Churches are religious bodies in a relatively low state of tension with their environments.

Sects are religious bodies in a relatively high state of tension with their environments.

The sect-church process concerns the fact that new religious bodies nearly always begin as sects and that, if they are successful in attracting a substantial following, they will, over time, almost inevitably be gradually transformed into churches. That is, successful religious movements nearly always shift their emphasis toward this world and away from the next, moving from high tension with the environment toward increasingly lower levels of tension. As this occurs, a religious body will become increasingly less able to satisfy members who desire a high-tension version of faith. As discontent grows, these people will begin to complain that the group is abandoning its original positions and practices, as indeed it has. At some point this growing conflict within the group will erupt in a split, and the faction desiring a return to higher tension will leave to found a new sect. If this movement proves successful, over time it too will be transformed into a church and once again a split will occur. The result is an endless cycle of sect formation, transformation, schism, and rebirth. The many workings of this cycle account for the countless varities of each of the major faiths (Finke and Stark, 1992:44-45).

Theories in this broad category assert that each major civilization, and perhaps smaller units as well in prehistoric times and remote regions, has a degree of cultural coherence, often marked by a distinctive religion. When two such civilizations come into contact, they compete, sometimes for several centuries, with resultant religious conflict. Also, it seems likely that every civilization eventually will exhaust its central cultural principles and collapse. Thus these theories tend to concern the rise and fall of civilizations (See Gibbon 1776).

Gibbon suggests that the establishment of Christianity as the state religion was an attempt by Constantine and some of his successors to strengthen the Roman Empire. More recent scholars have argued that Christianity did indeed have a characteristic that made it suitable as a stabilizer of the state and perhaps the civilization in which the state was embedded, namely particularism. By rejecting the truth of alternative religions, it asserted a principle of central authority that could be useful to stabilize the governance of a large society (See O'Donnell 1977).

A more general civilization theory was proposed by Oswald Spengler. Spengler asserted that every great civilization was based on a single idea, and when this idea became exhausted, the civilization would fall. For modern, Western civilization the idea was boundless space, and when the Age of Exploration came to an end, by the year 1900, the doom of the west approached. Ideas like Spengler's continue to be popular among politically conservative intellectuals, some of whom consider Christianity to be the central idea of the West (See Burnham 1964, Buchanan 2002).

Among the modern attempts to develop data that could test or refine civilization theories, the World Values Survey stands out. Publications based on it tend to give a mixed picture, with some evidence that major cultural blocs in the world do indeed have somewhat different values, but perhaps not markedly different (See Inglehart and Baker 2000).

"Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology." Paul Thagard in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, available online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognitive-science/

Recent cognitive theories have not yet been integrated into the social science of religion, and that social scientists have many opportunities to expand the scope of cognitive science. (Bainbridge 2006)

There are actually several distinguishable cognitive theories of religious phenomena, they are:

1. Attribution of Intentionality: Perhaps the most widely influential theory currently in the cognitive science approach to religion holds that faith in supernatural beings is a cognitive error that naturally springs from the way the human brain evolved. (Boyer 2001, Barrett 2004, Abbott 2003)

2. Cognitive Consistency: Theories in this sub-category argue that humans have a natural need to form consistent mental models of the world, and thus they will exert effort to resolve any contradiction between two beliefs, or between a belief and a behavior. (Festinger et al. 1956, Festinger 1957)

3. Cognitive Efficiency: This kind of theory postulates that the human mind naturally seeks simple models of reality, and that humans will tend to avoid extreme cognitive effort. This perspective is similar to, but distinguishable from, cognitive consistency theories. (Miller 1956, Newell 1990, Boyer 2001, Allport 1954, Bainbridge 1995)

4. Modes of Memory: Harvey Whitehouse has argued that different styles of religion are based in different parts of the brain, specifically in different memory structures. (Whitehouse 2004)

5. Pragmatic Epistemology: Whereas some theories consider religion to be the result of cognitive errors, this theory argues that religion serves the interests of the individual and thus is true for that very reason. (James 1948)

Inspired by Lofland's field research on recruitment to the Unification Church, in its earliest days sending evangelists from Korea to the United States, Conversion Theory offers a series of steps a person must go through in order to become a member of a new religious group:

1. Experience enduring, acutely felt tensions

2. Within a religious problem-solving perspective,

3. Which leads him to define himself as a religious seeker;

4. Encountering the group at a turning point in his life

5. Wherein an affective bond is formed (or pre-exists) with one or more converts;

6. Where extra-cult attachments are absent or neutralized;

7. And where, if he is to become a deployable agent, he is exposed to intensive interaction.

(Lofland and Stark 1965)

Fifteen years after he had collaborated with Lofland, Stark worked with Bainbridge on a paper that implied that several of the steps of the model were unnecessary, and that frequency of social interaction - the last three steps - could be quite sufficient. (Stark and Bainbridge 1980)

Asian religions, and some classical western philosophers, believed that history consisted of an endless series of cycles: the Wheel of Life, eternal return, or eternal recurrence. This idea can also be found in nineteenth-century European philosophies that related to religion, notably the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, and it is not entirely implausible that processes analogous to the individual's life cycle occur on larger, societal scales. Probably the most impressive cyclical theory that gives religion a central role is the one proposed by Pitirm A. Sorokin. For Sorokin, the most influential elements of culture are those that concern the inner experience of people, their images, ideas, volitions, feelings, and emotions. The essence of a culture is defined by the view people have of the nature of reality, the goals they value, and the means they emphasize in reaching these goals.

In his theory, each great civilization emerges out of a period of chaos with a coherent set of spiritual beliefs that give it strength. Often it is born in the development of a new religious tradition. At this point, it is what Sorokin called an ideational culture. A successful ideational culture grows and develops. With success, however, comes complaisance. The society slowly loses its faith in spirituality, doubt sets in, and the culture begins to become sensate, a perspective on existence that is the opposite of ideational. A sensate culture believes that reality is whatever the sense organs perceive, and it does not believe in any supernatural world. Its aims are physical or sensual, and it seeks to achieve them through exploiting or changing the external world.

Depending upon circumstances, most people in a sensate society will exhibit one of three personality orientations. Active individuals use technology and empire-building to take charge of the material world. Passive individuals indulge themselves in pleasures of the flesh. And cynical individuals exploit the prevailing conditions for their own profit without any ideal to provide fundamental values. The entire cycle of which he wrote can take many centuries to complete, but Sorokin believed that western society was approaching a crisis point.

Ultimately, a sensate civilization is likely to crash, ushering in a new period of intense cultural chaos out of which a new ideational civilization may be born. Sorokin wrote, "Neither the decay of the Western society and culture, nor their death, is predicted by my thesis. What it does assert... is simply that one of the most important phases of their life history, the Sensate, is now ending and that we are turning toward its opposite through a period of transition. Such a period is always disquieting, grim, cruel, bloody, and painful" (vol. 3, p. 537).

Were Sorokin alive today, he probably would cite the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as confirmation of his theory, suggest that it would result in widespread conflict and religious revival in Islamic societies, even as European Christian culture continued to descend toward at least temporary collapse.

According to this theory, fertility and mortality rates change in a predictable manner, when a society evolves from a traditional to a modern form. Initially, death rates are high, because of the primitive technology and economic poverty of a tradition society, so birth rates were also high to sustain a stable population. At the beginning of modernization, technological and economic progress reduces the death rate, but the birth rate remains high through social inertia, so there is a population explosion. Eventually, the birth rate comes down as well, and the result is a stable population with low fertility and mortality rates. A classic statement comes from Kingsley Davis.

By the mid-1980s, however, it was apparent that most advanced industrial or post-industrial societies had birth rates that were too low to offset even a greatly diminished death rate, and after the distorting effect of the changing age distribution had worked its way through, these societies seemed doom to population collapse. The immediate relevance to religion is two-fold, because low birth rates undercut some of the family-related variable that encourage religious participation, and become one of the few factors that could sustain fertility at the replacement lever is religion. However, as Nathan Keyfitz pointed out, only fundamentalist religions, like radical Islam, may have sufficient fertility, and thus society ironically may become more religious through modernization rather than less (Keyfitz 1987).

According to this perspective, religion exists because it serves an integrating function for society as a whole. Durkheim came close to saying this when he argued that God represents the society, and in worshipping God, society really reveres itself. The elements of the culture that are essential to the society's survival are labeled sacred, in this theory. Unlike theories of the rise and fall of civilizations, functionalists do not consider the survival of a religious culture to be problematic. While flavors of this theory are common in older writings on religion, among the best texts to consult are Durkheim 1915, Parsons 1937, Parsons 1964.

Some readers of these works would draw the inference that religious individuals are more likely to follow society's norms than non-religious individuals. However, pure functionalist theory does not rise or fall on whether this hypothesis is true, because it concerns the society as a whole, rather than individuals. In his well-crafted 1964 journal article, Parsons suggests that the proof of functionalist theories of religion can be found in the fact that all societies have possessed religion - that it is an evolutionary universal necessary for the survival of society. He also considers religion to be a precondition for the development of many of the apparently non-religious features of modern society.

This theory holds that religion is just as important a feature of modern society as it is of traditional society, but it takes different forms and possesses different characteristics. While compatible with functionalist theories, this theory does not depend upon them, because it concerns the historical transformation of religion, whereas religion's functions may be constant. Among the most influential variants of this perspective is the pattern variable theory of Parsons and Shils.

According to them, five socio-cultural dimensions of variation together describe modernization, applicable to religion as to all other major institutions of society. With the traditional end of the dimensions on the left, the pattern variables are:

1. Affectivity - Affective Neutrality

2. Self-orientation - Collectivity-orientation

3. Particularism - Universalism

4. Ascription - Achievement

5. Diffuseness - Specificity

Modern religion, as defined by the right end of these dimensions, is emotionally cooler than traditional religion, oriented toward very large social collectivities such as all humanity rather than the self or clan, promulgating universalistic norms and hopes of salvation, placing responsibility for moral choice in the individual, and differentiated from other institutions of the society. Universal norms but individual achievement illustrate the fact that these are intended to be five dimensions, rather than aspects of one, implying that prior to the completion of modernization some societies and their religions might be mixed types.

A recent critique of this theory, which grants that it has been exceedingly influential, comes from Nils Gilman (2003).

"Individuals act rationally, weighing costs and benefits of potential actions, and choosing those actions that maximize their net benefits." (Iannaccone, 1997:26)

"Within the limits of their information and understanding, restricted by available options, guided by their preferences and tastes, humans attempt to make rational choices." (Stark and Finke, 2000:38)

"A religious economy. . .encompasses all of the religious activity going on in any society." (Stark and Finke, 2000:35)

"The process by which sectors of society and culture are removed from the domination of religious institutions and symbols." (Berger, 1967:107)

Berger, P. L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy. New York, NY: Anchor Books.

Studies of conversion, religious schisms, and secularization utilize social network theory to understand the influence of community and networks on the religious life of individuals, groups and societies. In his classic study of suicide, Emile Durkheim used religion as an indicator of how well or poorly a society was socially integrated; other research indicates that religion actively builds social networks. (Durkheim 1897, Stark and Bainbridge 1981, Bainbridge 1987, Bainbridge 2006)

Religion may produce strong social networks, but it also depends upon them. Thus religion may feature as either independent or dependent variable in studies related to this theoretical perspective. Here are some studies of social networks where religious vitality is the result of levels of social integration. (Bainbridge 1990, Stark and Bainbridge 1980, Bainbridge 1989)

Strict churches are stronger because they reduce free riding, or the ability of members to belong yet not contribute to the group. The theory predicts that strict churches will tend to retain members and foster ongoing commitment while lenient churches will tend to lose members and exhibit very low levels of commitment. This theory builds off of rational choice assumptions and is compatible with the religious economies perspective.

Religion survives and can thrive in pluralistic, modern society by embedding itself in subcultures that offer satisfying morally orienting collective identities which provide adherents meaning and belonging.

In a pluralistic society, those religious groups will be relatively stronger which better possess and employ the cultural tools needed to create both clear distinction from and significant engagement and tension with other relevant outgroups short of becoming genuinely countercultural (Smith, 1998:118-119).