Sects and Stats - Equinox Publishing

James R. Lewis [+–]

Wuhan University

James R. Lewis is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University. He is well-published in the field of new religious movements. His publications and edited volumes include The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, Controversial New Religions (with Jesper Petersen), Scientology, Children of Jesus and Mary (with Nicholas Levine), and, most recently, Violence and New Religious Movements.

A major, perhaps the major, focus of early research on New Religious Movements (NRMs) was on the people who joined. Most of the field’s pioneer researchers were sociologists. However, the profile of NRM members had changed substantially by the twenty-first century – changes largely missed because the great majority of current NRM specialists are not quantitatively oriented. Sects & Stats aims to overturn the conventional wisdom by drawing on current quantitative data from two sources: questionnaire research on select NRMs and relevant national census data collected by Anglophone countries. Sects & Stats also makes a strong argument for the use of longitudinal methods in studying alternative religions. Additionally, through case studies drawn from the author’s own research projects over the years, readers will be brought into a conversation about some of the issues involved in how to conduct such research.

Preliminaries

Preface [+–] vii-ix

A major, perhaps the major, focus of early research on New Religious Movements (NRMs) was on the people who joined. Most of the field’s pioneer researchers were sociologists. However, the profile of NRM members had changed substantially by the twenty-first century – changes largely missed because the great majority of current NRM specialists are not quantitatively oriented. Sects & Stats aims to overturn the conventional wisdom by drawing on current quantitative data from two sources: questionnaire research on select NRMs and relevant national census data collected by Anglophone countries. Sects & Stats also makes a strong argument for the use of longitudinal methods in studying alternative religions. Additionally, through case studies drawn from the author’s own research projects over the years, readers will be brought into a conversation about some of the issues involved in how to conduct such research.

Introduction

Are Meaningful Generalizations about New Religious Movement Members Still Possible? [+–] 1-6

This chapter provides a survey of the recent history of New Religious Movement studies and lays out the author’s objectives in writing the book. It explains the background, the methodologies employed and the data sources used. It provides an overview of the aims of each chapter.

Part I: Quasi-longitudinal Approaches

1 Whatever Happened to Youthful Converts? [+–] 11-30

Chapters One and Two challenge two different generalizations about conversion to NRMs using a type of quasi-longitudinal method (projecting backward from current data) in both chapters. The youth crisis model of conversion posited that new recruits were predominantly young people whose involvement could be explained as a function of their youth (e.g., as an adolescent developmental crisis). The first chapter presents statistics on recruits to seven different contemporary new religions that fundamentally challenge this item of conventional wisdom. Six out of seven data sets also embody a striking pattern of gradually increasing age across time for new converts.

2 Social Networks and Conversion [+–] 31-45

One of the other standard generalizations about new religions is that people convert to NRMs primarily through preexisting social networks. In the second chapter, I examine data on a variety of new religions which demonstrate that social networks are not always the dominant point of first contact for new converts. Additionally, recruitment patterns change over time so that different factors become dominant at different points in a movement’s development. Two reasons why this variability has escaped the attention of most researchers is an unconscious tendency to assume, as I have already noted, that the sociological profiles of members of different NRMs are essentially similar, plus the fact that such groups are typically studied synchronically rather than diachronically.

Part II: Three Styles of Longitudinal Research

3 Increasing Complexity versus Prior Generalizations: Census Data and Longitudinal Approaches [+–] 49-67

In the third chapter, I underline the point about the greater diversity of members of new religions by examining data from the New Zealand and Australian censuses – both of which, in contrast to Canada and the United Kingdom, hold censuses every five years instead of every ten years – though I will also periodically refer to census data from the latter two nations. Not only has the earlier profile of members of non-traditional religions reached in the 1970s and 1980s been superseded, but, further, it has become increasingly difficult to discuss NRM members “in general,” as a class demographically distinct from members of other religious organizations.

4 Toward a Paradigm for Longitudinal Studies: The Order of Christ Sophia [+–] 69-81

In Chapters Four and Five, I examine data that I and others gathered on members of two NRMs, the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) and the Order of Christ Sophia (OCS). These two groups provide contrasting examples of longitudinal approaches, and in these two chapters findings from surveys are presented and discussed in terms of the parameters laid out by Lorne Dawson in his 1996 summary of NRM conversion research, “Who Joins New Religions and Why: Twenty Years of Research and What Have We Learned?” (later republished as a chapter in his 2003 reader, Cults and New Religions, and in his 2006 textbook, Comprehending Cults). In 2005, 2008 and 2011, demographic questionnaires were administered to the membership of the Order of Christ Sophia, a “new age” Christian group in the Holy Order of MANS tradition. In addition to analyzing the changes that have taken place in the Order between 2005 and 2011, the research project is presented as a paradigm for conducting longitudinal studies of other new religious movements in the future.

5 The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness: Demographic Patterns, 1998–2011 [+–] 83-95

In Chapters Four and Five, I examine data that I and others gathered on members of two NRMs, the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) and the Order of Christ Sophia (OCS). These two groups provide contrasting examples of longitudinal approaches, and in these two chapters findings from surveys are presented and discussed in terms of the parameters laid out by Lorne Dawson in his 1996 summary of NRM conversion research, “Who Joins New Religions and Why: Twenty Years of Research and What Have We Learned?” (later republished as a chapter in his 2003 reader, Cults and New Religions, and in his 2006 textbook, Comprehending Cults). The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness is a medium-sized New Religion that can roughly be described as a blend of Sant Mat (Radhasoami) and “new age” teachings. In 1998, a sample of 566 movement participants responded to a demographic survey administered by a colleague. Then again in late 2011, I administered a much longer, online questionnaire to MSIA’s active North American membership, eventually gathering 531 respondents. Chapter Five compares the profiles derived from these two surveys. Though in many ways the average participant remained essentially the same between 1998 and 2011, in the intervening 13 years the membership excelled in terms of the classic indicators of achievement – education, income and professional achievement.

Part III: Mixed Method Approaches

6 Demise of the Teen Witch Fad [+–] 99-109

Paganism’s rapid growth was big news during the first decade of the new millennium. At the time, I wrote a piece on the “Pagan Explosion” that examined this growth through the lens of census data. By the end of the decade, however, it was clear that this rapid expansion had fallen off, and the movement appeared to have returned to something approaching a normal pattern of growth. What actually happened was that shortly after the turn of the millennium, the Teen Witch fad temporary inflated total numbers of self-identified Pagans. After the fad ended, explosive growth also ended. In this chapter, I analyze what transpired via a juxtaposition of survey data and more recent census data.

7 Who Serves Satan? [+–] 111-129

With the exception of a certain subgenre of professional literature that focuses on the “problem” of adolescent Satanism, there have been no systematic analyses of how people become Satanists. Chapter Seven brings data from questionnaire research to bear on this issue, and draws on discussions of conversion to other alternative religions – particularly to contemporary Paganism – as lenses through which to interpret conversion to Satanism. The chapter’s conclusion also raises the question of whether declaring oneself to be a member of an anarchistic Internet religion should properly be considered “conversion” or whether it would be more appropriate to regard the adoption of the label “Satanist” as being a form of identity construction.

8 New Religious Movements and Gender – The Case of Scientology [+–] 131-139

As recently as the censuses that took place in 2006, Scientology seemed to be growing in all four of the Anglophone countries that record memberships in alternative religions. I initially analyzed this growth in a piece that appeared in 2009. However, more recent data from the Australian census and from the American Religious Identification Survey indicate a downturn in Scientology’s growth while other, comparable movements continue to grow. Why? Additionally, why should more men than women join Scientology while almost every other religious group imaginable recruits more women than men?

Part IV: Ex-Members

9 Post-Involvement Attitudes [+–] 143-158

In Chapters nine and ten, I turn my attention to the post-involvement attitudes and other characteristics of former NRM members which fly in the face of accepted stereotypes. My earliest quantitative work involved questionnaire research on former members of controversial New Religions. In a series of papers published in the 1980s, I contrasted the attitudes of ex-members and found a high correlation between negative, cult-stereotypical attitudes and exposure to anti-cult socialization. As part of later studies, I gathered more limited data from ex-members of MSIA and OCS, finding, in general, positive attitudes toward their former group. This later phenomenon is explainable, in part, by the ethic of seekership found in the West’s alternative spiritual subculture.

10 Member versus Ex-member Profiles [+–] 159-172

Afterword

Directions for Future Research [+–] 173-176

In the Afterword, I summarize and discuss the larger implications of this research. What should be done in the future, and to what extent do the studies in this book provide paradigms for future research?

Appendix

Anglophone Census and National Survey Data on New Religious Movements [+–] 177-190

As discussed throughout this volume, an important source of information bearing on the question of numbers of adherents to alternative religions is national census data. The censuses of four English-speaking countries – New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom – collect information on religious membership that included select New Religions. There has also been an important series of religion surveys conducted in the United States, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). Though a few scholars of New Religions have referred to one or moreof these censuses, no one has attempted a general survey except this writer (Lewis 2004). Following an examination of one estimate of world religious adherents, this appendix examines census data for the light such data sheds on participation rates in alternative religions. In the final section, relevant data from the ARIS survey will also be examined.

End Matter

References [+–] 191-203

Index [+–]

Reviews

Sects & Stats justifies Lewis' initial skepticism toward conventional social science wisdom about new religious movement members and his faith in quantitative analysis of religious phenomena. ... the clear implication is that we social scientists should collect more statistics and employ them to verify or refute generalizations and assumptions about 'cults' and new religions. Hopefully anthropologists and other social scientists will accept the challenge.
Anthropology Review Database

Lewis writes in a lucid and informative manner and presents his research in an accessible way. Sects and Stats is an ideal introduction for those who are unfamiliar or have misgivings about quantitative and statistical research, and is a fascinating read for those who are keen to learn more about the latest research on NRM’s.
BASR Bulletin

The book has an important contribution to make to the study of NRMs.
Helen A. Berger, Brandeis University

The criticisms that Lewis makes against some NRM scholars are valid, though there are other types of research that can complement the statistical data that he is recommending in this text. Not everyone can establish personal ties with the adherents of NRMs for the type of longitudinal data that Lewis ultimately seeks. However, if NRM scholars would specialize more, it would offer more depth in NRM scholarship. I can see many rewards and few risks in adopting the strategy proposed by Lewis.
Nova Religio

The book manages to open up an overlooked area of NRM research, and it does so by showing how much cutting-edge research can be done with the available, though somewhat meager, data. And that, to this reviewer at least, is no mean feat.
Numen

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Sects & Stats

Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members

James R. Lewis [+–]

Wuhan University

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