Visioning New and Minority Religions ─ Projecting the Future

Rather than being ephemeral fads, new religious movements (NRMs) have always been and will always be with us. So will the study of them. Offering an assesment of the state-of-the-field of the study of NRMs,Visioning New and Minority Religions begins by considering the analytical tools for the study of new or minority religions, drawing on the perspectives of diverse academic disciplines. The second part focuses on individual groups in a variety of geographical settings. Essays in this section review the past of particular groups in order to extrapolate future developments. They cover new religions that have persisted well past the first generation, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Christian Scientists, and the Jehovaha€?s Witnesses, and groups with comparatively shorter histories such as various forms of contemporary Paganism, Soka Gakkai, and the Diamond Way Buddhist group.

Eugene V. Gallagher is the Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College in New London, CT. He is the author of Reading and Writing Scripture in New Religious Movements, The New Religious Movements Experience in America, co-author of Why Waco: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America, co-editor of the five-volume Introduction to New and Alternative Religions in the United States and author of many essays on new religious movements and religions in the ancient Mediterranean world. He is a co-General Editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of New and Alternative Religions and Associate Editor of Teaching Theology and Religion.