The Small Sects in America (review)

BOOK REVIEWS43 "Father, forgive them" expresses profoundly the nature and purposes of God; on this grace of God human community depends. Part III, "Communion and Community in Christ," discusses the implications for the Christian church in our present society. "There is no difficulty about an irruption of the divine into the world, if only we did not stand in its way." "When we have come to think of God as our helper, we have ourselves become a hindrance." Pendle Hill.Erminie Huntress. The Small Sects in America. By Elmer T. Clark, Nashville, Cokesbury Press, 1937. 311 pp. ; $2.00. HPHE membership of religious bodies is at best hard to estimate. Small struggling sects with few if any records are peculiarly unresponsive to statistical method. Descriptive material is more readily obtained; it is also more reliable. This manual including more than one hundred and fifty bodies now extant cites as its sources the government's census of religious bodies, 1926; publications of the sects themselves; and information derived from question lists and personal visits. Quakers, Mormons, and Lutherans are referred to but not included, as are such racial or national Catholic bodies as the Albanian, Greek, and Russian. Non-Christian sects are omitted. The principles of religious liberty maintained by Quakers and Baptists principally in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Rhode Island give rise to this multiplicity. It encouraged the original influx, permitted division, and set no obstacle in the way of sprouting, developing, and dwindling. The small sects represent the lower strata of privilege. When members acquire economic importance, allegiance wanes, belief is modified, emotional expression is toned down. Seven types are differentiated : those who despair of the world (Adventists ), perfectionist sects (early Methodists), those who seek spiritual "gifts" (Holy Rollers), communal types (Amana Society), those who stress rules (early Mennonites) or personal comfort (Divine Scientists), and the esoteric varieties (Theosophists). Quakers are considered historically among the early emigrants and psychologically in comparison with others who have experienced notable emotional reactions. It is the feeling element, minimized by the large well-established churches, that finds its expression in the outcropping of small sects. They also give some kind of answer to the question "What can I do?", the desire for definiteness in this particular sometimes carrying them to extraordinary extremes. The book suggests varieties of religious experience scarcely realized and seldom explored by members of the larger churches. Pendle Hill.Anna Cox Brinton. ...