Religion is the opiate of the masses in the sense that it is “the instrument of those who rule in that it disinvests people of their own powers by investing God with all power and thereby rendering them submissive and deferential toward the status quo.” (Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader, p. 431)




Karl Marx’s critique of religion as an impotent form of protest against suffering has an element of truth. Religion has tended to legitimize and undergird forms of oppression precisely because it provided a critique that remained spiritual and had very little understanding of the social, economic and political conditions that were sustaining the oppression. At its best, religion can provide us with the vision and the values, but it doesn’t provide the analytical tools. One doesn’t look to the Bible to understand the complexity of the modern industrial and postindustrial society. It can give us certain insights into the human condition, certain visions of what we should hope for, but we also need the tools. They are found outside of religious texts and outside of religious sensibilities. We move to the social sciences for some handle on the maldistribution of resources, wealth, income, prestige and influence in our society. So all forms of prophetic religion must be linked in some sense with a set of analytical tools. (Ibid., p. 298)