J. Gordon Melton
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox academic John Gordon Melton (born September 19, 1942) is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and is currently the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas where he resides.<ref name=MeltonDistinguishedProfessor>Baylor University, "J. Gordon Melton, Distinguished Professor of American Religious History Template:Webarchive". Retrieved 12 April 2016</ref> He is also an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church.
Melton is the author of more than forty-five books, including several encyclopedias, handbooks, and scholarly textbooks on American religious history, Methodism, world religions, and new religious movements (NRMs). His areas of research include major religious traditions, American Methodism, new and alternative religions, Western Esotericism (popularly called occultism), and parapsychology, New Age, and Dracula and vampire studies.
Early life
Melton was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Burnum Edgar Melton and Inez Parker. During his senior year in high school, he came across The Small Sects in America by Elmer T. Clark; he became interested in reading as much as possible on alternative religions.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1964, he graduated from Birmingham Southern College with an A.B. degree in geology. After completing his undergraduate education he matriculated into Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to study theology and ancient church history, graduating first in his class with a Master of Divinity in 1968. He completed doctoral studies at Northwestern University with a Ph.D. in He married Dorothea Dudley in 1966, who had one daughter, Melanie. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979. His second wife is named Suzie.<ref name="MeltonDistinguishedProfessor"/>
Main areas of research
In his Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America, Melton distinguished the Christian countercult and the secular anti-cult movements. He articulated the distinction on the grounds that the two movements operate with very different epistemologies motives and methods.<ref name=MeltonEncycCultsAmerica>Template:Cite book He makes a similar distinction in Template:Cite journal</ref> This distinction has been subsequently acknowledged by sociologists such as Douglas E. Cowan and Eileen Barker.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In 1997, Melton, Massimo Introvigne, and Elizabeth Miller organized an event at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles where 1,500 attendees (some dressed as vampires) came for a "creative writing contest, Gothic rock music and theatrical performances."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Aum Shinrikyo investigation
In May 1995, during the investigation into the Tokyo subway sarin attack, the group responsible for the attack, Aum Shinrikyo, contacted an American group known as AWARE (Association of World Academics for Religious Education), founded by American scholar James R. Lewis, claiming that the human rights of its members were being violated.<ref name="Reader2000">Template:Cite journal</ref> Lewis recruited Melton, human rights lawyer Barry Fisher, and chemical expert Thomas Banigan. They flew to Japan, with their travel expenses paid by Aum, and announced that they would investigate and report through press conferences at the end of their trip.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In the press conferences, Fisher and Lewis announced that Aum could not have produced the sarin with which the attacks had been committed. They had determined this with their technical expert, Lewis said, based on photos and documents provided by the group.<ref name="Reid1995">Template:Cite news</ref> British scholar of Japanese religions Ian Reader, in a detailed account of the incident, reported that Melton "had few doubts by the end of his visit to Japan of Aum's complicity" and eventually "concluded that Aum had in fact been involved in the attack and other crimes";<ref name="Reader2000" /> The Washington Post account of the final press conference mentioned Lewis and Fisher but not Melton.<ref name="Reid1995" />
Reader concluded, "The visit was well-intentioned, and the participants were genuinely concerned about possible violations of civil rights in the wake of the extensive police investigations and detentions of followers." However, it was ill-fated and detrimental to the reputation of those involved. While distinguishing between Lewis' and Melton's attitudes, Reader observed that both Japanese media and some fellow scholars also criticized Melton.<ref name="Reader2000"/> Using stronger words, Canadian scholar Stephen A. Kent chastised both Lewis and Melton for having put the reputation of the whole category of scholars of new religious movements at risk.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Criticism
Melton's scholarly works concentrate on the phenomenology and not the theology of NRMs. Some Christian countercultists criticize Melton for not critiquing the groups he reports on from an evangelical perspective, arguing that his failure to do so is incompatible with his statements of professed evangelicalism. Some secular anti-cultists who feel that new religious movements are dangerous and that scholars should actively work against them have likewise criticized him.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Stephen A. Kent and Theresa Krebs, for example, characterized Gordon Melton, James R. Lewis, and Anson D. Shupe as biased towards the groups they study.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Similarly, Perry Bulwer, B.A, LLB. has called Melton's research into The Family International "unreliable" and alleges bias and support for the NRM.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
See also
Publications
Books
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See also
- List of new religious movement and cult researchers
- Sociological classifications of religious movements
References
- 1942 births
- Living people
- 21st-century American historians
- 21st-century American male writers
- American religion academics
- American religious writers
- Birmingham–Southern College alumni
- Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary alumni
- Contributors to the Encyclopædia Britannica
- Writers from Santa Barbara, California
- Researchers of new religious movements and cults
- University of California, Santa Barbara faculty
- Writers from Alabama
- American United Methodist clergy
- World Christianity scholars
- Historians from California
- American male non-fiction writers