Why are a number of New Religious Movements characterized by extremism and violence?

The phenomenon of violent New Religious Movements (NRMs) is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, what exactly qualifies as an NRM? For simplicity’s sake, I will here adopt Barker’s comparatively broad definition: “an NRM is new in so far as it has become visible in its present form since the Second World War… it is religious in so far as it offers answers to… [the] ultimate questions that have traditionally been addressed by mainstream religions” (Baker 1999: 16). Second, as Hall and Robbins note (2007: 247), violent NRMs, while high-profile, are rare. Their small number makes it difficult to safely generalise common causes of their violence. Finally, the variation and sheer extent of the catalogue of NRMs defy any comfortable typology. In most cases, the differences between NRMs far outweigh their similarities, again making useful and informative generalisations difficult to make (Barker 1999: 20; Hall et. al 2000: 185). In light of these problems, this essay will restrict itself to tentatively offering some reasons why a particular group of NRMs, known as millennial groups, have become violent or extremist towards themselves and/or others.
Why millennial groups? A large body of scholarship affirms that ‘millennialism’ is often an important pre-requisite for NRM violence (see typically Hall and Robbins 2007: 251). According to Wessinger (2003: 94), “millennialism is belief that an imminent transition to a collective salvation that will be either heavenly or earthly.” This can take two forms. “Progressive millennialism” often embodies a dialectical epistemology (although it can be epistemologically dualistic) in which salvation will be achieved through a more-or-less elongated process where good (the new, NRM order) and evil (the old world order) ultimately resolve each other in a progression guided by a perceived superhuman agent. Conversely, “catastrophic millennialism,” or “apocalypticism,” represents a more dualistic epistemology in which good (the new NRM order) and bad (the old order) are seen as oppositional forces (Anthony and Robbins 1978). Here, salvation will come when good vanquishes evil and the old order is destroyed. In both cases, the achievement of the new order represents the group’s ultimate concern. Not only can these views lead the group towards violence, but as sociologists studying this issue point out such views can also result in millennialists existing in a high degree of tension with mainstream society (Melton 1999). As we shall see, this tension can also be a large factor in violent episodes.
Let us look at the two types of millennialist, considering first the catastrophic millennialists. Typically, these are divided into two groups (Wessinger 2003: 94). First, there are those known as “revolutionary millennial groups” who seek proactively to destroy the perceived evil order around them in order to achieve their ultimate concern. This level of ideational tension with mainstream society would seem inevitably to lead to violence. For example, the Montana Freeman are Identity Christians, meaning in brief that they adhere to a belief that America should be populated only be White Christians, and that other faiths and denominations are inferior and/or spawned by Satan (Wessinger 2003: 103; Quarles 2004: 138). In their quest to provoke what they term “the second American revolution” – a single event which they believe will achieve their goals – in 1996 they were involved in an 81 day armed stand-off in Montana with over 600 FBI agents. While no deaths ensued, the potential for violence is clear; however, one distinct feature of the violence perpetrated by this type of revolutionary group is that it is directed entirely against those outside of the group.
Second, there are those who wait patiently for divine intervention to bring about catastrophic change. As these groups do not actively seek to bring about their ultimate concern, they would seem to present less of a threat of violence than the revolutionary groups. The Children of God (also known as the Family, and the Family International) believe that the world is currently in the biblical period known as the “end of days” or the “time of the end” and are awaiting the second coming of Jesus Christ as foretold in Revelations (The Family 2007). However, since their founding in 1968, and despite the tension in which they exist with mainstream society having precipitated organised attacks from anti-cultists, this group has remained non-violent (Bainbridge 1997: 208-240).
In contrast to the apparent placidness of The Family, however, some catastrophic millennial groups who await divine intervention are led by their own specific theology to be more volatile. Consequently, when these groups are assaulted, they are more likely to resist and fight back. The Branch Davidians espoused a specific theology predicting that during the impending catastrophic change the external evil old order would mount an attack against the faithful; consequently, they were prompted to stockpile weapons in anticipation of the battle (Wessinger 2003: 171). Taken on its own this would appear insufficient to result in violence; however, when combined with the high level of tension that existed between the group and the outside world, and the Branch Davidians own theology, the results became infamous. It is this arguably this theological aspect that led the Branch Davidians to violence while the Family, faced with a comparable situation, did not turn violent. In brief, the suspicion in which the group was held by local mainstream society resulted in the issue of an arrest warrant for the Branch Davidian leader, David Koresh, on the debatable grounds of child abuse and paedophilia (Wessinger 2003: 171). The FBI’s attempt to serve this warrant resulted in a gun-fight in which nine individuals were killed. There ensued a 51-day stand-off in which the group’s compound was surrounded by tanks and high-power light beams were shone nightly into the compound, accompanied by loud music. The Branch Davidians came to interpret these events through the prism of their own theology, concluding they were in the “the Fifth Seal” as predicted in the book of Revelations, during which time Satanic agents would attack and kill the godly. Ultimately the FBI, viewing negotiations as stalled, stormed the compound using tanks and tear-gas. This provoked a fire in which seventy-six of the Branch Davidians died, possibly in the fire or possibly as part of a mass murder-suicide, thus fulfilling their prophecy. Consequently, here we have an example of violence directed against both those outside and those inside the group.
While the Branch Davidians were pushed to violence in large part due to external pressures, there are also some well-known cases of catastrophic millennialists awaiting divine intervention ultimately resorting to violence without any imminent outside threat. What are their reasons for doing this? Robert Baird (1971: 18) suggests it is due to their fragility, resulting from a dire threat to their ultimate concern, likely through the undermining of that religious group’s beliefs or through obstructing the realisation of their new order. This appears born out by a number of examples, not least the Heaven’s Gate group. This group believed that their chosen life-style was changing their bodies from human into immortal extra-terrestrial beings in preparation for alien ships to come and transport them away from Earth. This belief was shaken when one of the group’s leaders died of cancer. Serving a psychological need to avoid surrendering their dearly held beliefs, the group’s doctrine evolved in order to incorporate and understand this event within their theology, leading them to the view that they needed to “exit” their human bodies as their leader had in order to join him on the immortal plane (Wessinger 2003: 180). In March 1997, 39 members of the group were discovered dead in California having committed suicide.
What about the progressive millennialists? Progressive millennialists are necessarily more generally proactive than catastrophic millennialists as they actively work to bring about their new millennial kingdom (Landes 2000: 308). The violence of the process through which they create their new orders appears largely contingent on the epistemological viewpoint they espouse. If they take a dialectical point of view, then they may be less likely to invoke violence than if they promulgate a dualistic point of view.
The Unification Church is a good example of a NRM whose theology operates dialectically and thus minimises the potential for violence and extremism. Unificationists believe their leader, Reverend Moon, to be the third incarnation of biblical Adam (following the first Adam in Genesis, and the second Adam, believed to have been Jesus Christ). In brief, the third Adam, together with his Eve, must fulfil the duty of becoming “True parents to the world, uniting all nations into one, extended family that will live on earth in peace, harmony and love” (Bainbridge 1997: 202). This has been achieved symbolically in stages through waves of ever increasing mass marriages between couples representing a number of nations who go on to start families (Bainbridge 1997: 203-5). As in previous examples, the Unification Church has been subjected to attack both from State and anti-cult organisations (Bromley and Shupe 1979; Bromley Shupe 1980); nonetheless the organisation has shown no inclination to respond with violence.
In contrast, progressive millennialists with a dualistic world outlook have shown themselves well-prepared to employ violence and extremism to create their kingdom. Arguably the best known group conforming to this type is Al-Qaeda. While Al-Qaeda is a looser association than many of the other groups we have looked at, Wessinger (2003: 185) highlights how Al-Qaeda can be viewed as a NRM due to its novel interpretation of Islamic religious sources, which is often at odds with traditional interpretations. Furthermore, these interpretations are employed dualistically to justify the use of violence in trying to bring about collective salvation through the creation of an Islamic khilafa – a kingdom uniting all Muslim lands and populations together under Sharia law. This dualistic approach results in the absolute division of good and evil, and with this absolute division, any obstruction to the khilafa falls into the category of evil. When coupled with the theological notions of jihad (holy war), and of the paradisiacal afterlife, we have an apparent justification for the use of violence by the good to destroy any obstacle to the creation of about the khilafa, even going to the length of killing themselves in doing so. Consequently, both Western nations (whose interventions in Muslim affairs obstruct the creation of the khilafa) and Muslim nations who do not share Al-Qaeda’s extreme religious interpretations have been targeted by the network in suicide and non-suicide attacks.
Following much of the literature on this subject, we have focussed our investigation into violent NRMs on millennial groups of various persuasions. We have looked at a number of very different groups, both violent and non-violent, in our attempt to ascertain some reasons that can provoke them to harm themselves and/or others. We looked first at catastrophic millennial groups, and concluded that catastrophic revolutionary millennial groups such as the Montana Freeman espouse a logic that might very easily push them towards violence against mainstream society. In the cases of The Family and the Branch Davidians, we looked at two catastrophic millennial groups subjected to aggression from mainstream society, but who reacted very differently. Here, we suggested that the violence of the later was perhaps due to the aggression they suffered resonating with a part of their doctrine predicting their own persecution and death; in this case, we see a sociological problem by chance reacting with a group’s theological precept to produce a violent result. In contrast, we saw how a different catastrophic millennial group in a context free from external aggression, Heaven’s Gate, were pushed to employ violence and kill themselves as their beliefs were forced to react to events apparently undermining their theology. We then looked at two progressive millennial groups. Here we noted first that the Unification Church has not exhibited violent tendencies and suggested this might be due to their dialectic epistemology, which does not lend itself to conflict. In contrast, another progressive millennial group, Al-Qaeda is extremely violent, and it was suggested this might be due to their dualistic epistemology, which is more oppositional and so more likely to seek to achieve its aims through conflict.