Religious Movements, New

Initial Interest

When significant numbers of young people began to show an interest in unusual religious movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many were surprised because the rise of such groups seemed counter to the predominate secularization thesis that assumed the demise of religion. Many of those who were interested in new religious movements were from the most affluent and well-educated groups in society, which added to the controversy, as did the origin and character of some of the groups themselves. Some of the more controversial movements were of foreign origin and were headed by Asian or Indian religious figures.

Groups such as the Unification Church headed by Sun Myung Moon, the Hare Krishna, the Rajneesh group in Oregon, and the Divine Light Mission gained considerable notoriety, in no small part because foreign gurus were attracting some of the “brightest and best” of U.S. youth. Other new religious movements, such as Jesus Movement groups, were derived from the basic Christian culture but were also of concern because of their demanding lifestyle and in some cases, as with the Children of God, because they flouted conventional sexual mores. Other movements such as Scientology were accused of being organized mainly to gather funds from unwitting youth.

The rise of new religious movements led to efforts to explain why, in a supposedly secular age, so many youth would consider participating. Some viewed the new movements as clear evidence that the secularization hypothesis was dead and that religion was still a vibrant concern among modern citizens, including youth. Others thought the rise of new religious movements demonstrated that religion had been turned into just another consumer good and that the interest was better characterized as a fad or fashion among youth.

More sophisticated analyses focused on possible rejection of Western and, more particularly, U.S. cultural values and political postures. The Vietnam War had caused many youth to question U.S. values and politics, as had the Civil Rights Movement and other movements, such as those supporting equal treatment for women and for other minorities. Religious movements seemed to offer alternatives to the chaos of the 1960s in the United States for many youth, who flocked in impressive numbers into some of the movements. Many were communal and thus offered something similar to a surrogate family for participants, many of whom were estranged from their own families.

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