The Nature, incidence and significance of new religious movements in the West.
Introduction
The emergence and rapid growth of many new religious movements since WWII has caught the attention of the public, media and academia alike and has been the source of interest, fear and controversy.
Sects and cults have many definitions depending on the user's frame of reference. Beckford describes cults as "...relatively small, new, and unconventional religious groups..." (1985: 1) whilst other people's perceptions of cults are far more negative. A popular concept of a cult is one of groups that are to be avoided, hated and feared and they are therefore a social problem. They bring up images of destructive doomsday religions and thus groups all the thousands of NRM's in the same category as the small minority of groups that have been the cause of suicides and murders.
"...if you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps 'the' religion;
and if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect;
but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult."
Leo Pfeffer
The term "New Religious Movements" (from hereon known as NRM's) has been used to replace the terms sects and cults as it is a more neutral term.
Nature of NRM's
There is no one, generally accepted, current definition for New Religious Movements.
While there have been many new religions coming into being throughout history, there has been an upsurge in their numbers since the Second World and especially during the 1960's and 1970's and it is these that are included here in the term "New". Some NRM's may be unique while others may have developed from other more established religions. Some of these "new" groups were established much earlier but have only become better known in...