What is it about?
The Children of God’s punishment system involved purposive, affective, material, and sensual or bodily restraints, which operated both on immediate and postponed (i.e., otherworldly) levels.
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Why is it important?
Offers a critical expansion of the Stark/Bainbridge theory of religion, which tends to ignore the crucial control functions played by punishment systems in high-demand religious groups.
Perspectives
High-demand religious groups impose a punishment system in relation to costs in an attempt to maintain the conformity of its members.
Jonathan Simmons
University of Alberta
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: An Expansion of the Rational Choice Approach: Social Control in the Children of God during the 1970s and 1980s, International Journal for the Study of New Religions, May 2015, Equinox Publishing,
DOI: 10.1558/ijsnr.v6i1.20430.
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