Distinguish the concepts of cults sects and denominations in 250 words
Answers
The United States is one of the most religious nations in the world. Christianity, especially, played an important part in the founding and development of this country, and it has continued to dominate America’s religious landscape.
Today, however, that religious landscape is quite diverse. The major religions of the world are all firmly established in our nation, and some of the newer American religious movements have grown into sizeable groups.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />
How do we classify these religious movements? What terminology should we use in describing them?
Leo Pfeffer, a distinguished American jurist and leading authority on church-state separation, once observed: “If you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps the religion; and if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect; but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult.”
Unfortunately, Pfeffer’s humorous statement is too often true. Americans have tended to label those religious movements that are different from their own tradition as sects and cults.
Attempts at terminology and definitions can be traced to 1912. That year the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch set forth his definitions of churches, sects and mysticism in his book, The Social Teaching of the Christian Church. Troeltsch defined church as a universal body into which people are born. The church, he wrote, covers the whole life of humanity in society, and the clergy’s role is to proclaim the Word and dispense sacraments.
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