A Social Analysis of Religious Organisations: The Cases of Church, Sect, Denomination, Cult and New Religious Movements (NRMs) and Their Typologies

Social scientists have sought to offer interpretations of religious organisations, movements and ferments at the same time as dealing with and taking interest in their diversity. They have attempted to create types and categories that can be linked theoretically to explanations for these diverse forms of organisations, movements, beliefs and religious ideologies. A substantial number of typologies, types and categories have been formulated based on different teachings, objectives, perspectives, meaning systems, forms of organisations, both internal and external follower-organisation relations, orientations towards the world, and relations with society at large. From its early stage, the sociology of religion, as part of social sciences, has been preoccupied with the sociological and religious conceptual complex ities of religious organisations and movements, like church, sect and cult. As Bryan Wilson properly pointed out the sociology of religion is a field in which sociological thinking and religious thinking are not always clearly distinguished. The interest that theologians take in this special field and the education they have received are likely to perpetuate the use of specific categories that are indifferent to sociologically significant distinctions. This is not to say that the contributions of theologians to this field are insignificant. Sometimes they have provided valuable insight; but more often, they have introduced elements of confusion.1 On the other hand, the contributions to the field from different perspectives and disciplines have enriched and developed themes, perspectives and problems in the sociology of religion. Consequently, the sociology of religion has gained a distinctive position in the social sciences in general, and in sociology in particular, by embracing almost all aspects of the social life of religious phenomenon. Sociological concepts may be generally defined by identifying social phenomena. But their meaning differs from researcher to researcher. This is when the need arises to go back to the original sources of sociological analysis, as the original meaning, definition and usage of concepts may help to understand the present use of sociological terms in context.2 The main aim of this paper is to examine the development of sociological concepts of religious organisations like church, sect, cult, denomination and New Religious Movements (NRMs), and to show how their analysis and understandings by the sociologists differ according to time, period and context. The other purpose of this paper is to bring together all sociological arguments of religious organisations to show how they have developed and evolved over the years and how they differ from one sociologist to another. This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, the ‘early period’, I will analyse the early arguments of church-sect typologies created by sociologists like Weber, Troeltsch and Niebuhr. The second part, which is concerned with the ‘transitional period’, will take into account the different categories of sect typologies, churchsect dichotomy, denomination and cults. In this section, I will try to highlight how understandings and interpretations of those concepts have changed and differed, as in the arguments of Yinger, Wilson and Martin. The third part, the ‘modern period’, will try to demonstrate how sect-cult debates in the ‘transitional period’ paved the way and influenced the development of sect, cult and NRMs arguments and their transformations. This last section will also cover the major attempts of sociologists to create typologies of NRM and Cults, such as Robbins and Anthony, Wallis, Bird, Stark and Bainbridge, and Beckford. The paper ends with a general discussion and conclusion.