Minority Religions and Uncertainty

Matthew Francis · Kim Knott

2020年5月 · Routledge

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Religions are at their core about creating certainty. But what happens when groups lose control of their destiny? Whether it leads to violence, or to nonviolent innovations, as found in minority religions following the death of their founders or leaders, uncertainty and insecurity can lead to great change in the mission and even teachings of religious groups. This book brings together an international range of contributors to explore the uncertainty faced by new and minority religious movements as well as non-religious fringe groups.

The groups considered in the book span a range of religious traditions (Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam), old and new spiritual formations such as esotericism, New Age and organized new religious movements, as well as non-religious movements including the straight edge movement and the British Union of Fascists. The chapters deal with a variety of contexts, from the UK and US, to Japan and Egypt, with others discussing global movements. While all the authors deal with twentieth- and twenty-first-century movements and issues, several focus explicitly on historical cases or change over time.

This wide-ranging, yet cohesive volume will be of great interest to scholars of minority religious movements and non-religious fringe groups working across religious studies, sociology and social psychology.

作者简介

Matthew Francis is executive director at the Centre for Research and Evidence Threats, based at Lancaster University, UK. His research has focused on the move to violence in religious and non-religious groups. He founded and is the editor of the website RadicalisationResearch.org and the quarterly magazine CREST Security Review.

Kim Knott is professor of religious and secular studies in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, UK. She works in the study of religions, using sociological and geographical approaches in particular to research relationships between the religious and the secular. She is currently the deputy director of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats.