explaining the growth of New Religious Movements

• the New Age Movement is a collective term for the eclectic (wide ranging) belief-based movements that preached the imminent coming of a new age in spirituality, emerging in the 1980s
• examples of new age movements include meditation, reiki, crystal healing, Tarot reading, yoga and the belief in UFOs
• the New Age Movement is often characterised as a “spiritual supermarket” in which individuals are free to pick and mix the spiritual beliefs and practises which they believe best help them attain peace of mind, a viewpoint that is potent with Postmodernist undertone
• examples of new age practises and beliefs?

  • the belief that individuals have a deeper hidden potential to unlock with the aid of psycho-therapeutic interventions
  • a belief in mysticism, clairvoyance and psychic power of certain individuals
  • believing in fate that is revealed through practises such as tarot reading
  • a belief in extraterrestrials and “cosmo“ religions
• a focus on “self-improvement”?

  many practises zero in on the idea of “perfecting oneself” and embarking on a journey of self-improvement, or even self-transcendence, in which the socialised self is transcended, and one’s true-self is attained through practises like meditation
• The self is the “final authority” in the New Age Movement?

  New agers reject the authority that is found within traditional religions, instead turning to themselves to find the god or goddess within
• A pick and mix approach to religion?

  New agers reject the notion that one religion holds the monopoly of truth, instead believing that there are multiple paths to spiritual fulfilment. Hence, they “shop around” and experiment with a myriad of New Age practises and beliefs in order to find what best tailors to their needs
• with society evolving from a modern to a post-modernist society, people no longer cling to the meta-narratives presented by mainstream science and religion, but instead seek personal rationales to explain spiritual dissatisfaction by shopping in a global religious and spiritual marketplace
• pseudosciences such as astrology, tarot reading, psychic experience etc. serve as New Age tools for the transformation of the self
• “Holistic Milieu” was a phrase coined by Heelas in which he described the environment of a NAM in which individuals are encouraged to focus on their spirituality
• rapid social change can disrupt the pre-existing norms and values of a society, resulting in anomie. The New Age provides a sense of certainty and truth in the same way as NRMS
• Bruce suggests that NAM focus on environmentalism (new ecology), alternative medicine (new science) and the self as sacred (new psychology)
• NRM’s are often viewed as countercultural as they often run counter to the mainstream religions of Western society, and so are perceived by others as alternatives to these religions
• these movements are highly eclectic and syncretistic, as they teach an amalgamation of doctrines, practises and beliefs cumulated from various sources
• NAM are popular amongst highly-educated, successful middle class individuals, especially those working in creative and expressive fields, as they deeply resonate with the doctrine of self-generated success that new age practises teach
• another reason for the growth of NAM is that unlike world-rejecting NRM’s, there is a lack of significant self-discipline, and there are no requirements to make drastic changes to one’s life in order to become a member, this flexibility perfectly aligns with the busy lifestyles of adherents
• in essence, Bruce argues that the New Age movement fits the extremely individualistic nature of modern Western society
• 3 reasons for growth of NRM

  • social change
  • disillusionment with established church
  • deprivation
• religions evolve along with society, NRM’s are especially attractive to young individuals who seek immediate gratification
• • with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution came the birth of Methodism, a world-accommodating NRM which sought to restore social order, create a sense of community and establish norms and values
  • they succeeded in recruiting large numbers of marginalised, deprived working class industrial workers
• • political changes can often be the source of growth for NRMs. For example, the Divorce Act 1969 led to changes in the family that altered the process of socialisation, so that morals were no longer obtained solely from religion
  • this meant children were less likely to be socialised into attending church
  • links to Parson’s theory of the “functional fit”, religion has a functional fit that is dependent on the time period, churches have undergone structural differentiation where socialisation is obtained from other agents
• disillusionment with the church

  • world-rejecting and world-accommodating NRMs may rise through schisms, in which members believe that the original religion has comprised their beliefs, and so no longer harbour faith for its theology
  • eg. Methodist denomination was established by working-class people who had become disillusioned with the Church of England
• social change can breed various types of deprivation that may catalyse the growth of NRMs, Stark and Bainbridge argue that the relatively deprived are more likely to give rise to a schism, and therefore join world-rejecting sects that offer compensators for their unsafisfactory quality of life
• Theodicy of disprivilege

  • Weber argues that world-rejecting NRMs appeal to economically deprived individuals, as they offers some semblance of rationality for their financial struggles
  • a promise of compensation is offered in the form of salvation
  • eg. The Nation of Islam, a world-rejecting movement, recruit economically disadvantaged Black muslims in the USA
• Status deprivation

  • NRMs tend to attract lower-class individuals who find them selves lacking cultural capital, power in the workplace and a status, thus resulting in alienation and subsequently the affiliation to a world-rejecting NRM
  • to add theoretical foundation to this, marxists would corroborate this phenomenon, as it is reminiscent of the early stages of a socialist revolution
• Glock and Stark suggest that an individual who lacks social capital and harbours resentment as a consequence may gravitate towards the evangelical goals of world-rejecting NRMs like Jehovah‘s Witnesses, goals that compensate for the lack of status or power they have at the workplace
• Organismic deprivation

  • Miller & Hoffman argue that people who suffer from organismic deprivation, i.e physical, mental and addiction problem, may turn to NRMs who claim to harbour faith-healing powers in hopes of getting healed
  • eg. Scientology stresses that people can undergo psycho-therapeutic sessions in order to attain levels of personal fulfilment that will radically improve their life
• relative deprivation can be defined as the discrepancy between what one expects in life and what one actually has
• Berger looks at resacrilisation, a term used to refer to the reintegration of elements of the sacred or religious back into society
• The Kendal Project led by Heelas & Woodhead concluded that non-congregational spiritual activities were on the rise, whilst traditional congregational activity was declining, they found that the holistic milieu was more popular amongst middle-aged women
• The Kendal Project criticism

  • as Kendal is a predominantly a white British town, it’s findings are not representative of the religiosity of minority-ethnic groups, nor does it reflect the growth of non-christian religions in the UK, such as Islam
  • Kendal is a predominantly middle-class town, whether the findings serve as applicable to smaller, less prosperous multicultural towns is highly questionable