Relative Deprivation

• Relative deprivation refers to the subjective sense of being deprived. This means that it is perfectly possible for someone who is in reality quite privileged nevertheless to feel that they are deprived or disadvantaged in some way compared with others. Thus, although middle-class people are materially well off, they may feel they are spiritually deprived, especially in today's materialistic, consumerist world, which they may perceive as impersonal and lacking in moral value, emotional warmth or authenticity. As a result, Wallis argues, they may turn to sects for a sense of community.
• Similarly, Stark and Bainbridge argue that it is the relatively deprived who break away from churches to form sects. When middle-class members of a church seek to compromise its beliefs in order to fit into society, deprived members are likely to break away to form sects that safeguard the original message of the organisation.
• For example, the deprived may stress Christ's claim that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle - a message that the better off might want to play down. By contrast, the deprived may want to emphasise Christ's message that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth'. Stark and Bainbridge argue that world-rejecting sects offer to the deprived the compensators that they need for the rewards they are denied in this world.
• By contrast, the privileged need no compensators or world-rejecting religion. They are attracted to world-accepting churches that express their status and bring them further success in achieving earthly rewards. This distinction is very similar to Wallis two main types of NRMs.