Types of Religious Organisation

The church and the sect.

- large organisations, often with millions of members such as the Catholic Church

- run by a bureaucratic hierarchy of professional priests

- claim a monopoly of the truth

- Universalistic, aiming to include the whole of society (although tend to be more attractive to the higher classes as ideologically conservative and often closely linked to the state)

- Place few demands on members

- small exclusive groups

- hostile to wider society

- expect a high level of commitment

- draw members from poor and oppressed

- many led by charismatic leader (rather than bureaucratic hierarchy)

- believe to have a monopoly of truth (the ONLY similarity with churches!)

Neibuhr describes denominations such as Methodism as lying midway between churches and sects.

- Membership less exclusive than a sect

- Don't appeal to whole of society (like a church)

- (like churches) broadly accept society's values

- not linked to state (unlike churches)

- impose minor restrictions on members, eg forbidding alcohol

- not as demanding as sects

- (unlike both churches and sects) tolerant of other religious organisations and don't claim a monopoly of truth

The cult.

- highly individualistic

- loose knit
- usually small grouping around some shared themes and interests, but usually without a sharply defined and exclusive beleif system

- usually led by 'practicioners' or 'therapists' who claim special knowledge

- like denominations, tolerant of other organisations and their beliefs

- do not demand strong commitment from followers, who are often more like customers or trainess than members

- 'members' have little further involvement with the cult once they have acquired the beliefs or techniques it offers

- many are world-affirming, claiming to improve life in this world

- How they seem themselves: churches and sects claim that their interpretations of the faith is the only legitimate or correct one. Demoninations and cults accept that there can be many valid interpretations

- How they are seen by wider society: churches and denominations are seen as respectable and legitimate, whereas sects and cults are seen as deviant

Bruce argues that Troeltsch's idea of a church as having a religious monopoly only applies to the Catholic Church before the 16th century Protestant Reformation, when it had a religious monopoly over society, symbolised by its massive and imposing cathedrals.

Since then, sects and cults have flourished and religious diversity has become the norm. In today's society, churches are no longer truly churches in Troeltsch's sense because they have lost their monopoly and been reduced to the status of denominations competing with all the rest.

They lack historical validity.

Since the 60s, there has been an explosion in the number of new religions and organisations, such as the Unification Church or 'Moonies', the Children of God, Transcendental Meditation (TM), Krishna Consciousness and many more. This has led to new attempts to classify them.

Wallis categorises these NRMs into three groups based on their relationship to the outside world - whether they reject the world, accomodate to it, or affirm it:

1. World-rejecting NRMs
2. World-accomodating NRMs
3. World-affirming NRMs

Eg. the Moonies, Krishna Consciousness, Children of God, the Manson Family, the Branch Davidian and the People's Temple.

Characteristics include:

- They are clearly religious organisations with a clear notion of God

- They are highly critical of the outside world and they expect or seek radical change

- To achieve salvation, members must make a sharp break with their former life

- Members live communally, with restricted contact to the outside world. The movement controls all aspects of their lives and is often accused of 'brainwashing' them.

- They often have conservative moral codes, eg. about sex.

- They vary greatly in size, from a handful of members to hundreds of thousands

These are often breakaways from existing mainstream churches/denominations, such as neo-Pentecostalists who split from Catholicism, or Subud, an offshoot of Islam.

- Neither accept nor reject the world

- focus on relgious rather than worldy matters, seeking to restore the spiritual purity of religion (eg. neo-Pentecostalists believe that other Christian religions have lost the Holy Spirit.

- Members tend to lead conventional lives

These groups differ from all other religious groups and may lack some of the conventional features of religion, such as collective worship, and some are not highly organised.

However, like religions, they offer their followers access to spiritual or supernatural powers.

Examples include Scientology, Soka Gakkai, TM and Human Potential.