Traditional Marxist Theory of Religion

[Marx] Religion as an Ideology

• Part of a dominant ideology

• Ideas/beliefs of the ruling class → shapes views of larger society → reproduced false class consciousness

Conservative Force or Force For Change?

• Religion is a conservative force: it maintains trad ideas and values

[Marx]’s Two Main Ideas:

1. Opium of the people:

   • Offering spiritual intervention, promising an eventual escape

2. Legitimises + maintains ruling class power:

   • Provides a religion justification for inequality

     • e.g. poverty = virtuous

[Althusser] Idealogical State Apparatus (ISA)

• This describes an institution spreading the dominant idea logic

  • E.g. religion, schools

[Gramsci] Hegemony

• A dominant set of beliefs?????????

[Marx] Religion is a Product of Alienation

• Workers don’t own the production process → no creative freedom → turn to religion for consolation

  • Religion offers the promise of happiness away from capitalism in the hereafter → dulls pains of exploitation (acts as an opiate)

  • Thus, acts as an ideology + legitimise suffering of the poor and ruling class privilege

[Marx] EVALUATION

• Drugs like opium only effect those who take it

• Ignores how religion acts as an agent of social change vs the powerful → Counter-hegemony (Gramsci)

  • E.g. Islamic fundamentalists visiting Americanisation of their culture, resisting dominance of the west through religious commitment