James R. Lewis

James Roger Lewis (November 3, 1949 – October 11, 2022) was an American philosophy professor at Wuhan University. He was a religious studies scholar, sociologist of religion, and writer, who specialized in the academic study of new religious movements, and New Age. Lewis received his B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Appalachian State University, going on to study at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a master's degree. He received a PhD in religious studies from the University of Wales, Lampeter in 2003.

Lewis formed the academic association AWARE in 1992, which he dissolved in 1995 over concerns from its advisory board. He was an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee from 2003 to 2009, and was associate professor of religious studies at the University of Tromsø from 2010 to 2013, before becoming a professor at Wuhan University.

He was on the editorial boards of, among others, the journals Marburg Journal of Religion and the Journal of Religion and Violence. Lewis authored and edited several books, particularly ones about religious topics, including new religious movements, Scientology, Satanism, and other religious studies topics, but also terrorism and radicalization.

Early life and education James Roger Lewis was born November 3, 1949, in Leonardtown, Maryland, and raised in New Port Richey, Florida. He had a brother and a sister. He studied pre-med at the University of South Florida, but abandoned it to, as he described it, "go questing after myself".

He left to join Yogi Bhajan's 3HO, a new religious movement combining the teachings of kundalini yoga and Sikhism. In this period he worked as a freelance yoga teacher and wrote a book entitled Yoga for Couples, the first book he would write. He was a member throughout the early and mid-1970s. Feeling disenchanted with the organization, he formed a small and short-lived breakaway movement.

After leaving 3HO, he returned to his studies. Lewis graduated summa cum laude from Appalachian State University in 1981, with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, later graduating from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a master's degree in Religious Studies in 1987. Lewis received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Wales, Lampeter in 2003.

Other scholars involved in the formulation of AWARE as an "anti-anti-cult organization" included Eileen Barker, David G. Bromley, and Jeffrey Hadden, who felt a need for an organization of academics prepared to appear as expert witnesses in court cases. AWARE proved controversial; critics complained that Lewis associated too closely with NRM members, and Lewis dissolved the body in December 1995 after concerns from members of its advisory board. Lewis likened the group's treatment to a Japanese Waco.

Lewis was on the editorial boards of the journals Marburg Journal of Religion (from 2001 to his death), Fieldwork in Religion (from 2005 until his death), JASANAS (from 2005 to 2011, Cultural Analysis (from 2011 until his death), International Journal for the Study of New Religions (from 2012 until his death), Journal of Religion and Violence (from 2013 until his death), Open Theology (from 2017 until his death), Chaos: Scandinavian Journal of Studies in History of Religions (from 2015 until his death), ColomboArts (from 2017 until his death).

In a December 2017 conference, Lewis was quoted by Xinhua News Agency as claiming that Falun Gong-founded media Sound of Hope and New Tang Dynasty Television "are in fact manipulated and sponsored by international anti-China forces". Lewis himself criticized his prior, initially sympathetic approach to the Falun Gong organization, saying he had been "naive" about the group and that after contacting ex-members and Chinese critics of the organization he believed his old feelings of outrage over treatment of the Falun Gong to be "naive and foolish".

Reception His works focused on several NRMs, as well as religion and violence, radicalization, and terrorism.

Lewis won another Choice Outstanding Academic Title award for The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, with a second edition of this handbook published in 2016 with Inga Tøllefsen as co-editor. The Astrology Encyclopedia received honors from the New York Public Library and the American Library Association.

Anson Shupe and Susan E. Darnell characterised Kent's and Krebs' paper as an ad-hominem attack, and part of a pattern of accusing scholars of bias when their field research produced findings at variance with anti-cult stereotypes. Melton defended their joint work, stating that far from being a public relations exercise, the AWARE report on the Church Universal and Triumphant had "startled and upset" the group's leadership, and led to wide-ranging changes in the organization.

Jeffrey Kaplan stated that the aims of AWARE had been "laudable", but that the risks involved for academics in joining the "cult wars", as well as the organization's apparently unsuccessful appeals for funding from new religious movements, led to controversy.

In 2018, Lewis authored Falun Gong: Spiritual Warfare and Martyrdom. The book covers various aspects of the group, focusing primarily on the more controversial teachings of the Falun Gong and its leader Li Hongzhi, including the group's pattern of targeting critics and Lewis's changing opinions on the group. Lewis argues in the book's final chapter that due to the media strategies of the group, they were presented largely sympathetically, but the tides were turning and they would soon be viewed as a dangerous group. Reviewer Carole M. Cusack recommended the book, though described the chapters as "of uneven quality". She described the book as timely due to the change in public opinion of the group at the time of its publication, with more coverage of the leader and the group's beliefs instead of previously sympathetic stories.

Personal life and death Lewis was married to Evelyn Oliver, whom he met circa 1990 at a psychology and astrology conference. Before ever meeting him, she had bought his first book, Yoga for Couples. Oliver was his business partner in his encyclopedia-writing efforts. They had three daughters.

Lewis died on October 11, 2022, in the United States, after suffering a cardiac arrest from respiratory failure.