Explaining the growth of Religious Movements Flashcards
How does marginality affect the growth of sects and cults?
Troeltsch and Weber: sects attract members from the poor and oppressed who are marginalised
Weber: sects offer their members a theodicy of disprivilege (a religious explanation and justification for their suffering and misfortune)
Examples: The Nation of Islam attracted many disadvantaged blacks in the USA in the 20th Century
How does relative deprivation affect the growth of sects and cults?
- Relative deprivation refers to the subjective sense of being deprived
How does social change affect the growth of sects and cults? Anomie
Wilson: periods of rapid change disrupt and undermine established norms and values, producing anomie
Eg: Industrial Revolution in the UK led to the birth of Methodism
Bruce: response to modernisation and globalisation
Why have both world-rejecting and world-affirming NRM’s grown?
- World-rejecting:
Wallis: increased time in education during the 1960’s freed them from adult responsibilities and enabled a counter-culture to develop
Offered young people a more idealistic way of life - World-affirming:
Bruce: a response to modernity, especially to the rationalisation of work
Still expected to achieve but not to enjoy work
Why, according to Niebuhr, do denominations die out?
- The second generation
- The ‘Protestant ethic’ effect: sects that become prosperous due to asceticism may be tempted to leave
- Death of the leader
What is the sectarian cycle?
- Stark and Bainbridge:
1. Schism
Tension between deprived and privileged members of a church
2. Initial fervour
Charismatic leadership
Great tension between the beliefs of the sect and wider society
3. Denominationalism
Protestant ethic effect, the second generation, death of a leader..
4. Establishment
Sect becomes more world-accepting and tension decreases
5. Further schism
Those who still believe break away and form a new sect
Wilson: Established Sects
- Conversionist
- Sects, such as Evangelicals, are likely to grow rapidly into larger, more formal denominations as their aim is to convert lots of people - Adventist
- Sects, such as the Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses await the Second Coming of Christ
- They must be separate from the corrupt world around them so don’t become/join a denomination
How many activities and practitioners are there in the UK according to Heelas (2008)?
2000 activities
146,000 practitioners
List some characteristics of these New Age activities/groups:
- Very loosely organised audience or client cults
- Include belief in UFO’s, aliens, astrology, tarot, crystals…
Heelas (1996): 2 common themes that characterise the New Age
- Self-spirituality
New Agers have turned away from traditional ‘external’ religions and instead look inside themselves to find it - Detraditionalisation
The New Age rejects the spiritual authority of external traditional sources such as priests or sacred texts
How does postmodernity affect the popularity of the New Age?
- Loss of faith in meta-narratives
- Science promised a better world but it has led to wars, genocides, environmental destruction, global warming…
- This has led to a loss of faith in experts so they turn to the New Age
The New Age and Modernity
Bruce: growth of the New Age is a feature of the latest phase of modern society, not postmodernity
- New Age beliefs are often softer versions of much more demanding religions, like Buddhism
In what 4 ways does Heelas (1996) link the New Age and modernity?
- A source of identity
- Modern day society: Individuals have many different roles with little overlap, resulting in a fragmented identity
- New Age beliefs offer an ‘authentic’ identity - Consumer culture
- People never get the satisfaction they are promised, but the New Age offers perfection in an alternative way - Rapid social change
- Anomie in modern culture, New Age provides certainty and truth like sects - Decline of organised religion
- Secularisation removes the traditional alternatives to the New Age
