Issue № 70. October 2018

The Term "Non-Traditional Religions" in the Socio-Political Discourse of the 1990s–2010s

Postgraduate student, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, the Russian Federation.
E-mail: vosipova17@mail.ru

The article is devoted to the analysis of the terminological apparatus used to characterize non-traditional religions in scientific and socio-political discourse in the 1990s–2010s. The author considers the prerequisites for the emergence and causes of non-traditional religions spread in Russia during the study period. It is noted that a universal, generally accepted, neutral terminology in relation to non-traditional religions in the context of the new legal regulation of the state sphere and religious policy has not been developed despite various attempts, on the one hand, to use the existing terminology in previous periods, on the other — to formulate new concepts. To a large extent, this was due to the adjustment of the state's confessional policy in the 1990s.

Keywords

Non-traditional religions, totalitarian sects, destructive cults, new religious movements, freedom of conscience, state-confessional relations.