George D. Chryssides | |
---|---|
Born | George David Chryssides 1945 (age 78–79) |
Occupation(s) | Theologian, writer, philosopher, university teacher |
Academic background | |
Education | Doctor of Philosophy |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Birmingham |
George David Chryssides (born 1945) is a British academic and researcher on new religious movements and cults,has taught at several British universities,becoming head of Religious studies at the University of Wolverhampton in 2001. He is an honorary research fellow in contemporary religion at York St John University and the University of Birmingham. [1]
Chryssides is the author of several books and articles,with an interest in the academic study of new religious movements. [2] He is president of the International Society for the Study of New Religions,and a Governor of Inform (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements),based at King's College London.
Chryssides holds a first-class honours B.D. in systematic theology from the University of Glasgow. He obtained a first-class honours MA degree in philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Since 1974,Chryssides holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion from the University of Oxford, [3] with the thesis An examination of some problems concerning the philosophical analysis of religious language.
Chryssides has taught at various British universities. He started teaching religious studies at the University of Wolverhampton in 1992. [4] He found it difficult to find enough scholarly work detailing new religious movements in order to teach about the subject and started collecting primary source materials to research and utilize instead. Chryssides became acquainted with a Jehovah's Witness and would invite him to speak when introducing the denomination to his students. [5] Chryssides was the Head of Religious Studies at the institution from 2001 to 2008.[ citation needed ]
Since the 1980s,Chryssides's main interest has been new religious movements. Chryssides favours a simple definition of "new religious movement" as an organization founded "within the past 150 or so years" that cannot be easily classified within one of the world's main religious traditions. [6] Chryssides has been described by fellow sociologist James T. Richardson as "one of the leading scholars" of Jehovah's Witnesses. [7] According to Chryssides,hostile criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses from ex-members who seek to discredit the Watch Tower Society are lacking because Jehovah's Witnesses tend to avoid outside reading,so outsiders tend to be unaware of outside scholarship. [8] Chryssides has said that he learned useful information from critical ex-members of the Jehovah's Witnesses although accounts by critical former members may be biased. [9]
Jehovah's Witnesses is a nontrinitarian, millenarian, restorationist Christian denomination. In 2023, the group reported approximately 8.6 million members involved in evangelism, with around 20.5 million attending the annual Memorial of Christ's death. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the destruction of the present world system at Armageddon is imminent, and the establishment of God's kingdom over earth is the only solution to all of humanity's problems.
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.
Awake! is an illustrated religious magazine published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. It is considered to be a companion magazine of The Watchtower, and is distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses. The Watch Tower Society reports a worldwide circulation of about 12.8 million copies per issue in 252 languages.
The Ancient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis (AMORC) is a Rosicrucian organization founded by Harvey Spencer Lewis in the United States in 1915. It has various lodges, chapters and other affiliated bodies in several countries. It operates as a fraternal order in the mystical Western Esoteric Tradition.
Ralph Maxwell Lewis, was an American mystic and the second Imperator of the Rosicrucian organisation AMORC from 1939 to 1987. He is the author of a number of books regarding mysticism. His father, Harvey Spencer Lewis, was the first Imperator of AMORC.
Harvey Spencer Lewis, a Rosicrucian author, mystic and founder of AMORC. He lead AMORC as its first leader (imperator) from its creation in 1915 until his death.
The Center for Studies on New Religions, otherwise abbreviated as CESNUR, is a nonprofit organization based in Turin, Italy that focuses on the academic study of new religious movements and opposes the anti-cult movement. It was established in 1988 by Massimo Introvigne, Jean-François Mayer, and Ernesto Zucchini.
John Gordon Melton is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas where he resides. He is also an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.
Ron Geaves is a British scholar of religious studies who was professor of the comparative study of religion at Liverpool Hope University in England, retiring in December 2013. He was formerly Programme Leader and Chair in religious studies at the University of Chester in England (2001-2007) and Head of Department at the University of Chichester (1999-2001). He was chair of the Muslims in Britain Research Network (2007-2010) and instrumental in the creation of BRAIS, remaining on their advisory board.
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 perceived as being led by a charismatic 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.
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".
Rolf Johan Furuli is a Norwegian linguist who was a lecturer in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo; he retired in 2011. Furuli has taught courses of Akkadian, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ugaritic at the University of Oslo and at The Norwegian Institute of Paleography and Historical Philology.
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.
Marvin James Penton was a Canadian historian and author. A professor emeritus of history at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, he was the author of three books on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses. Although raised in the religion, he was expelled in 1981 on the grounds of apostasy after criticizing some of the teachings and conduct of the religion's leadership. His expulsion gained national media attention.
James Roger Lewis was an American philosophy professor at Wuhan University. He was a religious studies scholar, sociologist of religion, and writer, who specialized in the academic study of new religious movements, astrology, and New Age.
This is a bibliography of works on the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology is an academic anthology published by Ashgate in 2009 and edited by the Norwegian religious scholar Jesper Aagaard Petersen, then a lecturer at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
The Memorial of Jesus' Death, also known as the Lord's Evening Meal, is an annual commemoration of the death of Jesus by Jehovah's Witnesses. Witnesses consider it the only religious event that Christians are commanded to observe by the Bible, as well as the most important day of the year. During the Memorial, unleavened bread and unfortified red wine are passed among congregants, although only those who identify themselves as being part of the 144,000 "anointed" Witnesses set to inherit Christ's heavenly kingdom may partake of the bread and wine.
Zoe Katrina Knox is an academic known for her work on religious history. She is an associate professor of Russian history at the University of Leicester.