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Catherine Wessinger New York, Seven Bridges Press, 2000 305 pages, index, paper, $22.95
How the Millennium Comes Violently is a book which I greatly welcome because it advances the discussion about New Religious Movements (NRMs) in modern society and why a number of them from Jonestown to Heaven's Gate have led to violence or suicide. Wessinger, Chair of Religious Studies at Loyola University in New Orleans, understands that people join new religious movements for religious reasons, and she engaged in this study to try to understand why some of them lead to violent ends.
She focused her study on seven groups, the Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, Aum Shinriko, the Montana Freemen, Solar Temple, Heaven's Gate, and Chen Tao. All of these groups had "millennial" expectations. By millennial, she is not referring to the belief of all the groups that there would be a cataclysm in the year 2000, but that they had expectations that the old sinful world would somehow be replaced by a new, better, or perfect world.
The desire for a better world is not new It is a goal of all religions, ancient and modern. Some seek gradual improvement and others foresee a cataclysm brought about by supernatural forces. Some see salvation for all, while others believe the new world will start from a faithful remnant while the rest of the world will be destroyed. In modern society, idealists who are frustrated with the establishment often join forces with the downtrodden who see no hope for themselves within the established social system.
While Wessinger does not thoroughly discuss the...