Five Factors Crucial to the Growth and Spread of a Modern Religious Movement

Abstract

Explanations for the spread of a modern religious movement are sought within the dynamics of the movement itself. Five key factors are identified and functionally analysed: (1) an acephalous, reticulate organizational structure, (2) faceto-face recruitment along lines of pre-existing significant social relationships, (3) commitment generated through an act or experience, (4) change-oriented ideology, and (5) real or perceived opposition. It is suggested that these five factors are common in other types of movements and that when they are present and interacting, the conditions which were causal in the genesis of the movement become facilitating only and are not essential to its spread.