126 Patricia M. Y. Chang
In addition to arguing over what conceptual dimensions and characteristics were
appropriate, scholars attempted to repair gaps that Weber and Troeltsch failed to antici-
pate in the American context by identifying additional organizational “types.” Niebuhr
(1929) introduced the concept of a “denomination” into wide usage, a phrase that he
used to lament the fragmentation of the Christian Church into numerous sects. Becker
(1932) introduced the concept of a “cult” to denote a more loosely organized form of
sect in which members are more transient. Yinger (1946) introduced the concept of an
“established sect” to identify those sects that had managed to convey the passion of
their spiritual ideals to subsequent generations, and as an intermediary stage between
the church and sect types. Wilson (1959) proposed classifying sects on the basis of their
worldviews and proposed a four-part classification scheme.
The proliferation of new “types,” the persistence of confounding empirical evi-
dence, and the lack of agreement on appropriate conceptual dimensions eventually
muddled the concept of a church sect typology entirely. Eventually there was general
agreement among scholars to abandon use of the typology altogether (Demerath 1967;
Eister 1967; Goode 1967a; Goode 1967b). One of the reasons the church-sect approach
failed was because these scholars assumed that the church-sect dynamic that Weber
identifiedwithinthe Catholic Church could explain the variety of voluntary religious
communitiesacrossAmerica. They ignored the fact that the characteristics Weber and
Troeltsch associated with each type were predicated on the particular situation in which
the Catholic Church exerted a monopoly in the country in which it operated.
In abandoning the church-sect typology, scholars, unfortunately, also abandoned
some of Weber’s more useful insights. In particular, they failed to pursue Weber’s in-
sight that Christian idealism and Christian domination inherently led to conflicts over
strategy and practice. In the Catholic Church, these conflicts led to the formation of
monastic orders that remained under the nominal auspices of the Pope. However, in
the United States, these conflicts lead to a variety of different organizational forms.
American scholars despaired because these new forms did not conform to Weber’s de-
scription of a sect, and while they often linked this difference to the lack of a religious
establishment in the United States, they failed to exploit that insight.
The dynamic that Weber and Troeltsch saw as generating monastic orders within the
Catholic Church generates a greater pluralism through schisms within the American
context. The conflict is the same, but the institutional trajectory differs because of the
free market nature of the social context. In a study of Protestant denominations between
1890 and 1980, Liebman, Sutton, and Wuthnow (1988) observed fifty-five schisms
among the 175 denominations they examined. In other words, within a hundred year
span, over 30 percent of the population of denominations experienced internal conflicts
that resulted in the formation of a new religious denomination. Schisms are perhaps the
single strongest factor contributing to the growth and pluralism of religion in America,
yet they remain fairly under examined as an organizational phenomenon. We do not
know how schismatic groups organize their practices, the likelihood that they will
retain the organizational structures of their founding church, or the probability that
they will adopt the organizational practices that are fashionable at the time of schism.
We also do not know if particular kinds of religious groups are more likely to schism,
the probabilities associated with survival, or the likelihood of reabsorption or merger.
Given that schism is such a powerful dynamic in the America religious landscape, it is
unfortunate that it has attracted so little attention (Liebman et al. 1988).