ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on socio-cultural reverberations somewhat removed from the new religious movements themselves. It explores unintended cultural consequences that will follow from the fact that during the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s, the industrial nations of the world experienced a range of new religious movements in their midst. The chapter examines two reverberations can be identified and predicted with fair accuracy. They are; the further weakening of the link between religion and family, and the further erosion of "established" religion. One cultural consequence of the emergence of new religious movements in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, will probably be a dramatic further loosening of the link between religion and family. A second cultural consequence of current new religious movements will likely be the erosion, through legal decision making, of the power of those religions with longstanding roots in the American culture—the so-called mainline denominations, including Catholicism and Judaism.
