Theoretical Models and Social Typologies
Over several decades attempts have been made to categorize the kinds of new or “alternative” religions (as they are sometimes called) that have developed during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
One popular theoretical model has been proposed by Roy Wallis (The Elementary Forms of the New Religious Life, 1984),3 who classifies new religious movements in relation to their perception of the world and of human destiny. For Wallis, new religions can be understood as either “world-affirming,” “world-renouncing,” or “worldaccommodating.” Thus, a world-affirming religion is one that attributes positive value to human existence and whose goal is to improve the conditions of life wherever it is possible to do so through human effort. Consequently, removing oneself from society or longing for selfannihilation consequently has no value for someone who has embraced this point of view. A world-renouncing religion, in contrast, takes the opposite position, proceeding instead from the assumption that human society is irredeemably evil and that life itself is too filled with pain and futility to be worth improving. Adherents of this religious philosophy, such as the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo (discussed later in this chapter), typically envision an imminent and destructive end to the world and even devise strategies for bringing about that end, either to the social order or to one’s individual existence. World-accommodating religions, as the term suggests, are prepared to adapt to a world that is manifestly deficient in goodness or grace, while at the same time asserting their belief in a “higher” goal for humankind (which it cannot, at present, attain). The merit of these typologies is that they focus our attention on the relationship between a core perception of social reality and a corresponding metaphysical view that surrounds it. The basic weakness of Wallis’s system, however, is that it tends to oversimplify the often eclectic teachings and social ideals of the religious movements it seeks to categorize.Another theoretical overview is that of Peter Clarke,4 who emphasizes the theme of “social transformation” that runs through nearly all of those religious movements thought of as “new” or “alternative.” Many of these new movements, Clarke notes, fix on the inner life as the primary agency of transformation, hoping that through the attainment of a “true” Self, the individual can either begin to change the conditions of life for the better or begin the process of disengagement from life altogether. In either case, the individual who enters a new religious community is likely to be searching for an ideology of change that is not to be found within existing religious cultures. Such individuals, Clarke observes, are inclined to describe themselves as “spiritual” rather than as “religious,” with an implicit acknowledgment that the only personally valid religious experience these “seekers” are likely to find acceptable is one that lies outside the framework of established religious institutions or systems of thought.
TIMELINE
New Religious Movements
| 1830 CE | Publication of the Book of Mormon and beginnings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints. |
| 1853 | Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (Baha'u’llah) declares himself a “Messenger of God”: the beginnings of the Baha’i faith. |
| 1875 | Establishment of the Theosophical Society by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott. |
| 1876 | Founding of the Christian Science movement. |
| 1881 | Establishment of the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses). |
| 1914 | The International New Thought Alliance formed. |
| 1933 | Founding of the Worldwide Church of God. |
| 1954 | Beginnings of Wicca, the Unification Church, and the Church of Scientology. |
| 1957 | Establishment of a center for Transcendental Meditation by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. |
| 1965 | Founding of ISKCON and Eckankar. |
| 1969 | David Berg founds the Children of God community (later known as The Family). |
| 1974 | Claude Vorilhon (“Rael”) creates the Raelian movement. |
| 1975 | Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles found the Heaven’s Gate community (collective suicide, 1997). |
| 1999 | Collective protest by Falun Gong practitioners against Chinese government; suppression of their movement. |
Click here to learn more about key sites for New Religious Movements in an interactive map.
Click here to learn more in an interactive timeline.
Neither of the preceding systems of classification, or others that have been proposed, can claim to be exhaustive or universally applicable. However, they do provide some insight into the social/intellectual dynamic of the innovative religious cultures that we are about to examine. What follows is a series of historical vignettes of contemporary religious movements and philosophies that sociologists of religion such as Wallis and Clarke have identified as demonstrably “new” and therefore representative of the latest phase of global religious expression. We have chosen to focus on the new religions of the West, partly because these communities are likely to be more familiar to our readers and partly because the sheer number of “alternative” religions worldwide is so large that no single chapter in a book could honestly claim to represent all of them.