Benjamin Zeller
Biographic Data
| ID | 289123 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Zeller |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin |
| FAMILY NAME | Zeller |
| SIGNATURE | ZELLER B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lake Forest College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4378-6088 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 29 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Think to New Worlds
The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light
The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) is a millennial Islamic new religious movement with roots in Imami ("Twelver") Shia Islam. This article details a 2024 research visit by scholars of new religious movements and human rights professionals to learn about the group. Based on their presentations, conversations with members, and analysis of their sacred text, The Goal of the Wise , I identify four major themes in the movement's theology: …
Astrotopia
Cookies to serve God’s glory”
This article examines a small French patisserie in the Chicago suburbs, St Roger Abbey, operated by the Fraternité Notre Dame, a Marian devotional movement. Using visual analysis of the physical space and product packaging, and textual analysis of their marketing material, I argue that the patisserie’s proprietors deploy religious symbols and concepts to invoke, both explicitly and implicitly, authenticity and value, drawing from a reservoir of c…
In & Out of This World
Journal Article In & Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. By Stephen C. Finley Get access In & Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. By Stephen C. Finley. Duke University Press, 2022. 264 pages. $99.95 (hardcover), $26.95 (paperback). Benjamin E Zeller Benjamin E Zeller Lake Forest College [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Go…
American Wise Men Discover the Secret of Religion”
The Civilization series of computer games (1991–) is one of the most popular and influential series in the history of computer gaming. The game’s impact and exposure indicate that its treatment of religion is therefore significant. Throughout the Civilization series, religion has been a part of the game. However, the role that religion played and the underlying models of religion represented in the game have changed over time. This article consid…
(Dis)Enchanted Ufology
This article examines how adherents within the self-styled scientific side of the UFO subculture implicitly challenge the assumed dichotomy between a rationalized disenchanted modern scientific worldview, and a non-rational religious other. After providing background on the origin of the UFO subculture, ufology, and more explicitly religious forms of ufology, the article turns to the largest scientific ufological organization, MUFON, and the way …
Food (Not) from a Truck”
This article charts the major concepts, theoretical and methodological models, and approaches used by teachers and scholars of religion and food, with a focus on how such concepts may be embedded within courses on religion and nature. The article first introduces central topics such as foodways, the food cycle, and some key concepts within the cultural study of religion, nature, and food. Second, it notes how the study of religion, nature, and fo…
American Cosmic
American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. By D. W. PasulkaIntimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO. By David J. Halperin American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. By D. W. Pasulka. Oxford University Press, 2019. 288 pages. $24.95 (cloth).Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO. By David J. Halperin. Stanford University Press, 2020. 304 pages. $26.00 (cloth). Benjamin E Zeller Benjamin E Zeller Lake Forest College Search for other wor…
New religious movement responses to Covid
New religious movements (NRMs) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse ways, ranging from closely following mainstream public health recommendations to explicit rejection of such guidance. This article considers the manner in which NRMs have responded to the pandemic through analysis of groups’ ideological alignment with their host societies’ cultural and social frames. Extending the Bromley–Melton (2012) model of social alignment and …
Heaven’s Gate
Ashcraft, W. Michael. 2018. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements
Ashcraft, W. Michael. 2018. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements. London: Routledge
The Fraternité Notre Dame
The Fraternité Notre Dame is a traditionalist Catholic Marian movement founded in 1977 by Bishop Jean Marie Kozik, né Roger Kozik. Kozik received monthly visions, primarily of the Virgin Mary, and established the Fraternité as a Marian devotional movement in Fréchou, southern France. This article analyzes and contextualizes the history of the Fraternité Notre Dame and its founder Bishop Jean Marie, showing how Jean Marie and his movement responde…
New Religious Movements and Food
This special issue of Nova Religio brings together four articles that examine particular intersections of new religious movements and food. Dan McKanan examines spiritual food practices within the loose network of spiritual movements associated with Anthroposophy, the turn of the century “spiritual science” developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) that continues to have resonance today. Susannah Crockford contributes an article on fasting traditio…
Altar Call of Cthulhu
Religion suffuses H.P. Lovecraft’s (1890–1937) short stories—the most famous of which, “The Call of Cthulhu,” has led to a literary subculture and a shared mythos employed by Lovecraft’s successors. Despite this presence of religion in Lovecraft’s work, scholars of religion have paid relatively little attention to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos, with a few notable exceptions. This article offers a close analysis of millennialism within Lovecraf…
"Introduction to Special Issue "Religion and Food in Global and Historical Perspective
The past decade has seen the expansion of research projects, presentations, and publications on topics related to religion and food
Postsecular Society
Postsecularism refers to an emerging situation in the early twenty‐first century wherein religion and religious institutions have reemerged as major forces shaping social dynamics, cultural production, and even governmental policy. Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas are generally credited with providing the theoretical foundation for the study of a postsecular society. The emergent church represents a particular point of convergence within a post…
Religion in the Kitchen
Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions." Material Religion, 13(2), pp. 253–254
One Foot in Helsinki, One Foot in Mayapur
iskcon is traditionally studied as a new religious movement ( nrm ) or an instance of diasporic Hinduism. I argue here that an examination of the Finnish branch of iskcon can be conceptualized as a case of a glocalized (global-local) religious movement wherein members have created amalgamated identities straddling the borders between nation states and cultures. Members have created a hybrid religious community appealing to both native-born Finns …
Radiance from Halcyon
Book Review| May 01 2015 Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science. By Paul Eli Ivey. University of Minnesota Press, 2013. 312 pages. $75.00 cloth; $25.00 paper; $15.00 Kindle. Benjamin E. Zeller Benjamin E. Zeller Lake Forest College Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2015) 18 (4): 118–120. https://do…
Totem and taboo in the grocery store
This article focuses on food proscriptions such as veganism and gluten-free eating, and prescriptions such as the Paleolithic diet, focusing on the North American context. These quasi-religious foodways serve as means for individuals to engage in discourses of community, personal and group identity, and boundary-marking. Through the daily practice of eating, those who follow quasi-religious foodways mark their identities, literally consuming who …
New Religious Movements and Science
The notion or idea of science, quite aside from actual scientific enterprises, has achieved tremendous cultural power and prestige in modern society. The four studies in this special issue of Nova Religio on science and new religious movements indicate not only this newfound power, but also the contentious nature of its definition as well as its limits. The four articles reveal how founders, leaders and practitioners of new religious movements se…
Science as Social Identity Marker
This article considers the place of science in the thought of three Unificationist groups in the United States from 1959 to 1971, those operated by Young Oon Kim, David S. C. Kim and Sang Ik Choi, all associated with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The manner in which these groups treated science reveals and illuminates a number of distinct characteristics of each one: demographic draw, sub-cultural identity, historical context and perspecti…
At the Nexus of Science and Religion
The modern period has witnessed a rise of religious interest in extraterrestrial life and visitations, which although dating back to the 18th century, culminated during the 20th century in the emergence of the 'UFO religions'. This article highlights the manner in which the founders and members of unidentified flying object (UFO) religions have sought to operate at the nexus of science and religion in the modern world. The article first considers…
Religion and Science in America
Many people assume that the history of religion and science in America is one of conflict. However, this is not the case. While an examination of the relationship between religion and science in America shows a variety of ways that they have related, there are few cases of outright conflict. This article takes a historical approach to the topic of religion and science in America. It looks to how both Native Americans and colonial-era Americans fu…
New religious movement responses to Covid
New religious movements (NRMs) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse ways, ranging from closely following mainstream public health recommendations to explicit rejection of such guidance. This article considers the manner in which NRMs have responded to the pandemic through analysis of groups’ ideological alignment with their host societies’ cultural and social frames. Extending the Bromley–Melton (2012) model of social alignment and …
Scaling Heaven's Gate
This article considers the new religious movement popularly known as Heaven's Gate within the context of American religious history, focusing on its soteriology (scheme of salvation) and the place of the individual within it. I argue that this contextualization reveals a movement that held unusual yet clearly identifiable religious beliefs reflecting popular religious subcultures and possessing clear historical antecedents. Specifically, within H…
E at and B e S atisfied
(2009). Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food by John Cooper/Food and Judaism, Studies in Jewish Civilization, Vol. 15, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ronald A. Simkins and Gerald Shapiro. Food, Culture & Society: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 114-117
Extraterrestrial Biblical Hermeneutics and the Making of Heaven's Gate
The new religious movement popularly called Heaven's Gate emerged in the mid-1970s. This article argues that its two co-founders, Marshall Herff Applewhite (1932–1997) and Bonnie Lu Nettles (1928–1985), employed what I call extraterrestrial biblical hermeneutics in constructing the theological worldview of Heaven's Gate. This hermeneutics developed out of the New Age movement and its broader interest in ufology, extraterrestrial life, and alien v…
New Religious Movements and Science
The notion or idea of science, quite aside from actual scientific enterprises, has achieved tremendous cultural power and prestige in modern society. The four studies in this special issue of Nova Religio on science and new religious movements indicate not only this newfound power, but also the contentious nature of its definition as well as its limits. The four articles reveal how founders, leaders and practitioners of new religious movements se…
Science as Social Identity Marker
This article considers the place of science in the thought of three Unificationist groups in the United States from 1959 to 1971, those operated by Young Oon Kim, David S. C. Kim and Sang Ik Choi, all associated with Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The manner in which these groups treated science reveals and illuminates a number of distinct characteristics of each one: demographic draw, sub-cultural identity, historical context and perspecti…
At the Nexus of Science and Religion
The modern period has witnessed a rise of religious interest in extraterrestrial life and visitations, which although dating back to the 18th century, culminated during the 20th century in the emergence of the 'UFO religions'. This article highlights the manner in which the founders and members of unidentified flying object (UFO) religions have sought to operate at the nexus of science and religion in the modern world. The article first considers…
Religion and Science in America
Many people assume that the history of religion and science in America is one of conflict. However, this is not the case. While an examination of the relationship between religion and science in America shows a variety of ways that they have related, there are few cases of outright conflict. This article takes a historical approach to the topic of religion and science in America. It looks to how both Native Americans and colonial-era Americans fu…
"American Postwar "Big Religion
This article traces the basic qualities of big science and applies them to the history of what I envision as "big religion." Big religion offers a model for understanding several developments in mid-century American religious history, including religious revival within the mainline churches and synagogues, an evangelical resurgence, and various forms of backlash as well. Like big science, big religion peaked during the postwar era (though it buil…
Radiance from Halcyon
Book Review| May 01 2015 Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science. By Paul Eli Ivey. University of Minnesota Press, 2013. 312 pages. $75.00 cloth; $25.00 paper; $15.00 Kindle. Benjamin E. Zeller Benjamin E. Zeller Lake Forest College Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Nova Religio (2015) 18 (4): 118–120. https://do…
Totem and taboo in the grocery store
This article focuses on food proscriptions such as veganism and gluten-free eating, and prescriptions such as the Paleolithic diet, focusing on the North American context. These quasi-religious foodways serve as means for individuals to engage in discourses of community, personal and group identity, and boundary-marking. Through the daily practice of eating, those who follow quasi-religious foodways mark their identities, literally consuming who …
One Foot in Helsinki, One Foot in Mayapur
iskcon is traditionally studied as a new religious movement ( nrm ) or an instance of diasporic Hinduism. I argue here that an examination of the Finnish branch of iskcon can be conceptualized as a case of a glocalized (global-local) religious movement wherein members have created amalgamated identities straddling the borders between nation states and cultures. Members have created a hybrid religious community appealing to both native-born Finns …
Postsecular Society
Postsecularism refers to an emerging situation in the early twenty‐first century wherein religion and religious institutions have reemerged as major forces shaping social dynamics, cultural production, and even governmental policy. Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas are generally credited with providing the theoretical foundation for the study of a postsecular society. The emergent church represents a particular point of convergence within a post…
Religion in the Kitchen
Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions." Material Religion, 13(2), pp. 253–254
New Religious Movements and Food
This special issue of Nova Religio brings together four articles that examine particular intersections of new religious movements and food. Dan McKanan examines spiritual food practices within the loose network of spiritual movements associated with Anthroposophy, the turn of the century “spiritual science” developed by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) that continues to have resonance today. Susannah Crockford contributes an article on fasting traditio…
Altar Call of Cthulhu
Religion suffuses H.P. Lovecraft’s (1890–1937) short stories—the most famous of which, “The Call of Cthulhu,” has led to a literary subculture and a shared mythos employed by Lovecraft’s successors. Despite this presence of religion in Lovecraft’s work, scholars of religion have paid relatively little attention to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos, with a few notable exceptions. This article offers a close analysis of millennialism within Lovecraf…
"Introduction to Special Issue "Religion and Food in Global and Historical Perspective
The past decade has seen the expansion of research projects, presentations, and publications on topics related to religion and food
Heaven’s Gate
Ashcraft, W. Michael. 2018. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements
Ashcraft, W. Michael. 2018. A Historical Introduction to the Study of New Religious Movements. London: Routledge
The Fraternité Notre Dame
The Fraternité Notre Dame is a traditionalist Catholic Marian movement founded in 1977 by Bishop Jean Marie Kozik, né Roger Kozik. Kozik received monthly visions, primarily of the Virgin Mary, and established the Fraternité as a Marian devotional movement in Fréchou, southern France. This article analyzes and contextualizes the history of the Fraternité Notre Dame and its founder Bishop Jean Marie, showing how Jean Marie and his movement responde…
(Dis)Enchanted Ufology
This article examines how adherents within the self-styled scientific side of the UFO subculture implicitly challenge the assumed dichotomy between a rationalized disenchanted modern scientific worldview, and a non-rational religious other. After providing background on the origin of the UFO subculture, ufology, and more explicitly religious forms of ufology, the article turns to the largest scientific ufological organization, MUFON, and the way …
Food (Not) from a Truck”
This article charts the major concepts, theoretical and methodological models, and approaches used by teachers and scholars of religion and food, with a focus on how such concepts may be embedded within courses on religion and nature. The article first introduces central topics such as foodways, the food cycle, and some key concepts within the cultural study of religion, nature, and food. Second, it notes how the study of religion, nature, and fo…
American Cosmic
American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. By D. W. PasulkaIntimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO. By David J. Halperin American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. By D. W. Pasulka. Oxford University Press, 2019. 288 pages. $24.95 (cloth).Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO. By David J. Halperin. Stanford University Press, 2020. 304 pages. $26.00 (cloth). Benjamin E Zeller Benjamin E Zeller Lake Forest College Search for other wor…
New religious movement responses to Covid
New religious movements (NRMs) have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in diverse ways, ranging from closely following mainstream public health recommendations to explicit rejection of such guidance. This article considers the manner in which NRMs have responded to the pandemic through analysis of groups’ ideological alignment with their host societies’ cultural and social frames. Extending the Bromley–Melton (2012) model of social alignment and …
American Wise Men Discover the Secret of Religion”
The Civilization series of computer games (1991–) is one of the most popular and influential series in the history of computer gaming. The game’s impact and exposure indicate that its treatment of religion is therefore significant. Throughout the Civilization series, religion has been a part of the game. However, the role that religion played and the underlying models of religion represented in the game have changed over time. This article consid…
Astrotopia
Philosophy (22 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Political science (15 works) · History (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Religious studies (13 works) · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices (13 works) · Art (9 works) · Social science (9 works) · Theology (9 works)