The Politics of Religious Apostasy

Reception

The Social Science Journal refers to the book as a "superb effort to examine in depth the complexity and significance of the apostate role, and to illuminate the processes through which subversive evil is socially constructed. Taken together, the authors contribute a diverse array of theory, data and substantive insights that add to our knowledge of the inner-workings of new religious movements. I recommend this book for classes in organizations, sociology of religion, psychology of religion, group dynamics and related subjects".

The book was reviewed in the American Journal of Sociology, that found this work to be a "remarkably unified collection of high-quality essays by many leading sociologists of new religious movements."

The psychologist Michael Langone (2001) argues that some will accept uncritically the positive reports of current members without calling such reports, for example, "benevolence tales" or "personal growth tales." He asserts that only the critical reports of ex-members are called "tales" — a term he considers to imply falsehood or fiction. According to Langone, it wasn't until Zablocki (1996) that anyone had conducted a study to assess the truthfulness of so-called "atrocity tales."

References

References

1. "The Politics of Religious Apostasy". Greenwood Publishing Group.
2. William Sims Bainbridge, ''The American Journal of Sociology'', Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jul., 1999), pp. 261-262
3. Michael Langone. (2001). "The Two Camps of Cultic Studies: Time for a Dialogue". Cults and Society.
4. [[Benjamin Zablocki]]. (1996-08-17}} Cited in {{cite journal). "Reliability and validity of apostate accounts in the study of religious communities". Presented at the Association for the Sociology of Religion in New York City.