New Religions include those religious groups that operate outside of the dominant religious consensus of their host culture, in this case the Christian West, and Christian groups that deviate theologically or behaviorally from mainline Christianity and actively proselytize. Some 700 such groups currently operate in North America. The Christian community has generally dismissed them as “cults,” and response has been amateurish and inadequate. New Religions are serious religious phenomena destined to be part of the religious landscape for the foreseeable future. Best viewed as the growing edge of the older religious traditions, they are deserving of serious missiological attention.
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