Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America
Author: Robert S. Ellwood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 1988
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

This text explores the major new or unconventional religions and spiritual movements in America that exist outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America
Author: Robert Ellwood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1315507234

This text explores the major new or unconventional religions and spiritual movements in America that exist outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America
Author: Robert Ellwood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2017-09
Genre: Cults
ISBN: 9781138465213

This text explores the major new or unconventional religions and spiritual movements in America that exist outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Rosicrucians

The Rosicrucians
Author: Christopher McIntosh
Publisher: Weiser Books
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1998-09-01
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780877289203

This scholarly work traces the mysterious Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, from its inception upon the discovery of Father Christian Rosenkreuz's perfectly preserved body in a seven-sided vault to present-day organizations in America. McIntosh includes a survey of Rosicrucianism in America, exploring the latter day survivals of Bacon's New Atlantis. Perfect for students of the Western Mystery tradition who want an introduction to Rosicrucianism, with good resources for further study.

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America

Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America
Author: Robert S. Ellwood
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Total Pages: 334
Release: 1973-01-01
Genre: Cults
ISBN: 9780137733095

The book explores the major new or unconventional religions and spiritual movements in America that exists outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. Gives accounts of some 25 groups--divided into six types--covering their history, teaching, worship, and way of life. Considers bitter controversies about cults, brainwashing, and deprogramming that have arisen around them.

World Religions in America, Fourth Edition

World Religions in America, Fourth Edition
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2009-10-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1611640474

The fourth edition of World Religions in America continues its lauded tradition of providing students with reliable and nuanced information about America's religious diversity, while also reflecting new developments and ideas. Each chapter was updated to reflect important changes and events, and current statistics and information. New features include a timeline of key events and people for each tradition, sidebars on major movements or controversies, personal stories from members of various faiths, a theme-based organization of subjects, more subheads, three new chapters exploring America's increasing religious diversity, and suggestions for further study.

Spiritual Marketplace

Spiritual Marketplace
Author: Wade Clark Roof
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2001-07-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400823080

In large chain bookstores the "religion" section is gone and in its place is an expanding number of topics including angels, Sufism, journey, recovery, meditation, magic, inspiration, Judaica, astrology, gurus, Bible, prophesy, evangelicalism, Mary, Buddhism, Catholicism, and esoterica. As Wade Clark Roof notes, such changes over the last two decades reflect a shift away from religion as traditionally understood to more diverse and creative approaches. But what does this splintering of the religious perspective say about Americans? Have we become more interested in spiritual concerns or have we become lost among trends? Do we value personal spirituality over traditional religion and no longer see ourselves united in a larger community of faith? Roof first credited this religious diversity to the baby boomers in his bestselling A Generation of Seekers (1993). He returns to interview many of these people, now in mid-life, to reveal a generation with a unique set of spiritual values--a generation that has altered our historic interpretations of religious beliefs, practices, and symbols, and perhaps even our understanding of the sacred itself. The quest culture created by the baby boomers has generated a "marketplace" of new spiritual beliefs and practices and of revisited traditions. As Roof shows, some Americans are exploring faiths and spiritual disciplines for the first time; others are rediscovering their lost traditions; others are drawn to small groups and alternative communities; and still others create their own mix of values and metaphysical beliefs. Spiritual Marketplace charts the emergence of five subcultures: dogmatists, born-again Christians, mainstream believers, metaphysical believers and seekers, and secularists. Drawing on surveys and in-depth interviews for over a decade, Roof reports on the religious and spiritual styles, family patterns, and moral vision and values for each of these subcultures. The result is an innovative, engaging approach to understanding how religious life is being reshaped as we move into the next century.

New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements

New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements
Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520281187

New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements is the most extensive study to date of modern American alternative spiritual currents. Hugh B. Urban covers a range of emerging religions from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including the Nation of Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, ISKCON, Wicca, the Church of Satan, Peoples Temple, and the Branch Davidians. This essential text engages students by addressing major theoretical and methodological issues in the study of new religions and is organized to guide students in their learning. Each chapter focuses on one important issue involving a particular faith group, providing readers with examples that illustrate larger issues in the study of religion and American culture. Urban addresses such questions as, Why has there been such a tremendous proliferation of new spiritual forms in the past 150 years, even as our society has become increasingly rational, scientific, technological, and secular? Why has the United States become the heartland for the explosion of new religious movements? How do we deal with complex legal debates, such as the use of peyote by the Native American Church or the practice of plural marriage by some Mormon communities? And how do we navigate issues of religious freedom and privacy in an age of religious violence, terrorism, and government surveillance?

John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age

John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age
Author: Brian C. Wilson
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2018-08-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 081434531X

John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age is the remarkable story of the spiritual search of one of Michigan’s most successful entrepreneurs, a search that culminated in the Fetzer Institute whose ambitious mission is nothing less than the spiritual transformation of the world. John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age follows the spiritual sojourn of John E. Fetzer, a Michigan business tycoon. Born in 1901 and living most of his life in Kalamazoo, Fetzer parlayed his first radio station into extensive holdings in broadcasting and other enterprises, leading to his sole ownership of the Detroit Tigers in 1961. By the time he died in 1991, Fetzer had been listed in Forbes magazine as one of the four hundred wealthiest people in America. And yet, business success was never enough for Fetzer—his deep spiritual yearnings led him from the Christianity of his youth to a restless exploration of metaphysical religions and movements ranging from Spiritualism, Theosophy, Freemasonry, UFOology, and parapsychology, all the way to the New Age as it blossomed in the 1980s. Author Brian C. Wilson demonstrates how Fetzer's quest mirrored those of thousands of Americans who sought new ways of thinking and being in the ever-changing spiritual movements of the twentieth century. Over his lifetime, Fetzer's worldview continuously evolved, combining and recombining elements from dozens of traditions in a process he called "freedom of the spirit." Unlike most others who engaged in a similar process, Fetzer's synthesis can be documented step by step using extensive archival materials, providing readers with a remarkably rich and detailed roadmap through metaphysical America. The book also documents how Fetzer's wealth allowed him to institutionalize his spiritual vision into a thriving foundation—the Fetzer Institute—which was designed to carry his insights into the future in hopes that it would help catalyze a global spiritual transformation. John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age offers a window into the rich and complex history of metaphysical religions in the Midwest and the United States at large. It will be read with interest by those wishing to learn more about this enigmatic Michigan figure, as well as those looking for an engaging introduction into America's rapidly shifting spiritual landscape.

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism
Author: Richard Kyle
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2017-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351321668

Most forms of religion are best understood in the con- text of their relationship with the surrounding culture. This may be particularly true in the United States. Certainly immigrant Catholicism became Americanized; mainstream Protestantism accommodated itself to the modern world; and Reform Judaism is at home in American society. In Evangelicalism, Richard Kyle explores paradoxical adjustments and transformations in the relationship between conservative Protestant Evangelicalism and contemporary American culture. Evangelicals have resisted many aspects of the modern world, but Kyle focuses on what he considers their romance with popular culture. Kyle sees this as an Americanized Christianity rather than a Christian America, but the two are so intertwined that it is difficult to discern the difference between them. Instead, in what has become a vicious self-serving cycle, Evangelicals have baptized and sanctified secular culture in order to be considered culturally relevant, thus increasing their numbers and success within abundantly populous and populist-driven American society. In doing so, Evangelicalism has become a middle-class movement, one that dominates America's culture, and unabashedly populist. Many Evangelicals view America as God's chosen nation, thus sanctifying American culture, consumerism, and middle-class values. Kyle believes Evangelicals have served themselves well in consciously and deliberately adjusting their faith to popular culture. Yet he also thinks Evangelicals may have compromised themselves and their future in the process, so heavily borrowing from the popular culture that in many respects the Evangelical subculture has become secularism with a light gilding of Christianity. If so, he asks, can Evangelicalism survive its own popularity and reaffirm its religious origins, or will it assimilate and be absorbed into what was once known as the Great American Melting Pot of religions and cultures? Will the Gospel of the American dream ultimately engulf and destroy the Gospel of Evangelical success in America? This thoughtful and thought-provoking volume will interest anyone concerned with the modern-day success of the Evangelical movement in America and the aspirations and fate of its faithful.