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Minority Religions and Fraud
Analysing both fraud and religion as social constructs with different functions and meanings attributed to them, this book raises issues that are central to debates about the limits of religious toleration in diverse societies, and the possible harm (as well as benefits) that religious organisations can visit upon society and individuals. There has already been a lively debate concerning the structural context in which abuse, especially sexual abuse, can be perpetrated within religion. Contributors to the volume proceed from the premise that similar arguments about ways in which structure and power may be conducive to abuse can be made about fraud and deception. Both can contribute to abuse,...
The Devil's Children
A number of cases of serious child abuse have resulted from beliefs that children may be possessed by evil spirits and may then be given the power to bewitch others. Misfortune, failure, illness and even death may be blamed on them. The 'cure', nowadays called deliverance rather than exorcism, is to expel the spirits, sometimes by violent means. This book draws together contributions on aspects of possession and witchcraft from leading academics and expert practitioners in the field. It has been put together following conferences held by Inform, a charity that provides accurate information on new religions as a public service. There is no comparable information publicly available; this book is the first of its kind. Eileen Barker, founder of Inform, introduces the subject and Inform's Deputy Director goes on to detail the requests the charity has answered in recent years on the subject of children, possession and witchcraft. This book offers an invaluable resource for readers, whether academic or practitioner - particularly those in the fields of the safeguarding of children, and their education, health and general welfare.
Religion and Knowledge
Religions have always been associated with particular forms of knowledge, often knowledge accorded special significance and sometimes knowledge at odds with prevailing understandings of truth and authority in wider society. New religious movements emerge on the basis of reformulated, often controversial, understandings of how the world works and where ultimate meaning can be found. Governments have risen and fallen on the basis of such differences and global conflict has raged around competing claims about the origins and content of religious truth. Such concerns give rise to recurrent questions, faced by academics, governments and the general public. How do we treat statements made by relig...
The Public Face of African New Religious Movements in Diaspora
The growing pace of international migration, technological revolution in media and travel generate circumstances that provide opportunities for the mobility of African new religious movements (ANRMs) within Africa and beyond. ANRMs are furthering their self-assertion and self-insertion into the religious landscapes of Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Their growing presence and public visibility seem to be more robustly captured by the popular media than by scholars of NRMs, historians of religion and social scientists, a tendency that has probably shaped the public mental picture and understanding of the phenomena. This book provides new theoretical and methodological insights for understandi...
Prophecy in the New Millennium
Secular and spiritual prophets of doom abound in the information-rich twenty-first century - as they have for millennia. But there has yet to be worldwide floods, meteor impact, global computer failure, obvious alien contact, or direct intervention from God to end the world as we know it. Considering the frequency with which prophecy apparently fails, why do prophecies continue to be made, and what social functions do they serve? This volume gives a concise, but comprehensive, overview of the rich diversity of prophecy, its role in major world religions as well as in new religions and alternative spiritualties, its social dynamics and its impact on individuals’ lives. Academic analyses are complimented with contextualized primary source testimonies of those who live and have lived within a prophetic framework. The book argues that the key to understanding the more dramatic, apocalyptic and millenarian aspects of prophecy is in appreciating prophecy’s more mundane manifestations and its role in providing meaning and motivation in everyday life.
God Hates
The congregants thanked God that they weren't like all those hopeless people outside the church, bound for hell. So the Westboro Baptist Church's Sunday service began, and Rebecca Barrett-Fox, a curious observer, wondered why anyone would seek spiritual sustenance through other people's damnation. It is a question that piques many a witness to Westboro's more visible activity—the "GOD HATES FAGS" picketing of funerals. In God Hates, sociologist Barrett-Fox takes us behind the scenes of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church. The first full ethnography of this infamous presence on America's Religious Right, her book situates the church's story in the context of American religious history—and re...
The Making of a Gay Muslim
This book highlights the lived experiences of gay Muslims in Malaysia, where Islam is the majority and official religion, and in Britain, where Muslims form a religious minority. By exploring how they negotiate their religious and sexual identities, Shah challenges the notion that Islam is inherently homophobic and that there is an unbridgeable divide between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’. Shah also gained access to gay Muslim networks and individuals for his in-depth research in both countries, and the book investigates the different ways that they respond to everyday anti-homosexual or anti-Muslim sentiments. Amid the many challenges they confront, the gay Muslims whom Shah encountered find innovative and meaningful ways to integrate Islam and gay identity into their lives. The Making of a Gay Muslim will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in contemporary Islam, religion, gender and sexuality.
Perfect Children
Children born and raised on the religious fringe are a distinctive yet largely unstudied social phenomenon. They are irreversibly shaped by the experience, having been thrust into radical religious cultures that often believe children to be endowed with heightened spiritual capabilities. The religious group is all encompassing: it accounts for their family, their school, social networks, and everything that prepares them for their adult life. Using research gathered from over fifty in-depth interviews, Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist explores the lives of individuals born into new religious groups, some of whom have stayed in these groups, and some of whom have left. The groups she consider...
