ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we review some selected social science research on new religious movements (NRMs) in North America. We think that there may be a paradigm shift occurring in the study of NRMs associated roughly with the turn of the century but accelerated by the earthshaking terrorist events of September 11, 2001. We do not claim to be sure of the exact nature of this paradigm shift but hope to suggest here a few of its likely dimensions.
