Eileen Barker

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Eileen Barker
Eileen Barker.jpg
Eileen Barker, 1990s
Born
Eileen Vartan Barker

(1938-04-21) 21 April 1938 (age 86)
Edinburgh, Scotland
NationalityBritish
OccupationProfessor of sociology
Known forStudy of cults and new religious movements, religion
Political party Liberal Democrats
Board member of INFORM, Study Group for the Sociology of Religion, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Association for the Sociology of Religion, International Journal of Cultic Studies , Centre for the Study of Human Rights

Eileen Vartan Barker OBE FBA (born 21 April 1938, in Edinburgh, UK) is a professor in sociology, an emeritus member of the London School of Economics (LSE), and a consultant to that institution's Centre for the Study of Human Rights. She is the chairperson and founder of the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) and has written studies about cults and new religious movements.

Contents

Academic career

Barker has been involved with the LSE's sociology department, where she received her PhD, since 1970. [1]

In 1988, she engaged in research on the preservation of cultural identity in the Armenian diaspora. [1] In the same year, she founded the Information Network Focus on Religious Movements (INFORM) with the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and financial help from the British Home Office. [2]

Barker has held numerous positions of leadership in the academic study of religion. She served as the chairperson of the British Sociological Association's Study Group for the Sociology of Religion from 1985 to 1990, as president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion from 1991 to 1993 (the first non-American to hold that office), and as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 2001 to 2002. [3] [4]

In 2000, Barker became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) [5] and the American Academy of Religion awarded her its Martin E. Marty Award for Contributions to the Public Understanding of Religion. [6]

Barker was a member of the editorial review board of Cultic Studies Review , an academic journal that offered peer-reviewed scholarship alongside news concerning cults and new religious movements. [7] [8] Barker subsequently joined the editorial board of the International Journal of Cultic Studies, which superseded Cultic Studies Review in 2010. [9]

The Making of a Moonie

Her 1984 book The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? is based on close to seven years of study of Unification Church members (informally called "Moonies") in the United Kingdom and the United States. Laurence Iannaccone of George Mason University, a specialist in the economics of religion, wrote that The Making of a Moonie was "one of the most comprehensive and influential studies" of the process of conversion to new religious movements. [10]

Opinions of others

Brainwashing proponents Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich have criticised Barker's rejection of the brainwashing hypothesis in her study of the conversion process for members of the Unification Church. Singer and Lalich, in their 1995 book Cults in Our Midst , called Barker a "procult apologist" for adopting an "apologist stance" towards the Unification Church, and noted that she had received payment from the Church for expenses for a book and eighteen conferences from the Unification Church. Barker defended this by stating that it had been approved by her university and a government grants council, and saved taxpayer money. [11]

Barker responded to the financial issues in a 1995 paper, writing that "[w]hat is less well known is that vast amounts of money are at stake in the fostering of brainwashing and mind control thesis in the anti-cult movement secondary constructions", and noting that "deprogrammers" and "exit counselors" charge tens of thousands of dollars for their services and that "expert witnesses" such as Singer "have charged enormous fees for giving testimony about brainwashing in court cases". [12]

Barker's INFORM organisation has been criticised by the Family Action Information Resource chaired by former Conservative Home Office minister and anti-cult campaigner Tom Sackville, who cut INFORM's Home Office funding in 1997. [13] In 1999, it was reported that INFORM was facing closure, due to lack of funds. [14] By 2000, Home Office funding was restored, prompting Sackville to warn that INFORM might provide government with bad advice, adding, "I cancelled INFORM's grant and I think it's absurd that it's been brought back". [13] Criticism of INFORM has focused on Barker's reluctance to condemn all new religions as "cults". [13] Barker responded to the criticism by saying, "We are not cult apologists. People make a lot of noise without doing serious research – so much so that they can end up sounding as closed to reason as the cults they're attacking. Besides, I imagine FAIR was disappointed not to get our funding". [13]

In a 2003 collection of essays in honour of Barker, the influential Oxford University-based religious scholar Bryan R. Wilson commented that INFORM was "often in a position from which it can reassure relatives about the character, disposition, policy, provenance and prospects of a given movement. It may be able to deflate some widely circulated rumours and false impressions derived from media comment". [15] [16] Wilson added that Barker's social science research, in particular her work on the Unification Church, had been instrumental in demonstrating that the brainwashing concept, which for some years had enjoyed popularity in the media, was unable to explain what actually happened in the process of religious conversion, or to explain why so many members of new religious movements actually leave these movements again after a short period. [16]

Australian psychologist Len Oakes and British psychiatry professor Anthony Storr, who have written critically about cults, gurus, new religious movements, and their leaders, have praised Barker's work on the Unification Church's conversion process. [17] [18]

Political career

Barker, a member of the Liberal Democrats, was an unsuccessful Queen's Park ward candidate in May 2002 [19] and an unsuccessful Kenton ward candidate in May 2006. [20]

Selected bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brainwashing</span> Concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled

Brainwashing, also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education, is the controversial theory that purports that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Singer</span> American psychologist and researcher (1921–2003)

Margaret Thaler Singer was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of new religious movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New religious movement</span> 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 that 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. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unification Church</span> International new religious movement

The Unification Church (Korean: 통일교) is a new religious movement derived from Christianity, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) began gaining followers after the Second World War. On 1 May 1954 in Seoul, South Korea, Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), the Unification Church's full name, until 1994, when it was officially changed to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. It has a presence in approximately 100 countries around the world. Its leaders are Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, whom their followers honor with the title "True Parents".

Cult is a lay term for a group perceived as requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant outside the norms of society. Such groups are typically founded or led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader who tightly controls its members. It is in some contexts a pejorative term, also used for new religious movements and other social groups which are defined by their unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or their common interest in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined – having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia – and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massimo Introvigne</span> Italian sociologist of religion (born 1955)

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

Bryan Ronald Wilson was a British sociologist. He was Reader Emeritus in Sociology at the University of Oxford and President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (1971–75). He became a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1963.

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, abbreviated ACM and also known as the countercult movement, consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of cults, uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Zablocki</span> American sociologist (1941–2020)

Benjamin David Zablocki was an American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he taught sociology of religion and social psychology. He published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements, cults, and brainwashing.

<i>The Making of a Moonie</i> 1984 book by Eileen Barker

The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? is a 1984 book written by British sociologist Eileen Barker.

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.

<i>Captive Hearts, Captive Minds</i> 1994 anti-cult book

Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships is a study of cults and abusive relationships by Madeleine Landau Tobias, Janja Lalich, and Michael Langone. It was published by Hunter House Publishers in 1994. In 2006, the book was reissued as Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships.

Janja Lalich is an American sociologist and writer. Lalich is an expert on cults and coercion, charismatic authority, power relations, ideology and social control. She is a professor emerita of sociology at the California State University, Chico.

<i>Misunderstanding Cults</i> Book by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins

Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field is an edited volume discussing various topics related to cults, including the scholarly field itself, the concept of brainwashing, and the public perception of the groups. The book was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins, and was published by University of Toronto Press on December 1, 2001. It includes contributions from 12 religious, sociological, and psychological scholars, in 14 essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Family Survival Trust</span>

The Family Survival Trust (FST) is a charity registered in the United Kingdom, established in order to support and offer counselling for members of abusive cults, religions, and similar organizations, and their families members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unification Church of the United States</span> Religious movement in the United States

The Unification Church of the United States is the branch of the Unification Church in the United States. It began in the late 1950s and early 1960s when missionaries from South Korea were sent to America by the international Unification Church's founder and leader Sun Myung Moon. It expanded in the 1970s and then became involved in controversy due to its theology, its political activism, and the lifestyle of its members. Since then, it has been involved in many areas of American society and has established businesses, news media, projects in education and the arts, as well as taking part in political and social activism, and has itself gone through substantial changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">INFORM</span> Organization

INFORM (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements) is an independent registered charity located in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College, London; from 1988-2018 it was based at the London School of Economics. It was founded by the sociologist of religion, Eileen Barker, with start-up funding from the British Home Office and Britain's mainstream churches. Its stated aims are to "prevent harm based on misinformation about minority religions and sects by bringing the insights and methods of academic research into the public domain" and to provide "information about minority religions and sects which is as accurate, up-to-date and as evidence-based as possible."

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.

James Arthur Beckford was a British sociologist of religion. He was professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Warwick and a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1988/1989, he served as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and from 1999 to 2003, as the president of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.

References

  1. 1 2 Bromley, David G (1988). Falling from the Faith: The Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications. p. 263. ISBN   0-8039-3188-3.
  2. Chryssides, George D. (1999), Exploring New Religions, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 351, ISBN   978-0-8264-5959-6
  3. James A. Beckford and James T. (Jim) Richardson, eds., Challenging Religion: Essays in Honour of Eileen Barker (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 5
  4. Heath, Anthony Francis; et al. (2005). Understanding social change. Oxford University Press. pp. vii. ISBN   978-0-19-726314-3.
  5. "New Years Honours, Order of the British Empire". BBC News . 31 December 1999.
  6. http://www.aarweb.org/news/pressrelease/2000----marty.asp%5B%5D Scholar Honored for Contributions to the Public Understanding of Religion
  7. Cultic Studies Review Editorial Board Archived 24 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine , Eileen Barker, PhD, International Cultic Studies Association, Web site., 2006.
  8. Langone, Michael (2002). "Announcing Cultic Studies Review". Cultic Studies Review. 1 (1). Bonita Springs: International Cultic Studies Association. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. By taking over the functions of these three periodicals, CSR is able to offer peer-reviewed, scholarly articles, news on groups and topics (e.g., children and cultic groups), opinion columns, personal accounts of ex-members, and high quality articles for laypersons
  9. "Editorial Board". International Journal of Cultic Studies. 1 (1). Bonita Springs: International Cultic Studies Association: ii. 2010.
  10. The Market for Martyrs, Laurence Iannaccone, George Mason University, 2006, "One of the most comprehensive and influential studies was The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? by Eileen Barker (1984).
  11. Cults in our Midst , Margaret Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich, pp. 217–218, notes on p. 352
  12. Barker, Eileen (September 1995). "The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 34 (3): 287–310. doi:10.2307/1386880. JSTOR   1386880.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Telegraph staff (31 July 2000), "Cult advisers in clash over clampdown", The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 19 December 2009
  14. Thomson, Alan (12 February 1999), "Cult-watch centre faces closure", Times Higher Education, retrieved 19 December 2009
  15. Staff (29 October 2004). "Bryan Wilson: Influential sociologist who offered new and enduring insights into sects and religions". The Times. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
  16. 1 2 Wilson, Bryan R. (2003), "Absolutes and relatives: problems for NRMs", in Beckford, James A.; Richardson, James T. (eds.), Challenging religion: essays in honour of Eileen Barker, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, ISBN   978-0-415-30948-6
  17. Oakes, Len (1997). Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities. ISBN   0-8156-0398-3. By far the best study of the conversion process is Eileen Barker's The Making of a Moonie [...]
  18. Storr, Anthony (1996). Feet of clay: a study of gurus. ISBN   0-684-83495-2.
  19. https://www.brent.gov.uk/elections.nsf/2d43be7a2cad472f80256a940044408f/d76710876d25e9af80256ad20035ac80!OpenDocument 2002 Candidate Details, retrieved 21 July 2007
  20. http://www.brent.gov.uk/elections.nsf/249521561f6cd81b80257145005078d8/ad14c25aedacbccb802571420053d02d!OpenDocument 2006 Candidate Details, retrieved 21 July 2007

Further reading