Interesting comment today about education in the COG's.
2: A sect is a schism in the conventional religious body. A cult is a completely new faith. Religions offer three things, status and self esteem to members (intangible – appealing to the upper classes), health/wealth (tangible – appealing to lower classes), and spiritual (life after death – appealing to everyone). Upper classes are more able to master new cultures (as what happens with a cult) and are more able to acknowledge deficiencies in current religious orginizations. Sects are usually formed promoting more tangable things, which appeal to lower classes. There is a positive correlation between education and cult activities (such as eastern religions in the US), and a negative correlation between education and sect movements (faith healing, born again). In the US the major denominations have high levels of college education, but Protestent sects are not well educated (10% for Worldwide Church of God) while cult groups are the most educated of any category. Christianity, being a cult movement in the first century, would have the greatest appeal to the higher classes of the roman empire. The Rise of Christianity
