George D Chryssides
Biographic Data
| ID | 339026 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George D Chryssides |
| GIVEN NAMES | George D |
| FAMILY NAME | Chryssides |
| SIGNATURE | CHRYSSIDES G D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wolverhampton |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8306-7440 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Contested Concepts in the Study of Religion: A Critical Exploration
This book offers a clear, concise introduction to the meaning of problematic terms, and the ways in which they should be handled legitimately. Each entry considers the following: – Why is this concept problematic? – What are the origins of the concept? – How is it used or misused, and by whom? – Is it still a legitimate concept in the study of religion and, if so, what are its legitimate uses? – Are there other concepts that are preferable when w…
The Covid Pandemic and the World’s Religions: Challenges and Responses
Believers from a variety of faith communities assess how the Covid pandemic has affected their faith. How does your faith explain why such events occur? What changes has it necessitated? What have we learned from it? Two exponents of each major religion and a number of minority faiths comment on these issues, combined with a concluding essay by the editors assessing the overall impact of the pandemic on religion worldwide. Faiths explored include…
Jehovah’s Witnesses: A New Introduction
What would happen if I accepted an invitation to Bible Study from Jehovah’s Witnesses? What would attending a Kingdom Hall meeting involve? And if I invited door-knocking Witnesses into my home? This book introduces Jehovah’s Witnesses without assuming prior knowledge of the Watch Tower organization. After outlining the Society’s origins and history, the book explains their key beliefs and practices by taking the reader through the process of the…
Disseminating Daesoon Thought: A Comparative Analysis
The author examines three new religious movements in South Korea: Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unification Church, and the Daesoon Jinrihoe, and aims to identify the factors that are conducive to the growth of each. All three organisations believe in a coming paradise, and the article explores their respective attempts to interest the populace in their appeal. Discussion is given to membership statistics and the problems of measuring allegiance and m…
Frisk, Liselotte, Sanja Nilsson and Peter Akerbäck. 2018. Children in Minority Religions: Growing up in Controversial Religious Groups
Frisk, Liselotte, Sanja Nilsson and Peter Akerbäck. 2018. Children in Minority Religions: Growing up in Controversial Religious Groups. Sheffield: Equinox. vi + 429 pp. ISBN: 978-1-7817-9420-3 £75.00 (hbk); ISBN: 978-1-7817-9591-0 £75.00 (e-book)
Charisma—Elusive or Explanatory? A Critical Examination of Leadership in New Religious Movements
Although Max Weber’s analysis of charisma has been highly influential, it is not altogether clear what it explains. Using four case studies—Charles Taze Russell, Sun Myung Moon, Kelsang Gyatso, and the anonymous founder of the Church of Almighty God—it is argued that these leaders do not share any common set of characteristics by virtue of which they could be described as “charismatic”. To account for their following, one must look to factors ext…
Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Survey of the Literature
Major publications on Jehovah’s Witnesses with scholarly or historical merit are reviewed here. Early writings, and literature relating to the two World Wars are discussed, followed by important “insider” accounts of the organization, notably A. H. Macmillan, Marley Cole, and Timothy White, and ex-member publications by M. James Penton, Raymond Franz, and Carl Jonsson. Particular attention is given to books appearing after 2014, notably Emily Bar…
Historical Dictionary of Jehovah's Witnesses
Originating from a small group of Bible students who met under Charles Taze Russell’s leadership and grew into an international Society, to which the second leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford and gave the name ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’. Two World Wars shaped Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations such as blood transfusion, as well as to mainstream churches. The twenty-first century has seen some important ch…
The Insider/Outsider Debate: New Perspectives in the Study of Religion
The distinction between “insiders” and “outsiders” in religious studies has become an area of fruitful discussion in recent years. This anthology aims to extend that discussion by gathering newly commissioned essays from a diverse range of scholars, spanning a variety of disciplines and approaches, including ethnography, anthropology, theology and education. The result is a book that is at once accessible and readable, while remaining scholarly. …
Suicide, Suicidology, and Heaven’s Gate
Minority Religions in Europe and the Middle East: Mapping and Monitoring
Ethics and Fieldwork
Ethical Scholars and Unethical Committees: Ethics and Fieldwork in the Study of Religion
In most education institutions, research involving human subjects requires to be scrutinized by an ethics committee. After outlining the history of research ethics and codes of practice, the author draws on his own experience of research on Jehovah’s Witnesses, examining issues of consent, disclosure, respect for informants, and confidentiality. It is argued that institutional ethics committees tend to apply a biomedical model of research, which …
Jehovah's Witnesses: Continuity and Change
From its origins in nineteenth century Adventism until the present day, the Watch Tower Society has become one of the best known but least understood new religious movements. Resisting the tendency to define the movement in terms of the negative, this volume offers an empathetic account of the Jehovah's Witnesses, without defending or seeking to refute their beliefs. George Chryssides critically examines the historical and theological bases of th…
Christians in the Twenty-First Century
'Christians in the Twenty-First Century' examines Christianity as it is understood and practised both by active followers and those who regard themselves as Christian. The book opens with an examination of key Christian concepts - the Bible, the Creeds, the Church and the sacraments - and the major traditions of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism as well as more recent movements. The book continues with an analysis of the chal…
Japanese New Religious Movements in Brazil: From ethnic to ‘universal’ religions
Although their presence in Brazil dates back to the 1920s it was not until the 1960s that Japanese New Religious Movements, of which there are now at least thirty-two, began to make an impact beyond the boundaries of the Japanese immigrant communities. Today several of these movements claim a membership – a very difficult term to define precisely – of over 100,000 with two, Seicho no-Ie (House of Growth) and Sekai Kyuseikyo (Church of World Messi…
Unrecognized charisma? A study and comparison of five charismatic leaders: Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon
Drawing on Max Weber's theories of charismatic leadership and succession, discussion is given to a number of leaders of recent religious organizations. It is argued that greater precision can be given to Weber's 'ideal types' by considering the specifically religious status that has been accorded to Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon respectively. They are not simply charismatic, but possess sp…
Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements
New religious movements—commonly known as cults—are defined as organizations that have arisen within the last 200 years. Most treatments of these movements have typically resorted to sensationalism rather than objectivity, and New religious movements tend to receive negative media publicity. Despite their unfavorable portrayal in popular culture, however, new religious movements are a global phenomenon and much remains to be studied about these m…
The a to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses
Originating from a small group of Bible students led by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Society grew into an international society. After Russell's death in 1916, Franklin Rutherford was named his successor and gave the society a new name: 'Jehovah's Witnesses.' The A to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses shows how World War I & II influenced Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations like blood tr…
Buddha and Christ: Images of Wholeness. Robert Elinor. and Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. Edited by Marcus Borg
Buddha and Christ: Images of Wholeness. Robert Elinor. Lutterworth, Cambridge 2000. 233 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0 7188 3011 3. Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. Edited by Marcus Borg. Duncan Baird, London 2002. 160 pp. £16.99. ISBN 1 903296 79 X
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. Donald W. Mitchell
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. Donald W. Mitchell. Oxford University Press, New York 2002. xvi, 368 pp. £16.99 ISBN 0 19 513952 6
You Don't Have to Sit on the Floor: Bringing the insights and tools of Buddhism into everyday life. Jim Pym
You Don't Have to Sit on the Floor: Bringing the insights and tools of Buddhism into everyday life. Jim Pym. Rider, London 2001. 192 pp. £9.99. ISBN 0-7126-0447-2
Exploring New Religions
Methodological issues the suicide cults the old religions the new Christian movements religions in the Hindu tradition forms of Buddhism independent religions the human potential movement age, witchcraft and paganism the counter-cult movement
Ninian Smart (6 May 1927 - 21 January 2001)
the most convenient summary of these materials I have seen recently.For some of my doubts over dating (which may perhaps now be set aside), see the study cited in the next footnote.5
The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng. Edited by Sallie B. King and Paul O. Ingram
The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng. Edited by Sallie B. King and Paul O. Ingram. Curzon Press, Richmond 1999. xxxii, 276 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0-7007-1121-X
Charisma—Elusive or Explanatory? A Critical Examination of Leadership in New Religious Movements
Although Max Weber’s analysis of charisma has been highly influential, it is not altogether clear what it explains. Using four case studies—Charles Taze Russell, Sun Myung Moon, Kelsang Gyatso, and the anonymous founder of the Church of Almighty God—it is argued that these leaders do not share any common set of characteristics by virtue of which they could be described as “charismatic”. To account for their following, one must look to factors ext…
Unrecognized charisma? A study and comparison of five charismatic leaders: Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon
Drawing on Max Weber's theories of charismatic leadership and succession, discussion is given to a number of leaders of recent religious organizations. It is argued that greater precision can be given to Weber's 'ideal types' by considering the specifically religious status that has been accorded to Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon respectively. They are not simply charismatic, but possess sp…
Miracles and Agents
Suppose Jones sees a mountain in the distance and says to the mountain, ‘Mountain, cast yourself into the sea!’, whereupon the mountain is observed to rise up from its surroundings and fall into the water. If such a phenomenon occurred, why should we say that Jones moved the mountain, rather than that Jones addressed the mountain in a certain way and that by a strange coincidence the mountain happened to move an instant later and fall into the wa…
God and the Tao
In his highly important work I and Thou Martin Buber speaks of God as the ‘Eternal Thou’, ‘who can only be addressed, not asserted’. Buber might therefore aptly be described as an ‘anti-theologian’: one may legitimately enter into a relationship with God, which is the appropriate response, but any attempt to theorize about God is not simply irreverent or excessively academic, but a genuine impossibility. At best, statements about God can only be …
Subject and Object in Worship
If God is not a person , what sense does it make to worship ‘it’? The problem of worship takes on a new aspect in the light of models of God which have recently been promulgated by certain philosophers and theologians – that God is ‘Being itself’, ‘the ground of our being’, ‘experienced non-objective reality’, an inspiring picture, a fictional entity in a religious story, a linguistic device for indicating the fundamentality of our perspective on…
Evil and the Problem of God
The purpose of this article is to develop a solution to the problem of evil within the context of a ‘revisionist' concept of God. The traditional approach to the problem of evil has been to assume one particular model of God, and then to ascertain how evil can be reconciled with that model. I hope to demonstrate that this is a mistake. What needs to be done, rather, is to acknowledge the existence of evil, and to ask whether this problem is gener…
Religious Inquiry - Participation and Detachment. Holmes Rolston III
Religious Inquiry - Participation and Detachment. Holmes Rolston III. Philosophical Library, New York 1985. xiv = 309 pp. $22.50
Selfless Persons. Steven Collins
Selfless Persons. Steven Collins. Cambridge University Press, 1982. ix + 323 pp. £22.50
Two Masters, One Message: The Lives and Teachings of Gautama and Jesus. Roy C. Amore
Two Masters, One Message: The Lives and Teachings of Gautama and Jesus. Roy C. Amore. Abingdon, Nashville 1978. Reprinted by the Buddhist Missionary Society, Kuala Lumpur 1985. 208 pp
The Advent of Sun Myung Moon. The Origins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church
Don't Get Too Involved!’ — Methodological Issues in the Study of New Religious Movements
(1994). DON'T GET TOO INVOLVED!’ — METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. Journal of Beliefs & Values: Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 15-18
Healing at Bath: Report on 3rd annual conference, Bath College of Higher Education, Saturday 13 May 1995
The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama explores the heart of Christianity - and of humanity. Ed. Robert Kiely
The Good Heart: His Holiness the Dalai Lama explores the heart of Christianity - and of humanity. Ed. Robert Kiely. Rider, London 1996. xiv, 211 pp. £9.99. ISBN 0 7126 7275 3
The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng. Edited by Sallie B. King and Paul O. Ingram
The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng. Edited by Sallie B. King and Paul O. Ingram. Curzon Press, Richmond 1999. xxxii, 276 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0-7007-1121-X
Ninian Smart (6 May 1927 - 21 January 2001)
the most convenient summary of these materials I have seen recently.For some of my doubts over dating (which may perhaps now be set aside), see the study cited in the next footnote.5
You Don't Have to Sit on the Floor: Bringing the insights and tools of Buddhism into everyday life. Jim Pym
You Don't Have to Sit on the Floor: Bringing the insights and tools of Buddhism into everyday life. Jim Pym. Rider, London 2001. 192 pp. £9.99. ISBN 0-7126-0447-2
Exploring New Religions
Methodological issues the suicide cults the old religions the new Christian movements religions in the Hindu tradition forms of Buddhism independent religions the human potential movement age, witchcraft and paganism the counter-cult movement
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. Donald W. Mitchell
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. Donald W. Mitchell. Oxford University Press, New York 2002. xvi, 368 pp. £16.99 ISBN 0 19 513952 6
Buddha and Christ: Images of Wholeness. Robert Elinor. and Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. Edited by Marcus Borg
Buddha and Christ: Images of Wholeness. Robert Elinor. Lutterworth, Cambridge 2000. 233 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0 7188 3011 3. Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. Edited by Marcus Borg. Duncan Baird, London 2002. 160 pp. £16.99. ISBN 1 903296 79 X
The a to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses
Originating from a small group of Bible students led by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Society grew into an international society. After Russell's death in 1916, Franklin Rutherford was named his successor and gave the society a new name: 'Jehovah's Witnesses.' The A to Z of Jehovah's Witnesses shows how World War I & II influenced Watch Tower attitudes to civil government, armed conflict, and medical innovations like blood tr…
Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements
New religious movements—commonly known as cults—are defined as organizations that have arisen within the last 200 years. Most treatments of these movements have typically resorted to sensationalism rather than objectivity, and New religious movements tend to receive negative media publicity. Despite their unfavorable portrayal in popular culture, however, new religious movements are a global phenomenon and much remains to be studied about these m…
Japanese New Religious Movements in Brazil: From ethnic to ‘universal’ religions
Although their presence in Brazil dates back to the 1920s it was not until the 1960s that Japanese New Religious Movements, of which there are now at least thirty-two, began to make an impact beyond the boundaries of the Japanese immigrant communities. Today several of these movements claim a membership – a very difficult term to define precisely – of over 100,000 with two, Seicho no-Ie (House of Growth) and Sekai Kyuseikyo (Church of World Messi…
Unrecognized charisma? A study and comparison of five charismatic leaders: Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon
Drawing on Max Weber's theories of charismatic leadership and succession, discussion is given to a number of leaders of recent religious organizations. It is argued that greater precision can be given to Weber's 'ideal types' by considering the specifically religious status that has been accorded to Charles Taze Russell, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, Swami Prabhupada and Sun Myung Moon respectively. They are not simply charismatic, but possess sp…
Christians in the Twenty-First Century
'Christians in the Twenty-First Century' examines Christianity as it is understood and practised both by active followers and those who regard themselves as Christian. The book opens with an examination of key Christian concepts - the Bible, the Creeds, the Church and the sacraments - and the major traditions of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism as well as more recent movements. The book continues with an analysis of the chal…
Jehovah's Witnesses: Continuity and Change
From its origins in nineteenth century Adventism until the present day, the Watch Tower Society has become one of the best known but least understood new religious movements. Resisting the tendency to define the movement in terms of the negative, this volume offers an empathetic account of the Jehovah's Witnesses, without defending or seeking to refute their beliefs. George Chryssides critically examines the historical and theological bases of th…
Suicide, Suicidology, and Heaven’s Gate
Minority Religions in Europe and the Middle East: Mapping and Monitoring
Philosophy (25 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Theology (15 works) · History (14 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Religious studies (11 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (7 works)