Radical Transformations in Minority Religions (Routledge Inform Series on Minority Religions and Spiritual Movements)

All religions undergo continuous change, but minority religions tend to be less anchored in their ways than mainstream, traditional religions. This volume examines radical transformations undergone by a variety of minority religions, including the Children of God/ Family International; Gnosticism; Jediism; various manifestations of Paganism; LGBT Muslim groups; the Plymouth Brethren; Santa Muerte; and Satanism.

As with other books in the Routledge/Inform series, the contributors approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives: professional scholars include legal experts and sociologists specialising in new religious movements, but there are also chapters from those who have experienced a personal involvement. The volume is divided into four thematic parts that focus on different impetuses for radical change: interactions with society, technology and institutions, efforts at legitimation, and new revelations.

This book will be a useful source of information for social scientists, historians, theologians and other scholars with an interest in social change, minority religions and ‘cults’. It will also be of interest to a wider readership including lawyers, journalists, theologians and members of the general public.

Eileen Barker, FBA, OBE, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology with Special Reference to the Study of Religion at the London School of Economics. In 1988, with the support of the Home Office and the mainstream Churches, she founded INFORM, an educational charity, now based at King’s College, London, which supplies information about alternative religions that is as objective and up-to-date as possible. She has over 400 publications, translated into 27 languages.

Beth Singler is a digital anthropologist whose first book, The Indigo Children: New Age Experimentation with Self and Science, was the first ethnography of this primarily online community. Currently the Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, Beth applies her anthropological approach to the stories we have about AI, digital discussions of its nature and impact, and online communities promoting apocalyptic, transhumanist, and future focussed accounts of AI.