New Religions Studies
New religions studies is the interdisciplinary study of new religious movements (so called cults) that emerged as a discipline in the 1970s. The term was coined by J. Gordon Melton in a 1999 paper presented at CESNUR conference in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. David G. Bromley used its perspectives for a piece in Nova Religio and later as an Editor of "Teaching New Religious Movements" in The American Academy of Religion's "Teaching Religious Studies Series;" the term has been used by James R. Lewis, Jean-François Mayer. The study draws from the disciplines of anthropology, psychiatry, history, psychology, sociology, religious studies, and theology.
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