"Reflections Upon the Concept of "New Religious Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID12202467
AuthorsUlrich Berner (1University of Bayreuth, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume12
Issue1-4
Pages267-276
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMethod & Theory in the Study of Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0943-3058 • E-ISSN: 1570-0682
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/157006800x00175
OpenAlexW2034434356
LanguageEN
References cited7

concept of New Religious Movement has frequently been used to describe a religious phenomenon of the 20th century. Other concepts which have been applied to the same phenomenon, such as New Religion and Independent Church, have the disadvantage of being too narrow in one or the other respect. H.W. Turner, prob ably, is the scholar who has written most extensively on this new global phenomenon, giving special attention to the African continent. In a lecture given in 1976 which was taken over as the opening essay into his volume Religious Innovation in Africa, Turner gave the fol lowing description: The forms taken by these movements are so varied and the points of view from which they have been described are so diverse, that it is not surprising to find them described by many different names: thus we have prophet, syncretist, messianic or millennial movements, in dependent or separatist churches, nativistic or revitalization move ments, crisis or deprivation cults, adjustment movements and the over publicized and little understood cargo cults of Melanesia. (Turner 1979: 5; cf. 1976: 13; 1985: 87). This description is still valid today. variety of names has be come even greater in the meantime. Such a variety of names is problematic, however, if those names are to be used as scientific concepts. Discussion of this phenomenon will be very difficult and confusing if nobody knows, for instance, whether prophetic and charismatic are synonymous or whether movement and church are used interchangeably. Turner has always been very much aware of this terminological problem (Turner 1976: 13; 1977: 27f.). He proposed New Religious Movement as a generic term and he made several efforts to develop a typology that would be rich and comprehensive enough to cover the variety of phenomena (Turner 1967; 1979; 1988). Regarding the African context he distin

Aesthetics · Charisma · Epistemology · Movement (music · nobody · Phenomenon · Sociology · Theology · Variety (cybernetics · Christian Theology and Mission · Computer Science · History · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development

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