page_title: New religious movement
hierarchical_section_title: New religious movement
caption_attribution_description: Russian Hare Krishna devotee distributing books in Moscow
context_page_description: A new religious movement, also known as a new religion or an alternative spirituality, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins but is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means. Scholars have estimated that NRMs now number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.
  Scholars continue to try to reach definitions and define boundaries. There is no single, agreed-upon criterion for defining a "new religious movement", but the term usually suggests that the group is of recent origin and is different from existing religions. There is debate as to how the term "new" should be interpreted in this context.
context_section_description: A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion or an alternative spirituality, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins but is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means.  Scholars have estimated that NRMs now number in the tens of thousands worldwide, with most of their members living in Asia and Africa. Most NRMs only have a few members, some of them have thousands of members, and a few of them have more than a million members.
  Scholars continue to try to reach definitions and define boundaries.  There is no single, agreed-upon criterion for defining a "new religious movement", but the term usually suggests that the group is of recent origin and is different from existing religions. There is debate as to how the term "new" should be interpreted in this context. One perspective is that it should designate a religion that is more recent in its origins than large, well-established religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. An alternate perspective is that "new" should mean that a religion is more recent in its formation. Some scholars view the 1950s or the end of the Second World War in 1945 as the defining time, while others look as far back as the founding of the Latter Day Saint movement in 1830.
  New religions have often faced a hostile reception from established religious organisations and various secular institutions. In Western nations, a secular anti-cult movement and a Christian countercult movement emerged during the 1970s and 1980s to oppose emergent groups.  In the 1970s, the distinct field of new religions studies developed within the academic study of religion. There are now several scholarly organisations and peer-reviewed journals devoted to the subject. Religious studies scholars contextualize the rise of NRMs in modernity, relating it as a product of and answer to modern processes of secularization, globalization, detraditionalization, fragmentation, reflexivity, and individualization.
caption: A member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness proselytising on the streets of Moscow, Russia
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