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Introducing New Religious Movements
From: London School of Economics and Political Science
| By:
Eileen Barker |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
The late twentieth century witnessed an explosion of new religious movements. How can we account for this? Eileen Barker (right), professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that the world today is a veritable supermarket of religious and spiritual ideas. It is much easier to eschew mainstream religion, and there is now much more choice. Amid this diversity, Barker considers more intriguing questions, such as the varying social responses to those movements: Why is the YWCA listed as a cult in France but not the YMCA? Why is Scientology considered a problem in Germany but nowhere else? |
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| Eileen Barker discusses the explosion of new religious movements | |
Fathom: Would you say the latter half of the twentieth century has witnessed a particular proliferation of new religious movements, or is it simply that the media are more concerned about such movements? |
Eileen Barker: It is both, actually. Certainly the media are jumping onto it far more than they would have done in the past, though if you think about the time of the Inquisition there was quite a bit of information circulating then about all the various heresies. There have, of course, always been new religions popping up. In the nineteenth century there was the appearance of sects like Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons and Christadelphians, who were fairly well known. These all were, or claimed to be, Christian-based, although there were one or two, such as Theosophy, which were not. What is unusual about the present wave of new religions is that they are much more varied in their origins. |
Nowadays we have the mass media providing information about religions from all over the world and a lot of the new religions aren't new to the world--they are just new to this country. For example, the Krishna devotees get very upset when they are called a new religious movement, because they come from a long lineage that goes back to a sixteenth-century monk called Caitanya--and of course even further back, to the early days of Hinduism and Krishna, and to the Bhagavad Gita, which they study. So they insist that they are not new at all. However, for my purposes, I would argue that ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) is a new organisation that was founded in 1966 when Prabhupada came to the West. |
Movements also come from traditions like Buddhism, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism and Islam, as well as Christianity, and knowledge of them comes through the media, through migration, through travel and word of mouth. Furthermore, in modern democratic societies, individuals are not as controlled by authority as they have been in earlier times. You no longer necessarily accept the Church or the religion that you were born into: you are presented with all these other offerings. In the sort of society which our grandparents inhabited, many would live in the same village or town as their parents and perhaps do the same job as their mother or father had done. Well, my grandchild is going to have a very different experience. There is a whole new occupational structure in which we can find all manner of new occupations (such as electronic engineers and computer programmers), considerable geographical mobility and exposure to an unprecedented mass media, all giving rise to a whole range of new experiences undreamed of by my grandparents. The media, migration and travel have resulted in there being a whole new range of religious and spiritual resources available to the present generation to tap into. Take the concept of reincarnation, which was pretty well unheard of in most households in the nineteenth century. Today nearly a quarter of the British population, 24 percent, have reported that they believe in reincarnation. Now, perhaps all of them don't know what the word means and some of them believe in the resurrection of the body as well. But even though they might say they are Christians (and actually most of them say they are Catholics), they still can hold such different, even opposing, ideas. |
In other words, there is this great big supermarket, not only of groups but also of ideas, that is out there and in which people can pick and choose and build up their own religion or join some sort of new movement. Furthermore, one is no longer expected to spend Sunday in Church as the respectable middle classes were in the nineteenth century. There are masses of alternative ways of spending your leisure time and absorbing your interests--Manchester United could be your alternative. |
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| Eileen Barker reflects on the societies that hosts these movements | |
Fathom: Can some of these new religious movements be useful for reflecting on the wide society they sprang from? |
Barker: Yes, I think they can be useful in a number of ways. You can see some of the gaps that they offer to fill. But we have got to remember that the number who join and stay in most of the movements is very small. Usually there are people who move on to do other things, but those who do join have probably found the traditional churches rather boring--five old ladies, no heating and a boring old man speaking in the pulpit. This is not really what youth goes for. The churches have, however, changed quite a lot with the growth of charismatic movements and Pentecostalism. Sometimes they become rather cultish--like the Nine O'clock Service, for example, which was probably not what would have been expected or desired by the five old ladies. In fact, the new religions offer a whole range of different goodies; some appeal to one lot of people and others appeal to another lot. |
Another very interesting thing is the reaction of society to the new religions, and it can be seen that different societies react in very different ways. On the one hand, British society and to some extent American society are both relatively pluralistic and laid back, with a fairly clear idea about divisions between state and religion (certainly in America, with the First Amendment to its Constitution). On the whole, it is up to the individual what he or she believes--and it is actions that are judged to be good or bad, like any other actions irrespective of the person's beliefs. |
However, in countries like France and Belgium the governments have, partly in response to anti-cult groups, commissioned influential reports which contain lists of dangerous or criminal and destructive cults or sects--and these can include Baptists, Quakers, the YWCA (though not the YMCA, for some reason)--and these are all lumped together without any clear differentiation being made between the beliefs and practices of the vastly different groups. The governments in Belgium and France say these aren't official lists and this is true--they are not. But the trouble is that, socially, they have given the population permission to treat members of these groups differently and there have been some very unfortunate incidents as a result of this. The Belgian and French governments are now setting up observatories to try to combat the problems (as they see them) of the cults. |
If we move to Eastern Europe, the suspicion and desire to control or remove new religions is even more pronounced. A lot of Eastern European countries are very worried about all the groups that came rushing into their lands once the atheistic aspects of Communism were removed. Having dreamed of freedom for all, they now want to control nontraditional and foreign new religions. |
Also, different things worry different countries. Some are worried about the politics; some are worried about the movements not paying for social welfare; some are worried about medicine--France in particular is worried about that. Some are worried about brainwashing; some about taking away their money; some about converts not completing their education. Again, it is interesting to make these comparisons and see what they will pick on. The Germans are very worried about Scientology, but they are not particularly worried about some other groups, whereas another society, such as Japan, doesn't really notice Scientology all that much. So there are a whole lot of different things going on, and you can't altogether understand the movements unless you look at society and how society reacts to them. |
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| Eileen Barker discusses hostilities between religious movements and society | |
Fathom: Is there any discernible pattern in which new religious movements and the particular societies they spring from respond to one another, especially in hostile situations? |
Barker: There do tend to be some more or less predictable processes. Quite a lot of work has been done looking at the tragedies which have occurred, as when David Koresh and his followers, the Branch Davidians, were burned in their compound outside Waco, and in movements like the People's Temple, the Solar Temple and, most frightening of all perhaps, Aum Shinrikyo setting off sarin gas in the Tokyo Underground, and, less so but still to some extent, Heavens Gate, where all the members committed suicide. What can be observed in most of these tragedies is a process which sociologists sometimes call "deviance amplification" building up. The antagonists on each side behave rather badly, and that gives permission for the other side to behave more badly, so you get this spiral and increasing polarisation with each side saying: "Look what they did." Thus David Koresh was able to say, "Look at how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI are proving that the Book of Revelation is correct. These are the last days, and all these terrible signs prove it." So a whole lot of people that probably would have left, as they had done at the beginning of the siege, did not. They stayed because Koresh was obviously right, because the FBI and the BATF were, from their perspective, behaving to them in such an appalling way. And the BATF and FBI did do some pretty nasty things--both sides did. In Britain, law enforcers are more likely to play it cool. Whereas in America the philosophy seems to be: "If in doubt, do something." Britain's approach is more likely to be: "If in doubt, do nothing." Both positions have their advantages and disadvantages, but it is things like that, the taken-for-granted assumptions or attitudes of a society, which can determine a lot of these outcomes. |
I have just come back from Baku, in Azerbaijan, and I was talking with the Constitutional Court there and they are all for human rights. They have got a wonderful constitution, guaranteeing freedom of religion for all, yet the officials knew Islam was the Truth, that there was just one God, and they didn't want all these cults which are obviously dangerous and undermining society. You get the same things said by members of the Orthodox Church. If you are not Russian Orthodox, you are not a real Russian. You don't have to believe anything special, you just have to be Russian Orthodox--that is part of your identity. If you don't identify yourself with the Orthodox Church, then you are not merely a heretic, you are a traitor. Nationalism is defined not only by territory but also by religion. |
In fact, I have now reached a stage where I find the reactions to the movements and the interactions between the movements and the wider society more interesting than the movements themselves--though I still find them quite fascinating. |
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| Eileen Barker considers whether societies need new religious movements | |
Fathom: It has been argued that such movements perform a function that society needs. How viable is that argument? |
Barker: I am always a bit nervous of the word "need." Often "wants" or "needs" are created; people start to think they need something. And, once you go beyond food and shelter, you are assuming quite a bit when people suggest that such needs are needed. Having said that, I think they undoubtedly do fill some gaps for some people. They help people to develop their spirituality or religiosity, perhaps to find a group of friends and a community of like-minded people. There are a whole lot of different ways in which they can help individuals, but we also know there are a whole lot of ways in which they can be pretty damaging and upset the individual, because the leaders and the movements are not always accountable to anyone and there isn't the kind of control that there is in the more traditional religions--which have themselves done some pretty nasty things, of course. |
I find the whole functional argument difficult if you make it too positive or too negative. I think if you just ask what the consequences are, then you have to look and ask the question: Consequences for whom? For the members? For which members? The ones who are out on the streets all day collecting money, or the guru with his 97 Rolls-Royces, or the one who is having it off with all the pretty boys? Then again, looking at society, the Eastern Europeans are worried about the movements undermining society. Jehovah's Witnesses are seen as a very great threat, because they won't go and kill people, and, indeed, under the Nazis a lot of them were killed in the gas chambers rather than renounce their faith. I think you have got to be very careful about that question, and make it more specific. The new religions help some people, they are bad for other people and sometimes the same group can be both. If you take the extremes, I don't think anybody is going to want to have a lot of groups like the Manson family, who went off and slit open the pregnant Sharon Tate. Some really very nasty things have happened, and these are obviously dysfunctional to both individuals and society. |
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| Eileen Barker discusses the role of a charismatic leader | |
Fathom: To what extent have they been dependent on a charismatic leader? |
Barker: Very often there is a charismatic leader. I am using "charismatic" in the Weberian sense of the authority that is accorded by the followers being charismatic, in so far as it is not bound by rules or by tradition and the charismatic leader has the right to say what the followers will do in all aspects of their life--whom they will sleep with, whom they will marry, whether they will have children, what sort of work they will do, in what country they will live--perhaps whether they will live--and what toothpaste they will use. It really can cover anything; and it can be changed at a moment's notice. Having said that, it is very important to stress that it is an authority that is accorded by the followers, and while studying some of these movements I have seen a process whereby the followers actually engage in a process that I call "charismatisation." The members teach new converts and other members including themselves to see him, or occasionally her, as this wonderful and very special person. |
I remember when I first saw Reverend Sun Myung Moon. I was watching with some other people while he was talking and gesticulating in Korean, and it really reminded me more of Hitler than of anyone else. Several people were quite upset, despite the fact that the interpreter was saying things such as: "Well, you must love each other." Then I saw a whole lot of Unificationists (or "Moonies," as they were called), and they were looking enraptured, their eyes were aglow, they were seeing something quite different from what the rest of us were seeing. This presented me with a challenge, because lots of them had joined without knowing him; they hadn't joined the Unification Church because Moon had stood there and said, "Come follow me!" I noticed, looking at other movements, that it was often the case that the further leaders kept away from the rank-and-file followers, the more effective their charisma was. Charismatisation involved things like telling stories about him, myths about his childhood, having "holy objects"--not really relics, because they are still alive--something like the cup that he has drunk out of; and all manner of other stories and things that contribute to a picture which is built up to depict this perfect person. They will even say, "And he is so human!" Now, of course, I suppose you are human and I am human, but we don't go round saying it. But by saying, "He is so human," it implies that he isn't but that he is prepared to come down to our level. |
One of the important things to remember about new religions is that they change pretty radically over time, and one of the big changes is when the charismatic leader dies or is getting older. There tends to be more bureaucracy and/or tradition that comes in, and the movement changes quite radically because of that. It becomes more accountable and more predictable in a number of ways. This is quite an important difference from the charismatic leader who is not accountable and can change his or her mind at a moment's notice. Now, he or she may be great or may be just awful or may start off as very idealistic and then get a bit power-mad. It is not one of the defining characteristics of a new religious movement, but it is a characteristic that you do find quite often, particularly in its early days. |
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| Eileen Barker discusses the metamorphosis from new religion to establishment. | |
Fathom: When does a new religious movement metamorphose into an established religious movement, and what kind of changes does it undergo? |
Barker: Well, they are all different. There was a period when it was believed by Niebuhr that you get "denominationalisation" within a generation. That is, you move from being a sect to being a denomination. This happens quite often, but not always by any means. I would say Jehovah's Witnesses have not changed that much, but the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Mormons have. Christadelphians are still pretty sect-like. It depends how you define these terms, of course. In fact, most new religious movements do not last all that long, but for those who do the arrival of a second generation really does make a difference. |
If you think about the people who join, they are disproportionately an atypical population. For example, the present wave has appealed disproportionately to young adults, better educated than average, middle-class, idealistic young people. That was in the 1960s and '70s, with the growth of the Hare Krishna, Scientology, the Moonies, the Children of God, etc. If you take the Children of God as they were in the early 1970s and you draw a demographic graph, you see that there are practically no children, and then you have got this steep bulge of people around 23 years old, then very few old people. Now, if you just think about what that means, you have got the enthusiastic converts, and converts always know "the Truth"--in fact, they tend to be pretty impossible for a bit. And then after 20 years you have got a whole lot of children who have come along, and the original converts haven't got so much time to spend on gaining new converts. If we make another demographic graph, this shows a large number of children, very few people in their early twenties, and the original converts are now in their late forties, early fifties. In fact, the graph is almost a mirror image of the one representing the age distribution 20 years earlier. This new demographic profile also suggests a number of fundamental changes in the behaviour of the movement will have occurred. Children who are just "born into" a movement (rather than "born again") behave very differently from converts. The first-generation members have got to accommodate in some ways to their children. They cannot chuck them out or just say they are satanic, as they can with a bloody-minded convert, so they have got to rearrange things. The older members may be beginning to get arthritis and worry about paying the rent instead of dashing around the world, and then they are getting a bit more streetwise: they are no longer converts. |
The leader has probably died or at least has handed on to somebody else and you have got this growth of rules and bureaucracy, and expectations from tradition. People in the outside society have got to know them better, so perhaps the antagonism from outside isn't so great. This doesn't always happen, but generally speaking the sort of sharp "them" and "us" boundaries and the "before" and "after" dichotomous world view of "godly" versus "satanic" etc. starts to mellow, and there is more grey rather than everything being in very clear primary colours so that you know exactly what the truth is. Sometimes it takes more generations, but that is the sort of direction in which things tend to move. Then, of course, when this happens too much you might get a schism and people go back to the real truth again, because the movement has become too like the rest of society, not so special and different. |
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| Eileen Barker compares new religions to medieval heresies and sects | |
Fathom: What kind of comparison, if any, can be made between new religious movements and movements such as the Cathars and the Anabaptists in medieval Europe? |
Barker: I think there are a lot of similarities in so far as a movement is new and is religious. It has a terrific force and power for the individuals, fanaticism perhaps. There are differences, but if you look at the early Christians as well you can see a lot of similarities. Jesus, for example, saying, "If you don't hate your mum and dad you can't follow me." Now, Christians today don't really quote that bit of Luke's Gospel very much. They might even say, "Jesus wouldn't say that," or they will explain it away and say: "Well, you know, he didn't really mean that or he meant such and such." But it is this idea of having to cut off and put first things first which is really very important for members of any new religious movement. |
Religion is an ultimate concern, it is something that is very important, and if it is new it is against what was already there. It is offering an alternative which is better, more godly, and so those factors, plus the force of a charismatic leader, quite often (but not always) make a new religion rather strong. Strong in the sense that it knows where it is. I don't mean politically strong. They are rarely that. |
Now, in the time of the Cathars or the Albigensians and the Anabaptists, of course, the reaction of society was a bit more fierce than it is now, and, indeed, taking the example the early Christians, on the whole we don't throw members of cults to the lions or burn them at the stake. But we are still very suspicious of them. Members of the new religious movements have undoubtedly died for their faith. So I think there are enormous similarities that you can see over time as well as quite strong differences; and it is part of the fun to see what is common and what isn't. |
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