Neo-Marxism

• Engels: Religion has a dual character to conserve and to change
• Bloch 1959: Principle of Hope

  1. glimpse of utopia could force a revolution
  2. instils belief in moral dignity
• Maduro 1982: religion can be a revolutionary force, religious ideas radicalised the clergy and enabled them to help the poor as their duty
• Lowy 2005: questions Marx's view that religion always legitimises social inequality
• Maduro and Lowy see liberation theology as an example of religiously inspired social change
• Lehman 1996:

  1. Liberation theology offers an 'option for the poor' led by 'revolutionary priests and nuns in their jeans and sandals'
  2. Pentacostalism offers an 'option of the poor' for people to pull themselves out of poverty. Led by church pastors 'uniformly respectable in their suits, white shirts and black ties'
• Millenarian Movements: movements that preach that there is hope for a better world taking the name for the millennium where Christ would appear for a second time
• Worsley 1968: Millenarian movement expect the total and imminent transformation of the world by supernatural means - creating heaven on earth and the transformation will be collective
• Worsley 1968: studied cargo cults in Melanesia and described these movements as pre political and they used a millenarian movement to overthrow colonial leaders
• Engels: described Millenarian movements as the first awakening of the 'proletarian self-consciousness'
• Gramsci 1971: idea of religion as an example of cultural hegemony. However, religion can help people see through this hegemony specifically through organic intellectuals (educators, organisers and leaders that help the proletariat gain class consciousness)
• Billings 1990: applied Gramsci's cultural hegemony to a miner town and textile town in Kentucky. Both working class, evangelical protestants, but one struggling for union representation and the other accepting the status quo.
• Pt. 2 Billings 1990:

  1. Leadership: Miners benefitted from leadership of organic intellectuals - converting miners to a union. Textile workers lacked organic intellectuals.
  2. Organisation: Miners able to use independent churches to hold meetings and organise
  3. Support: the church supported the union cause for miners whilst the church discouraged it for the textile workers.
• Pt. 3 Billings 1990: religion can play a 'prominent oppositional role'. Religion can drive social change or maintain the status quo