527. Oden, Thomas C. "The Intensive Group Experience: The New Pietism." In New Religious Movements: A Perspective for Understanding Society edited by Eileen Barker. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1982: 86-106.
Oden argues that the encounter group, far from being a 20th century invention, as Carl Rogers (1970) claims, has a long history in movements such as Jewish and Protestant 17th- and 18th-century pietism, which affirmed some of the same values: here and now, intensive small-group "encounter," emphasis on trust, honest confession and community support, mysticism,
"mutual pastoral care, extended conversion marathons, radical accountability to the group, an eclectic amalgam of resources for spiritual formation [whatever that is], "gut-level" self-disclosure, intimate personal testimony, brutally candid feedback procedures, anti-establishment social attitudes and the laicization of leadership" (p. 86).
His hypothesis is that there is a direct connection. Encounter's insistent anti-historicism is "individualistic, pragmatic romanticismÊ...Êa tradition against tradition" (ibid.) It has a constant hunger for novelty [like the followers of charismatic leaders÷see Wallis (1982d, item 725) on the Children of God, e.g.]
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