Émile Durkheim asked a strange question about religion: not is it true? but what does it do to a group of people? His answer built the functionalist account of religion out of four parts — a line drawn between the sacred and the profane, the rites performed across it, the moral community that performs them, and the collective effervescence that assembly produces. Tap the parts to build his argument, then move along the axis that sorts religious bodies — ecclesia, denomination, sect, cult — and test whether you can name the body from its description.
Pick a piece
A group gathered around something it has set apart. Durkheim thought everything else about religion follows from that.