https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to cult/new religious movements en https://religiondispatches.org/2024/03/14/new-age-fantasy-celtic-church-revered-nature-and-divine-feminine-never-existed-so-what From Fifth Avenue to Dorchester Heights, this St. Patrick’s Day will feature the traditional uilleann pipers and Irish step dancers; in Chicago the river will be dyed green, and in Washington DC the Taoiseach will present the president with a… Thu, 14 Mar 2024 04:01:08 EDT Ed Simon bc922e94-64be-4ee1-86a5-e7c46040f3ff https://religiondispatches.org/2024/01/04/pop-culture-angels-are-more-just-embarrassing-kitsch Cloying sentimentality, saccharine pablum, ridiculous camp and embarrassing kitsch—in the contemporary moment the word “angel” hasn’t fared well among those who describe themselves as sophisticates or intellectuals. To many, angels don’t simply conjure superstitious beliefs, but embarrassing superstitious beliefs. Faith… Thu, 04 Jan 2024 05:19:00 EST Ed Simon 0c60b7d3-2a6a-4a2a-8060-4bd1224a4b8a https://religiondispatches.org/2023/09/12/civil-rights-liberals-new-age-conspiracy-theorists-what-betty-and-barney-hills-alien In 1961, driving back from a short vacation, Betty and Barney Hill encountered a bright cigar-shaped light on the highway that moved erratically before appearing to chase them. They fled and then told their story, which later became the first… Tue, 12 Sep 2023 01:54:38 EDT Susannah Crockford 11b2bf80-dbd8-4c33-bf9e-8b545dd57b77 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/06/08/top-five-less-sensational-more-dangerous-things-remember-about-pat-robertson-1930-2023 Sure, it’s easy to poke fun at Pat Robertson for his 2,000-pound leg press claims or to scold him for his vile Haiti comments, but Robertson thrives on the ‘persecution.’ Our list spins the Robertson moral differently and shows just why he’s been a truly dangerous figure. Thu, 08 Jun 2023 05:27:59 EDT Mark Hulsether 1fafedef-45b2-4e43-b38e-9022ff5e97e4 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/03/21/trumps-arrest-prediction-inflames-holy-war-narrative-and-sanctifies-violence-welcome This coming Saturday, March 25 th—one week after a hysterical all-caps social media post in which he declared that he “will be arrested on Tuesday” and called on supporters to “protest, take our nation back!”— Trump will host his first… Tue, 21 Mar 2023 04:20:27 EDT Thomas Lecaque c4b85ca0-0967-4720-88c5-7797bcadeca3 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/11/02/pelosi-attackers-new-age-spirituality-and-belief-qanon-no-contradiction Around 3 a.m. on October 28, David DePape attacked Paul Pelosi, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, with a hammer. During the attack, DePape yelled “Where’s Nancy?” raising concerns that his true intent was political assassination of the second-in-line… Wed, 02 Nov 2022 04:13:30 EDT Susannah Crockford 00aa193f-62d6-43f6-b1a9-540cc58d949a https://religiondispatches.org/2022/09/06/failure-focus-and-yes-cancel-right-wing-antisemitism-problem Earlier this month, amid increasing death threats, the synagogue of the judge who signed the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search warrant was forced to cancel its Shabbat service . And this is hardly an isolated incident. Antisemitism is becoming more and more… Tue, 06 Sep 2022 03:56:34 EDT Elad Nehorai 614f301e-c234-49d5-ad18-ba1afe9a1a97 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/31/do-stormy-daniels-beliefs-paranormal-make-her-unfit-testify-lawsuit-against-her-former Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who rose to prominence as a result of her former relationship with Donald Trump, is testifying against her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who’s on trial for allegedly stealing $300,000 from Daniels (the money came… Mon, 31 Jan 2022 05:04:29 EST Daniel Wise 4b0ad4d3-bed4-4b52-a98f-7d302ab73843 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/28/qanon-isnt-cult-problematic-term-michael-protzmans-q-adjacent-negative48-certainly QAnon isn’t a cult. I know we want it to be, as numerous pundits have argued . I know it would be comforting, to believe that it’s a weird fringe, in the grasp of charismatic leaders, that the people are… Fri, 28 Jan 2022 05:03:18 EST Thomas Lecaque 48c3056e-dd0f-44fc-a987-ca95d7cf886c https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/20/what-can-real-life-haunting-tell-us-about-american-religion-updated While researching ghost hunters in the 21st century US during the course of earning my PhD, I was sometimes asked what ghost-hunting had to do with religious studies. In fact, Americans’ interactions with ghosts often reveal their personal spiritualities and… Thu, 20 Jan 2022 04:42:32 EST Daniel Wise c465b019-7cf5-4afb-b59f-ab3530c80058 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/09/13/new-mormon-religion-has-taken-qanon-conspiracies-and-canonized-them-doctrine Over the last year, I’ve scrolled past social media posts by members of diverse religious backgrounds and political opinions. However, because my ethnographic research is based in Mormon fundamentalist communities, a good amount of the commentary I see leans libertarian… Mon, 13 Sep 2021 04:13:59 EDT Cristina Rosetti bdddc8c8-b212-49cb-a666-7dea675238c1 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/08/06/being-trans-religion-why-christian-right-wants-you-think-so Have you noticed how common it is for right-wingers to describe things they oppose in terms of religion? Back in April, for example, Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab (the social media platform of choice for white supremacists and right-wing… Fri, 06 Aug 2021 03:28:14 EDT Chrissy Stroop a3d0d62e-28c9-4e87-9316-f55328b9103c https://religiondispatches.org/2021/08/05/evangelical-fiction-helped-shape-culture-faith-along-suspicion-fear-and-resentment Daniel Silliman’s new book, Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith, is an engaging history of evangelical fiction, focused on the infrastructure of publishers, distributors, and bookstores. A historian by training and current news editor of… Thu, 05 Aug 2021 05:43:12 EDT Christopher Douglas ada23656-5435-4345-bd89-e09f35004d2e https://religiondispatches.org/2021/08/02/what-spooky-summer-trend-says-about-enchantment-late-modern-us Still looking for a fun and exciting summer activity? Have you thought about ghost hunting? I earned my PhD studying ghost hunters in the contemporary United States. Ghost hunters are people, often organized into groups, who use electronic devices and… Mon, 02 Aug 2021 02:11:07 EDT Daniel Wise b6ace5a3-5e6c-48c2-987e-73bd66730347 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/07/19/cult-inaccurate-unhelpful-and-dangerous-label-followers-trump-qanon-and-16 In the twentieth century the word “ cult ” (originally meaning “worship”) became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word “cult” implies a stereotype that involves… Mon, 19 Jul 2021 02:22:53 EDT Catherine Wessinger a0342f76-3e08-4527-8e0b-18a8e97d57ca https://religiondispatches.org/2021/07/06/apocalypse-now-and-then-how-biblical-genre-shapes-american-politics In state legislatures across the country, Republicans are systematically making it more difficult to vote, premised on the “Big Lie” that voter fraud was behind President Joe Biden’s election. The former president and much of his party refused to concede… Tue, 06 Jul 2021 01:49:04 EDT Christopher Douglas 5a809169-8d3f-41f4-97c2-446b199e72a0 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/07/01/will-conjuring-3-influence-real-life-events-exorcist-effect Have you heard rumors about a cult called The Disciples of the Ram? Ever hear of Katie Lincoln, the young girl from Danvers, Massachusetts, who was stabbed 22 times by her friend in a Satanic slaying? If you find yourself… Thu, 01 Jul 2021 01:40:59 EDT Eric Harrelson, Joseph Laycock d7c0ad15-1aa0-44fd-8564-c16eb71dcc57 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/06/15/we-cant-spiritualize-our-way-out-american-polarization As I noted previously here on RD , when it comes to covering American Christianity in general and conservative, mostly white evangelicals in particular, legacy media outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have recently begun to… Tue, 15 Jun 2021 04:25:11 EDT Chrissy Stroop 3788243a-1227-4fe6-b0d4-c545006d514b https://religiondispatches.org/2021/05/13/health-freedom-movement-enters-covid-era-disseminating-medical-disinformation “Are imperfect people welcome in the health freedom movement?” asks an email sitting presumptuously at the top of my inbox, piquing my interest just enough not to delete immediately. Below the banner sits a picture of a small medical spray… Thu, 13 May 2021 02:59:52 EDT Susannah Crockford 8e29e28b-82f8-4e39-b740-3c14407f747d https://religiondispatches.org/2021/04/26/good-news-religious-outreach-works-vaccine-hesitancy-bad-news-we-need-it A new report from PRRI on religious attitudes toward Covid vaccination contains much that makes intuitive sense, along with a few surprises. There’s some actual good news in the poll, along with some bad, and at least one very bad… Mon, 26 Apr 2021 12:01:38 EDT Daniel Schultz bf5dce50-ecb5-464c-b470-4cafbd862cc3 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/04/07/times-link-noi-capitol-killer-based-flawed-comparison-between-rightwing-christian Here’s a quick quiz. Guess who wrote the following words: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: That his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution… Wed, 07 Apr 2021 02:16:19 EDT A. E. Brooks-Key 6b6b45a7-68ff-4870-ade2-d3d170365434 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/04/05/alabama-yoga-debate-focusing-wrong-question Alabama’s latest round debating yoga should come as no surprise. Earlier this week, the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee vote on whether to overturn a ban on yoga in public schools ended in a tie. For now, Alabama schools cannot legally… Mon, 05 Apr 2021 10:46:19 EDT Candy Gunther Brown 83f4b450-004d-4005-8fa3-e0ed82de9236 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/03/01/murder-among-mormons-latest-true-crime-doc-netflix-highlights-issues-faith-skepticism Note on spoilers, etc: This essay covers the broad outlines of the Mark Hofmann forgery and murder case, which will be highlighted in the new Netflix documentary, though it does not detail any of the documentary’s new discoveries. Recaps for… Mon, 01 Mar 2021 01:07:52 EST Benjamin E. Park 6005c82f-3fcd-4e68-bb9c-86416214576a https://religiondispatches.org/2021/02/02/are-we-living-simulation-bad-religion-bad-media-combine-new-doc-glitch-matrix Brother Laeo Mystwood looks at the camera, his body obscured by a 3D avatar. He is talking about the many coincidences of his life and how they led him to believe that he’s living in a computer simulation. We all… Tue, 02 Feb 2021 04:13:45 EST Shannon Trosper Schorey 15540b78-e81c-4440-a262-647c47d2cc21 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/01/11/q-shamans-new-age-radical-right-blend-hints-blurring-seemingly-disparate-categories By now we’ve all seen the pictures, saturating our social media landscapes with their grotesque glee. The becostumed horde, thronging through the windows, up the stairways, politely abiding by the velvet red ropes, as they stormed the Capitol building in… Mon, 11 Jan 2021 03:53:41 EST Susannah Crockford 9dfce95c-8761-4903-960d-d1adc87cae29