Religious Deviance

History

Students of deviant behavior have traditionally focused on the vagaries of norm violation in the broader social context. In doing so, they have overlooked the fact that the majority of social norms are imbedded within the structure of major social institutions. Eventually, however, some writers began to explore deviant behavior and crime within the context of various social and institutional settings. Examples of such early work included occupation (Bryant 1974; Johnson and Douglas 1978), education and government (Douglas and Johnson 1977) and family (Bryant and Wells 1973). The literature on institutional crime and deviance has since proliferated.

Curiously, religion as an institutional context for crime and deviance was and continues to be neglected. Theologians, philosophers, historians, and social scientists have, of course, examined specific forms of religious crime and deviance such as blasphemy (Levy 1981; 1993), heresy (Henderson 1998; Stoyanov 1995), apostasy (Bromley 1988), and crimes committed by religious officials while occupying positions of authority (Benyei 1998). There have been studies of the ways in which religion has attempted to control some behaviors by defining as deviant such things as viewing pornography [Page 1382](Heins 1993), suicide, and drug and alcohol consumption (Stark and Bainbridge 1977). There is also considerable literature focusing on “deviant” religions, often new or unorthodox cults or sects that have been marginalized because their practices contrast sharply with those of the prevailing social structure (see, for example, Dawson 1998; Stark and Bainbridge 1997). Examples here might range from the Moonies to the Hare Krishnas, and from Scientology to the Falun Gong movement in the People's Republic of China. Other churches may be labeled as deviant because of characteristics of their congregation or constituency—for example, churches for homosexuals (Enroth and Jamison 1974)—or because they have radical or revolutionary agendas for social change (Boyd 1969). Even religious behavior on the part of some churches or denominations that is simply considered bizarre, such as speaking in tongues (Mills l986), may result in the group being labeled as deviant. There has also been research examining the linkage between religion, crime, and deviant behavior (see, for example, Neitz and Goldman 1995), but with very few exceptions (e.g., Bryant 1999), comprehensive paradigms of religious deviance have not been advanced.

A page from The History of the Inquisition written by Philip Limborch and translated into English and published in London in 1731. This page concerns the Albigenses and Valdenses, two groups in France persecuted by the Catholic Church as heretics.

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