Exploring New Religions

Adopting an objective stance, this book examines the teachings and practices of a wide variety of new religious groups. The first two chapters raise general issues about cults, such as definitions, statistics, evangelization tactics, issues of public concern and methods of study. Subsequent chapters deal with new religions by genre - the older minority groups, New Christian groups, Hindu and Buddhist groups, the self-religions and the New Age. Each of these chapters begins with a general discussion of the background to each type of movement and selects three representative movements for greater in-depth study.