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This chapter provides an overview of the study of abuse in new religious movements. Drawing on the literature on patriarchal charismatic movements, the chapter explores the dynamics of physical and sexual abuse that characterized leader-follower relationships across a diverse number of religious groups. Case studies are used to illustrate the types of violence that were reported by devotees. Feminist theories of patriarchal social structure and feminist analyses of violence are used to help explain this troubling aspect of religious commitment. Finally, various strategies for teaching about violence in NRMs are discussed, with an emphasis on the difficulties that these issues raise for classroom teaching.

This chapter considers a number of questions and issues central to leadership and organization within new religions. Four key issues are explored: the social and historical context in which new religions have emerged; the distinctiveness of new religious organizations and how they differ from other religious collectivities; the role and fate of charismatic leadership; and the factors that influence the success, failure, and overall development of new religious movements. Attention is given to new religions as oppositional cultures and how the emergence of family life has altered both their pattern of social organization and relationship to mainstream society. A series of class exercises and research-based projects are included to aid teachers and students.

This study of peace and conflict‐resolution organizations (P/CROs) in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel/Palestine faced several methodological challenges: it had to define P/CROs, draw on both social movement and third‐sector theory, develop research tools to obtain data about P/CROs valid for regional and international analyses, and simultaneously understand P/CROs as a class with common attributes and appreciate differences amongst them. P/CROs are a new organizational classification, different from “peace movement organizations,” an existing classification. The study analyzed P/CROs from three perspectives: social movement theory, third‐sector theory, and the institutional theory of organizations. Four main findings emerged: (1) foreign funding was central to all P/CROs; (2) charismatic leadership was crucial; (3) almost all P/CROs became more professional and formal over time; and (4) while P/CROs played no direct role in the resolution of their respective conflicts, they made important indirect contributions. In particular, P/CROs helped to “sell” future settlements and agreements to their populations. Issues for further research include the preconditions for the emergence of P/CROs, and the assimilation of social movement and third‐sector research.

Most peace and conflict‐resolution organizations (P/CROs) were founded between 1980 and 1990, in response to heightened conflict in their regions; charismatic leaders – usually highly educated and politically astute – and local networks played instrumental roles. Most P/CROs relied on international funding. South African P/CROs received funding from foreign governments, international multilateral agencies, and religious institutions, Israeli/Palestinian P/CROs from private foreign donors and foundations, and Northern Irish P/CROs mainly from the UK and the European Union. All P/CROs used a variety of tactics, but emphasized a package of tactics that fit their members’ beliefs, interests, and skills; there was only slight variation in tactics across regions, but political context did play a small role in determining “tastes in tactics.” Almost all P/CROs, whatever their initial aspirations, became somewhat formalized as they aged. P/CROs in Northern Ireland tended to frame the conflict in terms of personal attitudes; in South Africa and Israel/Palestine, P/CRO frames emphasized systemic factors.

The ‘Mission at Large’ covers the wide range of activities Urwick undertook to promote management. Essentially he saw the need to take the concept of management to the managers and the people, giving large numbers of talks and seminars as a charismatic speaker, many of which were reformulated as articles or pamphlets in his lucid writing. Although his main focus was in Britain, in fact he took the world as his oyster and was happy to give talks wherever he was invited. He was particularly appreciated in North America and became the best‐known foreign expert on management, almost becoming an honorary American and receiving several American awards. He also did a great deal in Australia after he emigrated there in 1961. He kept going in both writing and speaking until well into his eighties.

This chapter begins with a discussion of the relationship between the charismatic leader and the members of the group, which emboldens both parties' conviction and reaffirms each individual's sense of group self. It suggests that there may be a nearly universal experience of a certain form of totalized conversion that is a precondition for the easy adoption of paranoid and apocalyptic ideologies. There does appear to be a suggestive link between the way some who later turn to violence in the name of religion first turn to God with a passion and enthusiasm that hides darker and more malevolent inclinations.

This chapter describes the theology of holiness in the book of Deuteronomy in order to interpret the ordination of Moses as a charismatic teacher of the divine word. The research by R. Otto on the religious experience of the numinous informs the study of Moses as a religious leader, who mediates holiness as a dynamic force in the life of Israel. The chapter offers an interpretation, through the charismatic teaching of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, of the literary structure, divine transcendence, and the way in which holiness invades the profane world of humans.

This chapter considers survey research about white evangelicals’ motives for supporting Israel. It reports on a religious service at a charismatic church that celebrated the emigration of the Jews to Israel as hastening Christ’s return. For enormous numbers of born-again Christians, supporting the Jewish return to the Holy Land allows them to join in the unfolding of divine history. Many disavow any intention of hastening scriptural prophecy, however. The chapter discusses another way to speed the end-times: building the Third Temple in Jerusalem. It notes plots to destroy the Dome of the Rock in order to clear the Temple Mount for the construction of the Temple. And it describes the biblically prescribed need for a red heifer to purify workers who would build the Temple. The chapter concludes by questioning the charge that George W. Bush is a Christian Zionist, perhaps even a premillennial dispensationalist, and that his faith shaped his Middle East policies.

This chapter explores the positive parallels between Jehu and David, suggesting that Drt favours charismatic rulers. Two of the parallels are discussed on their own (‘Righteous evaluations’ and ‘Manifestation of YHWH's spirit’) while the other parallels are discussed in three sets of pairs because of textual connections (‘Prophet anointings and divine election’, ‘eroic exploits and popular support’, and ‘Direct divine speech and dynastic promise’).

This chapter presents the stories of three people that highlight and express some of the dominant themes to emerge in talking to people about so personal and intimate a topic as their faith. These include the stories of “Cassandra”, an African American woman in her mid-30s who worked as a social worker at the Sacramento County Child Protective Services; “Russell,” a married Baby Boomer who was raised in a Jewish household but has been with the Word of Faith Movement since its early days in the late 1970s; and “Katia”, a single, 25-year-old immigrant from Ukraine. Their accounts of their personal experiences and insights demonstrate that the understanding and meaning of religion as it is lived in everyday contexts can be quite nuanced and complicated, and often fraught with difficulty. Their stories help bring abstract points of doctrine into the realm of the concrete and the real.

This chapter continues to focus on the three people introduced in Chapter 1 and presents their stories about how the Word of Faith Movement changed their lives. How members integrate the whole of the Faith Message into some of the most mundane aspects of their daily lives is discussed.

This chapter provides insight on the culture within the movement by focusing on one of the member congregations of the Word of Faith Movement — Faith Christian Center in Sacramento, California. This congregation teaches the Faith Message to literally thousands of people each week through worship services, Bible studies, and the weekly television broadcast. This church is therefore a major site on the map of the Word of Faith Movement in northern California. The culture inside the ministry, worship services, the faith message and needs of the ministry, and dealing with diversity are discussed.

This chapter focuses on the difficult positions faced by some people as they attempt both to live out the teachings of the Faith Message and to serve the needs of the ministry. It discusses four coping strategies church members use to cope with the demands placed upon them: filtering, venting networks, break taking, and, leaving the church permanently. Filtering is the active, intentional practice of accepting certain parts of the pastor's interpretation of scripture (or definition of the situation in terms of practice) while consciously rejecting others. Venting networks emerged out of social interactions in which members — who may or may not be deemed “disgruntled” but who have something to say that may be interpreted by others as against the dominant view — are able to critique and to give voice to their disagreements or discontents concerning some aspect of their experiences in the church. Break taking involves members voluntarily removing themselves either from their position in the church as a worker for a period of time before returning at some later date or staying away from the ministry altogether for a period of time.

This concluding chapter discusses the overall meaning of the Word of Faith Movement and the doctrine that has captivated so many believers. Topics covered include the Faith Message and social class, the Faith Message in African American religious history, Word of Faith Movement as contemporary American religion, and the Faith Message as ideology of transition.

In 1998 the local devotees of the Cristo Aparecido held their Franciscan priests hostage over a dispute about the Cristo. Seeking to modernize local Roman Catholic faith, these parish priests criticized devotion to the Cristo and withheld their support from ritual celebrations of the image. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the national government body empowered to protect the art historical legacy of the nation, intervened on behalf of local devotees and lay leaders to defend traditional celebration of the image. For local believers, the Cristo symbolizes their collective identity and the vulnerability of their own, embattled faith.

As leader of the Methodist movement in America, Francis Asbury was neither a charismatic communicator (he was rarely admired as a preacher), intellectual, or domineering autocrat. Rather, he communicated his vision for Methodism in four enduring ways: through his piety, his ability to connect with ordinary people face to face, his understanding and use of popular culture, and his skills at organizing. Asbury’s piety expressed itself through a pattern of prayer and voluntary poverty and included a genuine concern for the poor. The itinerant connection, which sent circuit riders across the nation preaching the Methodist message, was also important to Asbury’s success, as was the Methodist system of discipline.