You may be the right one? New religions and the аlternative religious concepts

Abstract

This pa­per di­scu­ses the at­tempts of re­de­fi­ning the ba­sic no­ti­ons and de­ter­mi­ning the study su­bject of the new re­li­gi­ons stu­di­es. The advan­ta­ges and di­sa­dvan­ta­ges of using the term "new re­li­gi­o­us mo­ve­ments" are po­in­ted, and a re­tro­spect is gi­ven on the ba­sic con­cep­tu­a­li­za­ti­ons sup­por­ted by the most in­flu­en­tial aut­hors in the fi­eld of new re­li­gion stu­di­es, but the new ter­mi­no­logy and a new ap­pro­ach to the pro­blem are gi­ven as well. This pa­per pro­mo­tes the use of phra­se "al­ter­na­ti­ve re­li­gi­o­us con­cept" and ar­gu­ments are gi­ven to sup­port the advan­ta­ges of such de­fi­ning of the su­bject we are en­ga­ging in.

Keywords

• alterantive religious concepts
• new religious movements
• terminology aparatus
• defining a notion
• the problem of definition
• religion