Radical Religion in America: Millenarian Movements from the Far Right to the Children of Noah (Religion and Politics)
In a sterling example of comparative religion, Kaplan describes forces gathering in America on the eve of what may be the wildest party in a thousand years--the turn of the millennium and, with it, apocalypse. He focuses on three groups: the fairly well known Christian Identity; the slightly more outreOdinists, who hark back to some imagined Viking forebears; and the B'nai Noah, a pro-Semitic group with obvious disparities between their beliefs and those of the other two. Kaplan shows the three groups' functional similarities and likenesses in worldview and action, despite differences in nuance, and he includes a fascinating chapter on the relationship between the cults and those who make a profession of watching and countering them. Adherents of these groups have in common an anticipation of the end of the world: some are for it, some are against it, but all expect it. Kaplan's academic approach provides welcome detachment from the often unsavory characters he details, yet he never lets us forget that these are real people.Dennis Winters--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.