The four papers in this session examine three well-known new religious communities: Christian Science, the Branch Davidians, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. The papers address several important issues in the development of these communities, including the role of healing in the early popularity of Christian Science, how David Koresh's pilgrimages to Israel shaped his apocalyptic vision, and new research on affiliation, reaffiliation, and second-generation membership among Jehovah's Witnesses. Taken together, these papers also offer new religions scholars the opportunity to reflect on the importance of continued new scholarship on established new religions.
In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy established the Church of Christ, Scientist, also known as Christian Science, to promote her teaching that mankind is spiritual and consequently that sin, sickness, and death are unreal. As a result of years of doctrinal and legal battles against mainstream ministers and institutional medicine, a narrative that Christian Science served as an outsider group to American religion dominates the historiography of this Boston-based new religious movement. While acknowledging this narrative of difference, found in the works of Stephen Gottschalk and R. Laurence Moore, this paper decenters the institutional Church of Christ, Scientist to reevaluate how this new religious movement built upon widely accepted trends in practical religion and religious healing. Examining Eddy’s incoming correspondence and publications on Christian Science reveals how mainstream Protestants ultimately sympathized with Eddy’s healing mission and how they navigated Eddy’s more radical metaphysics to find commonalities with this new movement.
Socialization of children in new and minority religions has often been discussed in the context of criticism, often by former members, of religious childrearing practices. This paper discusses the seldom-heard perspectives of second-generation adult children who have elected to remain in their parents’ faith. Two quantitative studies of the Jehovah’s Witness communities, in Japan (JWJ-QS) and Rwanda (JW-RWA), collected data from first- and second-generation Witnesses, providing their perspective of learning, adopting, and remaining in the Witness faith. Additional variables investigated the centrality of religious identity, changes in social relationships, intrinsic-extrinsic religious orientation, and resilience and support in congregation life. The JWJ-QS and JW-RWA studies fill a gap in the literature by contributing insights into the process of religious socialization of children within the Jehovah’s Witness community. The data offer potential for further analysis of factors leading to affiliation, retention, and reaffiliation of second-generation Witnesses.
David Koresh’s visits to Israel were crucial in shaping his theological development, self-conception, and apocalyptic prophecy. With each journey, both Koresh’s sense of purpose and the trust his followers placed in him intensified. His increasingly cohesive apocalyptic vision intertwined spiritual salvation with a radical political agenda.
Despite the significance of these events, the specifics of what transpired during each visit remain inadequately understood. My research addresses this by both synthesizing the dispersed primary evidence and incorporating previously unutilized sources, including Hebrew-language publications and interviews with individuals who met Koresh during his visits.
In this paper, I will present my preliminary findings to construct a coherent picture of how Koresh’s pilgrimages not only solidified his self-conception as the Messiah but also delineated a striking political dimension in his vision – one that cast the modern State of Israel and the United States as pivotal players in an unfolding cosmic drama.
A modest body of research exists on affiliation with and disaffiliation from the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, no systematic study has yet been done on those who have departed and then reaffiliated with the Witness community. This paper argues that the religious stages of affiliation and disaffiliation cannot be understood in isolation from the larger context of individuals’ spiritual journey. Similarly, the insights of those who have initially identified as Witnesses, interrupted their association, and then chosen to renew their identity as Jehovah’s Witnesses have much offer in understanding specific attractions to the Witness religion, individual and group identity, the social network of Witness congregations, and the effects of separation and return to the faith.