Welcome To The Sociology of Cults and New Religious

Movements

Charles M. Brown, Ph.D.

Albright College

Substantive Definitions

• Edward Tyler– “Belief in Spiritual Beings”

• Emile Durkheim– “A religion is a unified system of beliefs and

practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden- beliefs and practices which unite into a single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them”

Functional Definitions• Milton Yinger

– “Religion, then, can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with [the] ultimate problems of human life”

Symbolic Definitions

Star of David

Yin-Yang

Pentagram

Symbolic Definitions• Clifford Geertz

– “Religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in [people] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence (a.k.a. a world view) and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”

Working Definition

• Rodney Stark– “Any socially organized pattern of beliefs

and practices concerning ultimate meaning that assumes the existence of the supernatural.”

The 2 Principles

• Reliance on Empirical Data• Objectivity

Methods

• Historical analysis• Cross-cultural analysis• Experimentation• Participant Observation• Survey Research• Content Analysis