Lesson Objectives

At the end of this lesson you should be able to:

understand what scholars mean by the term New Religious Movement

reflect on the appeal of NRMs for some people.

appreciate the many and varied types of people who are interested in NRMs.

consider and understand the features used to identify a NRM.

New Religious Movements

New Religious Movements The term was introduced in the 1980s by scholars

as an alternative to the older term cult, which during the 1970s became a negative term, and was used in a prejudiced way by some critics to discredit and belittle belief systems they saw as unusual or anti-Christian.

Some scholars use the term "new religious movement" (NRM) to describe any non-mainstream religion. Other scholars use NRM for the majority of harmless, alternative religions, and reserve "cult" to label groups—whether religious, psychotherapeutic, political or commercial—they believe to be extremely manipulative and exploitative.

While there is no one criteria for when a group is described as a "new" religious movement, it usually refers to ‘of recent origin’ and ‘different from existing religions’.

New Religious Movements

Members

• Britain: 6,000

• World: 6,000,000 (1999)

ISKCON

Members

• Britain: 10,000

• World: 1,000,000 (1998)

New Religious Movements

The Family

Members

• Britain: 290 (1995)

• World: 10,183 (1999)

New Religious Movements

Rastafarians

Members

• Britain: 5,000 (1987)

• World: 700,000 (1998)

New Religious Movements

Sai Baba

Members

• Britain: 4,000

• World: 10,000,000 (1999)

New Religious Movements

Scientology

Members

• Britain: 300,000 (1987)

• World: 1,000,000 – 8,000,000

(1999)

New Religious Movements

Soka Gakkai

Members

• Britain: 5,000

• World: 12,000,000 (1996)

New Religious Movements

[Courtney Love and Orlando Bloom]

Theosophy

Members

• Britain: 1,000

• World: 34,000 (1998)

New Religious Movements

Transcendental Meditation

Members

• Britain: 150,000

• World: 3,000,000 (1999)

New Religious Movements

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Members

• Britain: 214,351

• World: 13,896,312 (1998)

New Religious Movements

Heaven’s Gate

Members

• World: 39 deceased

San Diego(1997)

New Religious Movements

People’s Temple

Members

• World: 919 deceased Guyana (1978)

New Religious Movements

Branch Davidians

Members

• World: 82 deceased

Waco Texas(1993)

New Religious Movements

Old Religious Movements

Masada Jews

960 Jews committed suicide in the 1st Century C.E. at Masada in Israel.

They did this because the Romans were about to defeat them.

Jesus Army

Members

• Britain: 2,600

• Outside Britain: nil (1999)

New Religious Movements

Osho

Members

• Britain: 600 - 3,000

• World: 200,000 (1999)

New Religious Movements

est

Members

• Britain: 8,000 (1987)

• World: 1,000,000 (1996)

New Religious Movements

Christian Science

Members

• Britain: no figures

• World: 400,000 (1998)

New Religious Movements

Latter-day Saints

Members

• Britain: 180,000

• World: 10,000,000 (1999)

New Religious Movements

Mormonism

Kabbalah Centre

Members

• Claims 1,000,000 new followers every year

New Religious Movements

OPV

Why do you think people would join a Why do you think people would join a New Religious Movement?New Religious Movement?

1. Use sheet ‘Key beliefs’ from class.2. On VLE open sheet that says ‘Key

Beliefs Info’. – CODE: NRM3. Fill in Engrams, Exteriorization and

Bridge.4. Also watch Panorama video on VLE link

week 2.5. Also respond to that video on the VLE

clicking ‘9E Panorama Documentary Feedback’

HW:Research and bring in any information About Scientology.