Transformation of Socio-Economic Structure and Religious Conversion from Theravada Buddhism to Protestantism Amongst Khmer Ethnic People in Vietnam’s Southern Region

Abstract

When it came to religious phenomena or forms of social consciousness, Karl Marx did not see them as things in themselves or as inherent features of societies or groups of people in history but rather he argued that the religion emerged from and existed in the objective reality and that its most important source was the socio-economic condition. From the historical materialistic viewpoint by Karl Marx, we conducted a research to figure out effect of the socio-economic structure on the change of belief and religion of the Khmer in the South in its relationship with their socio-economic transformation process from the past to the present and especially in the renovation of Vietnam today. In this paper, we consider that the Khmer's Theravada Buddhism is converted into Protestantism as a special conversion.