section_path: Beliefs and practices
section_name: Beliefs and practices
paragraph_text: Beliefs and practices
  
  Eileen Barker has argued that NRMs should not be "lumped together," as they differ from one another on many issues. Virtually no generalisation can be made about NRMs that applies to every group, with David V. Barrett noting that "generalizations tend not to be very helpful" when studying NRMs. J. Gordon Melton expressed the view that there is "no single characteristic or set of characteristics" that all new religions share, "not even their newness." Bryan Wilson wrote, "Chief among the miss-directed assertions has been the tendency to speak of new religious movements as if they differed very little, if at all, one from another. The tendency has been to lump them together and indiscriminately attribute all of the characteristics which are, in fact, valid for only one or two." NRMs themselves often claim that they exist at a crucial place in time and space.