Wallis war ein bedeutender Soziologe der Religion, der wesentliche Beiträge zur Soziologie von Religion und sozialen Bewegungen leistete. Seine frühe Arbeit, beeinflusst von Bryan Wilson, untersuchte Scientology und verfeinerte die Typologie von Kirche und Sekte durch die Einbeziehung der Dimension von Denomination und Kult, wobei er sich auf ideologische Legitimität und gesellschaftliche Wahrnehmung konzentrierte. Er kategorisierte neue religiöse Bewegungen weiter als weltbejahend, weltablehnend und weltanpassend. Wallis erforschte auch Theorien über Fraktionalismus, Schisma und Charisma und befasste sich mit den Grenzen zwischen Wissenschaft, Religion und Medizin.
Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, the story follows a group of young boys in the Sussex countryside as they embark on innocent mischief and adventures. This 'pawnography' captures the nostalgia of childhood freedom, highlighting their scrapes and lessons learned through misadventure. The narrative vividly evokes a simpler time, inviting readers to reflect on the joys and trials of growing up.
This book, first published in 1984, examines the whole range of new religious movements which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in the West. It develops a wide-ranging theory of these new religions which explains many of their major characteristics. Some of the movements are well-known, such as Scientology, Krishna Consciousness, and the Unification Church. Others such as the Process, Meher Baba, and 3-HO are much less known. While some became international, others remained local; in other ways, too, such as style, belief, organisation, they exhibit enormous diversity. The movements studied here are classified under three ideal types, world-rejecting, world-affirming and world-accommodating, and from here the author develops a theory of the origins, recruitment base, characteristics, and development patterns which they display. The book offers a critical exploration of the theories of the new religions and analyses the highly contentious issue of whether they reflect the process of secularisation, or whether they are a countervailing trend marking the resurgence of religion in the West.
God has set the stage for our life story to be acted out on and with the gift of a free will, it's up to each of us to decide what role we want to play; wilderness wanderers as the Israelites of ancient times, so close to the Promised Land yet not permitted to enter; or a believer in God's eternal promises fulfilled in Christ. There are only two options. God does have a plan for humanity; he has set forth a calendar, established a timetable; and we all live along that timetable, somewhere from its beginning, to the end of all human rule on Earth. He needs each of us to start again spiritually, to become willing participants in the inward transformation of our disposition, ready for the day to come. Becoming a Christian is easy. Maintaining the claim that Christ lives in you will be the most challenging, life-changing experience. How do we change our inner self to take on Christlikeness? How do we react in times when our faith is put to the test; - times of unknowables, those things sometimes beyond the limits of human experience or understanding? The primary purpose of this book is to introduce the real God, because if we seek a relationship with him, we must think of it in terms of a valuable human relationship. There needs to be a degree of attractiveness; we need to share similar values as God possesses to even begin to flourish and grow.