Joseph Thiebes portland, oregon | art | science | philosophy | politics | food

Cultural Continuity: A Strategy for the Success of New Religious Movements

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The term “cult” has taken on derogatory implications in recent decades, due to the increased prominence of violent or suicidal cults in the media (Dawson 1-2). These implications present difficulty for social scientists in describing small religious movements which have novel beliefs and practices but may be quite benign. To solve this difficulty, scholars have settled upon the phrase “New Religious Movements” (NRMs) to describe cults without derogatory implications (Dawson 2). The formation of NRMs can occur due to unhappy members of one religion branching out to make a new sect, or by the discovery and importation of an existing but unfamiliar religion, or by creating a completely new religion (Stark 133). While many NRMs will be created on this planet, and some will achieve modest success by attracting hundreds of thousands of adherents and lasting a century or more, almost all of them will eventually fail (Stark 133). Rodney Stark theorizes that “New religious movements are likely to succeed to the extent that they retain cultural continuity with the conventional faith(s) of the societies in which they seek converts” (260). Emphasizing cultural continuity may therefore be an effective strategy for the success of benign NRMs.