Alternative Religions Research Articles

James R. Lewis

James R. Lewis

Review: The Waco Branch Davidian Tragedy: What Have We Learned or Not Learned, Produced by J. Phillip Arnold and Directed by Minji Lee

The events that took place at the headquarters of the Christian Adventist sectarian group known as the Branch Davidians from 28 February through 19 April 1993 continue to claim public attention even as their thirtieth anniversary approaches. The events now summarized as “Waco” effectively constitute a national Rorschach test, with different groups having very different interests in what happened.From the beginning, for example, vocal partisans of the Second Amendment have decried the initial raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) as an unwarranted attempt by an overreaching government to confiscate private citizens’ legally owned weapons. Timothy McVeigh, the most notorious domestic terrorist in U.S. history, presented his bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 as, in part, a reaction against what the government did to the Branch Davidians. Also, scholars of new and alternative religions, in particular, have consistently critiqued the ways in which the pernicious cult stereotype of a deranged leader hoodwinking gullible followers and leading them into harm was wielded against a group with a history that reached back into the mid-nineteenth century. Nonetheless, that stereotype dominated much of the press coverage and even influenced the ways in which both the BATF and the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached the Branch Davidians both before and during the fifty-one-day siege.It should not be surprising, then, that there has been a steady output of analyses of what happened at the Mount Carmel Center outside of Waco, ranging from TV movies and documentaries, through popular books and self-produced videos, to scholarly anthologies and monographs. The sheer volume of material and the diversity of viewpoints represented challenges the observer’s ability to sort through the primary and secondary material and come to a reasoned understanding of the Waco incident.Against that background, the Reunion Institute (http://reunioninstitute.net/) in Houston, Texas gathered four scholars for a sustained discussion of what is now known and what remains to be learned about the Branch Davidians and the siege at the Mount Carmel Center. All of them have devoted substantial effort to studying the group and analyzing its eventual confrontation with government forces. J. Phillip Arnold and James Tabor attempted to help de-escalate the situation as it was happening and caught the attention of David Koresh in the process. Catherine Wessinger has written extensively about Waco and helped produce three autobiographies of people associated with the community. Stuart Wright edited one of the first scholarly anthologies about the Branch Davidians and has written about the trials that followed the terrible conclusion of the siege on 19 April 1993.The film eschews dramatic effects and hyperbolic claims, though it does make occasional effective use of images and printed texts. For the most part, however, the participants are shown gathered around a small table, with Arnold acting as both the moderator and a participant. In the course of nearly three hours, the participants cover the history of the Branch Davidians, including their roots in Seventh-day Adventism and, in more detail, the events of the siege and its aftermath. Scholars who have worked extensively on the group may not find much new in the film, but they will see fresh instances of scholars coming to grips with the limits of their knowledge and admitting that some questions, such as who is responsible for the fire on April 19, must remain unresolved for now.The film will be most useful to scholars who are only somewhat familiar with Waco and particularly to students who may be encountering the material for the first time. The exposition is generally quite clear and easy to follow and the three-hour film is also broken up into nine segments of a half hour or less, which facilitates its easy use in the classroom.Overall, The Waco Branch Davidian Tragedy is an accessible and helpful summary of the state of research on Waco. It provides a sober counterweight to some of the more outlandish claims that have been made, and continue to be made, about what happened at the Mount Carmel Center.

‘서발턴(subaltern)’의 관점에서 본 한국의 자생 신종교 사상

In early modern Korea, the founders of three main-stream indigenous new religions, Choi Je-woo (崔濟愚), Kang Il-sun (姜一淳), and Park Jungbin (朴重彬), were all ruined yangban, who could no longer maintain the social dignity of yangban. Prior to their regular religious activities, they earned livings as rural teachers, peasants, merchants, and fortune-tellers. They were marginalized for having declined from upper-class nobles to lower-class people. Due to their subalternal status, they religiously represented the inexpressible aspirations and resentments held by various subalterns. The millennial movements of marginal religions in the late Joseon Dynasty exposed and deviated from the fetters of the established order, but they did not propose a new alternative order to replace it. Unlike these millennial movements, Choi Je-woo, Kang Il-sun, and Park Jungbin all proposed utopian visions of post-subalternal alternative religions that systematically presented and practiced new alternative worldviews characterized by the “Great Opening of the Later World (後天開闢).” The world they longed for was one wherein anti-subalternal social regulation were overthrown, the oppression of various subalterns end, and the established social order was replaced. In this article, I have argued that three main-stream indigenous Korean new religions, Donghak (Eastern Learning), the Jeungsan-inspired religious movements, and Wonbulgyo (Won Buddhism) are utopian alternative religions. I made this argument by analyzing some aspects by which they represented subalterns and offered subalterns a new religio-social status.

Gertrude Stein and the Metaphysical Avant-Garde

When American metaphysical religion appears onstage, it most often manifests in the subject matter and dramaturgies of experimental theater. In the artistic ferment of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, theater-makers looked both to alternative dramaturgies and alternative religions to create radical works of political, social, and spiritual transformation. While the ritual experiments of European avant-garde artists like Artaud and Grotowski informed their work, American theater-makers also found inspiration in the dramas of Gertrude Stein, and many of these companies (the Living Theatre and the Wooster Group, most notably) either staged her work or claimed a direct influence (like Richard Foreman). Stein herself, though not a practitioner of metaphysical religion, spent formative years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Radcliffe under the tutelage of William James. Cambridge, at the turn of the twentieth century, was a hotbed of spiritualism, theosophy, alternative healing modalities, and James, in addition to running the psychology lab in which Stein studied, ran a multitude of investigations on extrasensory and paranormal phenomena. This article traces a web of associations connecting Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism, and liberal Protestantism to Gertrude Stein and landscape dramaturgy to the midcentury avant-garde, the countercultural religious seeking of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Off-Off-Broadway movement.

Sources of Threatening Educational Security: Means and Effects

Today’s world confronts various threats from different sources. Similar to deprivation of energy, economic facilities, or political deposition, educational poisoning is one of the dangerous phenomena that result from distorting and corrupting the ethical and educational components of teaching by various material and non – material means.This paper sheds light on the concept of the educational system which is not a mere process of teaching, but rather an endless process of socialization that begins in the family and develops into religious, ethical, scientific and mythological systems, all of which form the cognitive component. It also defines the necessary means by which it is transmitted from one generation into another. The educational system, indeed, is closely connected with the culture of society. The study also gives an in-depth look at some concepts, mainly education, security, educational security, and sources of threat such as novelties, alternative religions, ethical system destruction, and curriculum distortion. It also attempts to provide a cursory account of the different effects of educational threat and presents some suggestions.

The Victorian Ghost Story and Theology: From Le Fanu to James, by Zo� Lehmann Imfeld and Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain, by J. Jeffrey Franklin

The Victorian Ghost Story and Theology: From Le Fanu to James, by Zo� Lehmann Imfeld and Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain, by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Review: Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain. By J. Jeffrey Franklin. Cornell University Press, 2018. xx + 264 pages. $49.95 cloth; ebook available. Michael E. Heyes Michael E. Heyes Lycoming College Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2019) 23 (1): 125–126. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2019.23.1.125 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Michael E. Heyes; Review: Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin. Nova Religio 1 August 2019; 23 (1): 125–126. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2019.23.1.125 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNova Religio Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The Regents of the University of California2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Alternative religion kids: spiritual and cultural identity among children and youth involved with new religious movements

ABSTRACTThe term ‘new religious movement’ (NRM) has come to replace the more provocative term ‘cult,’ however this shift of scholarly language has not resulted in a softening of public perception towards those in religious groups perceived as ‘weird’. This perception leaves a distinct mark on the identities of children raised in these communities.Children from alternative and controversial religions comprise a unique subculture.. The experience of growing up in a new religious movement has an important impact on a young person’s cultural and spiritual identity. Drawing on and expanding Useem and Downie’s model of ‘third culture kids’ (TCKs) the model of ‘alternative religion kids’ (ARKs) is developed. It is proposed that ARKs are a subculture in their own right and share a sense of belonging and identity based on their experience of being religious ‘others’. ARKs may be able to connect through a powerful, shared experience not paralleled with other peers.

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Review: Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

Review: Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain by J. Jeffrey Franklin

The Canonical Black Body: Alternative African American Religions and the Disruptive Politics of Sacrality

“The Canonical Black Body” argues that central to the study of African American religions is a focus on the black body and the production and engagement of canons on the sacred black body within the black public sphere. Furthermore, this essay suggests that, by paying attention to alternative African American religions in the twentieth century, we can better engage the relationship between African American religion and the long history of creating these canons on the black body, debating their relationship to black freedom, and circulating the canons to contest the oppressive, exclusive practices of modern democracy. Through a critical engagement of the fields of Black Theology and New Religious Movements and using the resources offered by Delores Williams’ accounts of variety and experience and Vincent Wimbush’s category of signifying, this essay will argue for how a return to the body provides resources and tools for not only theorizing African American religions but thinking about the production and creation of competing black publics, including the important role of alternative black sacred publics.

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain

Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain

“Becoming a Parent Changes Everything”: How Nonbeliever and Pagan Parents Manage Stigma in the U.S. Bible Belt

Despite the increasing visibility of secularism and alternative religions in the United States, few have paid attention to the relationship between family roles and religious identity outside of mainstream Christian denominations. Guided by insights from theories of identity work, I compare stigma management strategies by two religiously marginalized groups. Based on participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and textual analysis, I show how nonbeliever and Pagan parents in the Bible Belt respond to perceived threats to their moral identities as “good parents.” Nonbeliever and Pagan parents manage their spoiled identities by engaging in defensive othering amongst subordinates, a form of stigma management, to distance themselves from discrediting stereotypes—specifically the “militant atheist” and the “hedonistic Pagan.” I demonstrate that access to greater financial and cultural capital (nonbeliever parents) allows for reliance on defensive othering to massage interpersonal relations, whereas access to low levels of financial and cultural capital (Pagan parents), prompts the need to rely on defensive othering as a matter of survival. Becoming a parent changes the dynamic of stigma management for individuals; pushing individual parents away from social justice activism and ultimately undercutting broader social movements for equality.

Introduction: New Religions in Eastern Europe

The introduction to this special issue on new religions in Eastern Europe provides a historical background on the place of new religious movements in the region during the Soviet and post-Soviet era. This includes the varieties of new and alternative religions active in these societies and how this changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The guest editor notes several main directions of scholarly research focusing on these new religions and summarizes the four articles included in this special issue, which focus on the Lithuanian neoshamanic community, the pyramid of Merkinė in Lithuania, marketing and branding strategies of contemporary spirituality movements in Estonia, and the Last Testament Church in Siberia, Russia.

Alternative Victorian Religion and the Recuperation of Women's Voices

AbstractWhat is Victorian “religion” and how might we define the “alternative” in “alternative religions” of this time period? Dealing with these questions affirms why analyzing so‐called peripheral religions in the Victorian period is necessary to understanding the Victorian cultural landscape. “Alternate” may refer to the proliferation of non‐mainstream forms of belief; the concept that change and difference are inherent to the very structures mainstream of Victorian religions; the range of methods and theories needed to study Victorian belief properly; and the disparate perspectives such studies make available to our engagements with Victorian literature and culture. Recent feminist recuperations of female writers and their alternate understandings, voices, and critique provide enriched readings of Victorian faith. These voices may become available through strong “critical empathy,” belief, and alternative research methodologies.

Conspiracy Theories and the Study of Alternative and Emergent Religions

This introduction addresses a number of approaches to the emerging field of the study of conspiracy theories and new and alternative religions. Scholars can examine how certain religious groups have been the subject of conspiracy narratives created by the wider culture, and how conspiracy narratives are mobilized within religious groups such as Aum Shinrikyo, Scientology or others. Moreover, we can fruitfully examine secular conspiracy theories through ideas typically applied to religions, such as theodicy, millenarianism, and esoteric claims to higher knowledge. Most studies assume that conspiracy theories indicate pathology—paranoia or simply stupidity. Increasingly however, scholars have begun to interpret the term “conspiracy theory” as operating polemically to stigmatize certain beliefs and ideas. The field therefore offers a microcosm of broader trends in the interplay of knowledge and power. The study of both new and emergent religions and conspiracy theories comes of age only when we cease to think of them as necessarily deviant and irrational.

Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures, by Danielle Kirby

Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures, by Danielle Kirby

The Youth-Crisis Model of Conversion: An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?

Initially formulated in the 1970s when large numbers of former counterculturists were joining alternative religions, the youth-crisis model of conversion posited that new recruits were predominantly young people whose involvement could be explained as a function of their youth (e.g., as an adolescent developmental crisis). The present study presents statistics on recruits to seven different contemporary new religions that fundamentally challenge this item of conventional wisdom. Six out of seven data sets also embody a striking pattern of gradually increasing age across time for new converts. In addition to uncovering the growing age-at-recruitment pattern — which I designate the E-correlation — I argue that: (1) With the exception of efforts to understand true youth movements such as Internet Satanism, attempts to interpret conversions to contemporary emergent religions as being a function of the imputed youthfulness of recruits is no longer in touch with the reality on the ground. (2) The persistence of the characterization of converts as youthful reflects a failure to build a strong empirical base for such generalizations. Instead, we have relied upon quantitative work carried out over a quarter of a century ago for much of what passes as conventional wisdom in the study of recruitment to alternative religions.

Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures (Danielle Kirby)

<i>Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures</i> (Danielle Kirby)