What are Cults?What are Cults?What are Cults?What are Cults?
RELS 225RELS 225
Cults and New Religious MovementsCults and New Religious MovementsRELS 225RELS 225
Cults and New Religious MovementsCults and New Religious Movements
Slide 2.
LabellingLabellingLabellingLabelling
• Troeltsch:• Churches: born• Sects: join
• Yinger:• Universal: Catholic• Ecclesia: Anglican, Sunni• Denomination: Baptist, Presbyterian• Established sect: Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Christian Science• Sect: Pentecostals, Worldwide Church of God• Cult: Moonies, Scientology
Slide 3.
Wilson’s Sect/Cult Wilson’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
Wilson’s Sect/Cult Wilson’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
• Sects: Change self• Conversionist (Salvation Army, Pentacostal)• Revolutionist (Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Christadelphians)• Introversionist (Hutterite, Exclusive Brethren)• Manipulationist (Christian Science)• Thaumaturgical (Spiritualism)• Reformist (Quaker)• Utopian (Oneida, Bruderhof)
• Cults:• Illumination (Theosophy, Spiritualism)• Instrumental (Scientology, Soka Gakkai)• Service-oriented
Slide 5.
Wallis’s Sect/Cult Wallis’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
Wallis’s Sect/Cult Wallis’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
• Attitude to world• Affirm?• Reject?• Accommodate?
Slide 6.
Dawson’s Sect/Cult Dawson’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
Dawson’s Sect/Cult Dawson’s Sect/Cult TypologyTypology
• Mode of Membership1. Audience2. Client3. Cult Movement
Slide 7.
Cult FeaturesCult FeaturesCult FeaturesCult Features
• Cults meet individual needs / desires• Claim esoteric knowledge
• Direct ecstatic experience• Offer shorter, surer, safer, clearer
salvation• Often no systematic orientation to society
• Loosely organized• Charismatic leader
• Usually short-lived
Slide 8.
The Future of ReligionThe Future of ReligionThe Future of ReligionThe Future of Religion
• New Religions have emerged in the last few decades.
• Are these a sign of what religion will become?
• Or are they the last remnant of religion?
Slide 9.
Berger on the Role of Berger on the Role of ReligionReligion
Berger on the Role of Berger on the Role of ReligionReligion
• Berger (1967)• Nomos
• Humans want stability• Anomie
• Things happen to destabilize our lives. What things?
• This is the human predicament• Religion seeks to protect from anomie
• Nomos vs. Anomie and alienation• Externalize• Objectivize• Internalize
Slide 10.
Berger on SecularizationBerger on SecularizationBerger on SecularizationBerger on Secularization
• Secularization (culture not dominated by religion)
• Personal (privatized, not shared)• Choice (options and optional, imagined)
• Religious claims are relativised.• Religion is doomed
Slide 11.
Stark & BainbridgeStark & BainbridgeStark & BainbridgeStark & Bainbridge
• 4 premises1. acknowledge the supernatural2. Humans seek rewards and avoid costs3. Rewards are scarce4. Absence of real rewards leads to
compensators: postulating future rewards• Religions provide general compensators
based on supernatural assumptions
Slide 12.
Stark & BainbridgeStark & BainbridgeStark & BainbridgeStark & Bainbridge
• Effects of Secularization• NOT: humans no longer need such
compensators1. Revival (sects)2. Innovation (cults)
• Cults are the unchurched trying to become churched
• Triumph of commercial & consumer ethic
Spiritual Quest of Generation XSpiritual Quest of Generation X
29 minutes
