Violence, Conspiracies, and New Religious Movements: A Tribute to James R. Lewis

This volume, dedicated to the late James R. Lewis, covers a range of topics relating to religious violence, conspiracies, and new religions. Lewis was a prodigious scholar, being the author or editor of 50 books and author or co-author of 128 articles and reference book entries, as well as the founder of several journals. The variety of essays in this volume attests to his expansive interests.

On violence, Mark Juergensmeyer explains his ＂epistemic worldview analysis＂ in interviewing those accused of acts of religious terrorism; Michael Barkun describes transnational conspiracy theories such as the Sovereign Citizens Movement and QAnon; David Bromley highlights the ＂lost cause movement＂ which built up confederate identity for Southerners long after the Civil War; Mattias Gardell explores the link between bibliocaust and holocaust from 1499 Granada through the National Socialists of WWII to the Qur’an burnings of Rasmus Paladan in contemporary Sweden. On NRMs, Rebecca Moore critiques the reputed pathology of the leader in ＂suicide cults,＂ the problem with ＂monolithic inferences＂ in examining members’ willingness to die, and the elusiveness of comparative new religions to rigid stereotyping; Catherine Wessinger investigates the extraordinary charisma of David Koresh of the Branch Davidians at Waco, 76 of whom died in the 1993 conflagration with U.S. agents. On media and the law, Carole Cusack traces arguments about religious dress codes in liberal versus illiberal societies; Stefano Bigliardi and his students point out the misleading portrayal of religious sects in films; Zang Xinzhang clarifies the Chinese concept of Xie Jiao in application to Falun Gong. Margo Kitts summarizes the stellar contributions in the introduction.