Popular culture depictions of
new religious movements as irrational and abusive are frequently gendered: The movements' leaders, usually men, are portrayed as deliberately deceptive and disingenuous; the movements' members, usually women, are either too mentally or physically weak to leave of their own volition.
There is tremendous diversity in the groups that find themselves placed in that very general category we call "
New Religious Movements."
Identifying
new religious movements, cults, and dissenting religious groups, understanding their practices, and discovering reasons for their attractiveness to some students are helpful to the school counselor.
It is also important to note before going further that this article follows Heelas' (1996: 9) and Introvigne's (1996: 48) argument that NAS is not a
new religious movement (NRM), and it voluntary omits the literature on NRM for that reason.
Appropriately, a
new religious movement was aligned with a new institutional form then spreading around Europe, which stressed enclosure, discipline, and work.
Dealing with
new religious movement leaders and their followers stands as one of the most sensitive and difficult tasks that face modern law enforcement agencies.
And yet, as I got to know this gentleman who later became one of my main informants, and as I first began researching his particular strain of esoteric Buddhism called Shinnyo-en, I discovered that Shinnyo-en was only ever discussed in the scholarly literature as a
New Religious Movement or NRM (it was founded in 1936 by an ordained esoteric master named Ito Shinjo).
Although Stark used the conventional sociological terms new religion and
new religious movement, it is not clear that his usage corresponded to the Troeltsch - based classification church - sect - cult (or church - sect - NRM).
Emphasizing narration over analysis, he draws on the wealth of primary source materials that document the emergence of evangelicalism in colonial America and the controversy this
new religious movement generated.