1. Albanese Ch 12:
Many Centers Meeting

2. Conflicts
• 1834 torching of Ursuline convent school for
girls near Boston as example.
• Nativism = protestant attempts to preserve
the social body against perceived alien
threats…
– Indian savagery
– Catholics
– Jews
• Question for consideration: how do we tell
religious hatred from class conflict, ethnic
conflict, or just political conflict??

3. The Roman Catholic “Plot”
• “superstitious”
• Authoritarian mysticism
• Celibacy, secrecy
• 1832 New York Protestant
Association
• Maria Monk’s Awful
Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu
Nunnery of Montreal (1836)
• Lyman Beecher’s Plea for the
West (1835)
• 2 Catholic churches torched in
Kensington (Philly) in 1844

4. The Jewish “Conspiracy”
• Little anti-Semitism until the
Civil War
• Financial panic of 1893
• William Jennings Bryan’s
“Cross of Gold” speech in
1896
• Leo Frank case of 1913
• Ku Klux Klan - 3 million
members by 1923
• Henry Ford and “Protocols…”
in 1920
• Father Coughlin, the “radio
priest” in 1930’s

5. Pluralist Struggle
• Many examples of combinationism, postpluralism
– Separation (Black churches)
– Revolutionary resistance (Jonestown)
– Mission movement (Catholicism)
• Protestant American Christianity fractures after the
1960’s
• “two-party system” of liberals and conservatives
• Coalitions
• Combinations

6. Revivals or Warnings?
• Revivals such as the First and Second Great Awakenings increased
the numbers of church attendees - if only temporarily.
• But they also tend to proceed or indicate cultural change as they
underscore conflict:
– Between old and new theological ideas
– Economic turbulence
– Dislocations of population
– Shifting patterns of authority
• The 1950’s Revival may have stabilized Protestant, Catholic, and
Jewish communities…
• But by the end of the 1960’s it was clear that there would be no
revival of the old religious order of the 1800’s…

7. Protestant Disarray
• 1957 Gallop pole: 14%
believe that religion is
loosing influence
• 1967: 57%
• 1970: 75%
• 1968: church
attendance declined

8. Denominational Gains and
Losses From 1970 to 2000
• Lower-Tension
– Episcopal Church -30%
– United Church of Christ -30%
– United Methodist -22%
– American Baptist Churches -2%
• Higher-Tension
– Jehovah’s Witnesses +157%
– Mormons +151%
– Assemblies of God +142%
– Seventh-Day Adventists +89%
– Church of the Nazarene +66%
– Southern Baptist Convention +37%
– - from Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2002

9. Other New Religious
Movements
1. Contemporary Paganism: Wicca and
Druidism
2. Theosophy
3. Scientology
4. Falun Gong
5. Cao Dai
6. Rastafarianism

10. 1. Contemporary Paganism:
Wicca and Druidism
• Neopaganism
• Gerald B. Gardner, 1954, repeal of
witchcraft laws in England, 1951.
• Starhawk, orders, covens.
• Emphasis on Equinoxes and
Solstices
• Not associated with Satan - often
Diana, Roman Goddess.
• Emphasis on ceremony, healing,
ritual, magic.
• Druidism revival of Celtic religion;
little historical records (Julius
Ceasar’s Gallic War)

11. 2. Theosophy
• “Divine Wisdom”
• Founded by H. P. Blavatsky and
Colonel Henry Steele Olcott in
1870’s - first formal converts to
Buddhism.
• Secret teachings of the “Great
Masters” revealed psychically as
unified truth.
• 1891, Blavatsky dies, Annie
Besant becomes leader,
emphasizes coming of a World
Leader - B. F. Krishnamurti
• K. breaks with Besant in 1930 to
teach about self-discovery.
Center in Ojai, CA.

12. 3. Scientology
• After WW II, L. Ron Hubbard (1911-
1986) recovers from war injuries at
Oak Knoll Naval Hospital and has
his Original Thesis, 1948, Dianatics.
• Thetans, souls, trapped in Matter,
Energy, Space, and Time (MEST)
need help to survive.
• “Auditing” removes “engrams” to
reach a state of “clear.”
• Emphasis on self-improvement,
assisting drug addicts, mentally ill,
curing spiritual troubles.

13. 4. Falun Gong
• “Law-Wheel Energy”, as in
Dharma-Wheel (Buddhism)
and Chi-energy (Taoism).
• Founded by Li Hongzhi (b.
1951) around 1992.
• Li was a qigong practitioner
from China, now living in New
York City.
• Combination of Buddhist,
Taoist, and Confucian self-
cultivation and well-being.
• Banned in China, practitioners
persecuted.
• World-wide movement.

14. 6. Cao Dai • “High Palace” or God
• God revealed himself to Ngo
Van Chieu (1878-1926?)
starting in 1921.
• Spiritualism
• All religions based on
revelation but suffer from
human misunderstanding.
• Belief in God the Father
(Cao Dai), Universal Mother,
heavenly spirits, and souls
of living and dead.
• Combination of Buddhism,
Confucianism, Taoism, and
Catholicism.
• U.S. center is in Riverside,
CA.

15. 7. Rastafarianism
• Anticolonial religion from Jamaica,
1930’s.
• Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) important,
founded Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA).
• 1930, Ras Tafari (1891-1975) crowned
emperor of Ethopia - Haile Selassie
(“Holy Trinity”) - thought to be
descended from Soloman, by some to
be an incarnation of Jesus.
• Jah is God, Bible has hidden meanings
for Africans.
• Ganja as “holy herb”
• Dreadlocks as protest
• Healthy food based on Jewish dietary
rules.
• Several churches and associations
make up this movement.

16. Significance and Future of NRM’s
• NRM’s reflect pluralism and combinationism /
syncretism.
• NRM’s provide unique identity and belongingness.
• NRM’s facilitate the negotiation of individual /
communal ideas.
• Provide religious/spiritual alternatives, choices.
• Provide new important roles for women (often
blocked by traditional religions).
• Provide mystical orientation and methods for
personal growth/transformation.

17. Strategies for Managing
Conflicting Truth Claims
(Porterfield)
1. Neotraditionalist Strategy
2. Modern Strategy
3. Postmodetn Strategy

18. The Future of Religion in America?
• Religion and Identity
• Pluralism and Confusion
• Critical Thinking about Religion
• Religion vs. World View or Meaning-System
• Uniting or Dividing?
• Human Needs Theory?
• Secularization?
• E Pluribus Unum? - but how much Pluribus and still have an
Unum?
• Church and State?
Who decides? - You, Us

19. Summing Up the Present
(Albanese)
• “So American religious reality is a dialectic between the
one and the many” (298).
• “The problem of creating community remains” (299).
• “The numerous forms of religious combination that have
grown up have so far not been strong enough to do away
with fears and conflicts” (299).
• “Americans have not yet fully awakened from their
dream, and a completely American religion has not yet
come to be. People in the New World are still learning to
do something really new” (299).

20. What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognize myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr [Zoroastrian], nor Moslem.
I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature's mint, nor of the circling heavens.
I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.
I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulghar, nor of Saqsin;
I am not of the kingdom of 'Iraqain, nor of the country of Khurasan.
I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell;
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.
My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless;
'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.
I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.
-- Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273):
Poems from the Divan-I Shams-I Tabriz, c. 1270 CE