THE CONCEPTION OF SECTARIAN RELIGION: AN EFFORT AT CLARIFICATION.

Religious groups have been classified along a sect-church continuum for many years, though little consensus exists concerning the essential characteristics of sectarianism. In an effort to clarify this term, four sect groups are analyzed in terms of fourteen descriptive inventories of sectarian characteristics that have been developed by researchers. Though some characteristics in every inventory apply to all four groups, there is enough difference among them to question use of the term sect to describe all of them. As a result, it is proposed that only two criteria be used to define sects: (1) exclusive membership based on personal religious experience, and (2) a total ideology of life and ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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