Sects

views updated May 09 2018

Sects. Groups, usually religious, which are set up with their own organization in distinction from, and often in protest against, established religions. Sects featured in Troeltsch's Church-Sect typology. Sects are characterized by: depending on volunteers (to be born into a sect indicates that it is on the way to stability); charismatic authority; strict discipline with clear rules of conduct; sense of élite privilege (of being the only ones in a true, or enlightened, or saved state); restriction on individuality. In addition, R. Wallis (Salvation and Protest, 1979) suggested that sects are either world-affirming (seeing power, value, etc., emerging from within the universe) or world-denying (seeing the world as evil and requiring rescue by God).

sects

views updated Jun 11 2018

sects. See dissent.

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Sects

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