Religious Protest

• According to Marx, religion has been used to allow aristocracy to create their position of power. They state that everything is fixed and that God meant for the system to be the way it is. This is similar to the ''divine right of kings'' which has sustained many monarchies over history (some to this day).

  Rooting their positions of power in religion was convenient as religion couldn't be challenged or changed.
• What is the church-sect dichotomy?

  The ruling class hijack religion and use it to their advantage.

  Millenarian sects such as the Jehovah's witnesses openly challenge the social structure as they believe that it cannot be God's will for such inequality to exist (an early form of class consciousness was gained).

  This causes these sects to split from the main Church.
• Why are sects like the Jehovah's Witnesses ultimately still believed to be a conservative force?

  They do not contribute to social change but rely on divine intervention, such as the second coming of Christ, to change the world.
• Other figures in history, like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King used their faiths to justify why all men should be treated equal.
• Historically, religion has been weaponised as a ruling class ideology.

  The age of European Monarchies ended after WWI (1918) because of multiple corrupt monarchs with empires that were justified using religion.
• What do Millenarian sects believe?

  That the end of the world is immanent and the world is corrupt (as well as mainstream religion).

  They believe that everything will be put in order after the world ends.