In this book, historians of religion and gender studies explore the biographies of a number of female leaders, and the factors within their groups and cultural contexts that support these women's religious leadership. New Religious Movements have been supportive of women taking roles of leadership for a long time. Authors of this book examine issues of gender and female leadership from diverse theoretical and methodological standpoints. The book covers a broad range of groups both with regard to time and place, covering Paganism, Hindu guru groups, Christian organizations, esoteric/ mystical movements, African churches, and a Japanese NRM. The common focal point is the powerful, prophetic, charismatic women who have founded and/ or led New Religious Movements.

Over the past dozen years or so, an increasingly disproportionate percentage of new religions scholars have arisen in Nordic countries, which now teach at universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic countries. Nordic New Religions, co-edited with Inga B. Tollefsen, surveys this rich field of study in this area of the world, focusing on the scholarship being produced by scholars in this region of northern Europe.