2.1.6 Beliefs in society: Organisations, movements, and members

Question 1

Types of religious organisation

What are the features of a church as identified by T

(5)

Answer 1

• Troeltsch
• large scale with millions of members.
• place few demands on members
• Have bureaucratic hierarchy
• claim a monopoly of truth
• ideologically conservative and linked to the state.

Question 2

Types of religious organisation

What are features of a sect as defined by T?

6

Answer 2

• Troeltsch
• small exclusive groups
• demand strong commitment from members.
• hostile to wider society
• recruit from the poor and oppressed
• often have a chariamatic leader
• believe they have a monopoly of religious truth.

Question 3

Types of religious organisation

What is a criticism of T’s descriptions of religious organisations?

Answer 3

• Troeltsch
• Do not fit into today’s reality
• Church’s have lots their monopoly and have been reduced to the status of denomination

Question 4

Types of religious organisation

How does N define denominations and characteristics of them?

Answer 4

• Niebuhr
• Denominations are a midway between churches and sects.
• They accept society’s values, membership is less exclusive, not as demanding as sects and are tolerant of other religions

Question 5

Types of religious organisation

What are the features of a cult?

Answer 5

• They are disorganised, highly individualistic, small, and don’t have a sharply defined belief system.
• Many are world affirming

Question 6

Types of religious organisation

What are the three categories that W uses to categorise New Religious Movements (NRMs)

Answer 6

• Wallis
• World Rejecting NRMs - e.g Moonies. They have a clear notion of God, highly critical of the outside world, and members must break with their former life and live communally with limited access to the outside world.
• World Accomodating NRMs - e.g neo-Pentecostalists. Often breakaways from existing churches, members normally live conventional lives, neither accept, nor reject the world but focus on religious matters.
• World-affirming NRMs - e.g scientology. Offer followers access to supernatural powers and accept the world as it is. Followers are often consumers rather than members.

Question 7

Types of religious organisation

What do S&B argue is the one criterion needed to distinguish between religious organisations?

Answer 7

• Stark and Bainbridge
• The degree of tension between the group and wider society.
• Sects and cults are in conflict with wider society.
• Sects break away from existing organisations to offer other-worldly benefits, cults are new religions that offer this-worldly benefits

Question 8

Types of religious organisation

How do S&B subdivide cults?

Answer 8

• Stark and Bainbridge
• Subdivide cults into how organised they are.
• Audience cults - the least organised with no formal membership and little interaction between members.
• Client cults - a consultant/client relationship with ‘therapies’ promising personal fulfillment.
• Cultic movements - more organised, exclusive, requiring high levels of commitment.

Question 9

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What reason does Weber give for the growth of sects?

Answer 9

• Marginality
• Sects offer a solution to their lack of status by offering their members a theodicy of disprivilege - a religious explanation for their disadvantage
• E.g the crhistian belief that the ‘meek shall inherit the earth’
• Many sects and millenarian movements have recruited from the marginalised poor.

Question 10

Explaining the growth of religious movements

Why might middle class people turn to religious movements?

Answer 10

• Relative deprivation
• It is possible for people who are priviledged to feel deprived compared with others and may turn to sects for a sense of community

Question 11

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What does Wilson believe causes people to turn to sects?

Answer 11

• Wilson
• Periods of rapid social change, which undermine established norms and cause ‘anomie’ (normlessness).
• Those most affected turn to sects and NRMs.

Question 12

Explaining the growth of religious movements

How does Wilson argue World-rejecting NRMs (WRNRMs) have formed as a result of social changes?

Answer 12

• Social changes gave young people their freedom, enabling an idealistic counter-culture to develop.
• WRNRMs were attractive because they offer a more idealistic way of life.

Question 13

Explaining the growth of religious movements

How does Wilson believe that modernity has lead to the growth of World-affirming NRMs (WANRMs)

Answer 13

• Modernity brings the rationalisation of work which ceases to be a source of identity, and WANRMs provide a source of identity and techniques promising worldly sucess.

Question 14

Explaining the growth of religious movements

How does N believe sects change over time?

Answer 14

• Niebuhr
• Sects are WRNRMs that come into being by splitting from an existing church.
• Within a generation, they either die out (e.g death of chariasmatic leader), or compromise with the rest of the world, leaving behind thwir extreme ideas to become denominations.

Question 15

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What is S&B’s cycle for religious organisations?

Answer 15

• Stark and Bainbridge
• The sectarian cycle:
  1. schism: splitting from a church
  2. initial fervour: chariamatic leadership
  3. denominationalism: cooling of fervour
  4. establishment: the sect becomes world accepting.
  5. further schism

Question 16

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What does W argue about sect patterns (also criticises S&B’s sectarian cycle)

Answer 16

• Wilson
• It is unlikely that all sects will follow the same pattern.
• Sect pattern depends on how the sect answers the question - “What shall we do to be saved?”

Question 17

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What are W’s three types of sects?

Answer 17

• Wilson
• Conversionist sects - aim to convert large numbers of pepole so are likely to grow rapidly into larger denominations.
• Adventist sects - keep seperate from the corrupt world, which prevents them from compomising and becoming a denomination.
• Established sects - some sects survive for many generations. e.g Amish and mormons.

Question 18

Explaining the growth of religious movements

What are two common themes amongst the new age according to H?

Answer 18

• Heelas
• Self-spirituality: New agers have turned away from traditional ‘external’ churches and look inside themselves to find spirituality.
• De-traditionalisation: the New Age rejects the spiritual authority of external sources like priests and instead value personal experiences.

Question 19

Explaining the growth of religious movements

How does D explain the growth of New Age movements?

Answer 19

• Drane
• Argues that the growth of New Age movements is a result of a shift towards a post-modern society as people have lost faith in experts (e.g scientists) and are disillusioned with the church’s failure to meet their spiritual needs.

Question 20

Explaining the growth of religious movements

How does B see the growth of the new age as a feature of modern society?

Answer 20

• Bruce
• Modern society values individualism which is also a value amongst those in expressive professions (artists, social workers)
• New age eclecticism (pick and mix spiritual shopping) is typical of late modernity’s consumerism.

Question 21

Explaining the growth of religious movements

H sees the New Age and modernity as linked in four ways

Answer 21

• Heelas
• A source of identity: in modern society, the individual has a fragmented identity whereas New Age beliefs offer the individual ‘authentic’ identity.
• consumer culture creates dissatisfaction and the new age offers different ways to achieve perfection.
• rapid social change creates anomie but the new age provides a sense of certainty and truth.
• decline of organised religion leaves the way open for the new age as an alternative.