Revival: Resurrecting the Process Church of the Final Judgment by William Sims Bainbridge (review)

By writing a novel that posits a present-day revival of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, sociologist William Sims Bainbridge has contributed to discussion about, and added to the legacy of, the Process. The novel describes the group's examination by a handful of scholars who eventually affiliate with it. Best known from Bainbridge's 1978 ethnography Satan's Power: A Deviant Psychotherapy Cult, the Process began as a British Scientology-related psychotherapeutic group called Compulsions Analysis. It then morphed, via social implosion and intensive cultural creation, into a short-lived polytheistic and esoteric religion whose pantheon included Satan and whose practices involved recognition and eventual reconciliation of different divinely-derived psychological tendencies.

Bainbridge's novel now uses twelve chapters to follow protagonist Robert Anson, a social computing scholar and program director at the National Social Science Institute, whose old schoolmate, Colin Stuart, revived the group before dying in a mysterious Waco-like government siege. After Anson receives four cylinders containing Stuart's DNA and data about his memories, he embarks on a quest to visit and study some loosely connected, splintering offshoot new religious movements now aligned with the individual deities from the historic Process pantheon. Eventually involving three colleagues, Anson neither resurrects Stuart nor solves the mystery of the true enemies behind the siege. Instead, he precipitates a climactic scholarly conversion and makes the decision to start a new religious center for the refounded church.

The book touches on a hodgepodge of topics—from contemporary technology to transhumanism and the presumed civilizational threat of Islam. For those acquainted with scholarship on the Process and new religious movements, it clearly builds on the group's actual history and references general academic insights, such as common movement growth patterns. Due to its atypical genre, the book also encourages broader reflections than scholarship usually allows (e.g. the similarity of Process personality analysis to that of the Divergent young adult fiction series). In addition, its plot seems to implicitly encourage wholehearted scholarly participation in attractive alternative religions.

Although its role in any actual Process revival is yet uncertain, the book itself is already circulating in larger cultural contexts that at least include the publisher's catalog. The 2017 Feral House catalog features publications on edgy cultic milieu-associated topics—from Satanism and the occult, to conspiracy theories, true crime, and pornography. Notably, that catalog also features Feral House's 2009 book Love Sex Fear Death: The Inside Story of The Process Church of the Final Judgment, which assembles accounts from members and excerpts from historical primary sources. It also promotes a new, limited-edition run of sterling silver men's and women's rings featuring the Processean cross.

Although its author is the foundational scholar of the Process, genre severely restricts the novel's appeal: apart from its rare observations containing a discernibly fresh scholarly analysis—for example, the comparisons between the personality theories of the Process and Divergent—it predominantly functions as a primary source witnessing contemporary religion from an unusual perspective.

Potential audiences include new religions scholars researching the Process, Satanism, atheism, the cultic milieu, and interactions between scholars and new religious movements. The book should also interest those in other fields who study the role of the scholar and practices of scholarship.