New Book, Event, Estrangement, Iowa Essenes
(February 10, 2022, 5:30 - 7:30 pm GMT, Zoom)
About the book: All religions undergo continuous change, but minority religions tend to be less anchored in their ways than mainstream, traditional religions. This volume examines radical transformations undergone by a variety of minority religions, including the Children of God/ Family International; Gnosticism; Jediism; various manifestations of Paganism; LGBT Muslim groups; the Plymouth Brethren; Santa Muerte; and Satanism. As with other books in the Routledge/Inform series, the contributors approach the subject from a wide range of perspectives: professional scholars include legal experts and sociologists specializing in new religious movements, but there are also chapters from those who have experienced a personal involvement. The volume is divided into four thematic parts that focus on different impetuses for radical change: interactions with society, technology and institutions, efforts at legitimation, and new revelations.
Respondents will include:
- Professor Emeritus James A. Beckford, University of Warwick
- Michael Langone, Executive Director, International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), USA
- Professor Linda Woodhead, King's College London
Psychology Today: Should You Reconcile with an Estranged Sibling?
KEY POINTS
Studies show that more than 40 percent of people have experienced family estrangement at some point in their lives. During the pandemic, many have found themselves weighing whether to try to reconcile. Aware of their own mortality, some fear that if they don't contact an estranged family member now, they may never have the chance.
- Studies show that more than 40 percent of people experience family estrangement at some point in their lives.
- Reconciliation can be risky, so it's important to carefully evaluate whether to re-enter a relationship with a difficult sibling.
- There are no hard and fast rules on how to reconcile—or whether it's even necessary to discuss the roots of the cutoff.
"As reported by The Seattle Times and the Tulsa World, a town in southern Iowa was home to a group of people that subscribed to the ways of living of an ancient Jewish sect.
Referring to themselves as Essenes, the collection of 60 people in Lamoni lived their lives in this same manner -- nearly 2,000 years after the last group of its kind was heard from. According to the story, the original Essenes were those "who are believed to have written the Dead Sea Scrolls." IMJ.org says "The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea."
"They are approximately two thousand years old, dating from the third century BCE to the first century CE. Most of the scrolls were written in Hebrew, with a smaller number in Aramaic or Greek. ... The sectarian manuscripts reflect a wide variety of literary genres: biblical commentary, religious-legal writings, liturgical texts, and apocalyptic compositions. Most scholars believe that the scrolls formed the library of the sect that lived at Qumran," that likely being the Essenes.The 1990's iteration of the sect "left jobs, friends and sometimes family to seek spiritual perfection on 240 acres in a small town a few miles from the Missouri border."
"More than 10,000 miles from the Holy Land, nearly 2,000 years after they were last heard from, an ancient Jewish sect is making a comeback, of sorts. In Iowa. Among ex-Mormons."" ... The Iowa group got its start about a decade ago when a former minister named Ron Livingston and five others could no longer stand the gulf between what was preached on Sunday and how church members lived their lives.
They left the local Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and formed their own pastoral group. By 1987, they had bought some land, and soon families began moving on to it.
It was little more than a year ago that community members first began calling themselves Essenes. Even before they knew of the scrolls, they were already following Essene practices such as morning and evening prayers, a similar priesthood structure and holding all things in common.
"We didn't become Essenes," said Bryce Wilson, 34. "We were Essenes. "Today, they treat the published Dead Sea Scrolls as scripture, and give adult and child education classes in them. Their sabbath falls on Wednesdays, following the solar calendar used by the Essenes, according to Livingston, the community's teacher of righteousness who now goes by the name "Grampa. "There are major differences with scholarly depictions of the Essenes - the Iowa group holds Christian beliefs and emphasizes families. But Grampa, acting as communal prophet, teaches that Jesus was an Essene, and the ancient Essenes gave up celibacy at the birth of Mary.
Unshaven and dressed in overalls and a patchwork of other simple clothing, many of the group members look like aging hippies. Even families with four children live in large one-room houses, many of them with thatched roofs. There is no plumbing, electricity or running water in their wooded enclaves, nestled amid the rolling farmland of southern Iowa. Water for scrubbing clothes by hand, bathing and drinking is taken from a well, and in one of the two villages a single outhouse serves a half-dozen families.
In a welcoming ceremony, a fire is started by twirling a stick against another piece of wood. Breakfast is a single bowl of cornmeal mush.
Elderly rural farmers who can remember hardscrabble times express wonder that community members would voluntarily subject themselves to such a lifestyle, but the Essenes say the life has its benefits."
The Seattle Times: Ancient Sect Makes Comeback In Heartland
" ... Unshaven and dressed in simple clothing, many of the group's members look like aging hippies. Even families with four children live in large one-room houses, many of them with thatched roofs.
There is no plumbing, electricity or running water in their wooded enclaves, nestled amid the rolling farmland of southern Iowa.
Water for scrubbing clothes by hand, bathing and drinking is taken from a well, and in one of the two villages a single outhouse serves a half-dozen families.
In a welcoming ceremony, a fire is started by twirling a stick against another piece of wood. Breakfast is a single bowl of cornmeal mush.
Elderly rural farmers who can remember hardscrabble times express wonder that community members would voluntarily subject themselves to such a lifestyle, but the Essenes say the life has its benefits.
"We don't care about the price of gas," Grampa says. "We don't care what the interest rate is. Those kinds of pressures and anxieties that everybody has in the world are gone."
When he was a professional carpenter, Alma Halley, 37, says he used to dream of a time when he would only have to work 40 hours a week.
Now he spends three or four hours a day on community work crews, and spends much of the rest of the time with his wife and four children.
"It was just like I'd come home," he says. "These people were just like me, how I'd grown to love the Lord."
Separated from others, they - like the ancient Essenes - are able to seek spiritual perfection through a rigorous penal code.
Say a slang word, and for four days you must put back a quarter of the food served to you at mealtime. Show jealousy of another person's pillows, the penalty is 30 days."
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