Typological study of sects. Bruce Campbell discusses Troeltsch's concept in defining cults as non-traditional religious groups that are based on belief in a divine element within the individual. For example, Christianity began as a cult, transformed into a sect, and today exists as an ecclesia. He gives three ideal types of cults: Bruce Campbell discusses six groups in his analysis: Theosophy, Wisdom of the Soul, spiritualism, New Thought, Scientology, and Transcendental Meditation. As originally formulated by Max Weber (The Sociology of Religion, 1922) and Ernst Troeltsch (The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 1912), it was argued that the church type attempted to embrace all members of a society on a universalistic basis. This is particularly likely in generations following the first generation of converts. After their formation, sects can take only three paths - dissolution, institutionalization, or eventual development into a denomination. Furthermore, he points out that many sects have been successful in socializing their children into acceptance of the sect’s beliefs and practices, while also converting adults. Wallis contrasts a cult with a sect in that he asserts that sects are characterized by "epistemological authoritarianism": sects possess some authoritative locus for the legitimate attribution of heresy. Unit 1 – Education with Methods in Context, Introduction to the Sociology of Education, Changing patterns in Marriage and Cohabitation, Changing patterns in childbearing and family size, Right Realist theory of crime control and prevention, Left Realist Theory of Crime control and prevention. INFORM (Information Network Focus on Religious Movements), Academic study of new religious movements, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sect&oldid=983584886, Articles incorporating a citation from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia with Wikisource reference, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2014, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from October 2014, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from October 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The United States does not have an ecclesia by this standard; in fact, this is the type of religious organization that many of the first colonists came to America to escape. Despite the rules and regulations, churches tend to make relatively few demands on their members. In the church-sect typology they are described as newly formed religious groups that form to protest elements of their parent religion (generally a denomination). Examples include: Hutterites, Iglesia ni Cristo, and the Amish. then the prediction not coming about can also lead to the quick demise of the sect. According to Steve Bruce, the first sects in modern Europe were formed when groups of people broke away from a more established religion, because of disagreement over how that religion was interpreted. As sects grow, they may mellow and become an institutional religious body instead of a protesting group. From the second half of the 20th century, some scholars in the social scientific study of religion have advocated referring to cults as new religious movements (NRMs)[11] - hoping to avoid the often pejorative and derogatory connotations attached to the word "cult" in popular language. Also, sects can maintain strict standards of conduct, including expelling those who fail to conform to these standards, over long periods of time. Social bases of sectarianism. Some people in The People's Temple left after seeing Jim Jones break some of his own rules. For instance, Sunnis are separated into five sub-sects, namely, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Ẓāhirī. Their motivation tends to be situated in accusations of apostasy or heresyin the parent denomination; they are often decrying liberal trends in denominational development and advocating a re… Islam is a church in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, where there is no separation of church and state. In an Indian context, sect refers to an organized tradition. People are often born into a church, rather than choosing it. For instance, the Christian notion of the Holy Trinity (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit) defies the definition of monotheism, which is a religion based on belief in a single deity, to some scholars. These Rafidis were later divided into two sub-groups known as Imamiyyah and Batiniyyah.[14]. According to Wallis, "sects lay a claim to possess unique and privileged access to the truth or salvation, such as collective salvation, and their committed adherents typically regard all those outside the confines of the collectivity as 'in error'. [4] They further assert that sects have, in contrast to churches, a high degree of tension with the surrounding society. Most of the well-known denominations of the U.S. existing today originated as sects breaking away from denominations (or Churches, in the case of Lutheranism and Anglicanism). Most religions transition through different organizational phases. When membership in a sect increases over time, it may grow into a denomination. Either the sect will then gradually wither away, or it will need to become less of a protest movement and modify its beliefs and practices to accommodate, and be more tolerant of, mainstream society and other beliefs. The classical example of a church by this definition is the Catholic Church, especially in the past, such as the State church of the Roman Empire. This AQA A-Level Sociology Grade Booster revision course is ideal for all students and teachers preparing to take the Autumn 2020 exams. Established sects, such as the Amish or Jehovah’s Witnesses fall halfway between sect and denomination on the ecclesia–cult continuum because they have a mixture of sect-like and denomination-like characteristics. And even if the membership does not grow or grows slowly, norms will develop to govern group activities and behavior. Some Japanese practice Shinto, which follows animism, which is a religion that believes in the divinity of nonhuman beings, like animals, plants, and objects of the natural world, while people who practice totemism believe in a divine connection between humans and other natural beings. The Khawarij were initially divided into five major branches: This page was last edited on 15 October 2020, at 02:19. Did My Fundamentalist Upbringing Prepare Me for Coronavirus? The concept of "cult" has lagged behind in the refinement of the terms that are used in analyzing the other forms of religious origination. Traditionally, most people with a religious belief belong to some manner of religious organisation. However, Aldridge argues that not all sects require a charismatic leader to be successful. Many labels are commonly employed by non-sociologists to refer to religions and tend to be used interchangeably. ( Log Out /  Many types of religious organizations exist in modern societies. Social change – Wilson argues that periods of rapid change disrupt and undermine established norms and values which produce anomie. Often made up of marginalised, deprived groups, such as those on low incomes or from marginalised minority-ethnic groups. This is likely to be a polluting and corrupting experience, and would compromise and destroy the fundamental beliefs of the sect. Is ‘death or denomination’ the only options for sects? [7][need quotation to verify] Several scholars of this subject, such as Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) and Bruce Campbell, have noted that cults are associated[by whom?] The Zaydis separated first. Burman et al. Examples include: Methodists, Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists. There is greater tolerance of all beliefs today, and this may mean that religious sects have a short shelf-life as consumer tastes and current fads change. However H. Richard Niebuhr (1929) – who used some of these terms somewhat differently – recognised that what Troeltsch called sects often changed over time, becoming more formal and church-like. For example, in the UK, the Church of England is the established church yet has fewer than 1 million active members (out of a population of nearly 66 million). These are sects which think that the best way to save the world is to be engaged with it, and to try to change or convert individuals by spreading the religious message and ‘saving souls’. Should the sect survive and grow, it is likely to lose the characteristics of a sect, becoming more formal, established and respectable. not all sects depend on charismatic leadership; many sects have been successful in socializing their children into acceptance of the sect’s beliefs and practices, while also converting adults; sects can maintain strict standards of conduct, including expelling those who fail to conform to these standards, over long periods of time. But, unlike sects, they can form without breaking off from another religious group, though this is by no means always the case. The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion distinguishes three types of classification of Buddhism, separated into "Movements", "Nikāyas" and "Doctrinal schools": While the historical usage of the term "sect" in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox,[12][13] its primary meaning is to indicate a community which has separated itself from the larger body from which its members came. Many countries have an “official religion” or state religion (such as the Anglican church in the UK, where the Queen is both head of state and head of the church and bishops sit in the House of Lords). The Salvation Army is an example of a small former conversionist sect that has turned into a conversionist denomination. The symbols of fourteen religions are depicted here. The sociology of religion developed a model of religious organization which is referred to as the ‘church-sect typology’. The typology states that churches, ecclesia, denominations and sects form a continuum with decreasing influence on society. When churches or sects become denominations, there are also some changes in their characteristics. Sociologists call these established sects. "A Typology of Cults. Smelser's Six Preconditions For Collective Behavior, Jonestown: The Life & Death of the Peoples Temple (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (ADULT LANGUAGE & SITUATIONS), The Sociology of Teen Culture & Music (BOOKLET). Such sects therefore cannot survive in denominational form. Troeltsch used the term to refer to small Christian organisations like the early Methodists, Baptists and Calvinists who over the time moved into the mainstream, becoming what Niebuhr called denominations. Sects and Cults. Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. Categorized this way, three types of religious organizations exist: church, sect, and cult (Emerson, Monahan, & Mirola, 2011). For example, both the Quakers, or Society of Friends, and the Methodists originally… Sects are break-away groups from more mainstream religions and tend to be in tension with society. Consider the different types of religious organizations in the United States. Beliefs in Society 2. Explanations of Corporate and Occupational Crime, Theories of Religion and Religion and Social Change, Evidence and arguments supporting secularisation, Evidence and arguments against secularisation, Religion and the ‘clash of civilisations’, Theoretical and Methodological Considerations. There are many groups outside the Roman Catholic Church which regard themselves as Catholic, such as the Community of the Lady of All Nations, the Palmarian Catholic Church, the Philippine Independent Church, the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, Most Holy Family Monastery, and others. However, one cult may have the characteristics of two or more of these categories. He has taught Politics and Sociology A Level for many years and has a PhD in Social History.