Topic Summary

• The main types of religious organisations are churches, sects, denominations and cults. The growth of sects can be seen as a response to marginality, relative deprivation and social change. Weber sees sects as providing a theodicy of disprivilege for the poor. Wallis identifies three types of new religious movement - world rejecting, world affirming and world accommodating. Niebuhr describes a sectarian dynamic leading to denominationalism. Wilson identifies established sects as a separate type.
• Bruce sees sects and cults as resulting from secularisation where Stark and Bainbridge explain them as a response to different sorts of deprivation. New Age cults (audience and client cults) have grown since the 1970s, reflecting characteristics of modernity and postmodernity. Religious participation varies by class, gender, age and ethnicity. For example, it is higher among women and the old, as well as minority ethnic groups for whom religion is a source of identity and community support.