Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociologists, and various distinctive features have been proposed to characterise churches and sects. On most accounts, the following features are deemed relevant: The church is a compulsory organisation into which people are born, while the sect is a voluntary organisation to which people usually convert. The church is an inclusive organisation to which all kinds of people may belong, while the sect is an exclusive organisation of religiously qualified people. The church is an established organisation that is well integrated into the larger society and usually inclined to seek for an alliance with the political power, while the sect is a splinter group from a larger religion: it is often in tension with current societal values, rejects any compromise with the secular order and tends to be composed of underprivileged people. The church exhibits complex hierarchical bureaucratic structures, while the sect is a smaller, democratic and relatively informal organisation. The ministers of a church are formally trained, educated and ordained, while the sect rejects sharp distinctions between clergy and laity, and is often ruled by charismatic leaders. In theology and liturgy the church is inclined to dogmatism, traditionalism and ritualism, while the sect promotes intensified spiritual experiences for its members and adopts a more inspirational, informal and unpredictable approach to preaching and worship.
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. Sects are break-away groups from more mainstream religions and tend to be in tension with society. Cults and new religious movements fall outside this continuum and in contrast to aforementioned groups often have a novel teaching. They have been classified on their attitude towards society and the level of involvement of their adherents.
Church-sect typology
The church-sect typology has its origins in the work of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, and from about the 1930s to the late 1960s it inspired numerous studies and theoretical models especially in American sociology.
Weber characterised the church as a compulsory, bureaucratic, inclusive organisation whose membership is obtained primarily at birth by ascription, and the sect as a voluntary, democratic, exclusive organisation whose members are recruited through individual admission after establishment of qualification. Ernest Troeltsch accepted Weber's definition but added the notion of a varying degree of accommodation with social morality: the church is intrinsically conservative, inclined to seek for an alliance with the upper classes and aiming at dominating all elements within society, while the sect is in tension with current societal values, rejects any compromise with the secular order and tends to be composed of underprivileged people.
Subsequent sociological and theological studies elaborated on Weber's and Troeltsch's typologies incorporating them into a theory of the church-sect "continuum" or "movement". H. Richard Niebuhr viewed religious groups as ranging between the poles of the sect and the church: sects are protest groups that break away from the church in search of more authentic religious experiences. Sects are inherently unstable and as they grow they tend to become church-like; once they have become established institutions, marked by compromise and accommodation, they are in turn exposed to new schismatic challenges. The sect is a result of "the religious revolts of the poor," and the driving force of the cyclical movement between sect and church is not so much doctrinal controversy as social stratification and conflict taking place along class, race, ethnicity and sectional lines.
Other scholars enriched the typology with subtypes. Howard Becker introduced a continuum of types ranging from the cult to the sect, the denomination and the ecclesia, and John Milton Yinger delineated a sixfold typology: the universal church (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church), the ecclesia, by which he meant established national churches (e.g., the Church of England, the Russian Orthodox Church), the denomination (e.g., Baptists, Presbyterians), the established sect (e.g., Seventh-Day Adventists, Quakers), the sect (e.g., many Pentecostals, the Worldwide Church of God) and the cult (e.g., The Family, Scientology). Benton Johnson simplified the definition of sect and church and based it on a single variable: the degree of acceptance of the social environment. A church is a religious group that accepts the social environment in which it exists, a sect is a religious group that rejects it.
The church-sect typology and the notion of a church-sect continuum or movement from the sect to the church came under strong attack in the sociology of religion of the 1960s onwards. The theory suffered from lack of agreement on the distinguishing features, from proliferation of new types and from questionable empirical evidence on its core assumptions. Many contributions to the debate were perceived as being pure classificatory in nature and devoid of significant theoretical content. Eventually there was general agreement among scholars to abandon use of the typology altogether, although the waning of the debate on the church-sect typology did not affect the persisting interest for Weber's contributions on the topic and more broadly for his sociology of religion. Moreover, notwithstanding the criticisms, the distinction between sect and church has become part of the standard theoretical repertoire of sociologists.
Max Weber
As Weber's ideas on church and sect have developed in the course of time, what follows is a sketch of key definitions and themes.
Both the church and the sect are hierocratic organisations as they enforce their orders through psychic coercion by providing or denying religious goods such as spiritual benefits (magical blessing, sacraments, grace, forgiveness, etc.) and material benefits (ecclesiastical benefices and other endowments). Unlike the sect, however, the church is a compulsory organisation whose membership is typically determined by birth or infant baptism rather than by voluntary association, which claims "a monopoly on the legitimate use of hierocratic coercion." Because of its claim to universal hierocratic domination, the church is inclined to level all non-religious distinctions and to overcome "household, sib and tribal ties ... ethnic and national barriers. No one is in principle excluded from the church, not even the unrepentant sinners, the sceptics and the indifferents. The church "lets grace shine over the righteous and unrighteous alike ... Affiliation with the church is, in principle, obligatory, and hence proves nothing with regard to the member's qualities."
The church is also characterised by "a professional priesthood removed from the 'world', with salaries, promotions, professional duties, and a distinctive way of life." Ministers are usually appointed on the basis of their formally certified religious education and operate in a hierarchical administrative structure. The demands of the church towards the clergy can be more or less demanding but their full satisfaction – the holiness of the minister – is not a condition for the efficacy of the sacraments and for the performance of the religious rituals: the church fulfils its mission ex opere operato, and sharply distinguishes between persona and office, that is, between charisma of the individual minister, which may occasionally be lacking, and efficacy of the religious function, which is perpetual and depends on the will of God alone.
While the church is "a compulsory association for the administration of grace," the sect for Weber is "a voluntary association of religiously qualified persons. It is voluntary as it is based on the willingness to adopt the standards of ethical conduct required for sect membership: membership is not ascribed at birth but results from the free acceptance of the sect's doctrine and discipline by the follower, and from the continuous acceptance of the follower by the sect. The sect does not express a claim at universal hierocratic domination, and therefore it is exclusive – as "aristocracy of the elect" – instead of inclusive like the church. It consists of individuals whose conduct and life style "proclaim the glory of God," religiously qualified persons who believe (or hope) to be "called to salvation." "Aristocracy of the elect" is in (Calvinistic ascetism). Being a free association of "religious virtuosos," the sect raises high demands towards its members and enforces the strictest discipline upon them.
In contrast to the professional priesthood of the church, members of the sect can exercise hierocratic power only by virtue of personal charisma. Lay preaching and universal priesthood are the norm, as well as "direct democratic administration" by the congregation, which is jointly responsible for the celebration of the sacraments by a worthy minister in a state of grace. The ministerial position is not an "office" backed by ecclesiastical structures of authority but an appointment or "election" subject to the popular will of the congregation; the minister is a servant of the congregation, and no bureaucratic separation between persona and office, between individual and function, is ever admissible.
The Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox churches are paradigmatic cases of church-like organisations; outside Christianity, good examples of so-defined churches can be found, according to Weber, in Islam, in the Lamaist form of Buddhism and, in a more limited sense, in Mahdism, Judaism and probably in the late Ancient Egyptian hierocracy. The official management of Confucianism stood against Buddhist, Taoist, and sectarian pursuits of salvation of all sorts. Calvinism is best characterized as a sect-like church; Baptists, Quakers and Methodists are paradigmatic cases of sects, as well as Christian Scientists, Adventists. In between these two poles, varying degrees of approximation to the church or to the sect are possible, according to Weber. Hinduism, for example, is a strictly birth-religion, to which one belongs merely by being born to Hindu parents, but is exclusive as a sect because for certain religious offences one can be forever excluded from the community.
In fact, the distinction between church and sect is not dichotomic, but continuous. Church and sect do not correspond exactly to any empirical phenomenon but rather stress elements common in varying degrees to most phenomena. They are ideal types, that is, heuristic devices for highlighting relevant aspects of the social world, highly simplified representations of reality, "special and 'one-sided' viewpoints" according to which the researcher selects what is relevant for the purposes of historical and sociological explanation. As ideal types, church and sect do not describe reality and hardly can be found in pure form, but help us understand why people act the way they do by developing meaningful social theories.