Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail:

1. Why Religious Movements Succeed or Fail: A Revised General Model By Rodney Stark ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry

2. Rodney Stark • Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences - Baylor University, Waco, Texas • Co-Director - Institute for Studies of Religion • Founding Editor - Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion • Honorary Professor of Sociology - Peking University, Beijing, China

3. Statistics: • Every year, hundreds of new religious movements appear. • Some are formed by disgruntled members from older groups. • Some will start because someone created or discovered a new religious culture and convinced others of its authenticity.

4. Regardless of their origins, almost every new group will have one thing in common: eventual failure. • Roughly, one religious movement out of 1,000 will attract more than 100,000 followers and last for 100 years. • Even most movements that achieve these modest results will be no more than a footnote in the history of religions.

5. Ten Propositions: • Other things being equal, religious movements will succeed to the degree that:

6. 1. • They retain cultural continuity with the conventional faiths of the societies within which they seek converts.

7. 2. • Their doctrines are non-empirical.

8. 3. • They maintain a medium level of tension with their surrounding environment – are strict, but not too strict.

9. 4. • They have legitimate leaders with adequate authority to be effective • A. Adequate authority requires clear doctrinal justifications for an effective and legitimate leadership • B. Authority is regarded as more legitimate and gains in effectiveness to the degree that members perceive themselves as participants in the system of authority.

10. 5. • They can generate a highly motivated, volunteer, religious labor force, including many willing to proselytize.

11. 6. • They maintain a level of fertility sufficient to at least offset member mortality.

12. 7. • They compete against weak, local conventional religious organizations within a relatively unregulated religious economy.

13. 8. • They sustain strong internal attachments, while remaining an open social network, able to maintain and form ties to outsiders.

14. 9. • They continue to maintain sufficient tension with their environment – remain sufficiently strict.

15. 10. • They socialize the young sufficiently well as to minimize both defection and the appeal of reduced strictness.

16. For more information, please contact the ISKCON Congregational Development Ministry Headquarters: SridhamMayapur, Cakra Building no. 128 Phone: (+91) 03472 – 245619 Website: namahatta.org Email: cdministry@namahatta.org