RELIGIOUS EXAMINATION OF NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS: MAIN ANGLE

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of religious scholarly examination of new religious movements. Unfortunately, the topic of religious scholarly examination has not found theoretical understanding, and to this day remains beyond the scope of scientific research. The first attempt to comprehend the problems here is the monograph by Yu.V. Tikhonravov «Judicial Religion», published in 1998, where for the first time methodological questions were set concerning the possibility of «using special religious knowledge for procedural purposes». He drew attention to the controversy of the possible application of this procedure in the legal field, highlighting the ethical and ideological, methodical and methodological, organizational and legal issues of religious scholar examination. However, the need for more in-depth study of data issues forced the researchers to seek a methodological form that could adequately reflect the problem of the realization of religious scholarship expertise.

Not enough investigation of such important issues as nature, features and functions of religious examination, conditions and special methods of its realization, the subject and the object of expertise, the status of an expert and ethical problems during the religious scholarly expertise, limits of using special knowledge force to address to the need for methodological analysis of this concept. In addition, the penetration of legal terminology and procedures into religious studies raised the question of the admissibility of a formal transfer, which may lead to incorrect assumptions and distortions in the perception of religions themselves. In general, if we take a look at the religious scholarly examination, we may notice that the methodology of this procedure is a general scientific task of defining, classifying and evaluating any subject of the study. And the problem itself arises when the law, penetrating ino the field of religious studies, attempts to formalize religion and to erode its content and involuntarily destroys its understanding.

It is also possible to notice that this present-day problem is connected with the concept of «secular state», because the expertise in religious affairs in history, as the Inquisition in the Catholic Church or the spiritual examination on the basis of sectology in the Russian Orthodox Church, occurs at a time when modifications of the models of relations between the church and the state are taking place. By the way, the bursts of the emergence of the NRF in one or another state are connected with the changes in the legislative sphere in religion. To sum up, one can safely assert that, on the one hand, the essence of the NRF is covered in matters of relations between the church and the state. On the other hand, the necessity for the examination of NRP arises when this dichotomous system is joined by different dictatorial systems, which are trying to eliminate this contradiction. Therefore, the problem of examination of NRF can be considered from three perspectives.