The Encyclopedia of American Religions

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The Encyclopedia of American Religions
200.973 M528e (2002 edition is at KCLS, among
other libraries NUC code WaSKC)
The seventh edition, 2002 (HCC has the first,
1978)
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Citation (for the first edition)

• Main Author Melton, J. Gordon.
• Title The encyclopedia of
  American religions / J. Gordon Melton.
• Publisher Wilmington, N.C. McGrath Pub.
  Co., c1978.
• Subjects Sects--United States.
  Cults--United States.
• Call Number 200.973 M528e

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Arrangement (first edition)

• The 1978 (first) edition is in 2 volumes, each
  with its own table of contents, references, and
  index. Volumes are paginated separately.
• The first volume contains an introduction and
  acknowledgements.
• The first volume includes most of the Christian
  religious families. The second includes other
  religions, some of which the author sees as
  hidden religions and out of the mainstream
  spiritualists, Buddhists, Sufis, witches
• The text of Bibliographical Notesnotes on
  referencesis the same in both volumes. It
  identifies main sources abbreviated in notes and
  lists other main reference sources, including
  Census data and files at the authors Institute
  for the Study of American Religions.
• Entries are arranged within main church
  families, each family in a separate chapter.
  Entries contain information on beliefs history,
  including points of difference with other groups
  practices where located in the country.
• For addresses of churches, the reader is referred
  to another work by Melton.

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Contents pages, v. 1 (1st ed.)
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Contents pages, v. 2 (1st ed.)
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Arrangement (seventh edition)
This edition includes one section in columns,
with a format like that of the Encyclopedia of
Associations. This entry is under the
Pentecostal Familylonger entries include
sections on history, beliefs, and organization.
The author notes groups different
interpretations of history leading to schism. A
second section provides longer historical essays.
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Indexing (first edition)

• Separate index for each volume
• Indexed people, places, churches, other
  religious organizations, publications, a very few
  issues (including birth control). No indication
  of main entries. Publication names are
  italicized.
• No index or table of contents covering both
  volumesthe user may need to check each index or
  table of contents to find a particular group or
  person or a family of religions.

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References

• Endnotes are numbered separately for each
  chapter.
• Usually, the first note for a chapter on a
  religious family gives main references on its
  heritage, thought world, and lifestyle.
• Notes are hard to usetheyre arranged by chapter
  number, with no running caption indicating which
  chapter they pertain to. Main text includes
  caption referring to religious family name but
  not chapter number.

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Sample entry Kennedy Worshippers
Nothing to orient the reader in the running head.
Table of contents and index likewise just headed
TABLE OF CONTENTS and INDEX.
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References for the Kennedy Worshippers
In the new editions, publications issued by each
group are identified in its listing.
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Scope (1st edition)

• Includes 1200 primary religious bodies in 17
  families, each with a common heritage, thought
  world (theology in its broadest sense), and
  lifestyle.
• Criteria for inclusion First, a church seeks
  the chief religious loyalty of its members.
  Second, it meets requirements of size. If it is
  organized into congregations, it has at least two
  congregations, or it has one congregation of more
  than 2,000 members who make a measurable impact
  on the country through the mass media. If a
  church is not organized into congregations, it
  meets the size requirement when its members come
  from more than one state and from beyond a single
  metropolitan area. The third criterion concerns
  faith a primary religious body tends to promote
  its particular views. For instance, it may
  encourage belief or disbelief in the Trinity. Or
  it may try to discourage the wearing of neckties
  some holiness churches consider wearing neckties
  ostentatious.
• These criteria are meant to supplant the older
  church/sect/cult division drawn from earlier
  European sociological research. The author also
  sees these criteria as more useful than any
  division by ethnicity or leadership type.
• American Indian and American gypsy religions are
  not includedthe author is not familiar with
  them, says that researchers have scarcely begun
  a thorough examination.

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The 17 families

• The Liturgical Family, in two chapters (Western,
  including Catholics and Anglicans, and Eastern,
  including all Eastern Orthodox churches
• The Lutheran family
• The Reformed-Presbyterian Family, including
  Congregational churches
• The Liberal Family, including Unitarians and
  American Atheists, Inc.
• The Pietist-Methodist Family
• The Holiness Family, including some separate
  black and white denominations
• The Pentecostal Family, including snake handlers
  and a section of Latin American churches
• The European Free-Church Family, including
  Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers
• The Baptist Family, many kinds, including
  anti-mission Baptists
• The Independent Fundamentalist Family, including
  Church of God
• The Adventist Family, including Jehovahs
  Witnesses

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The 17 (continued)

• The Latter Day Saints Family, including
  polygamy-practicing groups
• The Communal Family communes formed before and
  after 1960
• The Metaphysical Family, including Christian
  Scientist groups
• The Psychic and New Age Family (in two chapters),
  including spiritualist groups, Rosicrucians,
  drug-oriented groups, flying saucer groups,
  Theosophists, Liberal Catholicism, Scientology
• The Magick Family Ritual Magick groups,
  Witchcraft, Neo-Paganism
• The Eastern and Middle Eastern Family (in three
  chapters) Jews and Muslims Hinduism, Sikhism,
  and Jainism Buddhism, Shintoism, and
  Zoroastrianism
• Also, New Unaffiliated Religious Bodies
  Jesus people, gay religion, mail-order
  denominations, politically-oriented bodies,
  Hawaiian family churches

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Currency

• Highlines 1978 copy is the first editionthe
  seventh edition was published in 2003.
• The first edition covered 1200 primary religious
  bodies. The seventh covers 2300.
• The first edition has no information on anything
  later, of courseon the Branch Davidians, on
  later televangelists, on subsequent history of
  any of the included religions.
• In his introduction, the author stresses both the
  up-to-the-minute coverage of the first edition
  and its fleeting currency With few exceptions,
  if a church existed in the United States in 1976,
  it is discussed in the Encyclopedia. In addition,
  many churches formed in 1977 and in 1978 were
  added during the final editing. To paint a
  picture of Americas religious bodies in 1978 is
  not to describe them as they will be in 1988.
• The 2002 edition includes about 250 groups not
  listed in the 1999 version, 2630 total..
• The reference work is current, but our edition
  isnt.

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Intended Purpose and Additional Purposes

• The author doesnt state a purpose beyond
  tracing the stories of the 17 religious
  families.
• A main purpose it can aid historians and
  sociologists of religion.
• The encyclopedia also works well as a
  ready-reference source on religions (the first
  edition best on Christian groups).
• Good for students, relatives of members, people
  interested in local history or news. Maybe also
  for deprogrammers.

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Other formats

• Available as a database through Gale's Ready
  Reference Shelf.
• Available as an eBook through Gale Virtual
  Reference Library.

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Special features

• In the 2002 edition, addresses of groups,
  membership numbers, and publications included in
  entries
• In the first edition, an essay on each family
  at the beginning of the relevant chapter in the
  2002 edition, historical essays
• Detailed endnotes
• Detailed index

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Authority

• J. Gordon Melton is an ordained Methodist
  minister, with a doctorate from Garrett
  Theological Seminary. Since 1969, he has been
  director of the Institute for the Study of
  American Religion. http//www.americanreligion.org
  /index.html
• He is a religious studies professor at the
  University of California, Santa Barbara (2003).
  

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Reviews (1)

• Gordon Melton has been involved in editing this
  standard reference work for over a quarter of a
  century. The encyclopedia provides historical
  perspective and current information on over 2,600
  religious and spiritual groups in North America.
  For this new edition, old entries have been
  revised and more than 250 new entries have been
  added. Theology Digest (Spring 2003), on
  the seventh edition

The Christian Century (March 1, 1989), on the
third edition
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Reviews (2)

• This edition, like past ones, includes both
  historical and current information on extant and
  defunct religious and spiritual groups in the
  United States and Canada. The author's criteria
  for inclusion are clear, and the entire volume is
  executed with precision. Delightful to use,
  this work is a necessary purchase for public,
  academic, and theological libraries. ARBA Guide
  to Subject Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, on the
  5th edition

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A review by a covered group

• What The Encyclopedia of American Religions
  Reveals
• Editor's Note The Institute for the Study of
  American Religion in Santa Barbara, California,
  publishes the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN RELIGIONS.
  In the fourth edition, there was printed the
  following forthright article on FATHER DIVINE'S
  Peace Mission Movement. It is reproduced here
  verbatim, except for the correction of a few
  minor mistakes---corrections which will appear in
  the fifth edition, soon to be published. In
  contrast to what some sources have printed, this
  article presents an accurate, though brief,
  picture of the Peace Mission Movement. We are
  grateful for the intelligent manner in which the
  Movement is portrayed in certain articles.
  http//fdipmm.libertynet.org/cvlrigts/cyclopda.htm
  l

Picture also from the International Peace Mission
Movement website
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A negative view Melton as cult apologist
http//www.apologeticsindex.org/m06.html
In a 1992 trial involving JZ Knight, who claims
to channel a 35,000 spirit, Ramtha the
Enlightened One, Melton testified that the Ramtha
movement wasnt a cult. He also believes that
Knight is a multiple personality.
http//seattlepi.nwsource.com/archives/1995/950726
0006.asp
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My impression

• Im impressed by the breadth of coverage,
  detail, and respectful impartiality.
• The first edition is lacking in coverage of
  major non-Christian religions.

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Reference uses

• What exactly do the Kennedy Worshippers believe?
• What are the differences between the Amish and
  Mennonites?
• Why do people handle snakes?
• What kinds of groups have come out of X
  traditional church?

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Web results

• What do the Kennedy Worshippers believe?
• The 4 pages of Google results for Kennedy
  worshippers include links to Melton and the
  encyclopedia and links to stuff on worshippers in
  the sense of Kennedy-lovers, without any
  religious sense.
• A search on John F. Kennedy Memorial Temple
  or its founder, Farley McGivern, leads to a
  single page dedicated to the view that JFK is the
  Antichrist One of the most difficult tasks in
  persuading Christians that John F. Kennedy is the
  Antichrist is in convincing them that he is
  alive.
• What are the differences between the Amish and
  Mennonites?
• Search on Amish Mennonites differences? some
  good info, but mostly not in detail. Information
  on the Mennonite-Amish break easier to find than
  current lifestyle and belief differences not
  much detail on specific groups.