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 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).
Stephen A. Kent is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He researches new religious movements (NRMs), and has published research on several such groups including the Children of God, the Church of Scientology, and other NRMs operating in Canada.
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.
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.
Studia Islamica is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering Islamic studies focusing on the history, religion, law, literature, and language of the Muslim world, primarily of the Southwest Asian and Mediterranean regions. The editor-in-chief is Houari Touati. Articles are published in English or French.
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.
BYU Studies is a multidisciplinary academic journal covering a broad array of topics related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is published by the church-owned Brigham Young University. The journal is abstracted and indexed in the ATLA Religion Database.
Buddhist-Christian Studies is an academic journal covering the historical and contemporary interrelationships between Buddhism and Christianity. It includes articles, conference reports, book reviews, and sections on comparative methodology and historical comparisons, as well as ongoing discussions from two dialogue conferences: the Theological Encounter with Buddhism, and the Japan Society for Buddhist–Christian Studies. Since 1987 it has served as the official journal of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, a member of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion.
Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of religious studies and world religions at the Maine College of Art & Design and an adjunct professor in Asian Religions at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. He is the author of numerous published papers and books, including Aldous Huxley: A Biography, which Laura Huxley described as, "Out of all the biographies written about Aldous, this is the only one he would have actually liked."
The Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on Shia Islam, including theology, philosophy, mysticism, law, jurisprudence, politics, history, Qur'an and Hadith studies, and current issues relevant to Shi'ism. It is published by ICAS Press on behalf of The Islamic College and was established in 2008. The journal also contains a book reviews section to review new and old works pertaining to Shi'a Islam.
Catherine Lowman Wessinger is an American religion scholar. She is the Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions at Loyola University New Orleans where she teaches religious studies with a main research focus on millennialism, new religions, women and religion, and religions of India. She served as a consultant to federal law enforcement during the Montana Freemen standoff and has been cited for her expertise concerning the Branch Davidians and other apocalyptic groups.
The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of Pagan studies including historical, sociological, and anthropological studies dealing with contemporary Paganism and other forms of pagan religion. Since 2004 the journal has been published by Equinox Publishing and the editor-in-chief is Chas S. Clifton.
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 Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal, sponsored by the Society of Christian Ethics, that examines social, economic, political, and cultural problems within the context of Christian social ethics. It was established in 1981 as The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics and was reorganized as a journal in 2002. For many years, the journal was published by Georgetown University Press. Since 2019 it has been published in print and electronic formats by the Philosophy Documentation Center.
The Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion (JMSR) is a peer-reviewed academic journal on management, spirituality and religion. It is published six times per year and contains scholarly articles regarding the spiritual and religious aspects of managing and organizing. The journal was established in 2004 and published by Routledge until January 2021. The editor-in-chief is Kathryn Pavlovich.
Suzanne Newcombe researches the modern history of yoga and new and minority religions. She states that she is particularly interested in "the interfaces between religion, health and healing." She is known in particular for her work on yoga for women and yoga in Britain.
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.
