New revelation

New revelation is a theological - apologetic collective term for new religious announcements, pronouncements or written records that supplement the closed canon of religious writings, primarily within the revealed religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
It is less applicable to Eastern religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Daoism, etc.), since these either do not know a complete canon of religious scriptures or accept continuous revelation by "enlightened ones" or do not know a personal God - as the origin of the revelation.

Characteristic

New revelations within the monotheistic religions are characterized by

a time of origin within the last 500 years
the written fixation
the claim that the messages are directly divine in origin and have not been altered by the recipient
the emergence of a new, independent religious movement based on the new revelation
the understanding of the messages by the followers as a God-willed addition (or also God-willed contradiction) to the existing, traditional revelation
new doctrinal statements that deviate fundamentally from the orthodox faith
the partial or complete independence from the traditional revelatory religion (s) of origin

The reception of the new revelation is described quite differently in the individual groups. They are received by selected people in the form of media writing, conceptual or pictorial inputs, as a vision , as an "inner word" heard, as an audition , retold, retold and recorded with audio technology or written down directly. In the case of the Mormons , the recipient was told the location where he would find the Book of Mormon and was instructed to translate it into English with the help of an angel-given aid. Some groups of new revelations are “mediumistic”, that is, believe in contact with an accepted spirit world.

The recipient of the message is often viewed as a prophet , medium, or incarnation of God.

Related terms

Private disclosure: New revelations are, although not always easy, to be distinguished from private revelations (see examples there). Here too, new messages are received and new religious groups can form. In their doctrinal statements, however, these do not leave the framework of their ancestral religion or denomination, so they are still viewed by the representatives of the traditional religion as Christian or Islamic, Jewish, albeit often with the derogatory term sect .

Mysticism and prophecy: There are parallels to mysticism or prophecy , but new revelations also show character-specific properties. If a mystic wants to translate his subjective experiences in a higher space of existence outside his usual world of experience back into normal human terminology, he often has to use approximate, pictorial comparisons for lack of correspondence. The recipient of a new revelation does not become so active; instead, he remains personally uninvolved, waiting and only registers the ideas that were supposedly brought directly to his perception. According to their own understanding, this precludes personal interpretation.

Examples

Reveal and Religious Groups

Revealer	Religious groups	background	size
Joseph Smith 1805-1844	Mormons (since 1830 ) Largest denomination: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints	Christianity	approx. 14 million
Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, called Baha'u'llah 1817-1892	Bahai (since 1863 )	Islam	approx. 6 million
Jakob Lorber 1800–1864	Lorber movement (since 1924 )	Christianity	unknown

Other persons / groups are listed under the category New revealers .

Syncretistic new revelations

see also: syncretism

New syncretistic revelations combine elements of Eastern religions and wisdom, as well as ethnic religions and esotericism with classical elements of Christian, Islamic or Jewish religions.

Fiat Lux
International Sufi Order
Universal life
Unification Church (Moon Movement), especially in Asian cultures

List of newly revealed religious communities

Evaluation by the traditional religions

Christianity

According to the teaching of most churches, divine revelation is considered completed with the emergence of the biblical canon in the time after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. With reference to the letter to the Hebrews, the incarnation of God in his Son is also defined as an unsurpassable revelation to man, so that everything subsequently revealed through the Spirit is only aimed at Jesus Christ and can therefore no longer represent anything fundamentally “new”.

Revelations that do not leave the framework of Christian teaching are called private revelation . Private revelations in the Catholic realm can be recognized as such by the authority of the Church, but do not enter into the canon. The Protestant churches differ significantly from one another in their dealings with new revelers - while with charismatic preachers, especially in the Third World, the transition between Orthodoxy and New Revelation runs smoothly, the churches of the First World are extremely critical of new revelation efforts. Special apologetic facilities such as B. maintain the Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauung questions in Germany .

Due to the influence of the Enlightenment since the 18th century, combined with the idea of tolerance, persecution of the newly revealed is rare. Most of all, early Mormonism in the United States suffered greater persecution . The founder, Joseph Smith , was lynched to death.

Islam

For the majority of the Islamic world , the revelation with the Koran is considered complete. Mohammed is considered the last prophet, the "seal of the prophets".

Recently revealed groups with an Islamic background are still subject to oppression and persecution by the state and the established religion in their countries of origin, such as the Baha'i in Iran , as well as in many other Islamic countries. Among other things, followers of the Ahmadiyya , whose founder sees himself as the prophet and messiah predicted by Mohammed, are persecuted in numerous Islamic countries. The Ahmadiyya doctrine is seen as a wrong path among the Orthodox scholars and the followers of this doctrine are regarded as apostates.

literature

Patrick Diemling : New Revelations. Religious studies perspectives on texts and media of the 19th and 20th centuries, dissertation, Potsdam, Universitätsverlag 2012; ISBN 978-3-86956-209-4 .
Georg Schmid , Georg Otto Schmid (ed.): Churches, sects, religions. Religious communities, ideological groups and psycho-organizations in the German-speaking area. A manual . Founded by Oswald Eggenberger . 7th revised and expanded edition. Theological Verlag Zurich, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-290-17215-5 , pp. 207-234: Chapter New Revelers .