A Catalogue of the Severall Sects and Opinions in England and other Nations: With a briefe Rehearsall of their false and dangerous Tenents. Broadsheet. 1647

A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and principles. The term is occasionally used in a malicious way to suggest the broken-off group follows a more negative path than the original. The historical usage of the term "sect" in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox.^[1]

A sect as used in an Indian context refers to an organized tradition.^[2]

Etymology[link]

Look up sect in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word sect comes from the Latin noun secta (a feminine form of a variant past participle of the verb sequi, to follow^[3]), meaning "(beaten) path", and figuratively a (prescribed) way, mode, or manner, and hence metonymously, a discipline or school of thought as defined by a set of methods and doctrines. The present gamut of meanings of sect has been influenced by confusion with the homonymous (but etymologically unrelated) Latin word secta (the feminine form of the past participle of the verb secare, to cut), as sects were scissions cut away from the mainstream religion.^[3]

Sociological definitions and descriptions[link]

There are several different sociological definitions and descriptions for the term.^[4] Among the first to define them were Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch (1912).^[4] In the church-sect typology they are described as newly formed religious groups that form to protest elements of their parent religion (generally a denomination). Their motivation tends to be situated in accusations of apostasy or heresy in the parent denomination; they are often decrying liberal trends in denominational development and advocating a return to true religion. The American sociologists Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge assert that "sects claim to be authentic purged, refurbished version of the faith from which they split".^[5] They further assert that sects have, in contrast to churches, a high degree of tension with the surrounding society.^[6] Other sociologists of religion such as Fred Kniss have asserted that sectarianism is best described with regard to what a sect is in tension with. Some religious groups exist in tension only with co-religious groups of different ethnicities, or exist in tension with the whole of society rather than the church which the sect originated from.^[7]

Sectarianism is sometimes defined in the sociology of religion as a worldview that emphasizes the unique legitimacy of believers' creed and practices and that heightens tension with the larger society by engaging in boundary-maintaining practices.^[8]

A religious cult, by contrast, also has a high degree of tension with the surrounding society, but its beliefs are, within the context of that society, new and innovative.^{[citation needed]} Whereas the cult is able to enforce its norms and ideas against members, a sect normally doesn't strictly have "members" with definite obligations, only followers, sympathisers, supporters or believers. A sect may also have members which choose to leave later, which is allowed whereas a cult uses any means necessary to keep its members (including coercion).^{[citation needed]}

The English sociologist Roy Wallis^[9] argues that a sect is characterized by “epistemological authoritarianism”: sects possess some authoritative locus for the legitimate attribution of heresy. According to Wallis, “sects lay a claim to possess unique and privileged access to the truth or salvation and “their committed adherents typically regard all those outside the confines of the collectivity as 'in error'”. He contrasts this with a cult that he described as characterized by “epistemological individualism” by which he means that “the cult has no clear locus of final authority beyond the individual member.”^[10][11]

Corresponding words in other European languages[link]

In European languages other than English the corresponding words for "sect", such as secte (French), secta (Spanish), seita (Portuguese), sekta (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serbian), sekt (Danish, Estonian, Norwegian, Swedish), sekte (Dutch), Sekte (German) or szekta (Hungarian), are used sometimes to refer to a harmful religious or political sect, similar to how English-speakers popularly use the word "cult". In France, since the 1970s, secte has a specific meaning which is very different from the English word.^[12]

In Buddhism[link]

In Christianity[link]

The historical usage of the term sect in Christendom has had pejorative connotations, referring to a group or movement with heretical beliefs or practices that deviate from those of groups considered orthodox.^[13]

Roman Catholic sects[link]

There are many groups outside the Roman Catholic Church which regard themselves as Catholic, such as the Community of the Lady of All Nations, the Palmarian Catholic Church, the Philippine Independent Church, the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, the Free Catholic Church, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, and others.

The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae started in Lima, Peru, has multiple cases of psychological abuses experienced by youth that were attracted to the movement.^[14]

In Hinduism[link]

The Indologist Axel Michaels writes in his book about Hinduism that in an Indian context the word

according to Michaels,

In Islam[link]

See also[link]

• Cult
• Ecclesia (sociology of religion)
• Heresy
• One true church
• One true faith
• Religious denomination
• Sectarianism
• Sociology of religion

References[link]

External links[link]

• Three Groups in One by Mary McCormick Maaga excerpt from her book Hearing the Voices of Jonestown (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998)
• Apologetics Index: research resources on cults, sects, and related issues. The publisher operates from an evangelical Christian point of view, but the site links to and presents a variety of viewpoints.
• ReligionNewsBlog.com Current news articles about religious cults, sects, and related issues.
• Church sect theory by William H. Swatos, Jr . in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society by Swatos (editor)
• La Gnosis Develada Critical studies about Samael Aun Weor.