explaining the growth of NRMs

• Marginality- Weber

  • argues that sects appear most attractive to those who are marginal to society, as they feel that they are disprivileged from a lack of status and other rewards they have been denied
  • sects provide a ”theodicy of disprivilege”, religious justifications and explanations for their suffering
  • to add theoretical credibility to this, Malinowski would agree that the sects perform a function for the oppressed in alleviating feelings of dissatisfaction
• historically, sects and millenarian movements tend to recruit the most marginalised and deprived groups in society, eg. The Nation of Islam. However since the 60’s, world-rejecting NRMs have attracted affluent groups, who are also marginalised despite their m/c background, eg. Hippies, drug addicts, dropouts
• Relation deprivation

  • Wallis argues that the consumerist and materialistic society that we live in is conductive to relative deprivation amongst m/c people, who turn to sects for a sense of community
  • Stark & Bainbridge argue that the relatively deprived are more likely to break away from church, whose beliefs have been compromised by the m/c, and so join sects to safeguard the original message of church
• Stark & Bainbridge also argue that world-rejecting sects provide individuals with compensators that serve as substitutes for the rewards or sense of status that they have historically been denied
• Status deprivation

  • experienced amongst those who become bored and discontent with the lack of status they possess in the workplace or wider society
  • Glock & Stark argue that these people are likely to be attracted to the evangelical goals of a world-rejecting organisation