This book, first published in 1984, examines the whole range of new religious movements which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in the West. It develops a wide-ranging theory of these new religions which explains many of their major characteristics. Some of the movements are well-known, such as Scientology, Krishna Consciousness, and the Unification Church. Others such as the Process, Meher Baba, and 3-HO are much less known. While some became international, others remained local; in other ways, too, such as style, belief, organisation, they exhibit enormous diversity. The movements studied here are classified under three ideal types, world-rejecting, world-affirming and world-accommodating, and from here the author develops a theory of the origins, recruitment base, characteristics, and development patterns which they display. The book offers a critical exploration of the theories of the new religions and analyses the highly contentious issue of whether they reflect the process of secularisation, or whether they are a countervailing trend marking the resurgence of religion in the West.
Roy Wallis Ordine dei libri (cronologico)
Wallis fu un importante sociologo della religione che diede contributi significativi alla sociologia della religione e dei movimenti sociali. Il suo primo lavoro, influenzato da Bryan Wilson, esaminò Scientology e affinò la tipologia chiesa-setta incorporando la dimensione denominazione-culto, concentrandosi sulla legittimità ideologica e sulla percezione sociale. Ulteriormente, categorizzò i nuovi movimenti religiosi come mondo-affermanti, mondo-rifiutanti e mondo-accomodanti. Wallis esplorò anche teorie sul fazionalismo, lo scisma e il carisma, affrontando al contempo i confini tra scienza, religione e medicina.
