Established Sects

• However, Wilson (1966; 2008) argues that not all sects follow the patterns outlined above. Whether or not they do so, depends on how the sect answers the question, What shall we do to be saved?'
• • Conversionist sects such as evangelicals, whose aim is to convert large numbers of people, are likely to grow rapidly into larger, more formal denominations.
  • Adventist sects such as the Seventh Day Adventists orJehovah's Witnesses await the Second Coming of Christ.To be saved, they believe they must hold themselves separate from the corrupt world around them. This separatism prevents them from compromising and becoming a denomination.
• Wilson goes on to argue that some sects have survived over many generations, such as Adventists, Pentecostalists, the Amish, Mormons and Quakers for example. Instead of becoming denominations, these groups become established sects. Contrary to Niebuhr's predictions, many of them have succeeded in socialising their children into a high level of commitment, largely by keeping them apart from the wider world.
• However, Wilson argues that globalisation will make it harder in future for sects to keep themselves separate from the outside world. On the other hand, globalisation will make it easier to recruit in developing countries, where there are large numbers of deprived people for whom the message of sects is attractive, as the success of Pentecostalists has shown.