Alternative PathsNew Religious Movements

NRMs

• New Religious Movements can

• Arise out of traditional denominations

• Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

• Christian Science

• Blend two or more traditional religions

• Vietnamese Cao Dai = Buddhism + Christianity + Daoism + Confucianism

• Santeria = Catholicism + W. African traditions

• Blended religions are called “syncretic”

Contemporary Paganism

• Paganism includes NRMs that re-create ancient nature-based religions• Primarily early European cultures

• Pagan is a Latin word related to “countryside”

• Paganism referred to the religious world of ancient villagers – also called “folk religions” –as opposed to Catholicism, the official religion of pre-modern Europe

• Wicca and Druid religion are modern revivals of ancient Paganism

Wicca

• “The Craft” or “the Old Religion”

• Centers on the worship of nature gods and goddesses and/or a single divinity with both male and female aspects and images.

• Women play a prominent role as ritual leaders and the embodiment of wisdom

• Wicca follows a lunar-solar calendar. Feasts are marked by the movement of the sun and the moon.

• Wicca’s ethical dimension is based on personal freedom balanced by doing no-harm, and the Law of Triple Return.

Is Modern Wicca “old”?

• Some of Wiccan practice is ancient.

• Rituals of Halloween and May Day

• Earlier forms of Wicca existed in Europe prior to modernity (17th-18th centuries).

• Some of Wicca is a “mythic reconstruction”.

• New rituals, phrases and other elements have been added to update the religion to meet the needs of modern urban followers

Druidry

• Particularly popular in England

• Revival of ancient Druid religion began in the 18th

century.

• Druid religion was a religion of the elite: professionals like judges, teachers, doctors, and priests. Preparation to become a full Druid, from Bard to Oviate to Druid, could take 20 years.

• Druids celebrated their religion in groves of sacred trees. “Druid” is thought to mean “oak-tree wisdom”.

Neo-Druidism• Modern Druids follow the same

eight-part lunar-solar calendar as the Wiccans.

• They celebrate the full moon and make use of the ancient circular stone complex called Stonehenge in England for their rituals.

• Promotes harmony and worship of nature.

• Is more a spiritual practice or philosophy than a religion.

NRMs from Yoruba

• Indigenous African religious practices and beliefs came to the New World via the slave trade.• W. African Yoruba traditions were the most influential

• Santeria took shape primarily in Cuba. When African Slaves were forced to convert to Catholicism, the syncretic mixture of indigenous W. African religion and Catholicism gave birth to Santeria.

• Voodoo (Voudun) took shape among slaves, largely in Haiti, and is a mixture of Islam, Catholicism and W. African Yoruba animism.

• Candomblé is practiced as an official religion in Brazil.

Syncretism, Similarities

• Both Yoruba religions and Catholicism:• Believe in a single High God

• Believe in supernatural beings who mediate between God and human beings

• Believe in the existence of spirits of the dead

• Both trust in the power of ritual, both have priests, and use ritual elements.

• With these similarities, slaves had more opportunity to express their native religion using the Catholic forms that were forced on them.

The High God

• The High God of the Yoruba religion is “Olorun”. Like the God of Catholicism, Olorunis the creator of the world. He had a son to whom he assigned this task of creation, but the son failed so Olorun enlisted the aid of lesser deities called “Orisha” to complete the task for him.• After creation was completed, Olorun “rested”

– he retired to the heavens and has little contact with people.

Lesser gods and ancestors

• In Yoruba religion, Olorun is thought to be too powerful and important to appeal to for daily problems.

• Lesser deities called Orishas control day-to-day events for humans and for creation.

• Orishas are identified with natural elements like mountains, forests, rivers, plants, animals, etc. – all living things have spiritual life. They can be harmful or beneficial and are influenced by prayer, praise and sacrifice.

• African religion also pays respect to the ancestors, those who have passed from this life but live on in spiritual form. They enforce the moral code of the tribes.

NRMs from the East

• Theosophy began in 1875 when a Russian writer, Madame Helena Blavatsky, and a few like-minded colleagues began the Theosophical Society.

• Theosophy draws on what believers call the “ancient wisdom” of the East. Theosophy was born in the wake of the European fascination with Hindu philosophical works that they discovered and translated when the British Empire colonized India.

• Blavatsky claimed she was in contact with the spirits of sages who had died and ascended to a higher plane: the Ascended Masters. Theosophy had a renaissance beginning in the 1970s with the New Age Movement.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet

The Church Universal and Triumphant is a recent offshoot of Theosophy. This is a syncretic blend of New Age mysticism and Catholic doctrine.

It uses elements like the Bible and the Rosary but appeals to all the sages of all religions – Buddha and Jesus, e.g.

The church is headquartered in Montana, but Ms. Prophet died in 2009.

ScientologyProbably the best-known and most controversial NRM in the U.S. and Europe, Scientology is the new religion created by L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, in 1954.

Scientology draws on Buddhism, ET mythology, and ideas from the “human-potential” movement to explain what it means to be human and how to become successful, happy, and wealthy using Scientology’s techniques.

The Church of Scientology has been sued multiple times as well as investigated by the IRS. It actively recruits celebrities and large donors to promote its religious claims.

Falon Gong

• Falon Gong is an NRM that began in China, where religions are tightly controlled by the state. Currently, Falong Gong is banned in China, but it has followers all over the world.

• Followers practice five series of physical exercises designed to develop the body’s physical and supra-physical powers.

• Falon Gong developed out of Daoist philosophy and the meditative, physical disciplines associated with Tai-Chi and other forms of Chinese martial arts.

Baha’i

• Baha’i is a universalizing religion and a modern, prophetic offshoot of Shi’ite Islam

• Baha’u’llah is the glorified name of a young Persian aristocrat who had a series of visions and revelations, after which he declared himself to be the prophesied messenger who would begin a golden age of peace and unity.

• Baha’u’llah was persecuted by orthodox Muslims and eventually moved to Haifa in modern Israel to live out the last years of his life. Haifa is the international home of the Baha’i religion today.

Some traits of NRMs

• They are relatively small compared to traditional religions. This creates a heightened sense of intimacy and uniqueness among followers.

• Women tend to play more significant roles in NRMs than in traditional religions.

• There is generally more emphasis on the emotional, physical and mystical experiences of religion than on high value traditional religions often place on intellectual, theological, and philosophical pursuits.

• Many NRMs focus on developing the self, tuning in to nature, and achieving practical goals.

Textbook

• Michael Molloy, Experiencing the World’s Religions: Tradition, Challenge, and Change, 6th

Edition, McGraw-Hill (2013).

World Religions