Definition of "sect"
sect
noun
plural sects
A group following a specific ideal or a leader.
Quotations
Zen Center welcomes visitors, guests, and prospective students, but it does not engage in systematic institutional or network recruiting of new members, unlike the Christian sect and Erhard Seminars Training.
1984, Steven M. Tipton, Getting Saved from the Sixties: Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change, University of California Press, page 104
Every person who is not a fellow member, and every social, religious and political institution that lies outside the sect's domain, is portrayed as a representative of Satan's world. In our research, we found that Moonies and members of many Christian sects with similar religious and political doctrines often focus on such beliefs to the exclusion of all other thought.
1995, Flo Conway, Jim Siegelman, Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change, Stillpoint Press, Inc., page 161
There are scores of modern religious cults and sects that have been influenced by Hinduism to varying degrees. Werner Erhard, founder of 'Landmark Education's 'The Forum',' and 'est' seminars, which have about 700,000 graduates, was influenced by Hinduism through Swami Muktananda, one of Erhard's principal gurus.
1996, John Ankerberg, John Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, Harvest House Publishers, page 216
The Indiana Peoples Temple was essentially a sect, which was joined by new religious movement members in California, which then recruited black church members as it focused its ministry on the residents of urban California.
1998, Mary McCormick Maaga, Hearing the Voices of Jonestown, Syracuse University Press, page 75