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Originating from a small group of Bible students led by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Society grew into an international society. After Russell's death in 1916, Franklin Rutherford was named his successor and gave the society a new name: 'Jehovah's Witnesses.' The A to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses shows how World War I & II influenced Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations like blood transfusion, as well as to mainstream churches and the development of Jehovah's Witnesses' door-to-door evangelism. The theme of prophecy, the doctrine of the 144,000, end-time calculations, Armageddon, and the Witnesses' denial of hell are all considered in The A to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses, which contains a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and 250 cross-referenced dictionary entries relating to key people and concepts.
New religions emerge as distinct entities in the religious landscape when innovations are introduced by a charismatic leader or a schismatic group leaves its parent organization. New religious movements (NRMs) often present novel doctrines and advocate unfamiliar modes of behavior, and have therefore often been perceived as controversial. NRMs have, however, in recent years come to be treated in the same way as established religions, that is, as complex cultural phenomena involving myths, rituals and canonical texts. This Companion discusses key features of NRMs from a systematic, comparative perspective, summarizing results of forty years of research. The volume addresses NRMs that have caught media attention, including movements such as Scientology, New Age, the Neopagans, the Sai Baba movement and Jihadist movements active in a post-9/11 context. An essential resource for students of religious studies, the history of religion, sociology, anthropology and the psychology of religion.
On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 men and women were found in an opulent mansion outside San Diego, all victims of a mass suicide. Messages left by the Heaven's Gate group indicate that they believed they were stepping out of their 'physical containers' in order to ascend to a UFO that was arriving in the wake of the Hale-Bopp comet. The Heaven's Gate suicides were part of a series of major incidents involving New Religions in the 1990s, as the new millennium approached. Despite the major attention that Heaven's Gate attracted at the time of the suicides, there have been relatively few scholarly studies. This anthology on Heaven's Gate includes a combination of articles previously published in academic journals, some new writings from experts in the field, and some original Heaven's Gate documents. All the material is expertly brought together under the editorship of George D. Chryssides.
New religious movements--commonly known as cults--are defined as organizations that have arisen within the last 200 years. Most treatments of these movements have typically resorted to sensationalism rather than objectivity, and New religious movements tend to receive negative media publicity. Despite their unfavorable portrayal in popular culture, however, new religious movements are a global phenomenon and much remains to be studied about these movements. In this newly updated second edition of the Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements, George D. Chryssides traces the rise and development of new religious movements throughout the world. An updated introduction summarizes the phe...
• Does the Iglesia ni Cristo really teach that their building will go up in the rapture? • Do they use coercive methods to make sure their members give at least a tithe of their income to the church? • Have confrontational methods of evangelism been effective in reaching them? • Is there a better way? The answers to these and other questions may surprise you. In this groundbreaking and meticulously researched new book, evangelical scholar Dr. Anne Harper, who, with her husband, George, is a Manila based missionary with Action International Ministries. describes the history, teachings, growth and development of the Iglesia ni Cristo since its founding in 1914 and explains why this gro...
Philosophy of religion is focused chiefly on theism. Yet there are a growing number of new and alternative religious movements that would also benefit from philosophical scrutiny. This book is the first collection of philosophical essays, by a team of international authors, focusing on new and alternative religious movements. The book begins with an examination of the definition of new religious movements, before offering an introduction to, and an analysis of, core beliefs held by particular movements, including: Scientology, Raelianism, Siddha Yoga, the Arica School, the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormonism), Pantheism, Digital Theology, New Atheism, and the Word of Faith movement. Contributors offer an analysis of one or more of the core tenets of the religious movement, providing readers with both an insight into the group, and the methodology of philosophy of religion.
Guest is God is an ethnography of the Indian pilgrimage site of Pushkar, which welcomes two million visitors each year. To locals, Pushkar is more than just a gathering place for pilgrims, tourists, and hippies--it is where Brahma, the creator god, made his home. It is paradise. The book looks into the local effort to create a brand of Hindu religion that is tailored to its local surrounding but engages global ideas.
This is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license The history of Charismatic Christianity in the Nordic countries reaches as far back as Pentecostalism itself. The bounds of these categories remain a topic of discussion, but Nordic countries have played a vital role in developing this rapidly spreading form of world-wide Christianity. Until now, research on global Charismatic Christianity has largely overlooked the region. This book addresses and analyzes its historical and contemporary trajectories in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Through a selection of cases written by Nordic scholars from various disciplines, it demonstrates historical and contemporary diversity as well as interconnections between local, national, and global currents. Highlighting change and continuity, the anthology reveals new aspects of Charismatic Christianity.
Written by established scholars as well as younger experts in their field, this updated and revised second edition of Controversial New Religions offers a scholarly, dispassionate look at the new religious groups that have generated the most attention in the media and general public.
Originating from a small group of Bible students who met under Charles Taze Russell’s leadership and grew into an international Society, to which the second leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford and gave the name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’. Two World Wars shaped Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations such as blood transfusion, as well as to mainstream churches. The twenty-first century has seen some important changes in the Watch Tower organization, and coverage is given to changes in organizational structure, its use of the World Wide Web, and its major relocation from Brooklyn to Warwick. This updated second edition of Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on key concepts, themes, and people relating to Jehovah’s Witnesses. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Jehovah's Witnesses.