self)

5. Denies agency to participants 

New World

• a new world in which corruption, human fallibilty, evil, or, the burdens of material existence have been erased forever -Dashke and Ashcraft

Apocalypticism is common to most religions  (give examples)

• Judaism: origins of apocalypticism in the Abrahamic religions (book of Daniel) 

• Christianity: Day of Judgement, second coming of Christ 

• Islam: arrival of Mahdi, Day of Judgement, second coming of Isa (Christ) 

• Hinduism: 10th incarnation of Vishnu, Kalki, manifests at the end of Kali Yuga (regenerating the universe)  

• Buddhism: decline in dharma, knowledge of dhmara is lost, the next Nuddha Maitreya will appear

Related sects have become even more committed to apocalypticism and charismatic leaders who promise new revelations

• Millerities 

• Branch Davidians (Waco)

Effects of apocalyptic beliefs 

• Create urgency, an immediate need to adopt a religious worldview 

• Justify demand for strong commitment 

• Justify demand for radical (out of the ordinary) action 

• Justify extraordinary events

• Manichean worldview, a battle between good and evil (God’s world v. the Devil’s world), self-fulfilling when persuaded by outsiders/US governement, provides evidence for apocalyptic eschatology  

• Persecution validates ideolog

Influence of Apocalypticism in the US

• Puritans had a utopian vision of establishing a “New Jerusalem” 

• Battle of Hymn of Republic, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” (direct reference to Revelations) 

• The Left Behind series, best sellers

• 2002 survey, 59 percent of Americans believe that the events in the Book of Revelations will actually happen 

• 70 percent of Americans believe that Israel’s existence is related to Christ’s second coming 

• “Endtimers” are a powerful lobby in the United States 

• Effects US policy in Israel, Syria, Iraq, environmental policy

Millerites

• William Miller (1782-1849) in tandem with the Second Great Awakening

• Miller searched the Bible for several years and determined that the Second Coming of Christ was immanent 

• determined it to be sometime between 3/21/1843 and 3/21/1844 

• those who believed in his prophecy became called the Millerites 

• after 3/21/1844 came and went he readjusted his dates to 10/22/1844 

• when 10/22/1844 came and went it was dubbed “The Great Disappointment” 

• Many followers were financially ruined; most of his followers left the movement

Seventh-day Adventists 

• Ellen Harmon (Ellen G. White) developed the remaining Millerites followers into the Adventists

• Passing 16,000 members.

• Following Joseph Bates (also a Millerite and Adventist) saw the Sunday Sabbath as an abomination, a Catholic Church take-over 

• Began celebrating the Seventh Day (Saturday) as the Sabbath 

• SDA viewed the Catholic Church as the First Beast of Revelations and the US Federal Government as the Second Beast 

• Christ's delay is a result of 1) lax morals of Christians and 2) incomplete Evangelism

• Focus on education and bodily health (vegetarianism, temperance, built schools, hospitals, medical schools)

Branch Davidians 

• Divided from SDA when they became more mainstream and focused instead on the Second Coming 

• This apostasy was seen as a signal for the Endtimes

•  In 1981, another disaffected SDA, David Koresh, joined the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas and soon became their charismatic leader 

•  Believed himself to be the lamb of God and that he was opening the seven seals referenced in Revelations. He believed that his family and community would lead the world as the Elders of Zion after Armageddon and Christ’s Second Coming. 

• Believed that there was an immanent war between the Branch Davidians and “Babylon,” the US government 

• When they were persecuted by the US government, Branch Davidians believed it to be the fulfillment of prophecy

Jehovah’s Witnesses

• No celebrating holidays 

• No vaccines 

• Strong us vs. them mentality 

• Founders, Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) and Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1896-1942) 

• Established the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society 

• Believed in the immanent end to human society in the coming war of Armageddon, including a number of dates for Christ’s Second Coming (1914, 1918, 1925, 1975) 

• Set themselves apart from the world 

• Condemnation of non-Witness society as ruled by the devil, separate from God’s Kingdom (comprised of 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses) 

•  The non-Witness world is mired in suffering because it is controlled by Satan 

•  Mandated missionizing, proselytizing

Mormons 

• Joseph Smith 

• (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS)

• Believe in the second coming of Christ (which very well may happen in our lifetime) 

•  But also belief that preparedness fosters independence and freedom (based on history of persecution) 

• Preparedness also enables families to help each other in times of crisis (developed through history of persecution, crisis) 

• Advocate living in preparedness (for any potential calamity) 

  • Mormon “preppers” have storehouses of food, water, medical supplies, generators, money, and so on (often enough to last 6 mos. – 1 year)

Epistemology

Means of Knowing/ How do we know what we know?