Description:
New Religious Movements (NRMs) came into being as a distinct subfield of academic study in the 1970s in response to the explosion of non-traditional religions. These movements, and those termed 'sects' and 'cults', initially attracted the attention of sociologists of religion because of the controversy that arose in response to their expansion. The collection consists of four volumes of mostly reprinted articles and book chapters on NRMs that provides a single source for basic information on - and theoretical/methodological approaches to - contemporary New Religions. It includes discussions of a wide variety of themes associated with NRMs (e.g., apocalypticism, typologies, conversion, women and New Religions) and chapters on the NRMs that have attracted the most scholarly attention. Contents have been selected bearing in mind certain criteria: solid scholarship, range of empirical subject matter and theoretical perspectives, and range of influential and relatively unknown articles. Some influential 'anti-cult' articles (normally not considered part of mainstream scholarship) are included as well.