Compare and Contrast the sociological organizations of a cult, church and sect. Show how a cult can develop into a church.

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Compare and Contrast the sociological organizations of a cult, church and sect.  Show how a cult can develop into a church.

Cults, Sects, and Churches are all different groups.  Within these different groups are housed different beliefs.  Firstly it is important to get a little information about each of them.  

A cult is small, individual, mystical, pragmatic, informal and oftentimes short-lived.  They are thought to have been derived when human society was organized on the basis on family and kin.  Cults are not a very highly discussed topic in sociology.  However, in many discussions about religion a cult is viewed in a negative light and presented to society as a problem.  In sociology what the popular population refers to would really be referred to as a sect.  A sociologist’s definition is that of a small movement requiring total commitment and total separation from the wider society.  One example is the Branch-Davidian movement who has it’s main sector in Waco, Texas USA.  It is thought that people often join the organizations referred to as cults for individual and often pragmatic reasons usually to achieve some practical end.  These organizations are non-radical in that they do not challenge the wider society.  It mainly appeals to those who are socially privileged.  Stark and Bainbridge distinguished between three types of cults.  The audience cults, client cults and cultic movements.  Audience cults are the most individualistic and unorganized.  A good example of these types is astrology as it is mainly sustained through the mass media.  The next are client cults which are more organized and provide a service to members.  An example of these is spiritualism, which has the aim of allowing people to contact the dead.  The third example is that of cultic movements which actually are the closest to sects.  They offer a variation of spiritual and material support to members.  An example of this is scientology although it has many attributes of sects.

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A sect and a cult are very similar in definition as I stated in the previous paragraph.  The are small and offer exclusive membership, they require total commitment.  They also pose opposition to the wider society.  The have no professional clergy but usually have a charismatic leader or founder.  In many ways a sect is the opposite of a church.  They are opposites in just about every way except that, like churches, they believe they have a monopoly on the truth and that they will deny what other sects or organizations say is true.  They are usually relatively small, ...

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