Oh, Gods!, by Toby Lester, discusses the profusion of new religious movements - NRMs for short. The five chapters that make up the article would be interesting to anyone who wants to learn about various religions, their histories, or those who research them. Cataloging a variety of prominent movements, the article thoughtfully explores this phenomenon against the history of the beginnings of traditional religions. It also explores reasons for this surge of interest in religion, focusing on one theory ("religious economy") advanced by a student of NRMs. The article speculates about the reasons for the growth of religions when secular culture seems so dominant at this point.
In the beginning of the article, Lester talks about the theories that religion will die out and already should have since science has found non-religious ways for explaining how the world works. Lester tells us that at the time Ernest Renan announced the end of religion, Christian Science, Mormomism, and others were all just coming to life. He then says that religion "mutates with Darwinian restlessness," showing that many of the religions which were once dismissed as fads, sects, or cults have come to be some of the most dominant religions today. For example, Lester tells us that up until the 1940s Pentecostalists were dismissed as "holy rollers", but the World Christian Encyclopedia now estimates that there will be over a billion people involved with the movement by 2050. .
Lester then introduces the concept of scholars that study NRMs. They study how new movements arise, how societies react to them, etc. Lester says that NRM field was responsible for de-fanging the anti-cult movements, and that the FBI now consult NRM specialists to avoid future incident like the Heaven's Gate and Solar Temple suicides. Lester proceeds to give example of several NRMs, such as the Raelians, who believe that humans were actually the result of genetic engineering preformed by an extra-terrestrial species.
