ABSTRACT
Religious commitment can be highly individual and private, especially in modern times. Yet it often experiences growth within or in a critical discourse with established religious organizations. In sociology, an organization is defined as a group with one or more goals and a certain minimum of formal structure. The clarity of the goals and the formality of the organizational structures vary. A central theme in the history of the sociology of religion has been the distinction between various forms of religious organizations. The two German intellectual giants, theologian Ernst Troeltsch and sociologist Max Weber, introduced a classical typology of organizations about one hundred years ago that was developed and refined later by, among others, American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr. Their typology will be described in more detail below. Thereafter, we will take a look at the various ways in which it has been used, for example, in attempts to understand change in religious organizations. We will also examine in more detail how power and authority are exercised in religious organizations, based on yet another typology taken from Max Weber.
