The Economic Strategies of New Religious Movements

Abstract

This article analyzes the economic strategies of new religious and para-religious movements by comparing them with the economic strategies of traditional religious associations. The article is based on research of several dozen such movements in the Montreal area. It is argued that the economic strategies of religious groups, old and new, closely reflect and influence the overall social policies of these groups, especially their attitudes towards recruitment and the status of participants, who, after all, provide the major sources of economic resources. The paper argues that the economic strategies of contemporary new religious and para-religious movements are distinctive both, (I) because of the prominence many of them give to providing various services for fees or donations to largely transient clients or affiliates and, (1I) because of their comparative successes in recruiting core groups of highly committed adepts, who in turn donate extensive unpaid labor. The article observes the relative absence among these groups of financial contributions by regular lay members, by means of dues, titles and pledges. In the conclusion, the article examines the consequences of this configuration and the instability which these financial and organizational strategies produce. Contemporary new religious and para-religious movements have developed distinctive strategies by which they finance themselves. In this article we argue that the economic strategies of these contemporary religious movements can best be understood by comparing them to the economic strategies of traditional religious movements. In recent articles both Bromley and Shupe as well as Richardson have analyzed the economic strategies of new religious movements. Drawing largely on data about the Unification Church and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Bromley and Shupe focused in particular on how these groups finance themselves, which they have done at times in large measure by public solicitation. They further analyzed how these groups justified this strategy and made it appear acceptable both to adherents of this group as well as to people from whom they sought charitable donations (Bromley and Shupe, 1980). In contrast, Richardson examined the quite varied economic strategies of a much wider range of new religious and para-religious movements. He notes that the economic strategies of new religious movements do change over time as the groups themselves evolve. By comparing contemporary new religious groups with contemporary communes, he observes that few of these religious groups have attempted to become self-sufficient economic generalists; that many, like Transcendental Meditation with its meditation classes, have become economically self-supporting specialists; and that others, like the Unification Church, may well have become economically dependent upon charitable solicitations from others (Richardson, 1982). In their articles, Bromley and Shupe as well as Richardson analyze the economic strategies of new religious groups by comparing them respectively to groups that finance