The Globalization of Religion

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 Learning Objectives
After studying the unit, the students should be
able to:

-Explain how globalization affects religious

practices and beliefs
-Analyze the relationship between religion and
global conflict, and conversely, global peace.
 DEFINING RELIGION

System of socially shared

symbols, beliefs, and rituals
that is directed toward a
sacred, supernatural realm
and addresses the ultimate
meaning of existence.
The English word religion is from the Latin verb religare,
which means “to tie” or “to bind fast”. A contemporary
scholar defines religion as “a system of beliefs, rituals, and
practices, usually institutionalized in one manner or
another, which connects this world with the beyond. It
provides the bridge that allows humans to approach the
divine, the universal life force that both encompasses and
transcends the world”. This substantive definition of religion
limits religion to the belief in supernatural or divine force.
However, for its functional definition, religion is anything
that provides an individual with the ultimate meaning that
organizes his/her entire life and worldview (as cited in
Types of Religious
Organizations
 CHURCH
a religious organization that claims to
possess the truth about salvation
exclusively. A classic example is the Roman
Catholic Church. The church includes
everybody or virtually everybody in a
society. Membership is by childbirth: new
generations are born into the church and are
formally inducted through baptism
 SECT
the sect also perceives itself as a
unique owner of the truth. However,
it constitutes a minority in a given
society. Recruitment takes place
through conscious individual choice.
 DENOMINATIO
N
in contrast to the church and sect, the
denomination is oriented toward
cooperation, at least as it relates to other
similar denominations. People join through
individual and voluntary choice, although the
most important form of recruitment in
established denominations takes place
through childbirth.
 CULT
the concept of cult was introduced in
1932 by sociologist Howard Becker.
Lanuza (1999) provides a
comprehensive definition of a cult:
A non-traditional form of religion, the doctrine of which is
taken from diverse sources, either from non-traditional
sources or local narratives or an amalgamation of both,
whose members constitute either a loosely knit group or
an exclusive group that emphasizes the belief in the
divine element within the individual and whose teachings
are derived from either a real or legendary figure, the
purpose of which is to aid the individual in the full
realization of his or her spiritual powers and/or union with
the Divine. The label cult is often attached to a religious
group that society considers as deviant or nontraditional.
Hence, the term cult is often used in a negative way.
 NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
(NRMS) AND INDIGENOUS
RELIGIOUS GROUPS
The term New Religious Movement came into
use among social scientist in the 1960s. It was
an alternative label for cults that have been
negatively portrayed by mass media and some
social scientists. New age groups are considered
part of these new religious movement
Major Religions of the World
There are some 4,300 religions of the world. This is
according to Adherents, an independent, non-religiously
affiliated organization that monitors the number and size
of the world's religions (Juan, 2006). Worldwide, more than
eight-in-ten people identify with a religious group. A
comprehensive demographic study of more than 230
countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research
Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that
there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and
children around the globe, representing 84% of the 2010
world population of 6.9 billion (Pew Research Center,
2012)
Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam are five of the biggest religions in the
world. Over the last few thousand years, these
religious groups have shaped the course of
history and had a profound influence on the
trajectory of the human race. Through countless
conflicts, conquests, missions abroad, and
simple word of mouth, these religions spread
around the globe and forever molded the huge
geographic regions in their paths (Kuzoian,
HINDUISM
originating on the Indian subcontinent
and comprising several and varied
systems of philosophy, belief, and
ritual. Although the name Hinduism is
relatively new, having been coined by
British writers in the first decades of
the 19th century, it refers to a rich
cumulative tradition of texts and
practices, some of which date to the
2nd millennium BCE or possibly
earlier. If the Indus valley civilization
(3rd–2nd millennium BCE) was the
earliest source of these traditions, as
some scholars hold, then Hinduism is
BUDDHISM
religion and philosophy that
developed from the teachings of the
Buddha (Sanskrit: Awakened One), a
teacher who lived in northern India
between the mid-6th and mid-4th
centuries BCE. Spreading from India
to Central and Southeast Asia,
China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism
has played a central role in the
spiritual, cultural, and social life of
Asia, and during the 20th century
it spread to the West.
CHRISTIANITY
stemming from the life, teachings, and
death of Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ,
or the Anointed One of God) in the 1st
century AD. It has become the largest
of the world’s religions. Geographically
the most widely diffused of all faiths, it
has a constituency of more than 2
billion believers. Its largest groups are
the Roman Catholic Church, the
Eastern Orthodox churches, and the
Protestant churches; in addition to
these churches there are several
independent churches of Eastern
Christianity as well as numerous sects
JUDAISM
monotheistic religion developed
among the ancient Hebrews.
Judaism is characterized by a
belief in one transcendent God
who revealed himself to Abraham,
Moses, and the Hebrew prophets
and by a religious life in
accordance with Scriptures and
rabbinic traditions. Judaism is the
complex phenomenon of a total
way of life for the Jewish people,
comprising theology, law, and
ISLAM
promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in
Arabia in the 7th century CE. The Arabic
term islām, literally surrender: illuminates
the fundamental religious idea of Islam—
that the believer (called a Muslim, from the
active particle of islām) accepts surrender
to the will of Allah (in Arabic, Allāh: God).
Allah is viewed as the sole God—creator,
sustainer, and restorer of the world. The
will of Allah, to which human beings must
submit, is made known through the sacred
scriptures, the Qurʾān (often spelled Koran
in English), which Allah revealed to his
messenger, Muhammad. In Islam
Muhammad is considered the last of a
series of prophets (including Adam, Noah,
IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION
ON RELIGION
Globalization implicates religions in several ways. It calls
forth religious response and interpretation. Religions
played important roles in bringing about and
characterizing globalization. Among the consequences of
this implication for religion is that globalization
encourages religious pluralism. Religions identify
themselves in relation to one another, and they become
less rooted in particular places because of diasporas and
transnational ties. Globalization further provides fertile
ground for a variety of noninstitutionalized religious
manifestations and for the development of religion as a
political and cultural resource
Perspectives on the Role of
Religion in the Globalization
Process
1. The Modernist Perspective.

It is the perspective of most intellectuals and

academics. Its view is that all secularizations
would eventually look alike and the different
religions would all end up as the same secular
and “rational” philosophy. It sees religion
revivals as sometimes being a reaction to the
Enlightenment and modernization.
2. Post-Modernist Perspective.
It rejects the Enlightenment, modernist values of rationalism,
empiricism, and science, along with the Enlightenment, modernist
structures of capitalism, bureaucracy, and even liberalism. The core
value of post-modernism is expressive individualism. The post-
modernist perspective can include “spiritual experiences,” but only
those without religious constraints. Post-modernism is largely hyper-
secularism, and it joins modernism in predicting, and eagerly
anticipating, the disappearance of traditional religions. Globalization,
by breaking up and dissolving every traditional, local, and national
structure, will bring about the universal triumph of expressive
individualism
3. The Pre-Modernist Perspective.
There is an alternative perspective, one which is post-
modern in its occurrence but which is pre-modern in its
sensibility. It is best represented and articulated by the
Roman Catholic Church, especially by Pope John Paul II. The
Pope’s understanding is drawn from his experiences with
Poland, but it encompasses events in other countries as well.
Each religion has secularized in its own distinctive way,
which has resulted in its own distinctive secular outcome.
This suggests that even if globalization brings about more
secularization, it will not soon bring about one common,
 Transnational Religion and Multiple
Glocalization

Throughout the 20th century migration of faiths across the

globe has been a major feature. One of these features is
the deterritorialization of religion – that is , the
appearance and the efflorescence of religious traditions in
places where these previously had been largely unknown
or were at least in a minority position
Transnational religion is a means of describing solutions to
new-found situations that people face as a result of
migration and it comes as two quite distinct blends of
religious universalism and local particularism.
1.It is possible for religious universalism to gain the upperhand,
whereby universalism becomes the central reference for
immigrant communities. In such instances, religious
transnationalism is often depicted as a religion going global.
2. It is possible for local ethnic or national particularism to gain
or maintain the most important place for local immigrant
communities
In such instances, transnational national communities are
constructed and religious hierarchies perform dual
religious and secular functions that ensure the groups’
survival (164). Fundamentalist or revivalist movement
attempt to construct pure religion that sheds the cultural
tradition in which past religious life was immersed.
Transnational religion is used to describe cases of
institutional transnationalism whereby communities living
outside the national territory of particular states maintain
religious attachments to their home churches or
institutional.
Indigenization, hybridization or glocalization are processes
that register the ability of religion to mold into the fabric
of different communities in ways that connect it intimately
with communal and local relations . Global -local or glocal
religion represents a genre of expression, communication
and individual identities . It involves the consideration of
an entire range of responses as outcomes instead of a
single master narrative of secularization and
modernization.
 Forms of
Glocalization
Indigenization is connected with the specific faiths with
ethnic groups whereby religion and culture were often
fused into a single unit. It is also connected to the survival
of particular ethnic groups.

Vernacularization involved the rise of vernacular language

endowed with the symbolic ability of offering privileged
access to the sacred and often promoted by empires
Nationalization connected the consolidation of specific
nations with particular confessions and has been a
popular strategy both in Western and eastern Europe
(171) .

Transnationalization complemented religious

nationalization by forcing groups to identify with specific
religious traditions of real or imagine national homelands
or to adopt a more universalist vision of religion
THANK YOU!