Mikael Rothstein | |
---|---|
Born | 8 May 1961 |
Nationality | Danish |
Occupation | Associate professor |
Relatives | Klaus Rothstein |
Academic background | |
Education | PhD |
Alma mater | University of Copenhagen |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historian |
Sub-discipline | Religious studies |
Institutions | University of Copenhagen |
Mikael Rothstein (born 8 May 1961) is an associate professor of religious history at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen,Denmark. He has authored several books on the topic of religion and new religious movements.
Rothstein was born 8 May 1961 in Denmark. He earned his PhD in 1993 and became a Lector at the University of Copenhagen in 2001. [1] He has been on the board of the Danish Association for the History of Religions (DAHR) and the editorial boards of the publications Renner Studies on New Religions (Aarhus University Press) and Nye Religioner (Gyldendal). [2]
Rothstein has been called one of Denmark's top researchers in new religious movements, [3] and has been credited with making them a topic of scholarship. [1] Another area of scholarly interest is indigenous religions;he was the first researcher to describe the Penan people of Borneo. [1]
Rothstein has been involved in some conflicts in the media. In 2007 he was criticized after defending Ungdomshuset. [1] In 2011 he was one of those criticizing the rephrasing of the mission of Denmark's state-owned broadcasting service,DR,to include promoting Christian values,which he called "a way of making us all hostages to a nationalist Christian project". [4] [5] He has called Lars Hedegaard "an assailant" (Danish :en voldsmand),leading to criticism from other free speech advocates. [6] He has been described in a Christian periodical as "uncompromising [and] a wonderful,intelligent man who is both warm,caring and generous with praise for both colleagues and students" [1] and by another commentator in the same publication as demonstrating "one-sided bile" and "hatred" in his utterances concerning Christianity. [7] An opinion article in another newspaper likewise portrayed him as a hater of religion. [8]
Among books he has written or co-edited are:Belief Transformations:Some Aspects of the Relation between Science and Religion in Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) (1996),Secular Theories on Religion:Current Perspectives (2000) (co-author with Tim Jensen),New Age Religion and Globalization (2002), [9] [10] New Religions in a Postmodern World (2003) (co-editor with Reender Kranenborg) and The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements (2012) (co-editor with Olav Hammer). [3] [11] [12] [13]
Rothstein and his wife,Mie,have two children. [1] His brother,Klaus Rothstein ,is a well known TV journalist.
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.
The Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church,sometimes called the Church of Denmark,is the established,state-supported church in Denmark. The supreme secular authority of the church is composed of the reigning monarch and Denmark's Parliament,the Folketing. As of 1 January 2024,71.4% of the population of Denmark are members,though membership is voluntary.
Knowledge is a term used by Shri Hans Ji Maharaj to denote a formulation of four specific techniques that were imparted in a process of initiation. The term continues to be used by two of Shri Hans Ji Maharaj's sons,Satpal Rawat and Prem Rawat.
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).
Pious fraud is used to describe fraud in religion or medicine. A pious fraud can be counterfeiting a miracle or falsely attributing a sacred text to a biblical figure due to the belief that the "end justifies the means",in this case the end of increasing faith by whatever means available.
Reender Kranenborg was a Dutch theologian,pastor,and scholar of religion. He was editor of the magazine Religious Movement in the Netherlands published by the institute of religious studies of the Free University in Amsterdam. He researched cults as well as the anti-cult movement in the Netherlands.
Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS),a position he has held since the centre's foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer,a broadcaster,and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education,comparative theology,communication,and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life,convened in 2013 by the Woolf Institute,Cambridge. In 2013 the Indian government appointed him to sit on the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation. Keshava,Rishi Das's wife of 27 years,died in December 2013.
Olav Hammer is a Swedish professor emeritus at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense working in the field of history of religion.
Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen is a former member of the Danish parliament for the Red-Green Alliance. Schmidt-Nielsen has been referred to as the "new queen of the Red-Green Alliance" by parts of the press. She now serves as secretary general for Save the Children.
Jesper Marquard Langballe was a Danish Lutheran priest,author and politician who represented the right-wing populist Danish People's Party in the Danish parliament,Folketinget,from 2001 to 2011. Langballe was elected in the Viborg constituency. His son Christian Langballe was elected to the Folketinget in 2011.
Margit Warburg is a Danish sociologist of religion. Since 2004,she has been professor of Sociology of Religion in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She was an associate professor at the same university from 1979 to 2004.
The ISKCON Communications Journal (ICJ) was a biannual magazine of dialogue,focussing on issues related to missionary development in ISKCON and with issues of communication,administration,social development and education which affected mission in ISKCON. ICJ also provided a forum for members of various communities to comment on ISKCON's development. It was established in 1993 and was published by ISKCON Communications Europe until its last issue appeared in 2005.
Richard Leslie Thompson,also known as Sadaputa Dasa,was an American mathematician,author and Gaudiya Vaishnava religious figure. Historian Meera Nanda described him as a driving intellectual force of 'Vedic creationism' as co-author of Forbidden Archeology:The Hidden History of the Human Race (1993),a work that has attracted significant criticism from the scientific community. Thompson also published several books and articles on the relationship between religion and science,Hindu cosmology and astronomy. He was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Institute dedicated to examining the relationship of modern scientific theories to the Vaishnava worldview. In the 'science and religion' community he was known for his articulation of ISKCON's view of science. Danish historian of religion Mikael Rothstein described Thompson as "the single dominating writer on science" in ISKCON whom ISKCON has chosen to "cover the field of science more or less on his own". C. Mackenzie Brown,professor of religion at Trinity University,San Antonio,Texas,described him as "the leading figure" in ISKCON's critique of modern science.
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.
Christian Ove Wilhelm von Spaeth is a Danish graphic designer and writer.
Jon Stewart is an American philosopher and historian of philosophy. He specializes in 19th century Continental philosophy with an emphasis on the thought of Kierkegaard and Hegel. He has also worked in the field of Scandinavian Studies and has made the culture of the Danish Golden Age better known internationally. Stewart currently works as a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Lars Hedegaard is a Danish author,historian,editor,journalist and critic of Islam. He established the International Free Press Society in 2009,an extension of the Danish Free Press Society founded in 2004,of which he served as chairman until 2014. Hedegaard was the subject of an assassination attempt in 2013,after which he has lived under police protection.
Kristeligt Dagblad is a Danish newspaper in Copenhagen. The paper was founded in 1896 and is still circulation in the 2000s. It was founded with a Christian orientation.
Andreas Rasch Christensen is a Danish education researcher and director of research and development in the division of Education and Social Sciences at VIA University College.
Controversial New Religions is an edited volume discussing new religious movements,or cults,that have resulted in controversy. It was co-edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen,and was first published in 2004 by Oxford University Press. A second edition containing mostly new content was published with the same two editors in 2014. The first edition contains 19 essays,while the second contains 22. Both editions are divided into four sections by topic,and cover numerous groups.