Organisations

• Types - Churches (Troeltsch)


  • Mainstream, conservative organisations
  • Run by a hierarchy
  • Claim a monopoly on the truth
  • Have a close relationship with the state
  • Place few demands on members
• Types - sects (Troeltsch)


  • Break away from churches due to a conflict of beliefs
  • Hostile to other religions and mainstream society
  • Expect high level of commitment
  • led by a charismatic leader
  • Claim a monopoly of the truth
• Types - denominations (Niebuhr)


  • Memberships is less exclusive
  • Broadly accept societies values but not linked to the state
  • Impose minor restrictions on members
  • Tolerant of other religions and do not claim a monopoly of the truth
• Types - cults (Niebuhr)


  • Led by practitioners or therapists
  • Usually tolerant of other beliefs
  • Do not demand strong commitment
  • Many are world-affirming
• Types - general criticisms

  • Bruce - categories do not reflect modern societies diversity
  • Robertson - state and church are not close in modern society
  • Growth of New Religious Movements calls into question rigid definitions
• Types - world rejecting NRMs (Wallis)


  • Traditional and radical
  • Highly critical of outside world
  • Members expected to leave their former life
  • Live communally
  • Hold conservative moral codes, like sex
• Types - world accommodating NRMs (Wallis)


  • Neither accept nor reject the world
  • Focus on religious rather than worldly matters
• Types - world affirming NRMs (Wallis)


  • Accept the world as it is
  • Non-exclusive and tolerant of other religions
  • Places few demands on members, who can live normal lives
• Types - criticisms of Wallis' typography


  • Radical views within the same NRM may vary
  • Some NRMs are difficult to place in one category, like 3HO
  • However, some sociologists find it a good jumping off point
• Types - Stark and Bainbridge's typography


  • Simplify it into 2 groups: those in conflict with wider society and those who are not:
  • Sects - results of conflict with existing religions due to disagreement of beliefs
  • Cults - entirely new religions and separate from existing religions
• Types - subdivisions of cults (Stark and Bainbridge)


  • Audience cults - contact between followers are maintained through the media
  • Client cults - offer a particular service to their followers, like crystal healing
  • Cultic movements - these are the most organised and require higher levels of commitment. The aim is to meet all its members needs
• Growth - marginalisation (Weber)


  • Marginalised groups turn to religion for help
  • Some religions may claim marginalisation is justified as it's a test from God, Weber calls this 'theodicy of deprivilege'
  • Nation of Islam recruited poor black men
  • Moonies recruited MC hippy drop-outs
• Growth - relative deprivation (Stark and Bainbridge)


  • MC feel spiritually deprived due to bleak state of the world, sects provide them with a religious sense of community and belonging
  • WC feel materially deprived, sects seek radical change and reject the outside world
  • World rejecting sects offer compensators for the rewards followers feel they are denied
• Growth - social change

  • Wilson - rapid social change has created a sense of uncertainty, which results in people turning to sects as a solution
  • Bruce - tech advances and traditional religion secularisation has pushed people towards joining cults, as they demand less time and commitment
  • Methodism was created in response to the industrial revolution
• Growth - social change in relation to NRMs

  • Wallis and world rejecting - offer young people ideal way of life and provide something to turn to, like the Moonies recruiting hippies
  • Bruce and world affirming - people nowadays lack the opportunities to work or achieve, W-A cults claim they can provide the knowledge to be more successful in life
• Growth - the dynamics of short lived sects (Niebuhr)


  • Death of a leader - they collapse without them
  • Second generation - leave the sect as they are not there willingly
  • Protestant work ethic - working hard mentality leads to wealth, members then want to re-join mainstream society as they have been rewarded in this life rather than the next one
• Growth - the sectarian cycle (Stark and Bainbridge)


  1. Schism - initial breakaway
  2. Initial fervour - passion for the sect and distain for mainstream are both at a high
  3. Denominationalism - Niebuhr's 3 reasons lesson the chasm between the sect and mainstream
  4. Establishment - sect becomes more world affirming
  5. Further schism - unhappy sect members break away and start a new sect
• Growth - growth of established sects (Wilson)


  • Conversionist sects - aim to convert people so that they gain more members, they get close to becoming a denomination but never fully reach that, for example Evangelicals
  • Adventists sects - too separate from mainstream to turn into a denomination, for example Jehovah's witnesses
  • They both manage to socialise their children into believing in it
  • Globalisation makes it easier to recruit members, but also makes it harder to reject the mainstream world
• Growth - New Age growth (Heelas)


  • Self- spirituality - people look inside themselves for religion
  • Detraditionalisation - rejection of external truths
  • NA can be both world-affirming and world-rejecting, as meditation finds beauty in the world while also relying on self reflection
• Growth - New Age and modernity (Bruce)


  • Westerners find Buddhism too demanding or when they do choose to follow it, it's watered down
  • Growth of jobs that promote mental health, human potential or self help
• Growth - New Age and modernity (Heelas)


  • Identity - stress of modern day causes fragmented identity, NA provides an authentic one
  • Consumer culture - creates dissatisfaction as it never delivers perfection that was promised, NA provides alternative routes to perfection
  • Rapid social change - creates anomie, NA provides certainty and truth
  • Decline of organised religion - creates less opposing beliefs to NA
• Social groups - UK gender differences stats (Davie)


  • Religious women - 55%
  • Religious men - 44%
  • Spiritual women - 38-40%
  • Spiritual men - 26-28%
  • Atheist women - 34%
  • Atheist men - 54%
  • Women who believe in life after death - 57%
  • Men who believe in life after death - 39%
• Social groups - gender and risk (Miller and Hoffman)


  • Women don't take risk, so they're more likely to be religious just in case life after death is real
  • Men do take risks, so they're less likely to be religious
  • Counter - Davie says women do take risks, as they risk death when having a baby
• Social groups - gender and socialisation (Miller and Hoffman)


  • Women socialised to be obedient and caring, which links with religious behaving and makes converting easier
  • Counter - men are perfectly capable of also processing these qualities
• Social groups - gender and employment (Miller and Hoffman)


  • Women are more likely to work part time and are more likely to be confined to the home, so they have more time to devote to religion
  • Davie - they are closer to birth and death, which increases their questioning the meaning of life and other ultimate questions
• Social groups - gender and employment (Bruce)


  • Industrialisation pushed religion out of male lives as they started working long hours
  • Religion was pushed into the home and adopted by women
  • Counter - Brown says by the 1960s women were working in male jobs
• Social groups - age and religious participation

  • Brierley - Under 15s are generally more likely to go to church than anyone older due to less choice and having to listen to their parents
  • Decline in church attendance for people aged between 15-65
• Social groups - reasons for age differences (Voas and Crockett)


  • The ageing effect - older people are more religious as they are approaching death, so they question life after death
  • The cohort effect - religiosity effected by the events you lived through, like war
  • Secularisation - each generation becomes less religious than the next
• Social groups - criticisms for gender differences

  • Measuring levels of faith id difficult
  • Increase in women in public and private spheres has decreased church attendance
  • Less social stigma against being atheist, so woman's belief is decreasing
  • Women are more attracted to spirituality
• Social groups - woman and NAMs (Bruce)


  Reasons they're attracted to it:

  • Closely associated with nature and healing due to childbirth
  • Men want to achieve and women want to feel
  • Men put on a façade but women act more genuine
• Social groups - the individual sphere

  • Woodhead - women increasing in NAMs due it's emphasis on the individual sphere, which gives them a break them private and public spheres
  • Brown - women are attracted to NAMs because it follows their desire for autonomy
• Social groups - women and class differences (Bruce)


  • WC women are more likely to be fatalistic and not believe in the teachings of NAMs
  • WC women prefer traditional religion as it says their suffering is worth it due to rewards in the next life
• Social groups - women and sects (Stark and Bainbridge)


  • Organismic deprivation - sects provide physical healing
  • Ethical deprivation - women more likely to be morally conservative and sects provide protection from the outside world
  • Social deprivation - women are more likely to be poor
• Social groups - women and the Pentecostalism

  • Popular patriarchal religion in South America
  • Marrin - calls it the 'Pentecostal gender paradox' as the religion is very popular with women, despite its hierarchy
  • Brusco - Columbia's men were spending their household income on tobacco, gambling and prostitutes, women supported the religion as the clergy were trying to encourage the men to fix their behaviour