ABSTRACT
The analytically fruitful and empirically viable classification of basic types of religious organizations has been a central preoccupation of sociological scholars of religion from the very founding of the enterprise. The term religious refers to belief systems that overtly and significantly define and sanction action by reference to a super- or extra-natural realm of thought and action. Religious ideologies may both encourage and legitimize more corporate organizations than do political and ego ideologies. In the study of religious movements it is traditional to stress the content of meaning systems and how they function as solutions to life problems or as adaptive adjustments to stressful environments. More abstractly, religious movements organizations (RMOs) compete most successfully with political movement organizations in situations of great political turmoil combined with high repression. One generalization of special note is the tendency of RMOs to flourish where religious conventional organizations have most weakened by adopting "increasingly vague and inactive conceptions of the supernatural".
