REL 2011 Final Essay
1:
Over this semester, this course has helped me understand how powerful reli-
gion and the discussion of religion can be to our society as well as others. At
times, the words that are used to describe different religious groups or
churches can be confusing, misleading, misunderstood and even offensive.
Society can label a group of people by a name they may be seen as negative
or scary when they do not view it the same way themselves. Before this class,
I did not have a good understanding of what actually made a group of people
a sect or cult. I understood church from my own experience. This chapter was
interesting to compare the three categories and how society responds and
attempts to keep each category strong over time. Another lesson that I have
learned from this class is that it almost seems impossible to have a community
without some sort of religion.
Ernst Troeltsch was a colleague of Max Weber who studied the different forms
of religious communities and how society responded to their lives and sur-
roundings to form the different categories. Troletsch had a study called “The
Social Teachings of the Christian Churches.” Weber and Troletsch worked to-
gether to understand and explain the different religious communities. They
studied the different religions and how their groups are started and ways they
try to keep their groups to continue for their future children. In the novel,
Mykaya Kelly
Anatomy of the Sacred Livingston stated, “Sects differ from churches and de-
nominations in a number of ways, (137).” One way mentioned that makes
sect different from churches is that sects’ tend to be smaller and more selec-
tive rather than a church which is most likely the opposite. Churches are also
more intertwined with society. Troletsch makes many points showing the dif-
ferences between these two. Sects struggle staying active, because the next
generation which comes through might not be as devoted as the generation
beforehand. To keep the sects alive this would have to be done efficiently. In
this case if one is not staying strong Livingston stated, “The sect thus becomes
‘denominationalized’; it becomes a form of church-type community that is lim-
ited by boundaries of social class, race, and ethnicity or region and that dis-
plays more liberal and tolerant attitudes towards other religious groups,
greater accommodation to the ‘secular’ world, and rather more formality in
worship and leadership, (Livingston 137).” I believe that in our community
most people view cults in a negative way. Perhaps this is because of the mass
suicides that were committed by cults not that long ago in our own country.
Cults are usually led by one leader with a group of followers that are willing
to do anything for their leader and beliefs as they tend to believe the end of
the world is near. It would be interesting to see what Weber would think
about today’s cults and the new age religious movements. From my under-
standing of Chapter 5 in “Eight theories of Religion,” Pals documents that We-
ber discussed three types of social authority. The three types include tradi-
tional, legal and charismatic, (Pals 149-192).” Based on Livingston’s descrip–
tion of cult leaders, I would believe that Weber would consider a cult to be a
result of a charismatic leader. Most of the followers for the cults and the new
age movements are said to be looking for a family to belong to. Cult followers
tend to be younger and are very passionate about finding themselves and
belonging to a group before the end of time.
I believe society chooses to join to one of these three categories based on
their individual communal, social and religious beliefs and needs. Church tend
to be sought out by followers that may have a family and are looking to be in
