Children in Minority Faiths - by Susan J Palmer

Book Synopsis

Addresses how to balance freedom of religion and parental rights with the wellbeing of the child

That belief that children are likely to be harmed when they are raised in new or minority religions has led to dramatic and sometimes tragic events, such as the 2008 government raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints in Texas, which resulted in the removal of over 400 children from the community, although no evidence was found of any abuse and the courts eventually demanded that the children be returned.

Children in Minority Faiths showcases original field research and vivid ethnographies of alternative childhoods. It adopts a sociological approach to analyze state responses to alleged abuse and problematic aspects of childrearing in marginal religions. Offering twelve case studies of alternative childhoods and spiritually-based childrearing patterns in minority religions, the volume argues that these groups' minority status has often led to mounting tensions and investigations over alleged child abuse by police and social workers. On one hand, the volume challenges the assumptions that children growing up in sectarian religions are routinely abused or at risk. Yet it also examines cases where children did come to harm, assessing the ideological and structural factors that have fostered child abuse in specific groups.

Children in Minority Faiths examines the delicate balance between the rights of religious parents and their children. Ultimately, the volume considers what appropriate state intervention looks like, and how the state might prevent crimes against children that happen within the setting of new and marginalized religious movements in the future, while at the same time pushing back against anti-cult narratives that claim that new religions are dangerous environments in which to raise children.

Review Quotes

"Children in Minority Faiths is a courageous and necessary volume. It refuses the easy binaries between innocence and indoctrination that have long haunted debates about religion and childhood. Through incisive sociological analysis, the contributors show how minority status itself often becomes the crime, and how state interventions, however well-intentioned, can create tragedies. This needed book insists that we look harder: at the real child abuse that should be analyzed and prevented, at the prejudices that fuel unnecessary raids and removals, and at the fragile balance between parental rights and children's welfare."--Massimo Introvigne, Managing Director, Center for Studies on New Religions

About the Author

Susan J. Palmer is Affiliate Professor at Concordia University. She is the author of Aliens Adored: Rael's UFO Religion, The New Heretics of France, The Nuwaubian Nation: Black Spirituality and State Control, among other books.