ST Journal

Sacred Tribes Journal
for the academic study of new religious movements

Purpose of Sacred Tribes

The purpose of this international online journal is to explore the study of religion, including new religious movements, world religions, and popular spiritualities and "religion-like" self-identities, in a scholarly and multidisciplinary fashion. In order to accomplish this task, this journal draws together the combined insights of sociologists, anthropologists, religious studies scholars, theologians, as well as missiologists, and those from other disciplines from around the world.

One other feature is that from time to time special editions of this journal will be dedicated to engagement with those from a variety of religious and spiritual pathways. These editions will practice and demonstrate a dialogical approach to examining key topics in religion in our time.

Why the title, Sacred Tribes Journal? We very consciously wish to place our discussion of respective beliefs with others on a footing that from the outset signals our willingness to treat them as human beings made in God's image. We, as evangelical Christians, belong to sets and sub-sets of people groups defined via specific religious beliefs, practice, and social paradigms. Likewise, a Zen Buddhist belongs to sets and sub-sets of groups rooted in specific religious paradigms. By using the term "tribe" to describe such groupings, whether Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, or agnostic (to name a few), we hope to make clear our aim: dialogue and exchanges of information, yes, but even more, exchanges of our respective visions of the sacred that mean so much to each of us. As evangelicals, we do indeed have a specific mission in mind. When appropriate in this forum, we wish to communicate Christian discipleship to those of other Sacred Tribes. Yet as we do so, we hope that our presentation can be seasoned with wisdom and humility. And we believe that the first part of humility is to truly listen, to deeply study those we say we want dialogue with. Thus, Sacred Tribes Journal.