In terms of public opinion, new religious movements are considered controversial for a variety of reasons. Their social organization often runs counter to popular expectations by experimenting with communal living, alternative leadership roles, unusual economic dispositions, and new political and ethical values. As a result the general public views new religions with a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and anxiety, sustained by lavish media emphasis on oddness and tragedy rather than familiarity and lived experience.

This updated and revised second edition of Controversial New...

A major, perhaps the major, focus of early research on New Religious Movements (NRMs) was on the people who joined. Most of the field's pioneer researchers were sociologists. However, the profile of NRM members had changed substantially by the twenty-first century -- changes largely missed because the great majority of current NRM specialists are not quantitatively oriented. Sects and Stats aims to overturn the conventional wisdom by drawing on current quantitative data from two sources: questionnaire research on select NRMs and relevant national census data collected by Anglophone countries....

A major, perhaps the major, focus of early research on New Religious Movements (NRMs) was on the people who joined. Most of the field's pioneer researchers were sociologists. However, the profile of NRM members had changed substantially by the twenty-first century -- changes largely missed because the great majority of current NRM specialists are not quantitatively oriented. Sects and Stats aims to overturn the conventional wisdom by drawing on current quantitative data from two sources: questionnaire research on select NRMs and relevant national census data collected by Anglophone countries....