New religious movements: terminology, typology, and characteristics

1
New religious movements terminology, typology,
and characteristics

• 29.1.2004

2
Readings

• Richardson Definitions of Cult From
  Sociological-Techincal to Popular-Negative (in
  Dawson 1998)
• Wilson The Problem of Definition (in Wilson 1970)

3
Discussion topics

• Definitions and terminology
• Classics
• Weber
• Troeltsch
• Niebuhr
• contemporary approaches
• problems of definition
• Stark and Bainbridge
• Richardson
• General characteristics of NRMs
• Wilson
• Classification / typologies
• Aberle
• Wallis
• Wilson

4
Introduction

• NRMs not new
• various waves of religious activity
• Europe
• late Roman period
• 4th, 12th, and 17th c
• 1960s
• US
• mid-18th c, 19th c
• 1960s
• Africa
• 10,000 new religions over the past 100 years
• Japan
• End of 1940s the 'Rush Hour of the Gods'
  (Barker)
• 1970s - shin shin shukyo ('new new religions)

5
Statistics

• Wallace (1966)
• 100,000 different religions
• have achieved a significant and stable following
• Stark and Bainbridge (1987)
• over 200,000 moderately successful cults
• Problems with statistics
• what counts as a religious movement?
• What counts as membership?
• eg. TM etc
• double membership
• high turnover rate

6
Definitions and terminology

• Classics
• Weber
• "church-sect theory
• Troeltsch
• sect vs church
• Nieburh
• sect church
• Contemporary approaches
• various problems with definition
• Stark and Bainbridge
• church, sect, cult
• Richardson
• oppositional definition of cult
• Importance of definition
• financial implications
• Scientology a religion
• Science of Creative Intelligence (TM) not a
  religion

7
Max Weber (1864-1920)

• Pioneer in the study of religious organizations
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
  (1905)
• The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism
  (1906)
• Historical dynamics of
• world religions
• religious ethics
• religious professionals
• religious communities
• Universal long-term processes
• progressive autonomization
• routinization
• rationalization
• Church and sect
• different modes of communal religious worship
• churches - formal, rationalized
• sects informal, emotional, charismatic

8
Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923)

• Major impact on the study of sects
• The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches
  (1912)
• ideal typesof religious orientation
• Churchlike
• Sectlike
• Mystical forms of religious orientation
• Sect vs church
• Focus on medieval and modern Christian sects
• Criticism
• limited conception of sects
• restricted view of the church
• only applicable to Chirsitianity

9
Sect vs Church (Troeltsch)

• Function
• Church - administritation of grace
• Sect brotherhood, sharing the fellowship of
  love/faith
• Membership
• Church - ruling classes
• Sect - underprivileged groups
• Membership status
• Church ascribed (by birth)
• Sect achieved (voluntary submission and
  subscription)
• Internal structure
• church - hierarchical
• sect - egalitarian

10
Sect vs Church (Troeltsch)

• Religious roles
• Church - division of labour,
• differing degrees of commitment
• Sect totalitarian/egalitarian
• no differences in commitment
• General orientation
• Church conservative
• Sect radical
• Political orientation
• Church
• agency of social control
• integrated into the world
• Sect
• reaction against control
• in tension with the world

11
H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962)

• The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929)
• Focus on religious organizations in the US
• Church vs sect
• appeal to/satisfy the needs of different social
  classes
• church middle and upper classes
• sect lower classes
• Dynamic relationship between sect and church
• Sect church
• As a result of changes in the class composition
• Successful sect
• becomes worldly
• Fails to satisfy the need of underprivileged

12
Contemporary definitions problems I

• 1) What terminology to use?
• Pejorative meaning of 'cult' and 'sect'
• Tyner (1991) the example of custody awards
• Alternative terms
• New Religious Movements
• How new?
• Rejection of devotees
• lumping together different groups
• tracing origins to the past
• Hare Krishna 16th c
• Soka Gakkai 13th c
• Emerging religions
• Alternative religions

13
Contemporary definitions problems II

• 2) What constitutes a religion?
• Belief in a god/gods?
• But Buddhism, the Human Potential movements?
• functional definitions
• any ideology (eg. Marxism, nationalism)
• having 'passed the test of time' / generally
  acceptable
• real religions vs cults

14
Contemporary definitions problems III

• 3) Different types of definitons
• Eg. Cult at least three types of definitions
• Universal/ethymological definition
• 'cultus cultivation, honour, related to
  ritual, emotions, liturgy
• every religion or sect in that sense is a
  cult.
• Theological/Christian definition
• any religious movement that
• diverts from orthodox Bible-based Christianity
• denies Biblical truths
• Sociological definition
• a group with pyramid-shaped authority structure
• all teaching and leadership derives from the
  person on top

15
Stark and Bainbridge I

• Theory of Religion (1987)
• Benton Johnsons "Of Churches, Sects and Cults
  (1963)
• Church
• a conventional religious organization
• Sect movement
• a deviant religious organization with traditional
  beliefs and practices.
• Cult movement
• a deviant religious organization with novel
  beliefs and practices.
• Deviance
• departure from the norms of a culture leading to
  costs

16
Stark and Bainbridge II

• Church
• a religious group that accecpts the social
  environment in which it exists
• Sects and cults
• in tension with the surrounding sociocultural
  environment
• In reality
• A continuum
• ideal sect ---------------------------------------
  ---------- ideal church
• Absolute tension Absolute acceptance

17
Stark and Bainbridge III

• Religious movement vs religious institution
• Absolute -----------------------------------------
  ------ Absolute
• tension acceptance
• Low tension end of the axis
• stable social structure
• roles, norms, values, and activities
• churches / religious institutions
• do not seek to cause or prevent social change
• High tension end of the axis
• religious movements
• seek to cause or prevent change
• Direction of the religious movement
• Church movements vs sect movements

18
James Richardson

• "oppositional" conceptualization of cult (1993)
• Two social dimensions
• Individualism vs collectivism
• Mysticism vs rationality
• Modern capitalist US individualistic-rations
• cultic responses
• hippie subculture (individualistic-mystical)
• a communist cell (collectivistic-rational)
• a religious commune (collectivistic-mystical)
• Soviet Union- collectivistic-rational
• Cultic response
• artists (individualistic-mystical)
• Medieval Catholic Europe - collectivistic-mystical
  
• Cultic response
• Protestant Reformation (individualistic-rational)

19
General characteristics problems

• Barker
• the only generalisation which can be made about
  new religions is that one cannot generalise about
  them
• System of belief
• From elaborate to vague
• Social organization
• From community to normal life
• Varying attitudes
• towards sex
• material possessions
• Authority
• Political/social involvement
• Salvation
• Etc.

20
General characteristics Bryan Wilson I

• Religious Sects A Sociological Study (1970)
• 1) Voluntariness
• theoretically complete
• the Amish
• 2) Exclusivity
• Difference from others
• 3) Merit
• the individual must be worthy of membership.
• 4) Self-identification
• us vs them
• before vs now vs the End-time
• the Millennium, the Apocalypse, the Armageddon,
  the Age of Aquarius, etc.

21
General characteristics Wilson II

• 5) Elite status
• possessors of the only true doctrine
• 6) Expulsion
• the sect expels the unworthy
• 7) Conscience
• Self-awareness
• 8) Legitimation
• charisma
• Direct link between God and members

22
Classification / Typologies problems I

• What is the basis for classification?
• 1) What is the source of the NRM?
• Hindu-based NRMs
• Eg. Hare Krishna, Sai Baba, Meher Baba, Divine
  Light Mission etc
• Buddhist tradition
• Eg. various Zen groups, the largest being the
  Sokka Gakkai (Nichiren Shoshu).
• Tribal and folk-based NRMs
• Esoteric traditions
• Eg. various occult, pagan, magic, and witchcraft
  movements
• Human Potential Movement
• Eg. TM, Silva Mind Control and various gestalt
  and encounter groups
• But
• Mix of influences/ no clear sources
• Japanese group that venerated Thomas Edison

23
Classification / Typologies problems II

• 2) What kinds of changes are sought?
• Aberle
• 3) What is the relationship with the world?
• Wallis
• Wilson
• 4) What are the ways of achieving salvation?
• Wilson

24
Anthropology of religion

• Ioan Lewis
• Ecstatic Religion An Anthropological Study of
  Spirit Possession and Shamanism (1971)
• two types spirit-possesion cults
• peripheral possession cults
• coexist with a more dominant moralistic religion
• central possession cults
• as main form of religious expression
• Eg. Shamanism in tribal communities
• Anthony Wallace
• revitalization movements
• Ralph Linton
• nativistic movements
• cargo cults

25
David Aberle

• The Peyote Religion among the Navaho (1966)
• the most influential classification of NRMs in
  anthropology
• social movements - two dimensions
• the locus of the change sought
• individuals
• supra-individual system
• Economic, technological, political order
• law, society, culture, cosmos
• the amount of change sought
• total change
• partial change
• Four types of movements
• transformative movements
• total change in supra-individual systems
• reformative movements
• partial change in supra-individual systems
• redemptive movements (Peyote cult)

26
Roy Wallis

• The Elementary Forms of the New Religious Life
  (1984)
• Tripatite classification
• 1) world-rejecting new religions
• 2) world-affirming new religions
• 3) world-accommodating new religions

27
Wallis - The World-Rejecting NRMs

• The world is evil
• prevailing social order
• departs from God's plan
• Rejection of urban industrial society
• Moses David (COG)
• Israel reminds us more of America than any
  country we visited with all its busy materialism,
  its riches, power, and armaments, its noisy
  traffic and air pollution, and its increasingly
  materialistically-minded younger generation.
  (Moses David, The promised land?', 4 February
  1971)'
• We're going to go back to those days with only
  the beautiful creation of God around us and the
  wonderful creatures of God to help us plow and
  power and transport what little we have to do to
  supply our meagre needs (Moses David, Heavenly
  homes', 21 October 1974)
• Examples
• ISKCON, the Children of God, the Unification
  Church

28
Wallis - The World-Affirming NRMs

• The world is not evil
• Embracing the world's secular values and goals
• Mankind
• restricted
• Not using its full potential
• Unconventional means to achieve these
• Examples
• TM, Nichiren Shoshu (Sokka Gakkai), est (Erhard
  Seminars Training)
• Silva Mind Control
• In 48 hours you can learn to use your mind to do
  anything you wish. ... There is no limit to how
  far you can go,... to what you can do, because
  there is no limit to the power of your mind.
• TM
• a meditational technique taught to those who are
  initiated
• the Beatles by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968.
• The Maharishi Effect
• social consequences of the practice of TM
• Social ills decline if 1 (10) of the population
  uses TM
• study of 1,100 cities

29
Wallis - The World-Accommodating NRMs

• Aims
• provide solace or stimulation for the
  individual's interior life
• Religion as leisure-time activity
• Revitalize religious life
• Reaction to formalism
• Pays little attention to the world one way or
  another
• Examples
• Neo-Pentecostalism
• Charismatic Renewal Movement
• Subud

30
Bryan Wilson I

• Religious Sects A Sociological Study (1970)
• 1) World-denying cults
• The world system is evil
• separate, communal lifestyle
• Eg. the Children of God, the Hare Krishna
  movement
• 2) World-indifferent cults
• tolerate the secular society
• encourage seeking a purer, more spiritual life
  within the world
• E.g. The Unification Church
• 3) World-enhancing cults
• quasi-religious
• seeking to improve the skills and well-being of
  their members
• enhancing their enjoyment of and participation in
  the larger society
• self-transformation and self-improvement as
  ultimate goals
• Eg. the Church of Scientology, TM, est

31
Bryan Wilson II

• How to gain salvation?
• 1) Conversionist sects
• Humans are evil/take the wrong way
• Salvation
• change of hearts
• Preaching and proselytizing
• emotional involvement
• Religious feeling
• Otto numinous experience
• Examples
• evangelical Protestantism of 18/19 c.
• Pentecostalism
• Glossolalia (speaking in tongues)

32
Bryan Wilson III

• 2) Revolutionist/transformative sects
• The world is evil
• Salvation
• The world must change or be changed
• Strategies
• to anticipate the change (Apocalypse)
• initiate the change itself
• Examples
• transformative movements (Aberle)

33
Bryan Wilson IV

• 3) Introversionist sects
• The world is evil
• Salvation
• withdrawal
• in the religious community
• Examples
• pietist movements

34
Bryan Wilson V

• 4) Manipulationist sects
• Monopoly of special secret knowledge
• Salvation
• Success, including in this world
• Through the use/manipulation of
• Esoteric knowledge / occult means
• Examples
• Christian Science, Scientology

35
Bryan Wilson VI

• 5) Thaumaturgical sects
• Relief from
• physical or mental ills
• Salvation
• miracles
• Performed by supernatural agencies
• Examples
• spiritualist sects

36
Bryan Wilson VII

• 6) Reformist
• The world is evil
• Salvation
• Overcoming the evil
• By reforming the world
• By communicating the ethic
• Examples
• Quakerism

37
Bryan Wilson VIII

• 7) Utopian
• The world is evil
• Salvation
• Withdrawal
• Not to abandon the world
• But a social experiment
• to rediscover the model for the way of life for
  all men
• Eventual returning to Gods way of life
• Examples
• Bruderhof community founded by Eberhardt Arnold