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Organisations and Movements - Topic 6 - Coggle Diagram
Organisations and Movements - Topic 6
Types of Religions
Church
- seen as respectable and legitimate
Bureaucratic and linked closely to the state. - Ideologically conservative.
Universalistic with open membership.
Low demand organisation with little commitment needed.
Claim a monopoly of truth.
Sects
- seen as deviant
Small organisations.
Exclusive.
Hostile to wider society.
High demand with extensive commitment needed.
Draw their members from the poor and oppressed.
Often led by a charismatic leader.
Claims a monopoly of truth.
Denominations
- seen as respectable and legitimate
Midway between churches and sects.
Includes a membership, being less exclusive than a sect.
Lacks the appeal to the whole of society like a church.
Accept societies values but not linked to the state.
Impose minor restrictions onto members.
Tolerant of other religions and do not claim a monopoly of truth.
Cults
- seen as deviant
Highly individualised and loose knit.
Made up of small groups around shared themes and interests.
Without a sharply defined and exclusive belief system.
Led by practitioners who claim special knowledge.
Tolerant of the beliefs of others.
Do not demand strong committment from followers.
Audience Cults
Least organised, does not have any formal membership or committment.
Little interaction between members.
Client Cults
Based off the relationship between consultant and client to provide services for their followers.
Promise personal fulfilment and self-discovery.
Cultic Movements
The most organised and demands the highest level of commitment than other cults.
Can be born out of client cults, aiming to meet all the members religious needs.
Demand little or no interaction with other or religion.
AO3
Some of the descriptions of religious organisations do not fit in today's reality e.g claiming religious monopoly only applies to the Catholic church before the Protestant Reformation. Religious diversity has now become the norm.
In today's society, churches are no longer truly churches because they have lost their monopoly and reduced to the status of denominations.
New Religious Movements (NRM) - Wallis
World Rejecting NRM
Religious organisations with a clear notion of God.
Limited contact with the outside world often based in communes.
Have conservative moral codes.
Highly crtical of other religions and society in general.
Very high level of control over individual members' lives (could be seen as brainwashing).
Highly exclusive members, expected to sacrifice a great deal to be a member.
Grew due to social changes in the 1960s impacting on young people, including the increased time spent in education.
Gave them freedom from adult responsibilities and allowed a counterculture to develop.
The growth for radical political movements offered alternative ideas about the future, offering an idealistic way of life.
The failure of counterculture to change the world led to disillusioned youth turning to religion instead.
World Affirming NRM
Offer special knowledge for followers to unlock their spiritual powers to overcome unhappiness, illness.
Aim to help members achieve full potential with dominant values of mainstream society.
Very individualistic with success seen as a matter of individual effort.
Little attempt to control members lives, low committment.
Membership is tiered, inclusive but the turnover is high.
Seen as the least religious in traditional forms of what an organised religion is.
The growth is a response to modernity especially the rationalisation of work, making work no longer provide a source of identity.
WANRM provides a sense of idenity and techniques that promise success in the world.
World Accomodating NRM
Based on individual worship and releasing human potential.
Lack of conventional features of religion.
Accept the world as it is.
Noncritical of other religions.
No social control and no punishment for disobeying NRM rules.
Not exclusive members participate for a short course to join.
AO3
Wallis is not clear on whether he categorises them according to the movements teachings or individual members's beliefs.
Wallis ignores the diversity of beliefs that exist within an NRM.
Reasons for Growth of Religious Movements
Marginality
Members of sects tend to draw member from the poor and oppressed. They recruit ones from a marginalised pool of individuals within society.
Sects arise in marginalised groups. They may feel disprivileged in their economic rewards and social status.
NRMs offer an outlet for their marginalised feeling and support comfort when they are lonely.
Sects offer a solution to the problem offering members a
theodicy of disprivilege
. This is a religious explanation and justification for their suffering and disadvantage.
This may explain their misfortune as a test of faith.
Relative Deprivation
Refering to subjective sense of being deprived.
MC people who are well off feel spirituarlity deprived in a materialistic world.
People may see them as impersonal and lacking in moral value and authenticity resulting in people joining sects.
Its the relatively deprived who break away from churches to form sects.
Social Change
Rapid periods of change disrupt and undermine established norms and values. producing anomie.
Those affected by anomie may turn to sects as a solution.
The growth of sects and cults today is a response to social change involved in modernisation and secularisation.
Society is now secularised and less people are attracted to strict sects and traditional churches that demand too much commitment.
People now prefer cults because they are less demanding and require fewer sacrifices.
The Development of Sects and NRM
Sects are world rejecting organisations that come into existence because of schisms.
Sects are short lived within a generation. They die out or compromise with the world, abandon extreme ideas and become a denomination due to:
The Second Generation
- People born into the act have a lack of commitment and consciously reject the world and join voluntarily.
Protestant Ethic Effect
- Sects that practice ascentism tend to be prosperous and mobile.
Death of a Leader
- Sects with a charismatic leader collapse with the leader's death, a formal bureacratic leader takes over making it a denomination.
Religious Organisations Moving in a Cycle
First Stage
: Schism, there is tension between the needs of the deprived and privileged members of a church. Deprived members break away to found a world rejecting sect.
Second Stage
: Fervour. A charismatic leader and great tension between the sect and those of wider society.
Third Stage
: Denominationalism, the Protestant ethic effect and the coolness of the second generation means that the fervour disappears.
Fouth Stage
: Establishment, the sect becomes more world accepting and tension with wider society reduces.
Final Stage
: Further schism results where less privileged members' break wasy to found a new sect true to the original message.
AO3
Not all sects follow the same pattern, whether the sect is saved depends on the sect.
Some sects have surved over many generations e.g. Mormons, Pentacostalists. Instead of becoming established denominations, they have become established sects.
Many sects have succeeding in socialising their children into a high level of committment, largely keeping them apart from the wider world.
Globalisation will make it harder in the future for sects to keep themselves separate from the outside world.
Globalisation will make it easier to recruit in the developing world.
New Age Movements (NAMs)
NAMs are loosely organised or client cults that are diverse.
They put together unconncected beliefs in new combinations e.g. aliens, astrology, yoga etc.
Has themes of self-spirituality and detraditionalisation.
NAMs can be world affirming and world rejecting.
Reasons for Growth
A shift towards postmodern society. There's been a loss of faith in metanarratives and scientic claims of the truth. NAMs fill a spiritual void.
Science promised to bring progress to a better world but instead it has given us war, genocide, global warming and environmental devastation. NAMs allow us to find the truth within ourselves.
Bruce
argues that we value individualism, attracting certain groups value such, which NAMs attract too.
Bruce
says that NAMs are softer versions of demanding and self-disciplined religions e.g Buddhism that appeals to self-centred Westerners.