The New Religious Consciousness

In recent years a number of sociologists have suggested that some conversions to new religious movements should be understood as active accomplishments and not as passive occurrences. The experience of some converts, it has been proposed, might be profitably treated as acts of creative role-play. This paper develops the notion of distinguishing between active and passive conversions by elaborating a role-theoretical approach to the study of conversions which is grounded in the theoretical identification of free and rational actions. Active conversions are demarcated through reference to the ideal limiting case of rational conversions, based on the principle that rational actions are their own explanation. Under the argument advanced for a broadened conception of rationality, a conversion is deemed more rational the more it is reflectively monitored. The notion of a reflectively monitored conversion is then recast as a reflexive role-enactment, entailing role-person merger, with awareness of the conditions of merger.

Self-Affirmation, Freedom, and Rationality: Theoretically Elaborating "Active" Conversions

This paper advances previous arguments I have made about assessing the cultural significance of new religious movements (Dawson 1998a, 1998b) using the example of Soka Gakkai. An examination of this Japanese-based, but now world-wide, new religion highlights two things: (I) it denumstrates that there is an intimate relationship between the investigation of the "success" and the "significance" of a new religious movement, though the two concerns are not necessarily linked; adul (2), and it points to the most methodologically sound foci for future research on both topics through the comparative analysis of new religious movements. The success and significance of Soka Gakkai in the West is explained in terms of certain organizational adaptations and the elective affinity of its ethos with the emergent religious sensibilities of advanced industrial societies. Implicit to the study of new religious movements is the assumption that they are somehow of cultural significance, either as individual phenomena or as part of a larger pattern of social development. It is widely recognized, however, that even the most successful new religious movements (hereafter NRMs) are unlikely to achieve a size sufficient to directly influence the development of any Western society in the foreseeable future. Rather, as socially segregated and permitted realms of lifestyle experimentation, the significance of NRMs rests with their potential status as windows into broader patterns of social change. But what kind of change, and how are the different NRMs connected with the patterns of change? Sociologists have been trying to answer these basic questions for some time, acquiring in the process a much better grasp of the forms, functioning, and possible futures of the new religions in our midst (e.g., Bellah 1976; Wilson 1976; Campbell 1978; Stone 1978; Westley 1978; Hunter 1981; Johnson 1981; Robertson, 1985; Robertson and Chirico 1985; Bromley and Busching 1988; Robbins and Bromley 1992; Dawson 1998a and 1998b). But the efforts made to date are still fragmentary and handicapped by an explicit or implicit reliance on the conceptual parameters set by the debate over secularization in Western societies.

The Cultural Significance of New Religious Movements: The Case of Soka Gakkai

An analysis of the social organization of Buddhist groups and networks in metropolitan Chicago sheds light on the social organization of Buddhism and other new religions in American cities generally. Following an overview of the history and geography of Buddhist Chicago, this essay examines the dynamics underlying the emergence of local Buddhist groups and networks under two main headings: religious identities and sociological factors. First, Buddhism's various branches, traditions, and lineages are discussed; sociological factors discussed include organizational types, ethnic/racial distinctions, sociological functions played by Buddhism for “culture Buddhists” and “convert Buddhists,”and the role of local social dynamics in the emergence, proliferation, and interaction of Buddhist groups. As the field of American Buddhist studies enters a period of renewed productivity, this essay offers a conceptual framework for understanding major issues that can benefit both researchers within the field and interested social scientists outside of it.

How the Swans Came to Lake Michigan: The Social Organization of Buddhist Chicago

The paper presents a study of the trajectories of apostasy from three religious movements, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Soka Gakkai Buddhist institute and the Church of Scientology, through the analysis of a body of autobiographical narratives posted online by Italian apostates. Even more than being the account of a past religious experience, these narratives are the last stage in the gradual articulation of a voice with which the disaffected believers publicly express a critical view of the organizations they have left, charging them with using practices of interdiction to prevent dissent by their members. The common theme that emerges from these stories is not the loss of faith, but the discovery of a hidden deception, the breach of the implicit pact of trust that bound the narrator to the religious group.

/pdf/exes-speak-out-narratives-of-apostasy-jehovah-s-witnesses-1kmi0fbk46.pdf

Exes speak out, narratives of apostasy: Jehovah’s witnesses, scientology and Soka Gakkai

Scholars, Sects and Sanghas, I: Recruitment to Asian-Based Meditation Groups in North America

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Scholars, Sects and Sanghas, I: Recruitment to Asian-Based Meditation Groups in North America