New religious movement

A new religious movement or NRM appears as a religious, ethical or spiritual grouping that has not (yet) become recognised as a standard denomination, church, or body, especially when it has a novel belief system and when it is not a sect.

Some scholars prefer this neutral term to the pejorative term of "cult", but anti-cult activists still continue to use it, as anti-cult scholars provide the scientific base. Debates among academics on acceptablity of the word "cult" in scholarly research papers continue.

Eileen Barker, who is influential in this field, uses the adjective new in this context when the movement started after World War II and new for a certain culture. For example, ISKCON/ the Hare Krishnas is generally considered an NRM in the west because it is new to western culture and because it is a separate organization. In India it is unlikely that it will be considered an NRM because the Gaudiya_Vaishnavism sect of Hinduism that formed the basis for ISKCON's organization has existed since the 16th century.

NRMs are very diverse.

Examples of new religious movements might include:

• Neo-Paganism, in which followers seek to revert back to the pre-Christian earth and nature worship of Western Europe.
• Eclectic combinatory movements, such as Celestialism and Theosophy, which posit concordant elements to all religions.
• New-World African hybrid religions, such as Rastafarianism, Voodoo or Vodun, and Santería, which combine African naturalistic religions with Judeo-Christian traditions.
• Unification Church
• Scientology

See also

• Conversion to NRMs and cults
• Cult
• Cult checklists
• List of controversial new religious movements

External links

• http://www.apologeticsindex.org/ Apologetics Index: research resources on cults, sects, and related issues. The publisher operates from an evangelical Christian point of view, but the site links to and presents a variety of viewpoints.
• http://www.religionnewsblog.com ReligionNewsBlog.com Current news articles about religious cults, sects, and related issues.
• http://www.skepsis.nl/onlinetexts.html Online texts about NRMs, collected by the Dutch organization of skeptics