New Religious Movements and Religious Liberty in America - Tapa blanda

It has been said that the measure of a healthy and civilized society is how well it treats its elderly and indigent. Perhaps it should be said also that the measure of the health of religious liberty in a society is the degree to which minority, nontraditional faiths are protected. This book is a collection of essays on the subject of religious liberty and new religious movements (NRMs). NRMs are often called "cults" by popular media commentators and the public at large, but scholars eschew that term because it is so pejorative that it skews the argument from the very beginning. By contrast, the term "new religious movements" attempts to place NRMs squarely in the mix with older, more traditional forms of religion. This is due in part to the fact that in America there should be no correlation between the level of social approval a group has achieved and the degree of religious liberty it enjoys. As the Supreme Court itself averred famously in the 1872 case Watson v. Jones, "The Law knows no heresy and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect."Each author represented in this volume believes that NRMs should enjoy the same liberties as more mainstream religions. If the book has a bias, it is a bias in favor of religious liberty. The authors believe that if the First Amendment is applied to protect the newest, nontraditional, seemingly unusual religions (by the standards of the majority of the population), then nearly everyone is safe as far as religious liberty is concerned. -- "The Cult Awareness Network and the Anticult Movement: Implications for NRMs in America" by Anson Shupe, Susan E. Darnell, and Kendrick Moxon -- "Scientology: Separating Truthfrom Fiction" by Heber C. Jentzsch -- "Witchcraft and Satanism" by Stuart A. Wright -- "Women in Controversial New Religions: Slaves, Priestesses, or Pioneers" by Susan Palmer -- "New Religious Movements and Conflicts with Law Enforcement Agencies" by Catherine Wessinger

DEREK H. DAVIS directs the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University and edits the Journal of Church and State. An internationally recognized expert in church-state relations, Davis has authored or edited more than twelve books. BARRY HANKINS serves as an associate professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University. He is the author of God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism as well as numerous articles and reviews.