Cult controversies: societal response to new religious movements
- London Tavistock 1985
- 327p.
The controversies surrounding new religious movements or 'cults have become more heated and complex in many countries since the 1960s. Violence against cult members has increased; campaigns to monitor and control movements have grown in strength; the volume of cult-related litigation has expanded; and the mass media have sensationalized the plight of ex-cultists. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive interpretation of these controversies in terms of a sociological theory about the location of various types of new religious movements in supposedly secular societies. Societal responses are shown to be conditioned by the movements' strategies for retaining their members and influencing their host societies. The book draws on the author's interviews with ex-members and their relatives in order to explain the controversial aspects of recruitment to, and defection from, the main types of new religious movements in Britain, France, the USA, and West Germany. The implications of cult controversies for public policy-making are examined, and the changing attitudes of mainstream religious organizations towards their marginal competitors are also assessed. Finally, the increasingly intrusive role of state agencies in regulating religious controversies is explained in terms of the expansion of the 'therapeutic state' and the growth of privatization in the sphere of religion. Cult Controversies will be of interest to sociologists and those in the related fields of religion, law, and politics.