Explanations for the growth of NRMs 1
- Created by: chicalatina
- Created on: 13-03-14 22:46
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- Explanations for the growth of NRMs 1
- Marginality
- Weber - sects appeal to dispriviledged groups who are marginal to society.
- They offer a solution to their lack of status by offering their members a theodicy of dispriviledge - a religious explanation of their suffering.
- This may explain their misfortune as a test of faith to see if they keep their faith.
- E.g. millenarian movements recruited from the marginalised poor.
- Since 1960s - world-rejecting NRMs have recruited m/c white young people,
- Wallis - it doesn't contradict Weber's view as these individuals have been marginalised to society; most were dropouts and drug users.
- Relative deprivation
- Someone who is quite privileged may still feel deprived compares to others e.g. m/c may feel spiritually deprived.
- Wallis - they may turn to sects to for a sense of community.
- Stark & Bainbridge - it's the relatively deprived who break away from churches to form sects as they safeguard the original message than churches who compromise beliefs to fit in society.
- World-rejecting sects offer the deprived compensators of the rewards they are denied.
- Social Change
- Wilson - periods of rapid change undermine norms and values producing anomie, Those most affected may turn to sects.
- E.g. Methodism during the industrial revolution, as it offered a sense of community, succeeding in recruiting the w/c.
- Bruce - growth of sects and cults are a response to social changes involved in modernisation and secularisation.
- Sees society as secularised and people are less attracted to traditional churches which demand too much commitment
- As a result - they turn to cults, who are less demanding and require fewer sacrifices.
- Criticisms
- Merton - disagrees that NRMs emerge during a period of uncertainity.
- Rapid growth of NRMs in America during the 50s - a period of stability and certainty.
- Merton - disagrees that NRMs emerge during a period of uncertainity.
- Wilson - periods of rapid change undermine norms and values producing anomie, Those most affected may turn to sects.
- Marginality
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