ABSTRACT
New and minority religious communities in any culture or nation face an uphill battle for survival. This is because these communities often challenge or reject the normative order of society. Thus, judicial systems, legal systems, mainstream religions, political parties, and concerned citizens’ groups (such as countercult and anticult movements) are compelled to address the challenge posed by new and minority religions both to their own position in the social hierarchy and to the normative order of society in general. Each participant in the normative order constitutes a constellation of social forces that can repress, critique, persecute, and battle new and minority religions. As the essays in this volume bespeak, these constellations of social forces have grown bolder and more capable in the wake of violent events associated with the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinrikyō, the Solar Temple, Heaven’s Gate, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, and following the events of 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terror.”
