NM perspective of religion’s links to social change

How religion conserves or progresses society

How does Bruce look at religion?

He looks at how religion is a set of ideas which are used to create social change.

• He compares the Civil Rights Movement to the Christian New Right, and how religion is an ideological resource

Why was the Civil Rights Movement successful according to Bruce?

• Christianity gave moral legitimacy to figures like Martin Luther King Jr to fight against Jim Crow segregation

• It made white people in the south feel shameful (moral high ground)

• Churches were seen as separate from politics and a place to gather

How was the CRM challenged by the Christian New Right?

They wanted to turn America back to religion rather than supporting civil rights movements. Campaigners like Phyllis Schafly protested against these movements.

• She used religion as ammunition, and created a Christian coalition

• She also brought fundamental and orthodox Christians together by organising meetings

How has Trump’s America impacted the development of the CRM?

Trump has used Christian values to prevent laws from being passed in certain states, such as divorce and abortion rights

How does Gramsci use religion to explain a lack of social change?

He argues that the ruling class maintains power not only through coercion, but also through ideological control; called hegemony (total domination)

• An example of this is Mussolini, a fascist leader of Italy, who used to Catholic Church to spread patriarchal values and repress oppression.

How does Gramsci use religion to show progressive social change?

He argues hegemony isnt always guaranteed and the subordinate (w/c) can resist the dominate (m/c) ideology by creating an alternative set of values, called counter-hegemony.

• When the w/c is resisting, there are people from the ground, spreading counter-hegemonic values, and they’re called organic intellectuals.

What does Gramsci argue about social change as a whole?

Religion is both oppressive and revolutionary as there is the domination of capitalism, but the oppressed groups can go against those values

How does Billings apply Gramsci’s ideas, keeping social change in mind?

He highlights an example of hegemony and counter-hegemony with two communities from 1920’s America (both Protestant groups)

• He looked at coal miners and textile workers. The coal miners used religion in a progressive way, forming trade unions and being actively militant. However, the textile workers were passive and accepted their poor working conditions, not using religion to actively fight.

• This shows counter-hegemony (as the coal miners had organic intellectuals and the church aligned to their new values) as well as hegemony (as the status quo was accepted since they were too scared to be punished for resisting)

How does Liberation Theology present progressive social change as well as link with Gramsci’s idea of counter-hegemony?

This directly goes against Marx’s idea that in a communist society, religion isn’t needed, as in communist Cuba, religion is used to maintain it

• Priests use their powerful position to help the poor (organic intellectuals) and combine the role of Jesus with Marxist praxis (such as a revolution)

Therefore, religion is progressive and uplifts the lower classes of society with spreading anti-capitalist ideas (counter-hegemony.)