NCJ Number
119009
Date Published
1988
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This chapter surveys typologies of new religious movements (NRM's) that have been formulated in recent decades and attempts to assimilate recent movements to the tradition of church-sect theory.
Abstract
Many theorists have extrapolated church-sect theory to assimilate NRM's; however, Wallis' recent synthesizing monograph of NRM's ignores his earlier cult-to-sect developmental theory and focuses on his trichotomy of world-accepting, world-rejecting, and world-affirming movements. Typologies which have focused on contemporary NRM's as distinctive from earlier religious movements have a definitional problem, i.e., what is a "new religion" and how "new" are NRM's. There does not appear to be a single framework for the analysis of either all religious collectivities, new religious collectivities, or contemporary NRM's. Particular typologies are justified by their theoretical purposes; e.g., Wallis' cult/sect theorizing is important because of its contribution to the analysis of the institutionalization and evolution of new movements. Bird's typology of devotee, discipleship, and apprenticeship groups is itself a theory of the function and appeal of contemporary NRM's that is comparable to Tipton's better known comparative and prototypological analysis of the role of NRM's in resolving conflicts of moral ideologies. On the other hand, the recent typological works of Anthony and Ecker (1987), Wilber (1983), and Stark and Bainbridge (1985) are partly normative (Anthony and Wilber) but are also tied to broader ventures of reconstructing and reintegrating the scientific study of religion.