New Religious Movements and Religious Liberty in America

New nontraditional religious movements are the most likely groups to offend mainstream culture and the least likely to have representatives in government to ensure that their liberty is protected. These new religious movements are sometimes ostracized and subject to various forms of discrimination. As America becomes increasingly pluralistic, with more and more groups contributing to the nation's religious mosaic, new religious movements may well play an increasing role in the course of religious liberty in America, just as groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses did formerly. This book explores the problems and possibilities posed by new religious movements for religious liberty in America.

Derek H. Davis is director of the J.M. Dawson Institute on Church-State Studies at Baylor University. Editor of the Journal of Church and State, his publications include Original Intent: Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Course of American Church-State Relations (1991) and Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent (2000). He has also published extensively in various law and academic journals.

Barry Hankins is Associate Professor of History and Church-State Studies at Baylor University. He is author of God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism (1996) and Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture (2002). He is also co-editor with Derek Davis of Welfare Reform and Faith-Based Organizations (1999).