The Survival of New Religious Movements | Timothy Miller, ed., When Prophets Die: The Post Charismatic Fate of New Religious Movements

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The unifying thesis of the twelve essays contained in When Prophets Die: The Post Charismatic Fate of New Religious Movements is that most new religious movements, though heavily dependent on a single dominant personality, usually survive the leader’s death. As J. Gordon Melton points out in his introduction, “When a new religion dies, it usually has nothing to do with the demise of the founder; it is from lack of response of the public to the founder’s ideas or the incompetence of the founder in organizing the followers into a strong group. Most new religions will die in the first decade, if they are going to die” (p. 9). 

The book’s editor, Timothy Miller, admits that this is not a comprehensive study of the fate of new religious movements after the death of their founders, but it does examine a number of examples with a range of responses. These examples range from communal movements (Shakers, the Amana Society, and Hutterites), to nineteenth-century American religions (Latter-day Saints, Chris tian Science, and the Theosophical Society), to movements of the twentieth century (Krishna Consciousness, Siddha Yoga, Unification Church, Rastafari, and Spirit Fruit). Miller even includes a chapter on American Indian prophets. 

All of these movements are “new religious movements, ” the term now employed by social scientists who study religious movements. As Eileen Barker notes in her book New Religious Movements (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1989), “Many scholars working in the field prefer the term ‘new religious movements’ to ‘cult’ because, although ‘cult’ (like ‘sect’) is sometimes used in a purely technical sense, it has acquired negative connotations in every day parlance.” In other words, the new religious movements discussed are movements which many social scientists have traditionally considered to be out of the mainstream of traditional Christianity. Indeed, many of the movements are not “new” at all. For example, the Hutterites go back 450 years, and the group from which the founders of the Amana Society of Amana, Iowa, are descended originated in 1714. Nevertheless, the term “new religious movement” is certainly less pejorative than “cult” or “sect,” the traditional sectarian terms. 

The authors of the book’s essays demonstrate that none of the new religious movements discussed, with the exception of the Spirit Fruit Society, self-destructed after the death of their founders. Nevertheless, the groups enjoyed varying degrees of success. For example, of the movements discussed, the Latter-day Saints have enjoyed the greatest growth in membership. Without taking into account the various splinter groups, which Melton claims are now in excess of fifty, there are now more than 7.7 million Latter-day Saints worldwide. According to a 15 September 1991 New York Times article, this means that there are “now more Mormons than members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) or the Episcopal Church, two pillars of the religious establishment.” In other words, a “new religious movement” now outnumbers other “mainstream Christian churches,” at least in the United States. This same article points out that only one other religion challenges Mormonism for new con verts: the Jehovah Witnesses, another nineteenth-century American religion. 

Most new religious movements have not been so successful in attracting new members. Statistics cited in the third edition of J. Gordon Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religion published in 1989 demonstrate that the Hutterites have approximately 353 communities, the Shakers have only seven members, the Amana Society 1,141, the Theosophical Society approximately 34,000, the Rastafari of Jamaica between 3,000 and 5,000, the Krishna Consciousness approximately 8,000, and the Unification Church and Christian Science in the hundreds of thousands. Thus, while the essays demonstrate that the movements studied have not died with their founders, such survival is no guarantee that the religions have grown and prospered. 

Of particular interest to readers of DIALOGUE is Steven L. Shields’s essay, “The Latter-day Saint Movement: A Study in Survival.” Shields has written several books about religions in the Mor mon family, the most comprehensive being Divergent Paths of the Restoration (Los Angeles, Calif.: Restoration Research, 1990). Though this essay does not break any new ground in historic research, it does survey the early history of Joseph Smith, the succession in the presidency, and the various religious groups which arose following his death, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Strangites, the Cutlerites, the Bickertonites, and the Hedrickites. 

At times, Shields’ terminology seems more appropriate for a lawyer’s brief. For example, when discussing the succession claims of Brigham Young and the Quo rum of the Twelve, he refers to their “alleged designation” by Joseph Smith (p. 61), the “alleged” conferring of the keys of the kingdom to the Quorum of the Twelve (p. 61); when discussing the practice of polygamy, he refers to the “alleged participants” in that practice (p. 64). He uses no such terminology when he discusses Joseph Smith Ill’s designation as successor: “Joseph Smith, III had been designated as his father’s successor on at least four different occasions” (p. 61). 

In addition, he does not discuss the current condition of the various church organizations which originated after Smith’s death. Recent membership statistics indicate that there are fewer than two hundred Strangites, forty Cutlerites, and three thousand Bickertonites and Hedrickites. Thus, while it is certainly true that many churches claim their authority through Joseph Smith, no more than two have any significant following. 

Although this book provides limited examples of what happens after “prophets die” and makes little effort to distinguish between survival and growth, it is a valuable survey of those religious movements studied. Certainly, for readers of DIALOGUE, it is helpful to remember the parallels between Mormon history and the histories of other religious movements organized by charismatic leaders in the last four hundred years. 

When Prophets Die: The Post Charismatic Fate of New Religious Movements edited by Timothy Miller (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 241 pp., $14.95.