Religious diversity and new religious movements in the contemporary society

Abstract

The article is a review of the book Social Identification of New Religious Movements in the Republic of Belarus (Minsk, 2024. 664 p.) by V.A. Martinovich. This book presents a littlestudied aspect of culture - diverse new religious movements (NRM), peculiarities of their attitudes to society and public reactions to their activities. Based on the examples from the history of sociology of religion, the author argues that there is a gap between the typology of religious movements and the analysis of the diverse confessional space, including the empirical testing of its methods: identification of religious organizations with some types of religious movements is often replaced by the study of religiosity in its various dimensions and influences. Martinovich created a specialized archive with more than 600,000 units and developed an information-analytical mechanism for the data description, systematization and analysis - register of religious organizations, which allowed to identify information sources, differentiate them by the developed indicators, taking into account all representatives of the confessional space, and introduce the systematized data about NRM into scientific circulation. Thus, the quantitative indicators of actors in the confessional space and the degree of relevance of the content of NRM became an object of social construction. The study of the social identification of religious organizations shows considerable heuristic potential, making a substantial contribution to the conceptual apparatus of public discourse regarding NRM - their development and transformation, stigmatization, and moral and ethical problems associated with their activities.

Keywords

• v.a. martinovich
• religious diversity
• new religious movements
• social identification
• communication
• public reaction