No new religion emerges fullblown but evolves - sometimes slowly, other times as a rapid pace. New religions take the form of either a sect or a cult and only gradually become recognized as a legitimate faith tradition of the culture in which they reside. T his course is about how cults and sects emerge, develop and interact with their host culture . The sparsity of historical records prohibits a detailed reconstruction of the emergence of any of the world's great religions. By studying emerging religions, however, we can learn a lot about how and why religion has persisted.
New religions seem always to be controversial.
Studying new religions from a social science perspective provides a mirror to history and important insights about the nature and central role of religion in human social organization. T he emergence of the Internet has enriched manyfold the amount of material available on religious movements. Not all information available is useful. Indeed, some is misleading and even incorrect. But this serves well the learning goal of assessing the quality and value of information.