Organized Religion

Chapter 7
Organized Religion
Churches, Sects, Denominations,
and “Cults”

Outline of the Chapter 7
• Charisma and the Charismatic Leader
• The Routinization of Charisma
• Dilemmas of Institutionalization
• Classifying Religious Organizations
• The Church-Sect Typology
• Social Conditions That Generate Each Type of Group
• New Religious Movements, aka “Cults”

• “Ever since Max Weber first developed the proposition
that New Religion Movements generally start out as
cults headed by a charismatic leader, much of the
sociological work in religion has evolved around the
concept of charisma.

Question of the Discussion in Class
• According to the textbook, several scholars
believe that all religious group began as cults
headed by a charismatic leader. Do you think
Jesus (or whoever founded the religious group to
which you adhere or with which you are most
familiar) was a charismatic leader of a new cult or
“NRM (New Religion Movement)”?”

The Routinization of Charisma
• The process of routinization (developing stable
routine) is commonly referred to by sociologists as
institutionalization.
• Institutionalization serves both ideal and material
interests of followers and leaders.

The Process of Institutionalization
• It is unplanned; it develops gradually
• It is inherently conservative; it changes, but
slowly.
• It is interdependent; because of this, change in
one institution tends to bring about change in
others
• The statuses, roles, values, and norms associated
with an institution in one society frequently bear
little resemblance to those in another society.
• Open System Theory

The Routinization of Charisma
• The charisma that was once identified with a
personality must be associated with the religious
ideology and with the religious organization.
• The decision making process itself becomes
sacralized as the divinely appointed method of
choosing the successor.
• Method may involve the designation of a
successor by the original leader, some form of
divinely sanctioned and controlled election, the
drawing of lots, hereditary succession, or any one
of a number of other procedures.
• The achievements of several objectives

The Four Types of Leadership
• The Traditional
• The Pope
• The Bureaucratic
• Billy Graham
• The Charismatic
• Jesus
• The Ideological
• Early Christian Leaders (Paul, James, Peter)

Dilemmas of Institutionalization
• A Thomas O’Dea (1961) put it,
• “religion both needs most and suffers most from
institutionalization”
• Although institutionalization is necessary, it tends
to change the character of the movement and to
create certain dilemmas for the religious
organization.

Dilemmas of Institutionalization
• The Dilemma of Mixed Motivation
• The Symbolic Dilemma: Objectification Versus
Alienation
• The Dilemma of Administrative Order: Elaboration
of Policy Versus Flexibility
• The Dilemma of Delimitation: Concrete Definition
Versus Substitution of the Letter for the Spirit
• The Dilemma of Power: Conversion Versus
Coercion
• Institutional Dilemmas and Social Context

Classifying Religious Organizations
• Characteristics of
• Churches
• Sects
• Denominations
• Cults (now usually called New Religion Movements)
• Ideal Types by Max Weber

The Church-Sect Typology by Max Weber
The Sect
• Membership is voluntary,
• It is limited to those who
“qualify” for membership
• It involves a substantial
commitment by the
members
The Church
• A group that one is typically
born into rather than
choosing
• Inclusive—that is,
encouraging all members of
the larger society to join
• Minimal commitment is
required to remain a
member

The Church-Sect Typology
• Troeltsch and American theologian H. Richard
Neibuhr, who each wrote much more extensively
on this topic, included Weber’s defining criteria
but expanded the concept to include many other
factors.
• The central characteristic of the church is its
acceptance of the secular order
• The church “compromises” Christian values and makes
accommodations to the secular society
• The sect tends to reject the social order and to
maintain a prophetic ministry

The Church-Sect Typology
• Troeltsch and American theologian H. Richard
Neibuhr, who each wrote much more extensively
on this topic, included Weber’s defining criteria
but expanded the concept to include many other
factors.
• The church are stages in the evolution of a religious
group, adding a new type: the denomination.
• The continuum between sect and church (Figure 7.1)

Single-Variable Models
• A church is a religious group that accepts the social
environment in which it exists.
• A sect is a religious group that rejects the social
environment in which it exists.

Yinger’s Multilinear Evolution Model
• The degree to which the membership policy of the
group is exclusive and selective or open and
inclusive.
• The extent to which the group accepts or rejects
the secular values and structures of society
• The extent to which, as an organization, the group
integrates a number of local units into one
national structure, develops professional staffs,
and creates a bureaucracy.

Yinger’s Multilinear Evolution Model
• Figure 7.3 Yinger’s Schema for Types of Religious
Organization

Social Conditions That Generate Each Type
of Group
• To causes the emergence of new groups by
Niebuhr
• When Christian denominations begin to ignore the
original concern of the faith for poverty and
inequality, sectarian groups are likely to arise.
• Some groups are expressions of ethnic values and
national loyalties.
• Churches and denominations become bogged down
in bureaucratic structures.
• The sectarian movements are sometimes spawned
by a desire for more spontaneity and more
emotional expression in worship.

New Religious Movements, AKA “Cults”
• Figure 7.4 Evolution of Sects and NRMs

New Religious Movements, AKA “Cults”
• Figure 7.5 Social Forces and the Sect-Cult
Transformation

New Religious Movements, AKA “Cults”
• Figure 7.6 The Force Field of Religious Groups: A
Three-Dimensional Model