Cults, New Religions and Religious Creativity by Geoffrey Nelson

Author:Geoffrey Nelson [Nelson, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Cults, Social Science, Anthropology, General, Sociology, Sociology of Religion
ISBN: 9781136826221
Google: xfyrAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-03-31T05:41:57+00:00

Centralisation

One of the major effects of both the growth of oligarchies and bureaucracies in religious movements is the concentralisation of power in a small group of leaders. Some movements, of course, start from a situation in which all power derives from the charismatic founder and remains in the hands of his legally appointed successor, or group of successors. In the latter case, the problem may then become one of decentralising power to the mass membership, but in the present context we are assuming that power is originally widely diffused; we shall seek to explain how it becomes concentrated and how such a process may be avoided. The cases we shall be considering, the Quakers, Spiritualists and Congregationalists, are movements that have consistently resisted attempts to concentrate power either in the hands of a bureaucracy or an oligarchy.

The third, broader trend that has been observed in both secular and religious organisations in recent years is that of professionalisation.

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