Journal of Unification Studies
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Controversial New Religions
Controversial New Religions JAMES R. LEWIS JESPER AAGAARD PETERSEN, Editors OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Controversial New Religions This page intentionally left blank Controversial New Religions edited by james r. lewis and jesper aagaard petersen 1 2005 1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright ᭧ 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Controversial new religions / edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515682-X; 0-19-515683-8 (pbk) 1. Cults. I. Lewis, James R. II. Petersen, Jesper Aagaard. BP603.C66 2004 200'.9'04—dc22 2003024374 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Contributors, ix Introduction, 3 James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen PART I: GROUPS IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION 1. A Family for the Twenty-first Century, 19 James D. Chancellor 2. Spirit Revelation and the Unification Church, 43 James A. Beverley 3. Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracy Theories about Jonestown, 61 Rebecca Moore 4. -
Who Was Rev. Moon? 37 Unity Through Love
True Parents’ Message and News English Version No. 68 天一國 8年 天曆 APRIL 20203 ARTICLE ONE Responding to True Mother’s Prophetic Guidance By Michael Balcomb t 5 am on March 12, an incoming KakaoTalk message from Dr. Young-ho Yun in our international headquarters awakened me. We’d just concluded a special European seven-day workshop for 120 Japanese members in Istanbul. Fumiko and I were so full of excite- Ament and appreciation for a really great workshop and for the hard work of the two lecturers sent by Rev. Eiji Tokuno from Japan, Rev. Moichiro Nakamura and Mr. Morio Obata. So before going to bed, I’d sent a quick report with some great photos to Korea, hoping they would inspire True Mother at her breakfast table. I suppose I was hoping for a word of encouragement. But the message I read from True Mother in the early morning hours was very different. Rather than warm appreciation, it was a cool and serious warning: “You should be taking the coronavirus threat much more seriously than you are, and you absolutely must refrain from these kinds of large gatherings!” To be honest, I was a little stung. For the past month, we had kept one step ahead of the coronavirus. Over a thousand people from Europe came to World Summit 2020 and the blessing ceremony in Seoul in February and no one got sick, surely a minor miracle. Then, the very next week, our subregional leaders held big Sun- day services all over Europe to share about their Korea experience—and again, nobody got sick. -
The Facts on Near-Death Experiences
The Facts on Near-Death Experiences By Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon Published by ATRI Publishing Copyright 2011, Updated 2021 ISBN 9781937136055 License Notes This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture verses are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. The verse marked Berkeley is taken from the Modern Language Bible: The New Berkeley Version, copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishing, Inc., Peabody, MA. Contents Title page A Personal Message Chapter 1: Why are NDEs a more vital subject than people think? Chapter 2: Do NDEs decrease or increase suicidal tendencies? Chapter 3: What about abortion and NDEs? Chapter 4: What are some theological consequences of the NDE and its popular interpretation? Chapter 5: What about the NDEs that teach reincarnation? Chapter 6: What are the day-to-day consequences of many NDEs? Chapter 7: What are some problems of near-death -
Fear in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a Pathway to Reconciliation
Fear in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Pathway to Reconciliation Meandering Philosophy and Musings Mingled with Scripture Revision B By Tom Irvine Email: [email protected] July 4, 2020 To fear God is to have absolute reverence and awe for an Almighty God, the Creator of all things. But the fear discussed in this paper is worry and dread over potential loss or calamity. This fear can include angst regarding a pending change, even though that change may be a needed growth opportunity, or otherwise bring blessings. The fear may be deeply rooted in a person’s subconscious due to genetic predispositions or past traumatic experiences. Furthermore, fear can exist on an individual or an institutional basis. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has accomplished an immeasurable amount of good for innumerable souls by providing a faith community for like-minded people, offering disaster relief to those in distress and in so many other ways. In addition, the LDS Church provides excellent education opportunities through its BYU campuses and the BYU Pathway program. 1 But the Church has traumatized others via certain fear-based policies and unrighteous dominion. Some trauma victims leave the Church and may never return. Others are the “walking wounded” who still participate in Church for social or altruistic reasons even though their bubbles have burst, or their “shelves” have broken. This paper is neither a vindication of the Church nor an expose. Rather it is a paper that wrestles with some real and messy issues with the hopes that some mutual understanding and peaceful reconciliation can be achieved. -
Rel.Arts 3.2 195-223 Spellmeyer 25-06-1999 12:12 Pagina 195
Rel.arts 3.2 195-223 Spellmeyer 25-06-1999 12:12 Pagina 195 Commentary SPECIALISTS WITH SPIRIT: NEW AGE RELIGION, ENGLISH STUDIES, AND THE “SOMATIC TURN” KURT SPELLMEYER Rutgers University Where the fulfillment of [one’s work] cannot directly be related to the highest spiritual and cultural values . the individual generally abandons the attempt to justify it at all. About those living in the final stages of this process, it might truly be said that they are “Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart.” – Max Weber (182, translation altered) magine for a minute that you not only work in English but that you Ialso believe in God. If you did, you might lead a double life, engaged five or six days of every week deconstructing master narratives or tracking knowledge /power, and then on the seventh day, at least for several hours, doing something altogether different. Even if those hours were your most important ones, you would probably keep the secret to yourself – for reasons best explained, I’m inclined to think, by the history of higher learning in the U.S., which began with religious ties but then moved aggres- sively, over the last hundred years or so, toward secularism, science, and specialization. And given the academy’s astonishing growth, who would want to argue now against this move? By abandoning our claim to “ultimate values,” by becoming producers of specialist knowledge, our forerunners won a privileged place in the emerging social order, an order that no longer needed values anyway, premised as it was on “rationality” in the adminis- tration of its human subjects. -
Near Death Experiences
Near Death Experiences An Evaluation from the Theological Perspective of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod June 2015 History, Beliefs, Practices Identity: Near death experiences (NDEs) are psychological events, at times involving mystical or religious insights, reportedly experienced by some individuals who are declared dead, close to death, or involved in an extreme physical or emotional crisis. Founder: None Statistics: According to the results of a 1992 Gallup poll, about 5% of the adult population of the United States has experienced an NDE.1 History: Psychologist Raymond Moody coined the term “near death experience” in his 1975 book, Life after Life. His book sparked interest in the subject and the formation of an association for the study of NDEs. In his book, Moody studied 50 NDE reports, many of which included a description of leaving one’s body, a journey through a tunnel, and meeting a “being” of light. Other books followed, including Life at Death (Kenneth Ring, 1980), Recollections of Death (Michael Sabom, 1982), Closer to the Light (Melvin Morse, 1990, a study of the NDEs of children), Embraced by the Light (Betty Eadie, 1992), and Saved by the Light (Dannion Brinkley, 1994). Interest in NDEs continues to grow due to many popular accounts, including Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back (Todd Burpo, 2010), To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again (Mary Neal, 2012), and Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife -
The Unificationist Funerary Tradition
religions Article The Unificationist Funerary Tradition Lukas Pokorny Department of Religious Studies, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria; [email protected] Received: 22 April 2020; Accepted: 17 May 2020; Published: 20 May 2020 Abstract: This paper explores the distinctive funerary tradition of the Unification Movement, a globally active South Korean new religious movement founded in 1954. Its funerary tradition centres on the so-called Seonghwa (formerly Seunghwa) Ceremony, which was introduced in January 1984. The paper traces the doctrinal context and the origin narrative before delineating the ceremony itself in its Korean expression, including its preparatory and follow-up stages, as well as its short-lived adaptation for non-members. Notably, with more and more first-generation adherents passing away—most visibly in respect to the leadership culminating in the Seonghwa Ceremony of the founder himself in 2012—the funerary tradition has become an increasingly conspicuous property of the Unificationist lifeworld. This paper adds to a largely uncharted area in the study of East Asian new religious movements, namely the examination of their distinctive deathscapes, as spelled out in theory and practice. Keywords: Unification Church; funeral; death; ritual; new religious movement; Korea; East Asia 1. Introduction “‘Death’ is a sacred word. It is not a major expression for sorrow and pain. [ ::: ] The moment one enters the spiritual world is a time that one enters a world of joy and victory with the earthly life having blossomed, the fruits borne, and the grain ladled. It is a moment we [i.e., those staying behind] should rejoice. It should be a time when we celebrate wholeheartedly. -
Near- Death Experiences”
ABSTRACT Title of Document: FIELD NOTES FROM THE LIGHT: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF THE MEANING AND SIGNIFICANCE OF “NEAR- DEATH EXPERIENCES” Laura Suzanne Gordon Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Professor John L. Caughey Department of American Studies This dissertation is based on a comprehensive study which investigated the meaning and social significance of “near-death experiences” (NDEs) by situating 50 experiencers (NDErs) as the “inside” experts on these profound, subjective experiences and their real-world impact. I used a phenomenological, “person- centered” ethnographic approach, new to Near-Death Studies, to make experiencers’ lives the orienting framework for my study. Informed by “reformist” qualitative- research ethics and health-education-and-counseling values, I analyzed study- participants’ life-history narratives against medical-scientific Near-Death Studies explanatory models, an NDE-Integration-Trajectory (NDE IT) patterns model, and social construction and identity-alternation theory. My findings were, first, that study participants’ descriptions of NDE impact and aftereffects, which matched previous findings, were adequately explained by neither social construction nor medical-scientific theory. Second, participants in this and previous studies described significant NDE interpretation and integration problems, in which I recognized a previously unidentified, health-education-and- counseling-related, pattern of unmet NDE integration needs. Third, my findings supported the previous NDE IT findings and model; and also recognized the importance of individuals’ multiple cultural meaning systems in shaping their NDE integration patterns.. Fourth, 29 of 50 study participants had not sought out and did not identify Near-Death Studies as a useful NDE integration context or resource; and they described it negatively if they mentioned it at all. -
Acta Comparanda Acta the Sinless Only Begotten Daughter Vs the 3 Generations Kingship Richard A
ACTA COMPARANDA SUBSIDIA VI SUBSIDIA COMPARANDA ACTA Acta Comparanda SUBSIDIA VI May 29-30, 2017 The Life and Legacy of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Movements in Scholarly Perspective Chris Vonck, Welcome Tony van Loon, Opening lecture Régis Dericquebourg, Bernadette Rigal-Cellard, Words of the OERL FVG David G. Bromley, Unificationism as Prototypical New Religion 2018 FIRST PART: SOCIAL SCIENTISTS PERSPECTIVES Eileen Barker, The Unification Church: a Kaleidoscopic Introduction Gerhard Besier, The Unification Church in Germany Alexa Blonner, The New God of Unificationism: Precedents and Parallels George Chryssides, The Welsh Connection: Pastor Joshua McCabe’s role in the Unification Church’s early history Régis Dericquebourg, The prophetic Career of Sun Myung Moon in modernity Alliance between Value rationality and Means-end rationality for the restoration of Paradise on Earth Willy Fautré, Abduction, sequestration and ‘deprogramming’ attempts of Unification Church Members in Japan Massimo Introvigne, The dynamics of the Schisms and the birth of the Family Peace Association Donald A. Westbrook, Post-charismatic outcomes of New Religions: Themes from Unificationism, Mormonism, and Scientology SECOND PART: U.C. THEOLOGICAL ANALYSES Mark Bramwell, The Family Pledge and the Family Peace Association Dan Fefferman, Unification Political Theology: Past, Present and Future Kim Jongsuk, The Split of the Unification Movement & the Process of Destruction of the Scriptures Michael L. Mickler, Gender Politics in the Post-Sun Myung Moon Richard A. Panzer, The Sinless Only Begotten daughter vs the 3 Generations Kingship Kerry Williams, “Only One God: The Debate on God as ‘Heavenly Father’ vs. God as ‘Heavenly Parents’ in the contemporary Unification Movement” Andrew Wilson, Theological Developments in the FFWPU since the Death of Rev. -
Religious Cults and the First Amendment Craig Andrews Parton
Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal Volume 9 | Number 2 Article 4 1-1-1986 When Courts Come Knocking at the Cult's Door: Religious Cults and the First Amendment Craig Andrews Parton Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_comm_ent_law_journal Part of the Communications Law Commons, Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Craig Andrews Parton, When Courts Come Knocking at the Cult's Door: Religious Cults and the First Amendment, 9 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 279 (1986). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_comm_ent_law_journal/vol9/iss2/4 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. When Courts Come Knocking At The Cult's Door: Religious Cults And The First Amendment by CRAIG ANDREWS PARTON* I Introduction [T]he wrong of these things, as I see it, is not in the money the victims part with half so much as in the mental and spiri- tual poison they get. But that is precisely the thing the Consti- tution put beyond the reach of the prosecutor, for the price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish .... Justice Jackson in United States v. Ballard.1 Nathan2 is a second semester freshman at Indiana Univer- sity. -
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When in Doubt … When in Doubt … READ THE BOOK! READ THE BOOK! Life as it was designed to be 660 Mason Ridge Center Dr. Life as it was designed to be St. Louis, Missouri 63141-8557 What is true religion? Just a list of rules to keep? 1-800-876-9880 • www.lhm.org Can any religion really help at all? When in Doubt … When in doubt, consult the Bible. It’s our 6BE20 manual for living. Just as you would not build a house without studying the blueprint, or embark on a new journey without studying a map, why try to live life without reading “the book”? READ THE BOOK! Yet, many of us do exactly that. Inside this booklet, you will see that God has given us the way to live life in His Word, the Life as it was designed to be Bible. Not by our own strength, but because of His goodness, we can know Him—and His plan for us—intimately. by Rev. Stephen Hower 6BE20 Since 1988 Stephen Hower has been the senior pastor at St. John Church, a congregation of the 660 Mason Ridge Center Dr.1-800-876-9880 • St. Louis, MO • www.lhm.org 63141-8557 Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, located in Ellisville, Missouri. Previously, he served congregations in Michigan and Texas. A frequent conference speaker, he has written four books on biblical topics as well as articles on parenting, leadership, worship, charitable giving and evangelism. AN UNEXPECTED MESSAGE It was unseasonably cold, the wind was gusty, and rain had dogged the proceedings since early morning. -
Embraced by the Light Free
FREE EMBRACED BY THE LIGHT PDF Eadie | 147 pages | 01 Nov 1994 | Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc | 9780553565911 | English | New York, United States Betty Eadie - Wikipedia Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Embraced by the Light. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Embraced by the Light for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Embraced by the Light by Embraced by the Light J. Eadie. Curtis A. Taylor. Melvin Morse Foreword. At the age of 31, Betty Eadie died after routine surgery. The events that followed can only be described as the most Embraced by the Light and extensive near-death experience ever recorded. During the time she was clinically dead, Betty was given knowledge of the afterlife that would make even the greatest skeptic think twice. As she traveled through the spiritual realm, she learned mo At the age of 31, Betty Eadie died after routine surgery. As she traveled through the spiritual realm, she learned more about the laws and history of the universe than perhaps anyone before her. She explains with uncanny detail the reasons why we have chosen to be on this earth at this time in history, and how all out actions are growing experiences for our immortal spirits. In those few minutes that stretched into eternity, Betty's life was changed forever. In this special unabridged recording of "Embraced by the Light," she shares the vision of a world she never imagined existed, and gives new meaning to the question, "Why are we here? Get A Copy.