Political socialization agents, especially the school and religious institutions have been adept at influencing Egyptian citizens’ religiosity, throughout the past three decades. Nevertheless, during the January 2011 uprising, new social movements, which were essential for this uprising, were secular in nature. Why was the discourse of these movements essentially secular, while the political socialization agents they were accustomed to, were very religious? The Mubarak regime has extensively relied on religious institutions to gain legitimacy within the Egyptian society. The public sphere became marred with sectarian strife and a mutual dependency of the regime upon religious intuitions for the persistence of the status quo and authoritarianism in Egypt. Thus the public sphere, of which the religious institutions were an important part, became increasingly encroached by the regime. In 2005 the regime enacted reforms, to silence the increasing national and international criticism against the regime. However, rather than expanding the public sphere for more political participation and accountability, these reform measures have effectively institutionalized authoritarianism (Kienle, 2001; Schlumberger 2007; Lust-Okar, 2005; Brownlee 2009). The public sphere has been opened up, nevertheless, political stagnation and economic inequality have been on the rise. Thus the public sphere has been encroached upon by the regime, leading to the development of a new secular social movement, which led the road to political reform in the country. New social movements on the other hand, increased in the Egyptian public sphere, mainly in the early 2000s. Why were these social movements, secular in nature, rather than religious? This paper hypothesizes that when the public sphere becomes entrenched by the regime, social movements develop a different political identity, and reinforce new values, which the political system fails to introduce (Della Porta and Diani, 2006). This paper argues that new social movements are able to by-pass a stagnant religious discourse, and gain legitimacy for their newly developed political identity, even if the society in general is religious. In an attempt to understand and expand on post democratization studies, this research will analyze the dynamics of interaction between the State, the Azhar Institution, and the Coptic Orthodox Church, and their religious discourse during the Mubarak regime. This will shed light on how they helped in the resilience of authoritarianism in Egypt; and the extent to which social movements were drawn away from their stagnant discourse.