J Gordon Melton
Biographic Data
| ID | 170699 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Gordon Melton |
| GIVEN NAMES | J Gordon |
| FAMILY NAME | Melton |
| SIGNATURE | MELTON J G |
| AFFILIATIONS | American Academy of Religion |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1022-9955 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1968 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Beginnings of African American Pentecostalism: The Case of Texas
African American response to the pentecostal movement began soon after the introduction of the Apostolic Faith to Texas, where the movement experienced its first noticeable success. It spread within the Black community of Houston following the baptism of the Holy Spirit by Holiness minister Lucy Farrow. One of its number, William Seymour, introduced it to Southern California. An early congregation in Houston became the first congregation affiliat…
The Others: Finding and Counting America's Invisible Churches
The 2010 U. S. Religious Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Survey (RCMS) is the most comprehensive picture of U.S. religious life, county by county. How thorough is the RCMS in covering local religious groups? To answer this question, three county snapshots were performed with collected data compared to the RCMS 2010 reported numbers. Data suggest that there has been an underreport by as much as 25 percent of the number of local cong…
Religious Bodies in the United States: A Directory
First Published in 1992. This title is the first volume in the 3-volume series titled Religious Information Systems Series. This updated directory recognised that the number of religious groups would not remain static as population increases, urbanization, and immigration continue to provide a nurturing environment for new religious expressions. This new edition will fill an information gap and provide basic data about each religious group and be…
An Initial Response to the Call for Reframing the History of New Religious Movements
In response to Nova Religio articles by Andreas Pietsch and Sita Steckel, Michael Driedger, and Johannes C. Wolfart calling for a reframing of new religious movements by new religions scholars, agreement is offered that new religions studies will be well served by incorporating insights from scholars of new religious movements and sectarian movements of the late medieval and Reformation eras, as well as by recasting assumptions that associate apo…
Faiths across Time: 5,000 Years of Religious History [4 volumes]
This monumental, four-volume reference overviews significant events and developments in religious history over the course of more than five millennia. Written for high school students, undergraduates, and general readers interested in the history of world religions, this massive reference chronicles developments in religious history from 3500 BCE through the 21st century. The set comprises four volumes, treating the ancient world from 3500 BCE th…
Encyclopedia of African American Religions
Preceded by three introductory essays and a chronology of major events in black religious history from 1618 to 1991, this A-Z encyclopedia includes three types of entries: * Biographical sketches of 773 African American religious leaders* 341 entries on African American denominations and religious organizations (including white churches with significant black memberships and educational institutions)* Topical articles on important aspects of Afri…
Reconceptualizing Types of Religious Organization
One important theoretical task in the study of religion is distinguishing among the different organizational forms that religious groups assume. The most influential typology of religious organization has been based upon distinctions of church, denomination, sect, and cult. However, the various formulations of this typology have proved problematic, theoretically and empirically, and of little use to new religions scholars. We propose a relational…
Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations [2 volumes]
This two-volume work presents a comprehensive survey of all the ways people celebrate religious life around the globe. Religious Celebrationsis an alphabetically organized encyclopedia that covers more than 800 celebratory occasions from all of the world's major religious communities as well as many of the minor faith traditions. The encyclopedia provides a complete reference tool for examining the myriad ways people worldwide celebrate their rel…
Joseph II. Volume 2: Against the World, 1780-1790, by Derek Beales
This volume brings to fruition the author's almost four decades of research on the life and reign of the Habsburg ruler. Professor Beales's engagement with Joseph dates back to a 1975 article re-examining the authenticity of letters attributed to Joseph and often cited by historians as evidence of his debt to Enlightenment philosophy. Not every scholar had been taken in by the forgery, and Joseph's Russian biographer, Paul Mitrofanov, dismissed t…
Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices [6 volumes]
This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practicesis an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country …
The Affirmation of Charismatic Authority: The Case of the True Buddha School
The True Buddha School (TBS) is one of a set of new expressions of Buddhism that have arisen in Taiwan in the decades since World War II. It is a version of Esoteric Buddhism, following a path much closer to Tibetan Buddhism, rather than either the Ch'an or Pure Land Buddhisms that have dominated Chinese Buddhist groups for the past few centuries. It is headed by Lu Sheng-yen (b.1945) who began his religious career as an independent Daoist spirit…
Perspective: New New Religions: Revisiting a Concept
The concept of new new religions, which in Japan refers to a second generation of new religions formed after 1970, calls attention to a generation of new religions formed in the West since 1990 and largely neglected in new religions studies. The concept itself is less helpful in that it obscures the continuous year-by-year production of new religions in free societies. The fact that so many of the older new religions are being considered by the a…
Cults, Religion and Violence
Review Article| August 01 2005 Cults, Religion and Violence David G. Bromley, David G. Bromley Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar J. Gordon Melton J. Gordon Melton Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2005) 9 (1): 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2005.9.1.114 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Sha…
Perspective: Toward a Definition of “New Religion”
The question of a defining “new religion” begins with a survey of a large number of groups that have been labeled as cults in the popular and scholarly literature. Attempts to locate any shared characteristics—beliefs, practices, or attributes—have failed. Thus it is suggested that what new religions share is a common deficiency that pushes them into contested space at the fringes of society. New religions are assigned their fringe status by the …
Native-American Faith in America
Few populations around the world have been as deeply affected by outside cultures as Native Americans. The wide variety of people who lived in America prior to Western migration possessed an equally wide variety of faith practices and beliefs. This book is about how those beliefs began, how they changed due to the influence of outside forces, and how Native Americans today are working to preserve their faiths. Tied deeply to the land and to natur…
Cults, Religion, and Violence
This explores the question of when and why violence by and against new religious cults erupts and whether and how such dramatic conflicts can be foreseen, managed and averted. The authors, leading international experts on religious movements and violent behavior, focus on the four major episodes of cult violence during the last decade: the tragic conflagration that engulfed the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas; the deadly sarin gas attack by the A…
The Fate of NRMs and their Detractors in Twenty-first Century America
Prime-Time Religion: An Encyclopedia of Religious Broadcasting
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead
Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating the Family/Children of God
The Changing Scene of New Religious Movements: Observations from a Generation of Research
Les specialistes de l'etude des nouveaux mouvements religieux (NMR) ont eut tendance a poser de mauvaises questions au sujet des nouvelles religions. Preoccupes par les problemes des religions dominantes plus anciennes, ils ont cherche les causes conduisant des personnes apparemment normales a rejeter les recettes traditionnelles et a rejoindre des religions non-conventionnelles. En fait, il s'agit d'etudier les NMR a partir de ce que l'on a appr…
Another Look at New Religions
Two decades of intensive study of nonconventional religion in North America has provided a large data base to examine some of the basic ideas about the new religious movements that have become so prominent in the last generation. Common ideas about the ephemeral nature, lack of historical context, and the role of charismatic leaders, derived from studies of rather small samples of new religions, are challenged in this article by a study of 836 ne…
Perspectives on the New Age
Journal Article Perspectives on the New Age, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992, 369 pp. $59.50; 19.95 (paper) Get access Thomas Robbins Thomas Robbins Rochester, Minnesota Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sociology of Religion, Volume 54, Issue 4, Winter 1993, Pages 431–433, https://doi.org/10.2307/3711789 Published: 01 December 1993
New Age Encyclopedia
The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism
Another Look at New Religions
Two decades of intensive study of nonconventional religion in North America has provided a large data base to examine some of the basic ideas about the new religious movements that have become so prominent in the last generation. Common ideas about the ephemeral nature, lack of historical context, and the role of charismatic leaders, derived from studies of rather small samples of new religions, are challenged in this article by a study of 836 ne…
The Others: Finding and Counting America's Invisible Churches
The 2010 U. S. Religious Census: Religious Congregations and Membership Survey (RCMS) is the most comprehensive picture of U.S. religious life, county by county. How thorough is the RCMS in covering local religious groups? To answer this question, three county snapshots were performed with collected data compared to the RCMS 2010 reported numbers. Data suggest that there has been an underreport by as much as 25 percent of the number of local cong…
Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating the Family/Children of God
Presbyterian Worship in America: Changing Patterns Since 1787
American Religious History
AMERICAN RELIGIOUS HISTORY The American Shakers From Neo-Christianity to Presocialism By HENRI DESROCHE Translated and edited by John K Savacool. Amherst University of Massachusetts Press, 1971. iii+357 pages $9.50 hb. L.C. No 78–123537. J. GORDON MELTON J. GORDON MELTON Institute for the Study of American Religion Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume XLII, Is…
The encyclopedia of American religions
The Encyclopedia of American Religions
The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism
New Age Encyclopedia
Another Look at New Religions
Two decades of intensive study of nonconventional religion in North America has provided a large data base to examine some of the basic ideas about the new religious movements that have become so prominent in the last generation. Common ideas about the ephemeral nature, lack of historical context, and the role of charismatic leaders, derived from studies of rather small samples of new religions, are challenged in this article by a study of 836 ne…
Perspectives on the New Age
Journal Article Perspectives on the New Age, edited by James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992, 369 pp. $59.50; 19.95 (paper) Get access Thomas Robbins Thomas Robbins Rochester, Minnesota Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sociology of Religion, Volume 54, Issue 4, Winter 1993, Pages 431–433, https://doi.org/10.2307/3711789 Published: 01 December 1993
The Changing Scene of New Religious Movements: Observations from a Generation of Research
Les specialistes de l'etude des nouveaux mouvements religieux (NMR) ont eut tendance a poser de mauvaises questions au sujet des nouvelles religions. Preoccupes par les problemes des religions dominantes plus anciennes, ils ont cherche les causes conduisant des personnes apparemment normales a rejeter les recettes traditionnelles et a rejoindre des religions non-conventionnelles. En fait, il s'agit d'etudier les NMR a partir de ce que l'on a appr…
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead
Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating the Family/Children of God
Prime-Time Religion: An Encyclopedia of Religious Broadcasting
The Fate of NRMs and their Detractors in Twenty-first Century America
Cults, Religion, and Violence
This explores the question of when and why violence by and against new religious cults erupts and whether and how such dramatic conflicts can be foreseen, managed and averted. The authors, leading international experts on religious movements and violent behavior, focus on the four major episodes of cult violence during the last decade: the tragic conflagration that engulfed the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas; the deadly sarin gas attack by the A…
Native-American Faith in America
Few populations around the world have been as deeply affected by outside cultures as Native Americans. The wide variety of people who lived in America prior to Western migration possessed an equally wide variety of faith practices and beliefs. This book is about how those beliefs began, how they changed due to the influence of outside forces, and how Native Americans today are working to preserve their faiths. Tied deeply to the land and to natur…
Perspective: Toward a Definition of “New Religion”
The question of a defining “new religion” begins with a survey of a large number of groups that have been labeled as cults in the popular and scholarly literature. Attempts to locate any shared characteristics—beliefs, practices, or attributes—have failed. Thus it is suggested that what new religions share is a common deficiency that pushes them into contested space at the fringes of society. New religions are assigned their fringe status by the …
Cults, Religion and Violence
Review Article| August 01 2005 Cults, Religion and Violence David G. Bromley, David G. Bromley Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar J. Gordon Melton J. Gordon Melton Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2005) 9 (1): 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2005.9.1.114 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Sha…
Perspective: New New Religions: Revisiting a Concept
The concept of new new religions, which in Japan refers to a second generation of new religions formed after 1970, calls attention to a generation of new religions formed in the West since 1990 and largely neglected in new religions studies. The concept itself is less helpful in that it obscures the continuous year-by-year production of new religions in free societies. The fact that so many of the older new religions are being considered by the a…
The Affirmation of Charismatic Authority: The Case of the True Buddha School
The True Buddha School (TBS) is one of a set of new expressions of Buddhism that have arisen in Taiwan in the decades since World War II. It is a version of Esoteric Buddhism, following a path much closer to Tibetan Buddhism, rather than either the Ch'an or Pure Land Buddhisms that have dominated Chinese Buddhist groups for the past few centuries. It is headed by Lu Sheng-yen (b.1945) who began his religious career as an independent Daoist spirit…
Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices [6 volumes]
This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practicesis an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country …
Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations [2 volumes]
This two-volume work presents a comprehensive survey of all the ways people celebrate religious life around the globe. Religious Celebrationsis an alphabetically organized encyclopedia that covers more than 800 celebratory occasions from all of the world's major religious communities as well as many of the minor faith traditions. The encyclopedia provides a complete reference tool for examining the myriad ways people worldwide celebrate their rel…
Joseph II. Volume 2: Against the World, 1780-1790, by Derek Beales
This volume brings to fruition the author's almost four decades of research on the life and reign of the Habsburg ruler. Professor Beales's engagement with Joseph dates back to a 1975 article re-examining the authenticity of letters attributed to Joseph and often cited by historians as evidence of his debt to Enlightenment philosophy. Not every scholar had been taken in by the forgery, and Joseph's Russian biographer, Paul Mitrofanov, dismissed t…
Reconceptualizing Types of Religious Organization
One important theoretical task in the study of religion is distinguishing among the different organizational forms that religious groups assume. The most influential typology of religious organization has been based upon distinctions of church, denomination, sect, and cult. However, the various formulations of this typology have proved problematic, theoretically and empirically, and of little use to new religions scholars. We propose a relational…
Encyclopedia of African American Religions
Preceded by three introductory essays and a chronology of major events in black religious history from 1618 to 1991, this A-Z encyclopedia includes three types of entries: * Biographical sketches of 773 African American religious leaders* 341 entries on African American denominations and religious organizations (including white churches with significant black memberships and educational institutions)* Topical articles on important aspects of Afri…
Faiths across Time: 5,000 Years of Religious History [4 volumes]
This monumental, four-volume reference overviews significant events and developments in religious history over the course of more than five millennia. Written for high school students, undergraduates, and general readers interested in the history of world religions, this massive reference chronicles developments in religious history from 3500 BCE through the 21st century. The set comprises four volumes, treating the ancient world from 3500 BCE th…
History (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Religious studies (9 works) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (9 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (8 works) · Religious Tourism and Spaces (7 works)