Topic 6: Organisations, Movements and Members Flashcards
- What are the three main explanations sociologists offer for the growth of religious movements since the 1960s?
Marginality, relative deprivation, and social change.
- How does the concept of “marginality” explain the growth of sects according to Max Weber?
Sects arise in groups marginalized from society who feel disprivileged or lacking just economic rewards and social status.
Sects offer a theodicy of disprivilege, a religious explanation and justification for suffering, and promise future rewards for faith.
- How has the recruitment pattern of sect-like world-rejecting NRMs changed since the 1960s?
While historically sects recruited from the marginalized poor, world-rejecting NRMs have recruited mainly from affluent, educated young people who were marginalized by their countercultural lifestyles.
- Explain the concept of “relative deprivation” and its role in the growth of sects.
Relative deprivation refers to feeling deprived or disadvantaged compared to others, even if materially privileged.
Middle-class individuals may feel spiritually deprived in a materialistic world and turn to sects for community.
How do Stark and Bainbridge explain the role of relative deprivation in the formation of sects?
Relatively deprived members break away from churches to form sects that safeguard the original message and emphasize teachings that reflect their experiences.
What distinguishes world-rejecting sects in offering compensators to the deprived?
World-rejecting sects provide compensators, like rewards in the afterlife, for the deprived who lack rewards in this world.
Privileged individuals are attracted to world-accepting churches that express their status and worldly success.
How does social change contribute to the growth of religious movements?
Rapid social change disrupts established norms and values, leading to anomie or normlessness.
Those affected by disruption may turn to sects as a solution to uncertainty and insecurity.
Provide an example of a religious movement that emerged in response to social change.
The industrial revolution in Britain led to the birth of Methodism, offering a sense of community, clear norms, values, and the promise of salvation to the new industrial working class.
How does Steve Bruce explain the growth of sects and cults in the context of modernization and secularization?
As society becomes more secularized, traditional churches and strict sects become less attractive due to their demanding nature.
People prefer cults because they require less commitment and fewer sacrifices.
What are the factors that contributed to the growth of world-rejecting NRMs according to Wallis?
Social changes in the 1960s, increased time spent in education, freedom from adult responsibilities, development of a counter-culture, growth of radical political movements.
According to Bruce, what led disillusioned youth to turn to religion instead of the counter-culture?
The failure of the counter-culture to bring about significant change in the world.
How does Bruce explain the growth of world-affirming NRMs?
As a response to modernity, particularly the rationalization of work, where work no longer provides meaning or identity, and NRMs offer a sense of identity and techniques for success.
Why have some ‘movements of the middle ground’ like the Jesus Freaks grown since the mid-1970s?
They have attracted disillusioned former members of world-rejecting NRMs, providing a transition to a more conventional lifestyle.
What is Niebuhr’s perspective on the lifespan of sects?
Niebuhr argues that sects are short-lived and within a generation, they either die out or compromise with the world and become denominations.
What are the reasons for the decline of sects according to Niebuhr?
Second-generation members lack the commitment of their parents.
Sects that practice asceticism become prosperous and upwardly mobile, leading to compromise with the world.
The death of a charismatic leader can lead to collapse or transformation into a denomination.