Cult Consumption in Canada: A Further Critique of Stark and Bainbridge

Abstract

Stark and Bainbridge have asserted that because of the unique ability of religion to address ultimate questions, secularization stimulates religious innovation. The decline of some religions is associated with the rise of new ones, precisely because the market becomes more open. Stark and Bainbridge have used North American and European data to show that cult activity is in fact most concentrated where conventional participation appears to be weakest. The authors examine three key assumptions of Stark and Bainbridge pertaining to (1) the human need for supematurally-based answers, (2) the necessity of religion providing those answers, and (3) cult concentration representing inevitable numerical growth. It is argued that these assumptions are precarious, and that the available data suggest not a perpetual religion market but a durable a-science market, produced by the inclination of societies to legitimize the co-existence of non-naturalistic as well as naturalistic explanations. Recent national Canadian cross-sectional and longitudinal data are used to show that cult concentration represents only a necessary condition for the recruitment of the non-religious. While considerable switching to “something” has characterized both Canadians with “no affiliation” parents and those who themselves at some stage were “none,” the switching has typically been in the direction of nominal Christianity rather than cult participation. These findings support earlier national data which indicate that an increasing proportion of people—now a slight majority—are rejecting religious meaning systems, old and new, in favour of a-scientific fragments. The authors conclude with a discussion of factors which have contributed to such a preference in Canada and other highly industrialized societies.