Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The church-sect typology has been enriched with subtypes. The theory of the church-sect continuum states that churches, ecclesia, denominations and sects form a continuum with decreasing influence on society. [citation needed] Sects are break-away groups from more mainstream religions and tend to be in tension with society.
Unification Church (统一教; tǒngyī jiào), known as "The Moonies" in the US, founded by Korean-American Sun Myung Moon in Busan in 1954, defined by the ministry as a cult in 1997. [10] Sanban Puren Pai (三班仆人派; sān bān púrén pài), a Christian sect founded by Xu Wenku in the 1990s, defined by the ministry as a cult in 1999.
Sociologists have developed various definitions and descriptions for the term "sect." Early scholars like Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch (1912) were among the first to define sects within the church-sect typology, viewing them as voluntary associations of individuals who meet specific religious qualifications. Unlike churches, membership in a ...
American sociologist Howard P. Becker further bisected Troeltsch's first two categories: church was split into ecclesia and denomination; and sect into sect and cult. [23] [3] Like Troeltsch's "mystical religion", Becker's cult refers to small religious groups that lack in organization and emphasize the private nature of personal beliefs. [24]
As James Madison, prior to becoming the fourth U.S. president in an 1803 letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, stated: “The purpose of separation of church and state is to ...
A state church (or "established church") is a state religion established by a state for use exclusively by that state. In the case of a state church , the state has absolute control over the church, but in the case of a state religion , the church is ruled by an exterior body; for example, in the case of Catholicism, the Vatican has control ...
Sex, sexuality and sect together define citizenship, and, since the concept of citizenship is the basis of the modern nation-state, sextarianism therefore forms the basis for the legal bureaucratic systems of the state and thus for state power.
The United States Supreme Court has referenced the separation of church and state metaphor more than 25 times, though not always fully embracing the principle, saying "the metaphor itself is not a wholly accurate description of the practical aspects of the relationship that in fact exists between church and state". [118]