New Religious Movements

• New Religious Movements have exploded since the 1960s
• New Religious Movements are cults and sects only
• Wallis categories New Religious Movements into three categories; World-rejecting, World-accommodating and World-affirming
• World-Rejecting NRMs are similar to Troeltsch's sects
• World-rejecting NRMs are high religious with a notion of God, they seek radical change and expect members to break with their former life, they are often popular amongst marginalised people
• An example of a World-rejecting NRMs in Peoples Temple
• World-accommodating NRMs are often breakaways from mainstream churches/dominations and they neither accept nor reject the world, they seek spirituality rather than worldly matters
• An example of World-accommodating NRMs is Neo-petnacostalism
• World-affirming NRMs lack the conventional features of religious, but offer their follows access to spiritual/supernatural powers. Most of them are cults and often have a middle class membership of customers
• An example of world-affirming NRMs is Transcendental Meditation
• However, Wallis split of NRMs into these groups may be incorrect, as often real NRMs rarely fit into one
• 3HO doesn't fit clearly into any of the boxes, they can be rejecting and accommodating
• Stark/Bainbridge reject constructing typologies altogether, they should be split according to them by if they have tension between the religious group and wider society
• Stark/Bainbridge states that Sects offer worldly benefits
• Stark/Bainbridge state that cults offer this-worldly benefits