Firstly, Happy New Year to you all! What better way to kick off the new year than talking to the editors of the The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements, which published yesterday in the UK (and publishes in the US in February).
We caught up with George Chryssides (Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK) and Benjamin E. Zeller (Assistant Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College, Chicago, USA) about their new book and ideal dinner guest....
What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?
Ben: What fascinated me most when I first began studying religion were new religious movements (NRMs), the subject of our book. Why is it that people believe and do things that bring such social stigma and sometimes even persecution? Dismissing adherents of new religions as crazy was too simple and too unsatisfactory—especially after I met many of these people and found them really no different than anyone else. Trying to understand new religions remains one of the core interests of my academic life.
George: Yes, initially an NRM’s beliefs and practices can seem unpromising – even weird, but discussing them with their supporters usually reveals an internal logic. Their supporters are seldom stuck for explanations about problem areas. This highlights the importance of talking to exponents of NRMs – it’s not all in the textbooks, and it soon becomes apparent that they are usually as intelligent and articulate as anyone else.
Ben: On the topic of ordinariness, another research interest of mine is religion and food. Eating is something that everyone does, every day, and nearly every religion has developed rituals, beliefs, and ethics around food and eating. Yet it is very understudied, perhaps because it is so quotidian. Like the study of new religious movements, if you scratch beneath the surface, it is so ordinary!
How would you describe your book in one sentence?
George: The Companion is a guide to current research issues in NRM studies, highlighting the ‘state of the art’ in the early 21st century.
Ben: I’ll add that the Companion features chapters by some of the top researchers in the field, as well as many up-and-coming scholars.
When did you start researching for this book?
George: People often ask when I started writing a book and how long it took. But it’s an unanswerable question. Bloomsbury approached me initially in the summer of 2011, but the book was only possible after I’d spent about 30 years studying various aspects of NRMs, beginning around 1982.
Ben: George asked me to join him to co-edit the book, and to bring a North American perspective. But like him, writing the book has drawn on all my previous experience studying this material, about 15 years in my case.
What’s the meaning behind the title?
George: It’s part of the Bloomsbury (and formerly Continuum) series of guides to academic topics. This one examines issues relating to NRM research. The book isn’t a compendium of NRMs, of which there are several. If you need a compendium, you might try my Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2 ed, Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012).
Ben: By “Companion” we mean that the book is an indispensible research tool, one that scholars and students will want to keep handy and make frequent use.
Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?
George: In the case of the Companion, I enjoyed the collaboration. At one point a designated author failed to deliver, and we jointly wrote the missing chapter, using a shared Dropbox file. Writing 7,000 words collaboratively in such a short time was a bit hair-raising, but we were pleased that we were able to do it!
Ben: I agree, working with my colleague George has been the most rewarding part of the experience. The technology today is amazing, allowing us to collaborate and not only co-edit but also co-write. At one point we joked with our Bloomsbury editor Lalle Pursglove that George and I were so productive because we had a 30-hour day. But it was true, given the time zones!
Any tips for people reading the book?
Ben: I suggest starting with our introduction, then flipping through the table of contents to find a topic about which you know relatively little and want to learn more. Certainly for all of us, even the most focused scholars, there is a lot in this book that is new. I really enjoyed learning from my colleagues as we edited their work. I am much the richer from working on this project, and I suspect our readers will be too!
George: I once did a course on photo-reading (not the same as speed-reading), and one key piece of advice was to define your aims in reading right at the start. Maybe that seems obvious, but students shouldn’t plod their way through the Companion. It covers a range of themes, some of which will be more useful than others, depending on their specific interests.
Where will your research go from here?
George: I’m currently writing Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change, to be published by Ashgate. Surprisingly, there’s a dearth of good academic material on the JWs, or indeed on several of the ‘old new religions’. They got passed over in the 1970s and 1980s, when there was more public interest in ‘Moonies’, Scientologists, Hare Krishnas and the like.
Ben: I’ve become quite intellectually invested in the study of religion and food, so my next research project will likely take me in that direction. But in terms of the studies of NRMs, I may do some more work on transnational new religions, particularly groups like the Hare Krishna movement.
If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?
Ben: Carl Sagan, the late physicist and scientific populariser. He wrote quite a bit about religion and science, which is another area that has always fascinated me. (See the published version of his Gifford Lectures that Ann Druyan edited after his untimely death, The Varieties of Scientific Experience [Penguin Books].) I would want to push him a bit on some of his assumptions, but at the same time admire him for his intellectual curiosity and rigor. He treated science with a religious reverence that has always really interested me.
George: Sorry if it’s an unimaginative answer, but it would have to be Jesus of Nazareth. There’s so much debate about who he was, what he really taught, and how the religion he kick-started should be interpreted. I’d like to hear it from the man (or God?) himself! I hope he speaks good English – I didn’t sign up for Aramaic at college!
Ben: I don’t know, you would lose all the mystery that way!
George: One other person we ought to mention is Professor Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics and INFORM. We’ve both had dinner with her on several occasions, so she’s not on our hypothetical wish list. However, without Eileen NRM studies would not be as it is today, and so we’ve dedicated the book to her. The book will be publicised at the INFORM Anniversary Conference in London in January-February 2014. It is 25 years since Eileen founded INFORM, and we want to pay tribute to her enormous contribution to the field.
Ben: We plan on publically announcing the book and its dedication to her there, so if you have an interest in the academic study of NRMs, please consider attending! More information on the conference can be found here.
Read more about the Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements and how to buy it here:
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-bloomsbury-companion-to-new-religious-movements-9781441190055/
