3.4 Religious organisations and the New Age Content

• How does Roy Wallis define churches?

  As respectable organisations that claim to be uniquely legitimate (do not accept other religions).
• How does Roy Wallis define sects?


  As deviant organisations that claim to be uniquely legitimate.
• How does Roy Wallis define denominations?

  Respectable organisations that claim to be pluralistically legitimate (accept other religions).
• How does Roy Wallis define cults?

  Deviant organisations that claim to be pluralistically legitimate.
• What are churches generally seen as?

  Religious organisations that try to encompass everyone in society and attempt to impose their version of the religious truth on society as a whole. They are usually conservative organisations that tend to support the status quo and to recruit members from all social classes.
• In most contemporary societies, what do churches no longer claim?

  A monopoly of truth and often coexist with many other religious organisations.
• What are denominations?

  Offshoots of an existing religion. They serve a minority of the population and coexist with many other religious organisations. They are usually conservative but may have minor restrictions on members.
• What are sects?

  Relatively small, deviant religious organisations in tension with the wider society. They generally claim a monopoly of the religious truth and expect strong commitment from their members. They are often led by a charismatic leader.
• What do cults tend to be?

  More individualistic than other organisations and they do not usually have as much influence on followers as churches, denominations and sects. Their beliefs are usually seen as deviant although they tolerate the existance of other belief systems.
• How did Stark and Bainbridge define cults?

  As groups that introduce a novel set of beliefs to a society.
• What did Stark and Bainbridge question?

  Wallis' typologies of religion (world-affirming/accomodating/rejecting) and claimed that a single criterion, tension with wider society, can be used to distinguish different types of organisation.
• What three types of cult did Stark and Bainbridge distinguish?

  1. Audience cults that involve little face-to-face interaction
  2. Client cults that offer services to their members
  3. Cult movements that dominate their followers' lives
• What does evidence suggest about membership of new religious movements?

  Membership in the UK has grown in recent decades.
• How does Max Weber explain the growth of sects?

  In terms of the marginality of its members and the attractions of a 'theodicy of disprivilege' which helps the members cope with their disadvantages.
• What group has much of the growth of new religious movements been among since the 1960s?

  Relatively advantaged groups - this has been explained in terms of relative deprivation and a sense of spiritual deprivation rather than material deprivation.
• What changes in society have been used to explain the growth of sects?

  Rapid social changes and secularisation.
• What did Roy Wallis argue that the growth of new religious movements is linked to?

  Changes affecting young people such as the expansion of higher education.
• What did Stark and Bainbridge believe the growth or decline of religious movements depends on?

  The ability of organisations to attract new members.
• What did Niebuhr argue about sects?

  They were inevitably short-lived and either disappear or become denominations.
• What do others argue about the survival of sects?

  There are ways in which sects can and do survive for long periods without changing or disappearing, eg Bruce argues sects can survive by isolating themselves from the secular influence of society.
• What does the New Age consist of?

  Sets of beliefs involving spiritual or supernatural beliefs. They are not generally organised in the same way as conventional religion and instead involve small-group or face to face encounters.
• What does the holistic milieu of the New Age contrast with?

  The congregational domain of conventional religious worship.
• What did Heelas see the New Age as involving?

  A form of self-spirituality that rejects traditional sources of authority.
• What did John Drane see the New Age as?

  A product of postmodernity and the rejection of modern belief systems.
• What did Bruce and Heelas see the New Age as a product of?

  The individualism of modernity and Heelas linked it to a spiritual revolution in which people are increasingly concerned with subjective life.