The role of the leader in religious movements

Abstract

A S T U D Y of Holiness sects on which I reported fifteen years ago indicated that they were spontaneous expressions of the religious fervor of the common people. They were, I concluded, attempts on their part to deal constructively with the stresses and trials which fell with peculiar severity upon them during periods of economic suffering and social displacement. This conclusion needs to be supplemented. I t must also be recognized that the group experience must first be focalized in some individual and voiced by h;m before it can find expression in the form of a social movement. This principle is strikingly exemplified in Blankton, a city included in that study, in which the Holiness sects had achieved extraordinary strength. Th;s development seemed best explained by the existence there of a large number of economically distressed folk and by the presence of a large university which accentuated the cultural differences and speeded up the process of liberalization and secularization among the old-line