Assess the view that sects and cults are only fringe organisations that are inevitably short lived and of little influence in wider society
Troeltsch believed that a sect was “the opposite of a church”. He defines this type of religious organisation as a small, tightly-knit group of individuals that often oppose mainstream values and attempt to change society in some way. Cults on the other hand, are loosely knit and lack any concrete beliefs. Stark and Bainbridge suggest that cults often have “clients” rather than members. There are therefore some significant differences between these two organisations, although it is widely accepted that they are similar, in that they are usually short lived and have little influence on society as a whole.
Supporting the notion that sects and cults are short lived; Niebuhr offers a number of explanations as to why this is so. He proposes that sects cannot survive beyond one generation, as they are often led and “held together” by one charismatic individual who claims to have some kind of “divine power/connection”. Following the death of this leader, the sect usually disappears. Furthermore, second generation members that are born into sects may not maintain the traditions of the movement with the same fervour as the founding generation. As a result, it is difficult for sects to maintain their extreme values, and they may accommodate/compromise their theology and become denominations. This can be seen in the example of early Methodism, which began life as a sect. During the age of urbanisation and industrialisation, Methodism gave individuals the comfort of a stable set of values and rules, as well as offering certainty during times uncertainty. As time progressed, its values became less extreme, and the movement grew into a denomination.
There are however, a number of problems with these explanations. First of all, the death of