SOCIOLOGY: BELIEFS IN SOCIETY, COMPARE CHURCHES, SECTS, DENOMINATIONS AND CULTS
- Created by: ameliab2001
- Created on: 01-11-21 13:20
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- Denominationscults, chuches and sects
- Denomination
- Troeltsch based on CofEurope
- Niebuhr (1929) was an American sociologist who argued a different type of religious org: the denomination
- similar to churches with a formal hierarchy of officials
- but draw all members of society (more working/lower-middle class)
- Tend to be conservative
- Sects
- Giddens: comparatively smaller, less well-organised groups of believers
- members often regard churches as corrupt, sects claim a monopoly of truth
- unlike churches members reject the outside world, usually set up in protest, high levels of commitment - strict morality
- few or no official leaders
- Weber types of sect
- introversionist: Gods chosen people should cut themselves off from the secular world, follow spirituality e.g. Amish
- reformist: believe their role is to gradually change the world through spirituality and good deeds e.g. Bournville village trust (Quaker)
- conversionist: members save souls from eternal damnation (hell), meetings and seeking new supporters e.g. Jehovah's
- cults
- highly individualistic, loose knit groups led by practitioners/ therapists
- members = customers
- main stream media portray as evil e.g. 'sex cult' stigmatises them as deviant
- New Age Movements, scientology
- church
- all churches claim a monopoly of truth, they are formal organisations (Weber)
- e.g. Roman Catholic, Greek Cypriot, Church Of England
- Troeltsch - first definition: large organisations, hierarchy of members, well established, inclusive and links to state
- close relationship with elites, although claim to reflect consensus
- few restrictions on membership, but worship restrained - often appeal to middle classes + above
- e.g. the 26 CofE bishops sit in house of lords & influence legislation
- e.g. Archbishop Canterbury - oversees royal weddings, remembrance day
- e.g. the 26 CofE bishops sit in house of lords & influence legislation
- few restrictions on membership, but worship restrained - often appeal to middle classes + above
- behavioural expectations of each other and system
- evaluation points
- Bruce '95 churches and sects have become denoms. church no longer claims a monopoly
- Alridge (2000) groups such as mormons = ambiguous. in USA they are denoms but in UK they are sects
- Denomination
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