Utilising contemporary scholarship on secularisation, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the Sub-Genius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the Sub-Genius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.

Author: Cusack, Carole M.
Publisher: Ashgate Gower
Illustration: N
Language: ENG
Title: Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith
Pages: 00188 (Encrypted PDF)
On Sale: 2010-09-01
SKU-13/ISBN: 9780754667803
Lib Category: Cults - History - 20th century
Lib Category: Religion and sociology - History -
Category: Social Science : Sociology of Religion