5. (1) Religion sometimes teaches that the existing social arrangements of a society represent what God desires. (2) For example, during the Middle Ages, Christian theologians decreed the "divine right of kings." (3) That doctrine meant that
God determined who would become a king, and set him on the throne. (4) The king ruled in God's place, and it was the
duty of a king's subjects to be loyal to him (and pay their taxes). (5) To disobey the king would be to disobey God. (6) The
religion of ancient Egypt claimed that the Pharaoh himself was a god. (7) The Emperor of Japan was similarly declared
divine. (8) In India, Hinduism supports the caste system by teaching that an individual who tries to change caste will
come back in the next life as a member of a lower caste—or even as an animal. (9) In the decades before the Civil War,
Southern ministers used Scripture to defend slavery, saying that it was God's will-while Northern ministers legitimated
their religion's social structure by using Scripture to denounce slavery as evil.