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.
Saliba has advocated a conciliatory approach towards new religions. He has argued that membership in such movements can serve as a temporary haven for young adults in a formative stage of their lives, and is not necessarily detrimental. He has been critical of the brainwashing concept espoused by the anti-cult movement.
Saliba has been teaching at the University of Detroit Mercy since 1970. [1] Born and raised in Malta, he studied philosophy and theology at Heythrop College before it was affiliated to the University of London and anthropology at the University of Oxford, and completed his doctorate in Religion and Religious Education at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. [2] [3] Saliba is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). [2] His main teaching focus has been on comparative religion, and his research and publications have mostly been about new religious movements. [2] [3] [4] He presently teaches courses in world religions, anthropology of religion and new religious movements as professor of religious studies at the University of Detroit Mercy. [3] Saliba also contributed to a three-year study of new religions for the Vatican, conducted by the International Federation of Catholic Universities. [5]
In Understanding New Religious Movements (2003), Saliba advocated a conciliatory approach towards new religions: "Whatever critiques of new religions must be rendered by scholars of various disciplines, dialogue is a more useful response than diatribe". [5] He expressed the view that "all that the heated denunciations of the new religions do is to reinforce the attitudes and beliefs of both their members and detractors. Apologetic debates rarely lead unbelievers or apostates to convert; they do not succeed in persuading renegade Christians to abandon their new beliefs to return to the faith of their birth. Harangues against the new religions do not lead their members to listen attentively to the arguments of zealous evangelizers. On the contrary, they drive them further away and elicit similar belligerent responses." [6]
In Saliba's view, new religious movements should actually be treated as forms of religion, much like those that have arisen at all times throughout history, rather than as "cults" or a social problem specific to recent decades. [5] Noting that new religions often appeal to young people who lack spiritual grounding, he has argued that involvement in such movements is not necessarily a dangerous distraction from the path to adulthood, but can also serve as a temporary haven in a materialistic and selfish society, providing "an alternative therapy to many young adults as they are faced with making momentous decisions at important junctures in their lives". [5] [7] He has stated that many members of new religions appear to be healthy and happy, and that in many cases they move away from alcohol and drug use, gaining "a degree of intellectual security, emotional stability and organised behavioural patterns that contrast sharply with their previously confused and chaotic existences". [7] He also contends, based on statistical studies, that the appeal of new religious movements is often short-lived, with over 90% of members moving on within two years of joining. [5] [7] Given that new religions appear to fulfill a need that the mainstream churches are unable to address, he states that there is a need for "some soul-searching on the part of the mainline churches". [5]
Saliba is critical of the anti-cult movement and has remarked that "the neutral stance of the social sciences is a stance which has often been interpreted as favoring the NRMs". [8] In 1985, Saliba published a two-part critique of Margaret Singer, a key proponent of the brainwashing hypothesis prevalent at the time, in the American Psychology Bulletin , [9] finding numerous faults with the documentation and conclusions of her research. [10] He criticized her sources – deprogrammed ex-members and their friends and families – arguing that they lacked impartiality and objectivity and did not form a representative or statistically significant sample. [10] He maintained that Singer lacked relevant academic background or even interest in the study of religion, and that she failed to consider the possibility that new religious movements might have a genuine religious or spiritual dimension. [10] He thought that she was unaware of legitimate forms of Eastern religion, as evidenced by her including Zen Buddhism in a list of cults, and that she generally took a far too negative view of new religious movements. [10]
Commenting in Anti-cult Movements in Cross Cultural Perspective on the Vatican's doctrine on new religious movements disseminated in 1991 – which according to Janet L. Jacobs writing in the academic journal Sociology of Religion "walks a fine line between condemning the new religions and recognizing the importance of religious freedom" – Saliba expressed the view that the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue "respects the religious freedom of individuals, even though their choices are deemed doctrinally erroneous and their behavior morally unacceptable." [11]
Mary F. Bednarowski, reviewing Saliba's Understanding New Religious Movements in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies , described the book as "a significant contribution to conversations about this too-frequently-contentious subject", noting that "the author attributes to the study of new religions the complexity it deserves" and that "his overall contention is that it is more profitable to study new religions constructively than belligerently. New religions, says Saliba, should be looked upon as 'both partners and rivals in the religious quest'." [5] She said she had used the book in one of her own courses on new religious movements and "found it very helpful for the background it offers, the multiplicity of perspectives and methodological approaches it engages, and its exploratory and nondefensive tone." [5]
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.
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.
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. 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 past-life events.
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.
Cult is a term, in most contexts pejorative, for a relatively small group which is typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader, who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant. This term is also used for a new religious movement or other social group which is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its 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 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".
The Aetherius Society is a new religious movement founded by George King in the mid-1950s as the result of what King claimed were contacts with extraterrestrial intelligences, to whom he referred as "Cosmic Masters". The main goal of the believer is to cooperate with these Cosmic Masters to help humanity solve its current Earthly problems and advance into the New Age.
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.
The anti-cult 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.
Anson D. Shupe, Jr. was an American sociologist noted for his studies of religious groups and their countermovements, family violence and clergy misconduct.
Chen Tao was a UFO religion that originated in Taiwan. It was founded by Hon-Ming Chen, who first associated it with UFOs but later claimed that the group had been misrepresented as a New Age UFO cult. Chen was a former professor who claimed to be an atheist until he joined a religious cultivation group that dated back for two generations to the original female founder, Teacher Yu-Hsia Chen. But he broke with the group, headed by the third-generation teacher, in 1993 and created, with another fellow-cultivator, Tao-hung Ma, their own groups. It was later, when he broke with Ma and decided to move to the United States, that new elements, such as the pseudo-scientific information of cosmology and flying saucers, as well as Christian motifs of the prophecy of the end and the great tribulation, etc., were introduced into the group.
A UFO religion is any religion in which the existence of extraterrestrial (ET) entities operating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) is an element of belief. Typically, adherents of such religions believe the ETs to be interested in the welfare of humanity which either already is, or eventually will become, part of a pre-existing ET civilization. Other religions predate the UFO era of the mid 20th century, but incorporate ETs into a more supernatural worldview in which the UFO occupants are more akin to angels than physical aliens, but this distinction may be blurred within the overall subculture. These religions have their roots in the tropes of early science fiction and weird fiction writings, in ufology, and in the subculture of UFO sightings and alien abduction stories. Historians have considered the Aetherius Society, founded by George King, to be the first UFO religion.
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.
Ashtar is the name given to an extraterrestrial being or group of beings that a number of people claim to have channeled. UFO contactee George Van Tassel was the first to claim to receive an Ashtar message in 1952. Since then, experiences involving Ashtar have been claimed to occur in many contexts. The Ashtar movement is studied by academics as a prominent form of UFO religion.
The APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC/DITPACT) was formed at the request of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983. The APA asked Margaret Singer, a leading theorist in cults and coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to "expose cult methods and tactics". Some examples that led to the task force's creation were the Manson family murders, Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the Jonestown massacre.
Andreas Gruenschloss is a German scholar and the current Professor of Religious Studies at University of Göttingen. An ordained Protestant pastor, he is the author of books and scholarly articles about interfaith matters and new religious movements. He publishes both in German and in English and is a co-editor of the Marburg Journal of Religion.
Dick Anthony was a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on the validity of brainwashing as a determiner of behavior, a prolific researcher of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.
