New Religious Movements and Violence

14.^th January:
Guest lecture I:  New Religious Movements and Violence

This presentation considers the relationship between new religious movements - popularly called sects and cults - and violence. I respond to James R. Lewis’s work (Violence and New Religious Movements, 2011) and the recent Gedenkschrift in his honor (Violence, Conspiracies, and New Religions, 2024), which outlines a polarization process by which internal and external factors align to lead to violent outcomes. By contrast, I emphasize the religious ideology of millennialism, and especially the antinomian impulse engendered by millennialism, as the core condition responsible for new religious movement violence. I use as my case study Heaven’s Gate and its 1997 mass suicide, but refer also to the other movements within the “big six” as Lewis called them (Peoples Temple, Branch Davidians, Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God). I also situation new religious movements and violence within other forms of religious and non-religious violence.

15.^th January:
Guest lecture II: Channeling, Possession, and Gender: The Case of Unicult

The invitations to the guest lectures are enclosed.

Benjamin E. Zeller is Professor and Chair of Religion at Lake Forest College. He studies North American religion, focusing on such topics as new religions, the religious engagement with science, and the quasi-religious relationship people have with food. He is the author or editor of six books, and co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.