Sects growth and development - social change, relative deprivation

Roy wallis - social change / first wave of sects 19th cent

sects took off in the 19th century in the US because Americans were anxious about the scale and consequences of social changes that were happening

Roy wallis - social change/ second wave of sects 50s-70s

sects were successful in recruiting middle class educated youngsters who were delusioned with various aspects of mainstream society like the viet war and racial segregation (peoples temple emergence)

Roy Wallis - social change/ third wave of sects 90s (NRM)

a lot of sects saw this as the year where the world would end and aliens would reveal themselves and many sects promised salvation so sects made up conspiracy theories

Evaluation of wallis

Wallis has been critiqued because he places too much emphasis on the idea that NRMS are the product of rebellion and fails to explain other types of NRMS that live peacefully when opposing mainstream views EG Amish

Economic deprivation

sects appeal to those in poverty because they offer supernatural explanations for people’s social and economic suffering

Weber - theodicy of misfortune

sects promise compensation in form of salvation. In simpler words they try to give reasons for people’s misfortune and say they can help

Social/status deprivation

sects attract lower m/c people who experience status deprivation where they work and they feel socially deprived because they lack job satisfaction so sects allow them to have purpose

Organismic deprivation

people affected by physical and mental health addictions turn to sect in hope of healing because sects claim to have healing powers

Ethical deprivation

sects attract people who feel the world is in ‘moral decline’

Griffith

says women with traditional ideas about gender may be attracted by some pentecostal denominations because they encourage traditional division of labour

Psychic deprivation

people may reject values and individualism, materialism and consumerism and want spiritual alternatives so they turn to sects to find themselves because they feel spiritually deprived and think the world is too materialistic