Posted on 12/12/2007 9:57:40 AM PST by xzins
Some Key Definitions (multiple definitions to be added here)
CHURCH: a conventional religious organization SECT: a deviant religious organization with traditional beliefs and practices.
CULT: a deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices.
Stark and Bainbridge, 1987: 124 1
In 1993 David Bromley and I edited a two-volume work entitled The Handbook of Cults and Sects in America. In our introductory essay to that volume we wrote as follows:
"We have chosen to use the concepts "cults" and "sects" in the title of this volume for two reasons. First, the concepts do have more or less precise meanings as employed by social scientists. Second, it has become abundantly clear that after nearly two decades, the concept new religious movements has virtually no recognition either in the mass media or the general public. By calling attention to the concepts as they are used by social scientists, we hope to begin the long process of educating the mass media and public regarding the non-pejorative meaning of these words."
But from a purely academic standard, I tend to think your definitions are about as spot on as anything I’ve ever seen.
I hope your book becomes widely known and used to accomplish that goal of educating the public about what has happened in religion in the last twenty years. Its good to have some people who are actually favorably disposed to religious people writing the textbooks instead of somebody writing it like a case study on aliens living amongst us.
:>)
(However, not by the above definitions.)
What do we call a group of carmakers who strike out on their own from previous positions in General Motors?
(Crazy.....entrepreneurs?)
If they succeed what are they (small businesses?)
Same thing really.
If I am a proponent of, and adhere to the teachings of, several of those groups would you say I’m a fan of group sects?
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