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Massimo Introvigne | |
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Born | Rome | June 14, 1955
Nationality | Italian |
Occupation | Author |
Website | massimointrovigne |
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955, in Rome) is an Italian Roman Catholic [1] sociologist of religion [2] and intellectual property attorney. [3] [4] 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". [5]
Introvigne was born in Rome on June 14, 1955. [6] [7] Introvigne earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Rome's Gregorian University in 1975, and in 1979 his Dr.Jur. from University of Turin. [8] [3] He worked from the law firm Jacobacci e Associati as an intellectual property attorney, specialized in domain names. [4]
In 1972, he joined conservative Catholic group Alleanza Cattolica. [9] [ better source needed ] From 2008 to 2016 he served as vice-president of the group. [10]
In 1988 he co-founded the CESNUR and has since served as the group director. [11] [12] [13]
Beginning in 2012, Introvigne was listed as a "invited professor of sociology of religious movements" at the Salesian Pontifical University in Turin. [14] [15]
In 2012, Introvigne was appointed chairperson of the newly-formed Observatory of Religious Liberty of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [16]
Beginning in 2018, Introvigne was editor-in-chief of the daily magazine on religion and human rights in China, Bitter Winter , which is published by CESNUR. [17] [18]
Introvigne is a proponent of the theory of religious economy developed by Rodney Stark. [19] [20]
Swedish academic Per Faxneld, writing for Reading Religion , described Introvigne as "one of the major names in the study of new religions." [21] Sociologist Roberto Cipriani has called Introvigne "one of the Italian sociologists of religion most well-known abroad, and among the world's leading scholars of new religious movements". [22]
In 2001, sociologist Stephen A. Kent described Introvigne as a "persistent critic of any national attempts to identify or curtail so-called 'cults'", [5] arguing that,
In the mid-1990s, Introvigne testified on behalf of Scientologists in a criminal trial in Lyon. [5]
After Introvigne was critical of the publication of the 1995 report on cults by the French government, journalists described Introvigne as a "cult apologist", saying he was tied to the Catholic Alliance and Silvio Berlusconi's then ruling party. [23] Introvigne responded that his scholarly and political activities were not connected. [24]
Introvigne has written on the concept of brainwashing. [25] He[ who? ] published an Encyclopedia of Religion in Italy. [11]
Journalist and Scientology-critic Tony Ortega penned a series of 2018/19 articles criticizing The Journal of CESNUR as an unreliable "apologist journal". [26] [27] [28]
Introvigne is also director of CESPOC, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. [29]
He was the Italian director of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, which included the leading academic scholars in the field of the literary and historical study of vampire myth. [30] [31] In 1997, J. Gordon Melton and Introvigne organized an event at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles where 1,500 attendees came dressed as vampires for "creative writing contest, Gothic rock music and theatrical performances". [30]
Satanism is a group of ideological and philosophical beliefs based on Satan. Although several historical precedents exist, the contemporary religious practice of Satanism began with the founding of the atheistic Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the United States in 1966. Prior to that time, Satanism existed primarily as the subject of accusations by various Christian groups toward perceived ideological opponents rather than a self-identity or expressed religious belief. Satanism, and the concept of Satan, has also been used by artists and entertainers for symbolic expression.
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.
LaVeyan Satanism is an atheist religion founded in 1966 by American occultist and author Anton LaVey. Scholars of religion have classified it as a new religious movement and a form of Western esotericism.
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 excessively 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.
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.
The Dialog Center International (DCI) is a Christian counter-cult organization founded in 1973 by a Danish professor of missiology and ecumenical theology, Dr. Johannes Aagaard (1928–2007).
Alain Vivien is a French Socialist Party (PS) politician, best known for chairing (1998–2002) the French Mission Interministérielle pour la Lutte contre les Sectes, MILS, a ministerial organization designed to observe the activities of various religious organizations defined as "Sectes" (cults).
Cyril Ronald Vosper was an anti-cult leader, former Scientologist and later a critic of Scientology, deprogrammer, and spokesperson on men's health. He wrote The Mind Benders, which was the first book on Scientology to be written by an ex-member, and the first critical book on Scientology to be published.
Freedom of religion in France is guaranteed by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
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.
The Orthodox Church in Italy, also called Chiesa Vecchio-Cattolica in Italia or Old Catholic Church in Italy, is an Old Catholic denomination.
Alleanza Cattolica, at the beginning Foedus Catholicum, is an Italian Catholic association. Among its members are Massimo Introvigne, president of CESNUR.
Religion in Italy is rapidly declining, although it has been historically characterized by the dominance of Catholicism since the Great Schism. According to a 2023 Ipsos survey, 61% of the country's residents are Catholic, 28% are irreligious, 4% are Protestants, 3% other Christians, 2% prefer not to say, 1% are Muslims, are 1% adhere to other religions. Italy's Catholic patron saints are Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena.
New religious movements and cults have appeared as themes or subjects in literature and popular culture, while notable representatives of such groups have themselves produced a large body of literary works.
The application of the labels "cults" or "sects" to religious movements in government documents usually signifies the popular and negative use of the term "cult" in English and a functionally similar use of words translated as "sect" in several European languages. Government reports which have used these words include ones from Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, and Russia. While these documents utilize similar terminology they do not necessarily include the same groups nor is their assessment of these groups based on agreed criteria. Other governments and world bodies also report on new religious movements but do not use these terms to describe them.
Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociologists, and various distinctive features have been proposed to characterise churches and sects. On most accounts, the following features are deemed relevant:
The Process Church of the Final Judgment, also known as the Process Church, was a British religious group established in 1966 and disestablished in the 1970s. Its founders were the English couple Mary Ann MacLean and Robert de Grimston, who spread the group's practices across parts of the United Kingdom and United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Process Church's beliefs have been described as "a kind of neo-Gnostic theology".
Johannes Monrad Aagaard was a Danish theologian and evangelist. He was a professor of missiology at the University of Aarhus. He founded the Department of Missiology and Ecumenical Theology and the Center for New Religious Studies at the University of Aarhus. He was active in the Christian countercult movement as the founder of the Dialog Center International, an international educational organization concerned with groups it defines as cults and other new religious movements. He was a former president of the International Association for Mission Studies. He was a member of the Faith and Order Commission and was on the board of the Theological Educational Fund. He co-founded and chaired the Nordic Network for Missiology and Ecumenical Studies.
Luigi Berzano is an Italian sociologist and Catholic priest.
The World Religions and Spirituality Project publishes academic profiles of new and established religious movements, archive material related to some groups, and articles that provide context for the profiles. It is referenced by scholars, journalists, and human rights groups to provide a scholarly representation of threatened communities.
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