1. Bruce
Religion and Social
Protest
Relationship between religion and social change
Case studies on civil rights movement and the new Christian right

2. The American Civil Rights Movement
 Struggle for black civil rights in 50s and 60s
 Religiously motivated social change
 Segregated on skin colour
 Began with Rosa Parks
 Direct Action
 Marches
 Boycotts
 Demonstrations
 1964 – segregation outlawed

3. The American Civil Rights Movement
 Black Clergy – backbone of movement
 Supported and legitimised civil rights activists
 Churches – meeting places and sanctuaries
 Prayers and hymns – unity in face of oppression.
 Religion provided beliefs and practices drawn on for motivation and support
 Several ways in which religious organisations are well equipped to support protests and
contribute to social change
 Taking the moral high ground
 Channelling dissent
 Acting as honest broker
 Mobilising public opinion
 Civil rights movement – religion becoming involved in secular struggle and helping to
bring about change

4. The New Christian Right
 Politically and morally conservative.
 Aims – take America back to God.
 Abortion, homosexuality and divorce illegal.
 Believes in traditional family and gender roles. Campaigns for teaching of
creationism and to ban sex education in schools.
 Campaigns raised profile of NCR since 70s. Used media and networking, e.g.
church owned television stations to raise funds, and to recruit and convert
new members.
 The Moral Majority – pressure group – focus for political campaigning and
strengthening republican links.

5. The New Christian Right
 Largely unsuccessful in achieving its aims.
 Moral majority – never majority, at most 15%.
 Campaigners have trouble cooperating with people from other religious groups.
 NCR lacks widespread support – strong opposition from prochoice groups e.g.
Planned Parenthood.
 Bruce – failed movement for change.
 Not achieved aims, although it has a high media profile. Bruce sees it as an
attempt to impose Protestant fundamentalist morality on others and it has failed
because of the mainly liberal and democratic values of most of American society.
 Very few Americans support theocracy – separation of church and state.

6. The New Christian Right
 Surveys show
 Most Americans are comfortable legalising activities that they personally believe
are immoral
 Abortion
 Homosexuality
 Pornography
 And are unwilling to accept other people’s definition of how they should live their
lives.
 This is a problem for the NCR who believe the literal truth of the bible and
insists everybody should conform to its teaching.

7. Comparison between New Christian Right and
The American Civil Rights Movement.
 To achieve success, the beliefs and demands of religiously motivated protest
movements and pressure groups need to be consistent with those of wider
society.
 They need to conform with mainstream beliefs about democracy, equality and
religious freedom
 The civil rights movement did this, where as the New Christian Right did not.