Morgan Luck - Philosophical Explorations of New and Alternative Religious Movements

This book is the first collection of philosophical essays, by a team of international authors, focusing on new and alternative religious movements. The book begins with an examination of the definition of new religious movements, before offering an introduction to, and an analysis of, core beliefs held by particular movements. Contributors offer an analysis of one or more of the core tenets of the religious movement, providing readers with both an insight into the group and the methodology of philosophy of religion.

For Hayley

Edited by
MORGAN LUCK
Charles Sturt University, Australia

First published 2012 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Morgan Luck 2012

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Philosophical explorations of new and alternative religious movements.

1. Cults.

I. Luck, Morgan.

209dc23

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Philosophical explorations of new and alternative religious movements / [edited by] Morgan Luck.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-0653-2 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-3156-0039-0 (ebook) 1. Religions. 2. Religion--Philosophy. I. Luck, Morgan, 1976

BL80.3.P45 2011

299.93dc23

2011045499

ISBN 9781409406532 (hbk)

ISBN 9781315600390 (ebk)
ISBN 9781317081159 (ebk-ePUB)

Morgan Luck

George D. Chryssides

Beverley Clack and Dan OBrien

John Bishop

Andrew Fisher

Michaelis Michael and John Paul Healy

Brian D. Smith

Morgan Luck

Wylie Breckenridge

Eric Steinhart

Andrew J. DellOlio

JOHN BISHOP is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of Natural Agency (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Believing by Faith (Oxford University Press, 2007) and journal articles in the areas of philosophy of religion and philosophy of action.

WYLIE BRECKENRIDGE is a lecturer in philosophy at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga. He specializes in philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology. He did his graduate work at Oxford, then spent some time as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell before returning to Australia.

GEORGE D. CHRYSSIDES studied philosophy and theology at the University of Glasgow, and gained his doctorate from the University of Oxford. He taught philosophy and religious studies at various British universities, becoming Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, England in 2001, a post which he held until 2008. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham.

George Chryssides has studied new religions since the mid-1980s and written extensively on them. His books include The Advent of Sun Myung Moon (1991), The Elements of Unitarianism (1998), Exploring New Religions (1999), Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2001), A to Z of New Religious Movements (2006), A Reader in New Religious Movements (2006, co-edited with Margaret Z. Wilkins), The Study of Religion (2007, with Ron A. Geaves), Historical Dictionary of Jehovahs Witnesses (2008), Christianity Today (2010) and Heavens Gate (2011, edited).

He has acted as consultant on new religious movements to the United Reformed Church in England, and he served for several years as chair of the board for the Centre for the Study of New Religious Movements at Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, England.

BEVERLEY CLACK is Professor in the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Brookes University. Her publications include Feminist Philosophy of Religion: Critical Readings, co-edited with Pamela Sue Anderson (2004); Sex and Death: A Reappraisal of Human Mortality (2002); Misogyny in the Western PhilosophicalTradition (1999); and The Philosophy of Religion, co-authored with Brian R. Clack in 1998 (a fully revised second edition of this book was published in 2008). She was recently involved in the ESRC-funded Seminar Series Changing Notions of the Human Subject: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Emotional Well-being and Social Justice in Education Policy and Practice, and is currently working on the application of psychoanalytic theory to the philosophy of religion.

ANDREW J. DELLOLIO is Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Director of the Program in Asian Studies at Hope College in Holland, Michigan (USA). He received his BA from Rutgers College and his MA, M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He studied with Oscar Ichazo and the Arica Institute from 1982 to 1986. He has published numerous articles in the philosophy of religion and ethics, and is the author of Foundations of Moral Selfhood (2003) and co-editor (with Caroline J. Simon) of Introduction to Ethics: A Reader (2010). His current research interests include the comparative philosophy of moral self-cultivation and the history of religious philosophy in the twentieth century.

ANDREW FISHER has been a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham since 2004. He lectures in a diverse range of subjects to all levels of students, including postgraduates. Fisher specializes in metaethics and has an increasing interest in the philosophy of education. He has published three books and a number of articles. Fisher is the Director of Teaching for the Faculty of Arts, the School of Humanities E-learning Coordinator and a Senior Tutor. He has a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and an MA in Higher Education. He is a member of the Society for Christian Philosophers.

JOHN PAUL HEALY is a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Charles Sturt University, New South Wales, Australia. John is the author of Yearning to Belong: Discovering a New Religious Movement, which explores Hindu-based gurudisciple traditions in the West. Most of Johns work has focused on the tradition of Siddha Yoga and its schismatic groups. His main interest has been conversion and recent work focuses on the life and culture of various New Religious Movements.

MORGAN LUCK is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Charles Sturt University and a senior fellow of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE). Morgan has degrees in several disciplines including Cultural and Media Studies, Screen Production and Religious Studies. He completed his MA and Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Nottingham and a PGCE in Religious Education at the University of Cambridge. His areas of research include philosophy of religion, metaphysics and ethics.