stark and bainbridge - churches sects cults

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Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious

Movements

Rodney Stark; William Sims Bainbridge

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 18, No. 2. (Jun., 1979), pp. 117-131.

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Of Churches, Sects, and Cults:Preliminary Concepts for a Theory ofReligious MovementsRODNEY STARK* WILLIAM SIMS BAINBRIDGE*

This paper construds a se t of concepts needed for a theory of religious movements. First, theboundaries for such a theory are set by defining religion and then by translating this definitioninto terms more useful for theorizing. Next, we demonstrate why a faulty understanding of "idealtypes" h as led to conceptualizations of church and sect that prevent theorizing. We adopt BentonJohnson's solution for defining the underlying church-sect axis. In the remainder of the paper weshow that the concepts of church and sect arenot adequate o encompass the full range of religiousmovements. The concept of cult L introduced, clarified, and then delimited to exclude cults thatfall short of constituting religious movements. Throughout, we molest a variety of sacred cows.

Conceptual schemes abound in the scientific study of religion. Definitions of majorconcepts have been amended, reconceived, and disputed at ength. Yet, if the purposeof concepts is to serve as primary terms for theories, little progress has been made.Consider the fact that we have not yet even settled on a definition of religion; andtherefore we do not even agree on the range of phenomena our theories mustconfront. The majority of scholars limit religion to systems of thought and activitypredicated on the existence of the supernatural (Goody, 1961; Stark, 1965; Spiro,1966; Berger, 1967).But a n articulate minority demands the definition of religion bebroad enough to include scientific humanism, Marxism, and other non-supernaturalphilosophies (Luckrnann, 1967; Bellah, 1970; Yinger, 1970). This i s a critical dispute,and anyone who aspires to construct theories of religious phenomena must take astand one way or the other. Until we resolve this issue, we will not be able to decide,for example, whether a theory of sect movements should include schismatic politicalmovements.

Similar ambiguities shroud other vital concepts. Consider the followingproblems: Many new religious bodies are created by schisms-they break off fromother religious organizations. Such new religions commonly are called sects. Butthere are many other new religious bodies that do not arise through schisms. Instead,they represent religious innovation. Someone has a novel religious insight andrecruits others to the faith. Often these new religions are also called sects. But atheory that explains why schismatic religious groups occur may havenothing to sayabout religious innovation. Is i t then only a partial theory of sect formation? Or shall

*Rodney Stark is Prof. of Sociology, University of Washington. William SimsBainbridgeis Assistant Prof. inDept. of Sociology, University of Washington.

@ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1979, 18 (2): 117-133 117


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we distinguish among religious groups on the basis of their origins? If so, whatnames should we employ for this distinction? And what of the many "quasi-religions" such as astrology, Yoga, and the like? Are they religiousmovements? Howshall we identify them? These questions are not merely academic. They must besettled by anyone who wishes to theorize about religious movements.

In our own work, we are immodestly attempting to construct anintegrated set ofdeductive theories of major religious phenomena. An important part of our effort isdirected towards a theory of religious movements. We intend to present a series ofdeductive chains, based on common axioms, to explain the formation of religiousmovements, how such movements succeed or fail, how they recruit members, and soforth. Before we could proceed, however, we found it necessary to redefine a numberof key concepts so they could adequately serve our theoretical needs. We also foundthat satisfactory treatment of these conceptual matters required tha t we devote aseparate paper to this task.This paper consists of a conceptual preface to a series of essays on religiousmovements. In i t we first attempt to delimit the boundaries of the phenomenon to becalled religion. We do this in two steps. First, we review the case for what we havealready identified a s the dominant definition in the field-a definition we support.But we then show that this definition of religion can be translated accurately into anew terminology we have developed a s part of the core theory on which all of ourmore narrow theories of religious phenomena rest (Stark & Bainbridge,forthcoming). The purpose of thi s translation is to coordinate the definition with ourdeductive system and render its elements fully operationalizable. That is,translation makes the definition scientifically useful both by permitting the logicaldeduction of many new propositions from i t and by facilitating their verificationthrough empirical research. Having thus established a definition of religion, we turnto religious movements and consider concepts available to designate different kindsof movements. We preface this discussion with an examination of a false notionabout ideal types which is widespread among social scientists and which hasfrustrated useful conceptions of churches and sects. We then draw upon theimportant work of Benton Johnson (1963) to establish a fruitful basis for the church-sect continuum. Next we show tha t the church-sect conceptualizationis too limited toserve fully the needs of a theory of religious movements. Therefore, we demonstratethe utility of a third concept-the cult-and clarify it s use. Along the way we defineother key terms such as religious movement, church movement, and religiousinstitution. In conclusion, we exhibit therelevance of these concepts for approachingthe basic questions that must be answered by any adequate theory of religiousmovements.

DEFINING "RELIGION"An enormous amount has been written to define religion. Scrutiny of thisliterature reveals two key problems. First of all, the definition must be quite broad.As

Sirnmel(1905) pointed out long ago we must achieve analytic power without losinggenerality, we must find:


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a definition which, without vagueness and yet with sufficient comprehensiveness, has told oncefor all what religion is in its essence, in that which is common alike to the religion of Christiansand South Sea islander, to Buddhism and Mexican idolatry (Simmel, 1905: 349).

The second problem is th at the definition must not be too broad. Many modemwriters have fallen into this pit. They have created definitions which easilyencompass the vast array of fai ths we regard a s religions, but which apply as easilyto phenomena that seem better excluded. A case in point is the concept of valueorientation developed by the Kluckhohns and by Parsons and his students (cf.Parsons & Shils, 1962; Smelser, 1963).A value orientation, according to Kluckhohn:may be defined as a generalized and organized conception. . .of nature, of man's place in it, ofman's relation toman, and of thedesireableand nondesireableas they relate to man-environmentand interhuman relations (Parsons& Shils, 1962: 411).

It i s evident, however, that this definition applies as fully to Communism as toCatholicism, to science as readily as to spiritualism. It seems reckless to lumptogether phenomena commonly thought of as religious and irreligious and arguetha t there are no significant differences between them. Indeed, it easily is arguedth at religious an d secular value orientations face quite different contingencies whenembodied in institutions or movements (Stark, 1965).Nevertheless, for all the problems of the many definitions offered, they contain acommon core th at yields an essential element. There is consensus tha t the thing weare trying to grasp always has some primary relevance to questions about "ultimatemeaning." There is nothing mysterious about what constitutes questions of ultimatemeaning. These are the existential basics: Is there a purpose to existence? Why arewe here? What can we hope? Is death the end? Why do we suffer? Does justice exist?etc. Answers to such questions provide ultimate meaning.But not all solutions to questions of ultimate meaning ought to be consideredreligion. Surely the Communist Party claims to answer many such questions, a s dovarious scientific philosophies. Furthermore, the problem of excluding such groupsfrom the definition of religion is not solved by the restriction th at religions employsuper-empirical assumptions in their solutions. All abstractions are super-empirical,the Marxist Dialectic no less so th an the Holy Trinity. It is a certain kind of super-empirical assumption that identifies what we usually think of as religious solutionsto questions of ultimate meaning. This is the assumption of the existence of thesupernatural-forces beyond or outside nature, an unknowable realm th at can alter,suspend, or ignore physical forces. The term religion is reserved for solutions toquestions of ultimate meaning which postulate the existence of a supernatural being,world, or force, and which further postulate that this force is active, that events andconditions here on earth are influenced by the supernatural.This permits us to see how religion, scientific humanism, a nd Marxism are bothsimilar a nd different. Solutions to questions of ultimate meaning come in manyforms. But only those predicated on the supernatural are religion.We would now like to approach this definitional problem in another way becausea definition of religion that includes a major undefined term such as ultimate


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meaning would be quite useless. Our analysis continues, then, with the observationthat , in pursuit of rewards, humans seek explanations:statements about how andwhy rewards may be obtained and costs are incurred. I t is important to realize thatwe do not conceive ofrewardsin a narrow andmaterialistic way. Rather, rewards areanything humans desire, and humans desire more than the things they can put intheir mouths or pockets. Explanations impart meaning to the circumstances ofhuman life. That is, they place mere facts in conceptual relationship to humandesires and action. Some desired rewards are very scarce, including some thatcannot be definitely shown to exist at all. In the absence of a desired reward,explanations will often be accepted which posit attainment of the reward in thedistant future or in some other non-verifiable context.This insight brings us to thekey concept-compensators-on which our theory of religion turns: Compensatorsare postulations of reward according to explanations that are not readily susceptibleto unambiguous evaluation. Nothing pejorative is meant by this term.Compensators merely refer to postulations of reward based in hope and faith ra therthan in knowledge. Sometimes, of course, hope is fulfilled an d faith is redeemed.Compensators merely refer to postulations that the desired rewards will be obtainedunder conditions not readily susceptible to verification. A compensator is anintangible promise which substitutes for the desired reward; it h as the character ofa n I.O.U., the value of which must be taken on faith. It will be apparent that someexplanations take the form of compensators. They propose a strategy for gaining thedesired reward in such a manner that the explanation is not readily subject toverification, and may not be subject to verification a t all.

Compensators may be broken down along several dimensions. One usefuldistinction i s between relatively specific and relatively general compensators. Thisfollows the distinction often made in behavioral psychology between specific andgeneral reinforcers or rewards (cf. Homans, 1974: 29). A specific compensatorsubstitutes for a specific reward. That is, it claims to provide something of limitedvalue and narrow scope. For example, an antibiotic treatment for an infection is aspecific reward, while a magical potion taken in the same circumstances is a specificcompensator. General compensators are substitutes for very general rewards (sucha s "health") and for large collections of rewards. For example, "heaven" is a verygeneral compensator that implies an unlimited flow of varied rewards.Two other classes of compensators can be identified. Some are utilized in lieu ofrewards which exist, but which are in short supply. Transvaluational doctrines thatdefine luxury as sin and thus transform shortage into virtue are an example. Asecond class of compensators refers to desires for which no reward exists. Thepromise of life after death is an example.An important aspect of general compensators-particularly, but not exclusively,those for which no reward exists-is that they serve as solutions to questions ofultimate meaning. A n answer to such questions would be a grand explanation thattells us how to achieve the most general possible rewards, tellsus why humans oftenbear terrible costs, and places the full scope of human desires and action in anapparently intelligible context.Relatively general compensators come in many forms and a re available frommany sources. A political ideology explaining that scarce rewards will be gained


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only after the revolution (but meanwhile people must support the Party) offerscompensators. It does not give the desired rewards here and now but issues apromisory note, the value of which cannot be demonstrated a t present. A generalcompensator, rather than the desired reward, is also offered by a scientificphilosophy advising people to ha ve heir bodies frozen in a cryogenic vault unti l suchtime a s science discovers how to overcome the aging process.Solutions to questions of ultimate meaning seem only available in the form ofcompensators. Consider the question: What is the goal of history? To answer is tomake a statement that is beyond verification, unless perhaps in the far distantfuture. Furthermore, some questions of ultimate meaning can only be answered byassuming the existence of the supernatural. For example, for history to have a goal,some conscious being must have set th at goal. Only a supernatural being could havethe vantage point and the power to establish a goal for history.

It is obvious that religion is a major source of general compensators, and thatan y particular religion organizes its compensators into a system. Indeed, the mostgeneral compensators entail explanations concerning ultimate meaning. It follows,therefore, t ha t the more s tandard definition of religion we discussed above can betranslated into the following form:A religion is a system of general compensatorsbased on supernatural assumptions. Limited space makes it impossible todemonstrate the full merits of th is definition in the present paper. Elsewhere (Stark& Bainbridge, forthcoming), we derive this definition from basic elements of our coretheory. Using this translation, we derive a very large number of quite complexpropositions about religious phenomena, including why and how religiousmovements form, and why and how they thrive or flounder. Based on an analysis ofexchange processes, and clarifying what is exchanged, this definition permits us aclearer vision of what actually is going on within religious organizations.What has been accomplished in this paper thus far i s the specification of thescope of a theory of religious movements. Such a theory applies only to movementswhich sustain systematic solutions to questions of ultimate meaning (generalcompensators) and which predicate these solutions on the assumption of theexistence of the supernatural. We now turn to conceptualizing the specificmovements and institutions to which the theory pertains.

UN-IDEAL TYPESThe conceptual literature on churches and sects is dominated by typologies.Indeed, the literature commonly refers not to churches and sects, but to the "church-sect typology." Sad to say, the kind of types usually developed by sociologists are ofno use in theory construction-they serve a s autological substitutes for real theoriesan d tend to prevent theorizing.The trouble started with Weber. It was Weber who introduced both the church-sect typology and a misunderstanding of the ideal type. In his classic work onmethods, Weber (1949) advocated the construction of ideal types:

. . .by the onesided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a greatmany diffuse, discrete, more or less present an d occasionally absent concrete indiurdual


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phenomen a, which are arranged according to these one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into aunified analytical construct. In its conceptual purity, this mental construct cannot be foundanywhere in reality . . .The y are used a s conceptual instrumen ts for comp arison with and themeasurement of reality (91-97).Generations of sociologists have regarded Weber's ideal type a s similar to conceptscommonly found in t he physical sciences. Physics, for example, abounds with "idealgasses" and "frictionless states." I t is understood th at such do not exist but are theabsolute base points on a measuring continuum agains t which degrees of friction orthe expansion of gases can be calibrated. But there is an immense and fataldifference between these ideal types and those proposed and compounded by Weber.The ideal types of physics anchor a single continuum along which it ispossible torank order all empirical or hypothetical cases. Comparison with the ideal i s directand unambiguous and thus permits measurement. But Weber's types preventcomparison and measurement, despite his claim that "they are ndispensible for thispurpose."Following Weber, sociologists often use correlates in their definitions ofconcepts. But it i s attributes, not correlates, th at belong in a definition. Consider themost minimal use ofa definition: to permit clear identification of cases as belongingor not belonging to the defined class. Since correlates are not always present, andoften may not be present, their use as defining features often leads tomisclassification. Worse yet, when many correlates are involved (asWeber advisedthey should be), the result is a jumble of mixed types which cannot be ordered andthus which cannot yield measurement. The usual outcome is a proliferation of newsubconcepts or types, a nd sometimes it seems to be th at each new empirical casemust become a unique type-which is to classify nothing.When attributes ar e the basis of definition (since they are always present in thephenomena to be classified) and when enough attributes have been utilized to limitthe class in the desired fashion, no ambiguity results. For then the concept forms anunderlying unidimensional axis of variation. This kind of ideal type, then, doesprovide a zero point for comparison and ranking.These general remarks are, as Homans would have it, so obvious tha t they arehighly controversial. An assessment of the church-sect typology gives themrelevance.

CHURCHES AND SECTSAlthough Weber introduced the notions of church an d sect, it was his studentErnst Troeltsch (1931),who first made them important. Troeltsch used a n deal typeof church and an ideal type of sect to categorize roughly what heregarded a s he twomain varieties of religious bodies in prel 9th century Christian Europe. Each typewas identified by a host of characteristics which were, at best, weak correlates of oneanother and of the phenomena to be classified. Subsequent attempts to utilizeTroeltsch's types in other times a nd places caused frustration. The empirical casesjust wouldn't fit well, so new users created new church-sect typologies. Indeed, itwould be close to the tru th to claim that each new user, or at east each new user with


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123HURCHES, SECTS,AND CULTSnew cases to classify, created a new typology based on different correlated features ofthe phenomena to be classified. And each new typology suffered the same defects asthose it replaced. It wouldn't organize the data.

The tragedy is t hat no typology so constructed will ever create the organizationneeded for theorizing. This problem is easy to illustrate. Suppose five correlates areused to define the ideal church, with negative values on these same five defining theideal sect. Then, suppose we treat these criteria as dichotomies. The result i s 32logicially possible types (since the defining criteria can vary independently), ofwhich 30 are mixed types. These mixed types cannot be ordered fully. Which is morechurchlike, a grouping possessing characteristics A and B, but lacking C,D, and E,or one with D and E, but not A, B, or C? In the empirical world, mixed types have beenthe rule.

Underlying most sociologists' interest in churches and sects is a theory aboutreligious movements. In 1929H. Richard Niebuhr argued that the sect is an unstabletype of religious organization which, through time, tends to be transformed into achurch. But, he argued, following this transformation, many members' needs thathad been satisfied by the sect go unmet by the church. In time this leads todiscontent, which prompts schism and the splitting off of a new sect, which then istransformed slowly into a church, thus to spawn anew sect: an endless cycle of birth,transformation, schism, and rebirth of religious movements.

It i s this theory that has long capitivated sociologists of religion. Troubleis tha ta typological conception of churches and sects prevents all theorizing. How can onetheorize about the movement from sect to church when one cannot rank groups a smore or less churchlike? It would humble physicists to try to theorize under suchhandicaps.

Thus it was a n event of considerable magnitude when Johnson (1963)proposed avast definitional rummage-sale. He discarded dozens of correlates from the variousdefinitions of church and sect and settled on a single attribute to classify religiousgroups: "Achurch is a religiousgroup tha t accepts thesocialenv ironm ent in which itexists. A sect is a religious group that rejects the social environment in which itexists."

What Johnson did was to postulate a continuum representing the degree towhich a religious group is in a state of tension with its surrounding socio-culturalenvironment. The ideal sect falls at one pole where the surrounding tension is sogreat that sect members are hunted fugitives. The ideal church anchors the other endof the continuum and virtually is the socio-cultural environment-the two are somerged it i s impossible to postulate a basis for tension. Johnson'sideal types, unlikeWeber's, are ideal in precisely the same way tha t ideal gases and frictionless statesare ideal. They identify a clear axis of variation and its end points.

Johnsons' reconceptualization also permits clear definition of two otherimportant concepts: religious movement and religious institution. When we look atthe low tension end of his axis we find not only churches, we find religiousinstitutions. That is, we find a stable sector of the social structure, a cluster of roles,norms, values, and activities associated with the performance of key socialfunctions.

Social institutions are not social movements-if we define social movements as


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124 JOURNA L FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIONorganized groups whose primary goal is to cause or prevent social change(Bainbridge, 1979). Institutions a dapt to change. Social movements seek to alter orbecome insti tutions. Thus we can see th at if religious institutions are one pole of thetension axis, aswe move along the axis in the direction of greater tension we discoverreligious movements. That is, religious movements are social movements that wishto cause or prevent change in a system of beliefs, values, symbols, and practicesconcerned with providing supernaturally-based general compensators. In a verygeneral way it can be asserted that religious movements are organized groupswishing to become religious institutions. Such groups would like to become thedominant faith in their society, although they may make little effort to achieve thisend if they a re convinced their chances a re too remote.Johnson's axis also permits us to characterize the direction taken by religiousmovements. When they move towards less tension with their socioculturalenvironment they are church movements (although a group may remain a sectduring a long period of movement in th is churchlike direction). When groups movetowards the high tension pole they are sect movements. In another paper(Bainbridge & Stark, forthcoming), we show t ha t the degree of tension experiencedby a religious group can be measured easily and unambiguously. We also explaintha t tension with -the socio-cultural environment is equivalent to subculturaldeviance in which the relationship between the high tension group and thesurrounding society is marked by difference, antagonism, and separation-threeintegrated but conceptually distinguishable aspects of deviance. Since tensiondefined in this way can be measured, numerous empirical studies cannow readily beperformed, testing any hypothesis or theory in which tension plays a part.The utility of Johnson 's reconceptualization of church and sect is obvious. Forexample, we may liow see a t a glance that the Catholic Church in the United States ismore sectlike than is the Catholic Church in Ireland. In most prior typologies thiscould not be seen. Furthermore, because the axis of variation is clear, variation criesout for explanation. I t becomes obvious how to proceed towards theories to rectifyand extend Niebuhr's work. Indeed many important variables long thought toinfluence the generation of sects or their transformation into churches now can beexamined. In the past, these variables have been utilized in typologizing and thuswere locked in tautology. Now we can ask, for example, if the arrival of a generationof members socialized into the sect a s children, rather than converted into it asadults, plays a major role in pushing sects down the road to churchliness. In the pastthi s variable was lost in the creation of 1)sects with convertedmembers,2) sects withsocialized members, 3) churches with converted members, and 4) churches withsocialized members. These four boxes tell us nothing. A proposition that relatedsocialization to the transformation of sects into churches could tell us much.Since the purpose of th is essay is to develop the conceptual means for theorizing,it might seem that Johnson already had done the necessary. Unfortunately, he didnot. There are a t least two kinds of religious movements in a high state of tensionwith their surrounding socio-cultural environment, and it demonstrably inhibitsefficient theorizing to regard both kinds as sects, and ignore differences betweenthem. Therefore, wemust now add some complexity to Johnson's elegant parsimony.Neibuhr's theory exclusively concerns schismatic religious movements, which


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125HURCHES, SECTS, AN D CULTShe identifies a s sects. He wasnot speaking of al l small, deviant religious movements,but only of those whose existence began as an internal faction of another religiousbody. This is, of course, a very common kind of religious movement. However, it isnotthe only kind of religious movement in a high state of tension with the surroundingsocio-cultural environment. Many such movements have no history of priororganizational attachment to a "parent" religion-thus they are not schismatic.Indeed they lack a close cultural continuity with (or similarity to) other religiousgroups in a society. Thesenon-schismatic, deviant religious groups are hemselves oftwo types. One type represents cultural innovation. That is, along with the manyfamiliar components of religious culture appearing in the beliefs, values, symbols,and practices of the group, there is something distinctive and new about them a swell. The second type exhibits cultural importation. Such groups represent (or claimto represent) a religious body well-established in another society. Examples arevarious far eastern fai ths in the U.S., or Christianity in the far east. In commonparlance, these deviant but non-schismatic bodies often are referred to a s cults(Eister, 1972).These preliminary remarks can be expanded to define sects an d cults. Both cultsan d sects are deviant religious bodies-that is, they are in a state of relatively hightension with their surrounding socio-cultural environment. However, sects have aprior tie wit h another religious orga nization. To be a sect a religious movement musthave been founded by persons who lef t another religious body for th e purpose offounding the sect. The term sect, therefore, applies only to schismatic movements.Note that it i s not required in this definition tha t a sect break off from a church, asNiebuhr argued. To do so would land us back in the wilderness of typologies. Forsects sometimes break off from other sects. Indeed, it has happened tha t churcheshave broken off from sects (Steinberg, 1965).Furthermore, we plan to apply elementsof church-sect theory to the careers of cults. Therefore, these are matters to theorizeabout, not to lock into definitions.Because sects ar e schismatic groups they present themselves to the world a ssomething old.They left the parent body not to form a new faith but to reestab lish theold one, from which the parent body had "drifted" (usually by becoming morechurchlike). Sects claim to be the authentic, purged, refurbished version of the faithfrom which they split. Luther, for example, did not claim to be leading a new churchbut the true church cleansed of worldy encrustations.Cults, with the exception noted below, do not have a prior tie with anotherestablished religious body in the society in question. The cult may represent a n alien(external) religion, or it may have originated in the host society-but throughinnovation, not fission.Whether domestic or imported, the cult is something new vis-a-vis the otherreligious bodies of the society in question. If domestic-regardless of how much of thecommon religious culture it retains-the cult adds to tha t culturea new revelation orinsight justifying the claim th at it is different, new, more advanced. Imported cultsoften have little common culture with existing faiths; while they may be old in someother society, they are new and different in the importing society.Cults, then, represent a n independent religious tradition in a society. In timethey may become the dominant tradition, in which case there is no longer much


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tension between them and the environment, and they become the church or churchesof that society. And even long before cults become churches, they too are prone tointernal schisms. Thus, within the context of cult movements, schismaticmovements can form. A theory to explain sect formation can then be applied to cultsto explain their schismatic tendencies. But it is vital to see that a theory o f sectformation simply will not serve as a theory o f cult formation. The geneses of the twoare very different.To sum up: sects are breeds of a common species; cults are a different species andoccur by mutation or migration. Sects, being schismatic, are embodied in religipusorganizations, an d their statusas religious movements is clear. However, many cultsdo not develop into full-blown religious movements. Therefore, it is necessary tosurvey the range of cults to identify various forms, only some of which will fall withinthe scope of a theory of religious movements.

CULTSThree degrees of organization (or lack of organization) characterize cults. Themost diffuse and least organized kind of cult could best be identified a s a n audience.Sometimes some members of this audience actually may gather to hear a lecture. Butthere are virtually no aspects of formal organization to these activities, and

membership remains at most a consumer activity. Indeed, cult audiences often donot gather physically but consume cult doctrines entirely through magazines, books,newspapers, radio and television.More organized than audience cults are what can be characterized a sclient cults.Here the relationship between those promulgating cult doctrine and those partakingof it most closely resembles the relationship between therapist and patient, orbetween consultant and client. Considerable organization may be found amongthose offering the cult service, but clients remain little organized. Furthermore, nosuccessful effort is made to weld the clients into a social movement. Indeed, clientinvolvement is so partial that clients often retain an active commitment to anotherreligious movement or institution.Finally, there are cult movements which can be distinguished from otherreligious movements only in terms of the distinctions between cults and sects

developed above. It is only cult movements that will be addressed in our subsequenttheory. However, the less organized types currently a re more common and needed tobe described with some care so they would not be confused with the full-fledged cultmovement.Our three "types" of cult can be distinguished in terms of the qualities of thecompensators they provide. Thus, ra ther than being three more "unideal types,"they a re merely convenient words to describe particular ranges in measurementscales on dimensions we have already introduced. Audience cults ar e identified bythe low value, and consequent low cost, of the compensators they provide. Our twoother types are points along a continuum defined by the degree of generality o f thecompensators offered by a given cult.Audience cults offer very vague and weak compensators, often little more than amild vicarious thril l or social entertainment. Client cults offer valued but relatively


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12 7HURCHES, SECTS, AND CULTS

specific compensators. Psychoanalysis an d Dianetics claim to cure neurosis, butthey do not promise everlasting life. Cult movements present a much larger packageof compensators, including the most general compensators offered by full-fledgedsects and churches.These three levels of cults can also be described conveniently in traditionalterms: audience cults provide mythology; client cults add serious magic; cultmovements ar e rue religions.Put another way, not all cults are religions, in the strictsense of the term, because not all represent systems of ultimate meaning. Audiencecults are par t of a diffuse occult milieu tha t toys with vague images of the ultimate.Also within this milieu are many unsuccessful client cults and cult movements,including many one-person operations with no committed followers. But, inthemselves, audience cults offer only very limited rewards and compensators.Client cults are magical rather than religious. This means that their mainbusiness is selling compensators rather than rewards, and the compensators ar erelatively specific and not embodied in a total system of ultimate meaning. Freuddoes not tell us how our lives meaningfully ar e related to the ultimate laws of theuniverse, but h e does provide specific meanings t o at tach to limited aspects of thehuman condition.Ourdistinction between magic and religion is entirely in line withsome of the best traditional descriptions of these two related expressions of humandesire (e.g., Durkheim, 1915:42).Only cult movements ar e genuinely religious in the fullest sense, although someof them may not accept the label of "religion." For a long time the authors of thispaper debated the proper conceptual boundary between religious cults and other cultlike phenomena, especially magical, service organizations. A similar debate ha sraged in the courts in recent years a s various groups (such a s Scientology, the BlackMuslims, and Transcendental Meditation) have struggled to obtain or avoid legaldefinition as religious organizations. One of the advantages of our definition of cultis that it explains why thi s debatehas taken place. Because cults are culturally novelor exotic, the conventional definitions of our society do not apply to themautomatically. When a sect breaks away from a church, it takes with it the label"religious," but cults are not born with the religious label attached.Under our definition of "cult" and "religion," analysis using the concept ofcompensators makes good sense out of the otherwise bewildering variety of cults.While all cults have certain features in common with traditional religiousphenomena, only those cults that offer quite general compensators (a system ofultimate meaning) fully qualify a s religious. The extent to which a group is reallyreligious is a n empirical question of where--on a continuum-it lies a t he moment.Our conceptualization also transforms what has been a swamp of unproductivedebate into a fruitful field for scientific research. RecallNeibuhr's observation th atsects tend to evolve into churches. Our research indicates that magical client cultstend to evolve into religious cult movements. Although examples abound, the bestdocumented are Scientology (Wallis, 1976) and "The Power" (Bainbridge, 1978).Both groups began a s imited psychotherapy services. Because they were culturallynovel and were not based on any body of verified scientific research, they weremagical client cultsrather t ha n technical medical services. As the years passed, eachof these two cults began offering compensators that were more and more general and


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for which no equivalent rewards existed. Their ideologies ramified into complexsystems of ultimate meaning. Now, both ar e highly developed cult movements.Within our conceptual framework, we can also apply to cults many of the ideasoriginally developed in understanding sects and churches. For example, we candiscuss the degree of tension t ha t a cult experiences with the surrounding society. Itwould appear that cults can enjoy relatively low tension with their environment a slong a s they do not organize into religious movements. Participating in cultaudiences seems to be a very low risk activity. A 1976Gallup Poll suggests tha t 22percent of Americans believe in astrology, and astrology columns and publicationsflourish. But very little flak i s directed towards astrology. In general, the clergy ofAmerican churches seem to ignore the astrology cult. At most, persons whoparticipate in audience cults may risk censure from thoseimmediately around them.Client cults, too, do not provoke great hostility in the surrounding socio-culturalenvironment. As long a s they do not run afoul of fraud statutes (by selling buildinglots on a fictitious planet, for example) or licensing statutes governing medicalpractice, they are not subject to much harrassment. Client cults seem almost never toserve a low status market, if for no other reason th an they charge for their services.Consequently, client cults also seem to be somewhat protected by the high status oftheir clientel. For example, the spiritualists primarily have drawn on middle andupper class clientel, a s do most of today's personal adjustment cults, which seems tohave lent them considerable protection from opposition.It is when cults become religious movements that their environment heats up.For example, a s Scientology evolved from a client cult to a movement seeking majorcommitment from members, its legal troubles grew. In similar fashion,Transcendental Meditation took little heat so long as it concentrated on teachingclients to meditate during a few training sessions. With its transformation into anintense religious movement-amid claims that advanced members could fly(levitate)-public reaction has grown. And it i s cult movements, not client cults oraudiences, that today face opposition from irate parents who hire deprogrammers tokidnap their children from the bosom of the cult.Furthermore, among cult movements, the more a cult mobilizesits membership,the greater the opposition it engenders. Cults whose members remain in the societyto pursue normal lives and occupations engender much less opposition than do cultswhose members drop everything and become full-time converts. In part, this isprobably because cults that function a s total institutions rupture converts' ties toconventional institutions. This generates personal grievances against themovement. It is one thing to know your son or daughter, for example, attends a weirdchurch a nd has odd beliefs, but it i s quite something else to lose contact with a childwho takes up fulltime participation in an alien faith. Indeed, even Catholic parentsoften find it painful to lose a child to a convent or monastery even though thequestion of deviant faith is not a t ssue. Thus the rule seems to be, the more total themovement, the more total the opposition to it.


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CHURCHES, SECTS, AND CULTSCONCLUSIONS

Concepts must not only facilitate theorizing; they ought to inspire it. Conceptsshould identify a phenomenon tha t arouses our interest and should present a clearenough picture of the phenomenon's variation th at we are prompted to explain it. Webelieve the conceptual scheme developed above does encourage such theoryconstruction. Therefore, to conclude this paper, we shall point out some basicquestions thrown into relief by these particular formulations-basic questions th atmust be answered by any adequate theory of religious movements.The most obvious tas kis to seeka set of premises from which a theory of religiousschism can be deduced. Why and under what conditions do factions form in areligious group? Why and when do these result in the splitting off of a sectmovement? A church movement? Under what conditions do schismatic forcesproduce secular rather t han religious movements?This las t question reminds us thatwe must theorize not merely about the internal workings of religious bodies, but wemust also deal with their external environment. Thus, for example, we need to knownot only how sects form within a parent body, but the social conditions under whichreligious schisms are more and less likely.It must be recognized tha t in posing these questions we are permitted, by ourconcepts, to avoid the assumption t ha t sects split off from churches. We aredirected,instead, to the problem of faction and exodus in any kind of religious body. This isimportant because the historical record makes it clear that sect formation isprobably more common within bodies that are themselves sects rather thanchurches. It also permits analysis of schismaticmovements originatingin cults, justas it lets us deal with church movements which have split off from sects or cults.Instead of converting these alternatives into un-ideal types, our conceptual schememakes i t possible to construct propositions to account for these variations.Our concepts make it clear that a theory of religious schism pertains to only somereligious movements. Cults are not the result of schism (although, once founded,cults become subject to schism).Therefore, a theory of cult formation may have veryfew propositions in common with a theory of religious schism (a term to be preferredto sect-formation because it is more inclusive). We must explain when the socio-cultural environment i s conducive to cult formation, and why. We must also specifythe process by which people actually form a cult, and we must explain thecontingencies governing importation of cults.The next requirement is for a theory of development and transformation. Once asect or cult is formed, what contingencies govern whether it will grow, stall, or fail?What factors operate to push i t in a church-like direction (toward lower tension)?What factors push toward higher tension?Finally, we must close the circle by showing how and to what extent the factorsinvolved in the formation of religious groups influence their development andtransformation, and how these in turn are involved in the onset of schism and of cultformation and importation.This is, of course, a formidable list. However, with the conceptual clarificationsoutlined above, it is a t least possible to see where to begin. In work in progress wehave identified some propositions which enable us to deduce a t least partial answers


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to many of these questions. With luck we shall succeed in constructing a usefulbeginning theory of religious movements.In conclusion we would like to suggest that such a theory is important forsociologists to pursue. One virtue of this pursuit remains a s Ellsworth Faris (1928)suggested 50 years ago: The origin of many social institutions and much humanculture "is lost in mystery." We haveno timemachineto permit study of the past. Butreligious sects and cults can be studied from the star t and thus can furnish a body ofinformation "concerning the rise of institutions," and the invention of culture (Faris,1928). Social scientists have always envied geneticists' rapidly reproducing fruitflies. We suggest that for a great many basic sociological questions the cult and sectprovide a reasonable substitute.Moreover, cult and sect formation can no longer be regarded a s a dead issue.Prior to World War I1 sociologists demonstrated considerableinterest n sect an d cultmovements because these had always been a common feature of American societyand continued to be so throughout the 1920s and 30s. However, despite theresurrection of a n active sociology of religion during the "religious revival" of thepost war years, sociologists lost interest in sects and cults primarily because fewseem to have been formed during the 1940s and 50s. Indeed, when the senior authorwent in search of a cult movement to study in 1960, such movements were hard tofind. Most of those he found wereagingremnants of cults that formed and flourishedduring the 1930s. Even in California, a new cult movement that could be studiedwhile still developing took more than a year of ha rd work to find. And it was not evena domestic innovation, but an importation-the Korean cult of Reverend Sun M.Moon, now famous as the "Moonies." However, when the junior author set out tostudy cult movements in the early 19708,no search was needed. The problem was notto find a cult movement, but to pick one to study from dozens available.Such fluctuations in the frequency of cult and sect formation are part of what wemust explain. But it i s clear that these days we arenot limited to historical materialsabout a dying phenomenon-religious innovation is alive and well.Unfortunately we have not made much theoretical progress towards explainingreligious movements since 1929 when Neibuhr sketched his church-sect theory andwhen Ellsworth Faris (1929) published a one-page, eight-point directive listingurgent business for sociological study. His list included the following:

. . . 2. A sociological study of the origin and evolution of specific religious sects ought to be veryfruitful in making us intelligent about how institutions arise a nd develop. The study of sectswhich have disappeared and of those whose birth was abortive would be highly instructive.3. The study of social movem ents should include significant religiou smov eme nts.. .Th ere aresocial, racial, and economic aspects which do not appear at all in the controversial literature.

Since Faris wrote these lines, many sects and cults have been studiedethnographically, but theoretical progress was stifled by ill-advised attempts to finda set of boxes in which to place each religious movement. Built of correlates, the setsof boxes expanded endlessly. Everything was named. Nothing was explained. Webelieve i t i s time to use th is mass of rich observations for the purpose of theoryconstruction and theory-testing. These pages have been offered a s a step in tha tdirection.


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