Breaking down the question
The question has two distinct demands stitched together, and a careful reading shows that both must be answered fully to score. The first is definitional — define sect, cult and religion — which asks for precise conceptual boundaries between three overlapping terms. The second is comparative — in what way do Weber's views on religion differ from those of Durkheim — which asks for a reasoned contrast between two founding thinkers.
A common error is to treat the two halves as unrelated. In fact they connect neatly: the sect–cult–church typology belongs to the Weberian and Troeltschian tradition of classifying religious organisations, while the second half draws out the deeper theoretical divide between Weber's interpretive, change-oriented sociology of religion and Durkheim's functionalist account of religion as the worship of society. Handling the definitions first gives you the vocabulary to make the comparison sharper.
The examiner is testing conceptual precision and command of theory in equal measure. Ground the discussion in the wider note on sociological theories of religion and draw on the profile of Max Weber.
How to approach it
Open with a short paragraph defining religion itself, then distinguish sect and cult against it and against the church. Keep these definitions crisp and use the classic markers — membership, relation to the wider society, degree of organisation and claims to legitimacy. Weber and Troeltsch supply the sect–church distinction; the cult is best defined as a loose, individualistic and often innovative form.
Then pivot to the comparison. Discipline the contrast with recurring axes: what is the origin of religion, what is its method of study, what is its social function, and what is its relation to social change? Expound Durkheim first, since his position is the clearer foil, then set Weber against him on each axis. Close with a short evaluative paragraph. Use precise vocabulary — the sacred and the profane, collective conscience, verstehen, worldly asceticism — as these signal command of the texts.
Model answer
Religion may be defined, following Durkheim, as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things — things set apart and forbidden — which unite adherents into a single moral community. More broadly it is an institution organised around the supernatural or the transcendent, expressed through shared belief, ritual and a community of the faithful. Within this field, sociologists distinguish different organisational forms.
A church is a large, formally organised, bureaucratic body that is inclusive, claims universality and is generally at peace with the wider society, into which members are usually born. A sect, by contrast, is a smaller, exclusive and voluntary group that a person joins by conscious commitment. Following Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, the sect stands in tension or protest against the dominant church and society, demands intense devotion, rejects worldly compromise and often originates among the marginalised. A cult is the most loosely organised form — small, individualistic, tolerant and frequently short-lived. It centres on personal experience, mystical or novel beliefs, and makes few demands, allowing members to belong without exclusive commitment. Cults are typically innovative, introducing new religious ideas from outside the established tradition, whereas sects usually break away to purify an existing one.
Against this backdrop the deeper theoretical differences between Weber and Durkheim emerge, and they run along several axes.
Method. Durkheim was a positivist who treated religion as a social fact to be explained through observation and comparison, seeking its objective causes and functions. Weber employed verstehen — interpretive understanding — insisting that religion must be grasped through the subjective meanings believers attach to their conduct. For Durkheim the sociologist explains religion from the outside; for Weber, one must enter the believer's world of meaning.
Origin and object. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim argued from the study of totemism that the true object of worship is society itself: when the clan venerates its totem it unknowingly venerates the collective power that stands above every individual. Religion thus originates in the social group and its collective effervescence. Weber offered no single theory of religion's origin; he studied religions comparatively — Calvinism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, ancient Judaism — as distinct systems of ideas, each shaping conduct in its own way.
Function. For Durkheim the essential function of religion is integrative. Through shared ritual it renews the collective conscience, reaffirms common sentiments and generates social solidarity; religion is the very cement of the social order. Weber was less interested in social cohesion than in the consequences of religious ideas for other spheres of life, above all the economy. His question was not what religion does for society as a whole but how particular beliefs motivate particular ways of acting.
Social change. This is the sharpest divergence. Durkheim treated religion as fundamentally conservative — a guarantor of stability that binds the present to a shared moral past. Weber, uniquely, treated religion as a potential engine of change. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism he showed how ascetic Calvinism, through the doctrine of predestination and the anxious search for signs of salvation, fostered a disciplined worldly asceticism of hard work and reinvestment that unintentionally nourished modern rational capitalism. Ideas, for Weber, could reshape the material world.
Underlying these contrasts is a difference of vision. Durkheim's is a sociology of order and function, dissolving the individual believer into the collective. Weber's is a sociology of meaning and consequence, attentive to how ideas move history. Each has limits — Durkheim's account struggles with religious conflict and change, Weber's with the risk of overstating the autonomy of ideas — yet together they remain the twin foundations of the sociology of religion, and their disagreement continues to frame debates on secularisation, revivalism and fundamentalism.
Examiner's perspective
The most frequent failing is to answer only half the question — either defining the three forms and neglecting the comparison, or comparing the theorists while dispatching the definitions in a line. Both halves carry marks, so allocate space deliberately. When defining sect and cult, the distinction that separates top scripts is the point that sects break away from tradition while cults typically import something new.
In the comparative half, examiners reward explicit axes — method, origin, function and change — rather than two disconnected summaries. Textual precision lifts the answer: citing The Elementary Forms and The Protestant Ethic, and using collective conscience, verstehen and worldly asceticism accurately, signals genuine reading. Misattributing a concept, such as crediting Durkheim with an interpretive method, is heavily penalised. A closing line on continuing relevance turns reproduction into analysis.