New Religious Movements

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how sociologists have noted a dramatic decrease in religious activity within established Trinitarian churches and how affiliation to new religious movements has risen just as considerably. It examines how the actual concept of new religious movements was developed because sociologists found the terms "sect" and "cult" inadequate to describe these new religious groups, as the organizational structures, type of membership and leadership, affinities with traditional mainstream religions and attitude to wider society of these organizations were much too different. It also explores the concept of the three kinds of new religious movements as defines by sociologists, world rejecting, world accommodating and world affirming.

From the Paper:

"Other sociologists have argued that the rapid growth in new religious movements is not a response to social deprivation but to secularization. It is argued that since the decline in the importance of the established religions and Trinitarian churches people seek alternative belief systems to explain the world and its difficulties after feeling disillusioned by institutionalized religion. Sociologists argue that many modern religious movements are a response to anxieties created by the dominance of scientific rationalism, materialism and the resulting secularization of society."

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• Essay # 49532 : "Religious Behaviour"

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