Нови религиозни движения: проблемът за семейството в обединителната църква.
New Religious Movements: The Problem of the Family in the Unification Church

Summary/Abstract: The article is the first attempt to give a sociological construction of reality of the new religious movements (NRMs) in Bulgaria stressing on the problem of the family in the Unification church (the Moonies). Problems with the family are a major sphere of social conflicts connected to the NRMs. The Unification church is one of the well studied NRMs among Western researchers and one of the movements in conflict with the greater society in Bulgaria. Who can attract the youth? The answer to this question is a possible argument explaining the spread of the NRMs. Nowadays, the NRMs are badly treated by the media in Bulgaria. The study of NRMs in Bulgaria with quantitative methods is difficult today. The mediating structures are a possible scheme of explanation of the crisis of modern family, as well as of the crisis of traditional church, as mediators between individual and society. The problem of the family in a case study of the Unification church in Bulgaria and Britain is described with empirical indicators studied by the author through a participant observation in 1990 — the period of the Moonie "invasion" of Eastern Europe. Differences between Moonies in Bulgaria and Britain in terms of gender structure and social stratification have been described. Problems of marriage and the family are of a key importance for the explanation of the Moonies as a social phenomenon. For sociologists it would be a contribution to society to give an objective, unbiased and value-free construction of reality of the NRMs.

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