The scholarly study of new religious movements focuses on the contemporary period, but religious innovation is nothing new. This Element explores a historical epoch characterized by a multitude of emergent religious concepts and practices – the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A precondition for the intense degree of religious innovation during this time was a high level of cultural exchange. Religious elements crossed porous cultural borders and were adapted to suit new purposes. The resulting amalgams were presented in a vast corpus of texts, largely produced by a literate elite. Charismatic leaders played a particularly important role in creating new religious options and were described in genres that were infused with ideological agendas. Novel religious developments were accepted by the Roman authorities unless suspected of undermining the social order. The rise of one of the many new religions of the period, Christianity, ultimately changed the religious landscape in profound ways.

Many seemingly strange questions on yoga, salvation, religious pluralism, and so forth have been actively debated among members of a small but influential group of evangelical apologists known as the Christian countercult movement. This Element explores the history of this movement from its origins in the anti-heresy writings of the early church to its modern development as a reaction to religious pluralism in North America. It contrasts the apologetic Christian countercult movement with its secular anticult counterpart and explains how faith-based opposition both to new religious movements and to non-Christian religions will only deepen as religious pluralism increases. It provides a concise understanding of the two principal goals of Christian countercult apologetics: support for the evangelization of non-Christian believers and maintenance for the perceived superiority of the evangelical Christian worldview.