Category talk:New religious movements

message: "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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  In actuality Theosophy is the wrong word. It goes back easily to the 3rd centuary. Blavatsky and the Secret Doctrine are the issues you are focusing on in your argument. Theosophy was a "stolen" term by Blavatsky from the Philosophers during the period of her life. Theosophy is under Philosophy/MetaPhysics and Philosophy/Religion. It was there before, during and after Blavatsky. The Authors of the Blavatsky-school and the various Societies are the focus here.   JEMead (talk) 18:48, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Sect is neutral, but not often used. Sam [Spade] 15:30, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: I object to this catagory

message: 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)
replies: text: Category:New Age sounds acceptable to me. Sam [Spade] 00:59, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: "Category:New Age"

message: :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)
thread_title: Great awakening

message: 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)
replies: text: 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  surname . Andries 12:44, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: How do you add here?

message: 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)
thread_title: Move to or Create :Category:Spiritual Movements

message: 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)
thread_title: This category is growing too big and unwieldy

message: ====retire====
* That is delete. Who is to say what is new or old? Debresser (talk) 16:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: *Objection to reasoning of Ninja Robot Pirate's vote. Discussion in Threaded discussion?--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 04:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: * That is delete. Who is to say what is new or old? Debresser (talk) 16:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: retire

message: *support a narrower, more precise definition (or better terminology accomplishing the same) ⇔ ChristTrekker 18:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: redefine

message: *Support keeping the category. The term is, so far as I can determine, still the most frequently used term in the academic field for the groups it describes, and on that basis I can see no reasonable objection to our not using the term most frequently used in academia to describe these groups. Also, I have to notice that the first comment made here refers only to one specific group within the larger NRM field, and that there is no clear indicator of what, if any, term or terms we should use to replace this term in describing all the groups which have been so described, not just the single group mentioned below. I also believe that at least part of the argument below completely fails to address the matter of several NRMs, including for instance Scientology, which cannot be categorized as subcultures of subgroups of any other religions, which would make using that alternative at least as objectionable, if not more so, than the current term used. John Carter (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: *Objection to reasoning of Ninja Robot Pirate's vote. Discussion in Threaded discussion?--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 04:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: remain