Category talk:New religious movements

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[edit] I object to this catagory

"New" is necessarilly subjective, open to interpretation,a nd fleeting. I'd like this catagory done away with forthwith. Sam [Spade] 00:29, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What would you replace it with? -- Cimon 00:37, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

My response would be to question the utility of catagorizing religious movements via timeline. I would find a catagory based on doctrine or patrimony i.e. Abrahamic religions or "Indian religionists" or Paganism, etc... to be superior.Sam [Spade] 00:59, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
According to my knowledge, sociologists of religions (like Eileen Barker) define "new" with after WWII or new to a certain culture. See new religious movements. I am happy that GaryD has done so much work on this matter but he has also included some pre-WWII movements. If this has no scholarly basis (what I have to verify) then, I think, this has to be undone for those cases. To deal with Sam Spade's objections, we could introduce other categories likes "Category:Sects" and "Category:Sects of Christianity", "Category:Sects of Hinduism". There is a difference between a young sect and a new religious movement. I thought that sect did not have negative connotations in English, right? Andries 07:50, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think the material pertaining to the nineteenth century is crucial, because a reader cannot gain a context for current religious movements, or New Age for that matter, without Theosophy, Steiner, Gurdijeff, Spiritism, etc. I don't believe I am alone in marking the significance of this larger grouping. I would go along with ArcticFrog's idea of hooking a specific limit, such as "since 1850" or "since the nineteenth century" to the category name for this purpose, rather than sacrificing the crucial pre-WWII material. --Gary D 07:59, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Sect is neutral, but not often used. Sam [Spade] 15:30, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think there will be problems with defining "new". Many religions change from decade to decade and there will be problems and controversy dividing them up. Several of what many consider "New Age" religions started in the 19th century, and if they are called 'new', then so must Mormonism, which also developed in the 19th century. Also, many religioins labeled as 'fundamentalist' would also be 'new', since the type of religion this referrs to started in the 1920's or so. Similar movements go back into history, but there is a definite line here. Where is the boundary between 'old' and 'new' going to be set? As for the word sect, I think the word 'branch' might work better, but as long as 'sect' is applied equally across the board, it might be ok. I do think it has a slight neg. connotation though. --ArcticFrog 15:42, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)ArcticFrog
Indeed, there are always problems with edge cases. For example, if we view the continuous color spectrum between green and blue, we can come up with wavelengths of light color in the midle where there will be great disagreement whether that light is green or it is blue. Yet this does not mean there is no such thing as "green" or as "blue." As I mention above, I am trying to ensure inclusion of all the spiritist material in this category, because its progeny are still so influential today. Something like "Seventh-day Adventist" and the Millerites might be in the middle, say, and we can argue whether to group them in or out. Also, as you mention, certain strains of fundamentalism might properly be included in this category; there, we would be arguing whether or not they had started something sufficiently new and distinct to merit inclusion. In sum, the edge cases must be handled, but they do not invalidate the cohesiveness of the core material sought to be collected in this category. --Gary D 07:59, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Category:New Age"

While history is of course a continuous phenomenon, I would argue that there is a fairly-well recognized grouping of movements occurring after the mid-nineteenth century, especially in the west. We have been kicking around "Category:New Ag e" as well, and this was actually an attempt at something more definite than that. What is "new" will of course change in a hundred years, but for now and the immediate future, this category does indeed point to a particular collection of movements. We could rename the category if a better title is found, but it is the cohesion of these movements in the modern mind that makes this category worthwhile. --Gary D 00:57, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Category:New Age sounds acceptable to me. Sam [Spade] 00:59, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Tell you what, then--I would like to bring in BF and Andries on this, because they tended to push in other directions, name-wise. It's the grouping that I'm after, any consensus name is fine by me. I'll even do the legwork on renaming. We at least have started the ball rolling. --Gary D 01:19, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

While we're waiting for BF and Andries to show up, I would point up one difference between "new religious movements" and "new age", as I actually wanted to create a category for each: While "new religious movements" would go as far back as the mid-nineteenth century and concern mainly just religion, "new age" would be much more recent, say, mid-twentieth century, and deal with other topics as well, such as self-help, anomalous phenomena, music, anti-(Vietnam)war, etc., in a wider cultural context. --Gary D 01:19, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with BF that New Age is broader than religion and should be a seperate category. It can not be a replacement or something for the category NRM. Andries 08:02, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you could label a limit in the name itself, like "new religious movements, since 1850". I'm not sure a lot of "New Age" stuff is even religion; 'crystal power' is more of a cultural thing, but it gets included with 'New Age' a lot. Also: be careful about who you list as New Age, people like to jibe at each other's religions a bit by calling them 'New Age'. It is used as a jibe somewhat. --ArcticFrog 15:49, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)ArcticFrog

[edit] Great awakening

I have a further question: Would the great awakening be covered by this category?
I'm going to say I don't think so, because 1) it's a little too early, and 2) it doesn't appear to have led to any denominations, groups, or movements that stepped out of the mainstream fold and maintained a separate identity through today. I do note (from reading the Wikipedia articles, 'cuz I'm no expert) that Mormonism may have come from the Second Great Awakening, and I would include (in fact, already have included) Mormonism within this category. --Gary D 02:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


[edit] How do you add here?

I want to add: (no wiki page yet)
Swami Roberto- A spiritual guru in in Italy who does healing, darshans and advocates meditation.--Jondel 12:08, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Jondel, you can not add pages here directly. You first have to create the article on Swami Roberto (which I have just done) and then add to the page of [[Swami Roberto]] the following [[category:new religious movement|surname]] . Andries 12:44, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] I object to inclusion of old concepts such as Karma here

Gary, I do not think that Karma should be categorized under NRM. It is an age-old concept used both by old religious movements and NRMs. Andries 21:08, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I essentially agree with you, Andries, so I had to dig back in to figure out why I would have put an "old" topic like that in here. It turns out the Karma article has a big section on how it is now being treated (and perhaps mutated) by the NRMs. Here's what I said at the time on the Karma talk page:
"I have added this article to Category:New religious movements, not because the concept itself is new (obviously), but because of the growing section in this article on its treatment by the new religious movements. --Gary D 19:04, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)"
I wanted to give that substantial piece from the larger article some visibility in this category, but I felt that breaking that material into a separate article would do too much violence to the current article, and for the sake of categorization only it didn't seem justified. And there's no way to categorize only a portion of an article. Please take a look at that section, and let me know if you have any suggestions. --Gary D 21:29, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] O1thomas's question

HELP!! This page which came up for editing is not the page whch is published. Is this vandalism? I am a new editor and I want to add a subcategory. [--O1thomas]


O1thomas, I originally created this category page, and maybe I can help. A few preliminary points:

  • Questions like yours should be placed on the talk page rather than in the article or category page itself; hence, I have moved your question here.
  • After composing your question on the edit screen, before you hit the "save page" button, you should add your name and the date and time to your question, by pressing the signature button located second from the right, above the edit box.

Now, on to your question:

  • This page is as it has always been. Its editing screen does look different from its published form, but that is true for all pages—the edit screen always looks different from the finished product. It is not vandalism.
  • To add a subcategory, you would not edit here on the parent category page; instead, you would go to the page for the subcategory, and add this category at the bottom of that page, as a parent category: [[Category:New religious movements]]
  • Just a point of terminology: If you are talking about adding Hyponoesis, that is not a subcategory, but is rather called an "article" or a "page." By the way, that article could use the notation {{substub}} added to the bottom of its page, to alert the Wikipedia system that it is currently just a very short beginning of an article.
  • I see from your user profile that you are very new to Wikipedia. I suggest you might want to go slowly and learn a little bit more about the system before getting into more complex system editing. That said, welcome to Wikipedia! I'm sure you will be an expert in no time.

--Gary D 22:16, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Ashtar Command

Should groups like the 'Ashtar Command' be added here?

[edit] Move to or Create :Category:Spiritual Movements

Religion realy is formal , what you fill out in your forms. Spiritual is different. A muslim(or catholic , etc) can take classes on meditation, universal peace, higher consciousness, cosmic retribution, etc. I would like to create or move some to (new)Spiritual movements. I believe many spiritual movements really don't like to create new religions. --Jondel 02:45, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This category is growing too big and unwieldy

This category is growing too big and unwieldy. Hence I propose separating this category into
1. category:founders and leaders of new religious movements
2. critics of new religious movements
3. scholars of new religious movements containing among others Eileen Barker
4. concepts used by new religious movements containing among others karma
5. concepts used to describe new religious movements containing among others charismatic authority

Andries 17:04, 31 July 2005 (UTC)