World Religions and Spirituality Project

Last updated
World Religions and Spirituality Project
Founder(s) David G. Bromley
Established2010
Location
Virginia Commonwealth University
,
Richmond
,
Virginia
,
United States
Website wrldrels.org

The World Religions and Spirituality Project (WRSP, formerly known as the New Religious Movements Homepage Project [1] ) publishes academic profiles of new and established religious movements, archive material related to some groups, and articles that provide context for the profiles. [2] [3] It is referenced by scholars, [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] journalists, [12] [13] [14] and human rights groups [15] to provide a scholarly representation of threatened communities.

Contents

History

WRSP developed from Jeffrey K. Hadden's Religious Movements Homepage Project, which he founded in 1995. After Hadden's death in 2003, Douglas E. Cowan became Project Director. In 2007, it was described as "one of the largest information sites on new religious movements". [16] In 2010, David G. Bromley became the Project Director. [3] He expanded the scope of the project to recruit international scholars instead of local students and renamed it the World Religions and Spirituality Project. [3] [17]

Purpose

In an article that discusses the challenge of teaching students about new religious movements, Douglas E. Cowan explains that, because of "the thousands of NRMs that exist in the world at any one time, only a relative handful are ever discussed in the various print resources […], and the Internet is, by default, the only source of information available. The issue then becomes how credible the information is that they obtain online." [18] Websites like CESNUR, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, the Internet Sacred Text Archive, the Association of Religion Data Archives, and WRSP are understood as examples of websites that respond to this problem. [19] These websites serve to popularize the academic study of new religious movements.

Special projects

In addition to publishing profiles, it has ten special projects, thematic or regional, which are directed by recognized scholars. [20]

Related Research Articles

The Christian countercult movement or the Christian anti-cult movement is a social movement among certain Protestant evangelical and fundamentalist and other Christian ministries and individual activists who oppose religious sects that they consider cults.

Satanism Ideological and philosophical beliefs based on Satan

Satanism is a group of ideological and philosophical beliefs based on Satan. Contemporary religious practice of Satanism began with the founding of the atheistic Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the United States in 1966, although a few historical precedents exist. Prior to the public practice, Satanism existed primarily as an accusation by various Christian groups toward perceived ideological opponents, rather than a self-identity. Satanism, and the concept of Satan, has also been used by artists and entertainers for symbolic expression.

The meaning of spirituality has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape of man", oriented at "the image of God" as exemplified by the founders and sacred texts of the religions of the world. The term was used within early Christianity to refer to a life oriented toward the Holy Spirit and broadened during the Late Middle Ages to include mental aspects of life.

New religious movement Religious community or spiritual group of modern origin

A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.

The Church of Scientology maintains a wide variety of beliefs and practices. The core belief holds that a human is an immortal, spiritual being (thetan) that is resident in a physical body. The thetan has had innumerable past lives, some of which, preceding the thetan's arrival on Earth, were lived in extraterrestrial cultures. Based on case studies at advanced levels, it is predicted that any Scientologist undergoing auditing will eventually come across and recount a common series of events.

CESNUR, is a non-profit organization based in Turin, Italy that studies new religious movements and opposes the anti-cult movement. It was established in 1988 by Massimo Introvigne, Jean-François Mayer and Ernesto Zucchini. Its first president was Giuseppe Casale. Later, Luigi Berzano became CESNUR's president.

Massimo Introvigne

Massimo Introvigne is an Italian Roman Catholic sociologist of religion and intellectual property attorney. He is a founder and the managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), a Turin-based organization which has been described as "the highest profile lobbying and information group for controversial religions".

David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, specialized in sociology of religion and the academic study of new religious movements. He has written extensively about cults, new religious movements, apostasy, and the anti-cult movement.

The anti-cult movement are groups that oppose any new religious movement (NRM) that they characterize as a cult. Sociologists David Bromley and Anson Shupe initially defined the ACM in 1981 as a collection of groups embracing brainwashing-theory, but later observed a significant shift in ideology towards pathologizing membership in NRMs. One element within the anti-cult movement, Christian counter-cult organizations, oppose NRMs on theological grounds and distribute information to this effect through church networks and via printed literature.

The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT) is a group in Kingston, Ontario that is dedicated to the promotion of religious tolerance through their website, ReligiousTolerance.org.

Stephen A. Kent Canadian sociologist of religion

Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new religious movements (NRMs), and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God, the Church of Scientology, and other NRMs operating in Canada.

The academic study of new religious movements is known as new religions studies (NRS). The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology. Eileen Barker noted that there are five sources of information on new religious movements (NRMs): the information provided by such groups themselves, that provided by ex-members as well as the friends and relatives of members, organizations that collect information on NRMs, the mainstream media, and academics studying such phenomena.

James R. Lewis is an American philosophy professor at Wuhan University. Lewis is an academic, scholar of religious studies, sociologist of religion, and writer, specializing in the academic study of new religious movements, astrology, and New Age.

Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indicate that there were about 25,000 followers in the United States ; around 2,300 followers in England (2011); and about 1,700 in each of Canada (2011) and Australia (2016). Hubbard initially developed a set of ideas that he called Dianetics, which he represented as a form of therapy. This he promoted through various publications, as well as through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation that he established in 1950. The foundation went bankrupt, and Hubbard lost the rights to his book Dianetics in 1952. He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of "auditing". By 1954, he had regained the rights to Dianetics and retained both subjects under the umbrella of the Church of Scientology.

Lorne L. Dawson is a Canadian scholar of the sociology of religion who has written about new religious movements, the brainwashing controversy, and religion and the Internet. His work is now focused on religious terrorism and the process of radicalization, especially with regard to domestic terrorists.

John A. Saliba is a Maltese-born Jesuit priest, a professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and a noted writer and researcher in the field of new religious movements.

"Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth. Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion, but in contemporary usage spirituality has often become associated with the interior life of the individual, placing an emphasis upon the well-being of the "mind-body-spirit", while religion refers to organizational or communal dimensions.

Catherine Wessinger is an American religion scholar. She is the Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions at Loyola University New Orleans where she teaches religious studies with a main research focus on millennialism, new religions, women and religion, and religions of India. Wessinger is co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. She served as a consultant to federal law enforcement during the Montana Freemen standoff and has been cited for her expertise concerning the Branch Davidians and other apocalyptic groups. She is the editor of the Women in Religions series at New York University Press and she is co-editor of the Women in the World's Religions and Spirituality Project, part of the World Religions and Spirituality Project.

Sarah M. Pike

Sarah M. Pike is an American author and professor of comparative religion in the Department of Religious studies at California State University, Chico. Her interests include paganism, environmentalism, religion and ecology, and ritual studies. Her research on neopaganism and radical environmentalism has been lauded as being significant to the study of festival and group behaviour. She is the president of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture, co-chair of the American Academy of Religion, Ritual Studies Group, and director of the California State University, Chico Humanities Center.

References

  1. ↑ "Nova Religio and the World Religions and Spirituality Project". University of California Press. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  2. ↑ Bromley, David G.; Willsky-Ciollo, Lydia (January 2016). "The World Religions & Spirituality Project". Religious Studies Faculty Book Gallery. Fairfield University. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 "About Us". World Religions and Spirituality Project. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
  4. ↑ Knott, Kim (2018-09-02). "Applying the study of religions in the security domain: knowledge, skills, and collaboration". Journal of Religious and Political Practice. Informa UK Limited. 4 (3): 354–373. doi:10.1080/20566093.2018.1525901. ISSN   2056-6093. S2CID   158937341.
  5. ↑ Krebs, Jill M. (2017). "Teaching and learning guide for contemporary Marian apparitions and devotional cultures". Religion Compass. Wiley. 11 (5–6): e12234. doi:10.1111/rec3.12234. ISSN   1749-8171.
  6. ↑ "COVID-19: Scapegoating Shincheonji in South Korea". CESNUR. 1984-03-14. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  7. ↑ "Notes". Dynamism and the Ageing of a Japanese 'New' Religion. Bloomsbury Academic. 2019. doi:10.5040/9781350086548-008. ISBN   978-1-350-08651-7.
  8. ↑ Bromley, David (2016-06-03). "Santa Muerte as Emerging Dangerous Religion?". Religions. MDPI AG. 7 (6): 65. doi: 10.3390/rel7060065 . ISSN   2077-1444.
  9. ↑ Deo, Nandini (2018). Postsecular feminisms : religion and gender in transnational context. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-1-350-03806-6. OCLC   1039718550.
  10. ↑ Kitts, Margo, ed. (2018-05-24). "Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation". Oxford Scholarship Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190656485.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-065648-5.
  11. ↑ Bromley, David G. (2009-09-02). "New Religions as a Specialist Field of Study". Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199588961.013.0041.
  12. ↑ "HBO's 'Going Clear' leaves future of Scientology unclear". Washington Post. 2015-03-26. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  13. ↑ "N.Y. church descended into fear before teen's fatal beating, ex-members say - CBC News". CBC. 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  14. ↑ "Church where teen was beaten to death fueled by fear, ex-members say". CBS News. 2015-10-18. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
  15. ↑ "Bodu Bala Sena (Army of Buddhist Power) / BBS". People's Rights Group. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  16. ↑ Cowan, Douglas E. (2007). Bromley, David G. (ed.). Teaching New Religious Movements on the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. p. 300. ISBN   9780195177299.
  17. ↑ "Nova Religio and the World Religions and Spirituality Project". Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. 19 (2): 130. November 2015. doi:10.1525/nr.2015.18.4.140. JSTOR   10.1525/nr.2015.18.4.140.
  18. ↑ Cowan, Douglas E. (2007). Bromley, David G. (ed.). Teaching New Religious Movements on the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. p. 294–295. ISBN   9780195177299.
  19. ↑ Cowan, Douglas E. (2007). Bromley, David G. (ed.). Teaching New Religious Movements on the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. p. 295–296. ISBN   9780195177299.
  20. ↑ "Organization & Leadership". World Religions and Spirituality Project. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
  21. ↑ "Thematic Projects – WRSP" . Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  22. ↑ "Regional Projects – WRSP" . Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  23. ↑ "Local Community Projects – WRSP" . Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  24. ↑ "About". Arch City Religion. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  25. ↑ "People". A Journey through NYC religions. 2011-02-14. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
  26. ↑ "Professor Melanie Prideaux | School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science | University of Leeds". ahc.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
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