In today’s globalising world,

does religion define the

individual, or does the

individual define religion?

1
In today’s globalising world, does religion define the individual,

or does the individual define religion?

The answer to such a question is extremely complex and involves a

variety of diverse and seemingly disparate issues.

Secularism and Secularization covers the issues surrounding the

theory of apparently diminishing religious practice and posits the

idea that the theory has no real foundation and looks at the

differences between a variety of secular definitions and how and

whom these might influence.

Foundationalism and Hermeneutics looks at the contemporary

influence exerted by historical personalities who were responsible

for establishing a number of religious traditions and if they truly were

responsible their beginnings and how this bodes for the evolution of

religion in the future.

Politics, Jurisprudence and Ethnic and Cultural Identity examine the

role of religion in social change and religious politics and how this

relates to sources of authority in a variety of regional and cultural

contexts.

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Economics and Commodity looks at the issue of economics and

capitalism in religion and the consequences of its influence whilst

Difference and Liberalism discusses the effects and influence of

religion in the light of contemporary democratic freedoms.

Representation in Popular Culture and Popular Media looks at the

role of figures within the media industries and how they influence

perceptions of religion through media representation.

Finally the conclusion will attempt to briefly draw together a number

of strands and produce a flow chart that represents the mechanisms

involved in the evolution and adaptation of religion over time.

Secularism and Secularization

Secularization theorists assert that secularization is an ongoing and

growing phenomenon, particularly in the West. However, though the

theory may have some standing amongst academics and continues

to influence those for whom the processes inherent in globalization

run hand in hand with a decreasing need for religion, the growth in

religious politics and increasing numbers of people converting to

various religious traditions around the world cannot be ignored.

However, the privatisation and de institutionalisation, in the West

particularly, of personal approaches to religion would seem to run

hand in hand with the conversion to some of the major

institutionalised religious traditions (Halliwell, 04.04.04, Newspaper

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Articles and Texas Islam, 10 April 2004, TV). Additionally there are

some religious ideologies being used in regions usually considered

as secular. For example:

The EU in its bid to insert a Christian clause in to the EU

Constitution asserting that Europe is intrinsically Christian (Ahmed,

09.05.04, Newspaper Articles)

The USA where, it is asserted, the Christian Right, and some

Dispensationalist adherents, maintain a distinct presence exerting

political power and heavily influencing political decision making

(Aaronovitch, 15.01.03 and Hanford, 09.08.04, Newspaper Articles,

and Evans, 2004).

In Israel the influence of the haredim on and involvement in Israeli

State politics and the acquisition of power by playing the minority

card in the formation of coalition government designed, in part, to

undermine both the secularist and the Reform/Liberal movements. A

paradigm shift had allowed some of the haredim to move out from a

sequestered form of religious practice when Kook the Younger and

his followers evolved the view that even secular elements of the

modern state were God’s tools (Armstrong, 2003, pg. 261).

Conversely in some countries not considered as secular the

opposite seems to be the case in the development and evolution of

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political power, India for example. For some Western observers the

predominant confusion lies in the difference between Gandhi’s

Democratic pluralist religious secularism and Nehru’s Democratic

non religious secularism. Gandhi’s view was that India is intrinsically

a religious country and that the reigns of political power should be

held not by any one religious tradition but that there should be a

religiously inclusive pluralistic approach to Government. Nehru’s

approach was perceptibly different in that he felt that religion should

be kept out of politics altogether and that the democratic secular

ideal was the paradigm most suited to the divisive issue of India’s

religious communal interests (Tully, 2003, TV). In the context of

India today both influences are still felt and though this is

predominantly in a political context there are those who have

adopted Gandhi’s approach to religion (and politics) within the milieu

of contemporary post Colonial Hinduism.

In the UK the fastest rise for one A level examination category has

been in Religious Studies, a reflection perhaps of the constant

presence of religious issues in the media (BBC News, Internet,

accessed 01.10.04) and though church attendance has fallen

dramatically research has shown that at least two thirds of those

questioned responded that they ‘have a sense of spirituality’ (Bates,

18.09.04, Newspaper Articles). This would certainly seem to be born

out by the BBC’s research which pointed to that fact that when

asked about God the figures for belief were low but when asked

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about other forms of spirituality the figures indicated that some sort

of belief increased dramatically (BBC, 2004, TV). With religious

issues at the forefront of today’s worldwide press coverage religion,

via this type of media, certainly could have an influence on the

individual.

Westerlund asserts that overall there is a worldwide increase in the

involvement of religion with politics pointing out seventeen cases

where the influence of religion in politics is on the increase

(Westerlund, 2002) and influencing the individual either favourably

or otherwise.

Foundationalism and Hermeneutics

If this question had been asked in an historical context the answer

might have been a much more simplistic ‘yes’ since from a

foundationalist viewpoint a number of religions have been supposed

to have been established on first principles by historical individuals;

Buddhism by Sakayamuni, Christianity by Jesus, and Islam by

Mohammed. On reflection each of these religions did not really

emerge from first principles but were themselves underpinned by

extant religions at the time. Buddhism on Hinduism; Buddhism is

considered by some distinct from Hinduism only because it does not

acknowledge the authority of the Vedas (Cross, 1994, pg. 2),

Christianity on Judaism; commentators suggest that in it’s

beginnings Christianity was perceived as a Jewish sect (Fraser,

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07.02.04, Newspaper Articles), and Islam on both Christianity and

Judaism. Herein lies the argument between foundationalism and

hermeneutics, which is as relevant today as it was in the past (Ross,

Internet, accessed 23.05.04). Foundationalism aside the individuals

who ‘founded’ the worlds major religious traditions still hold sway

over the religions they established, though obviously through a

hermeneutical lens, and will continue to do so in this way in

perpetuity.

Politics

In this context the dynamics of change can be seen as occurring as

a result of effective and/or influential individuals well placed and well

educated enough and with an ability to manage and manipulate the

representation of religious interests which end up bound up in a

religious-political process. The point that religion is entirely and

inescapably bound up with the political process is one with which

both Gandhi (Tully, 1992, pg. 5) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu

(Wurst, Internet, accessed 18.03.04) agree. The fact that this may

take the form of direct and/or indirect dissension and critique of

political government by independent and/or semi independent

religious authorities as well as direct involvement in the political

processes of government only serves to emphasise the point, a

case of religion influencing the individual through the socio-political

process.

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For religious traditions political expediency can sometimes outweigh

historically established processes as in the case of Iraqi Shiites

under Moqtada el Sadr in Iraq, who previously would have abjured

politics, an historical legacy that emerged from the various fates of

the twelve occulted Imams. With Sunni Islam, whose historical

political authority resided with the Caliphate until the demise of the

last Ottoman Caliphate system under Attaturk, there seems to have

been a shift during this transitional phase to various sources of

political authority and domination by powerful ruling houses, as with

the House of Sau’ud in Saudi Arabia.

Christianity would certainly seem to be a major influence for the

West, particularly in the USA and though in the UK the authority of

the Church is in decline the seats of the Bishops in the House of

Lords is still an historical legacy that may yet have to be addressed.

Yet the Church still plays an important part in social justice since its

political involvement has become deconfessionalised, as with

Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia (see ‘Abdurahman Wahid and

Nahdlatul Ulama’ in Ramage, pages 45-74), and has found it’s voice

in critique of Governmental policies for social justice and change.

Undoubtedly politics and religion are intertwined in the

contemporary world in ways which are becoming ever more

apparent with the influence of the still extant manifest destiny of the

USA and what may eventually prove to be the failure of the re-

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emergent US green belt policy towards Islam with a back lash

against colonial zones of influence in the Islamic world, the Islamic

imperative mood translated into political aspirations for a purer Islam

throughout the Arabic world, the ‘failure’ of Islam in the face of the

defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, historical green belt

policies as a legacy of the Great Game in Central Asia, Islamic

desires in the context of Zionist aspirations supported by the USA

and in some cases Dispensationalist Right Wing Christians, Hindu

Nationalism, Sikhist moves for an independent Khalistan, contention

over the legacy of arbitrary Colonial boundaries for contemporary

Iranian-Iraqi Shiite populations, Partition in India and the tensions

between Hinduism and Islam in South Asia, Ambedkar and the mass

conversion of Untouchables to Buddhism in India, Iranian theocratic

resistance to democratic parties, the regional split between Northern

Muslims and Southern Christians in Nigeria, moves by the EU to

insert a clause into the EU Constitution extolling the ‘Christian’

nature of the European Union (Ahmed, 09.05.04, Newspaper

Articles), representation of Rama at Ayodhya and the rise of

Hindutva politics and the contention over Ayodhya as Muslim or

Hindu, the Kosovan crisis and the historical regional domination by

Ottoman Islam with the conversion of Kosovan Albanians and the

Kosovan Grand Vizier’s atrocities which resulted in the battle of

Nandofehervar (now Belgrade), the battle lines drawn between

Rangers and Celtic – Scottish football divided along religious-

political lines, and the Protestant-Catholic divide in Northern Ireland.

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The list goes on and on and without a doubt the influence of religion

on politics and as a consequence communities and individuals is

largely as a result of historical ethno-religious boundaries and

loyalties. Religious representation as an adaptive mechanism

seems therefore to have been born out of political necessity and that

the future of the relationship between religion and politics and

sources of religious authority and their entanglement with political

power is rooted in the legacies of the past.

Jurisprudence

There are also one or two contemporary National religious-political

institutions that rely almost entirely on a theocratic structure, Iran for

instance, through the governance of the Supreme Jurisprudent, or

Faquih; Ayatollah Khomeini was the first, and self appointed. The

Supreme Jurisprudent is representative of the power of the Hidden

Twelfth Imam and deemed therefore infallible, his decisions

irreversible (Cole, 2000, pgs. 192-197). Though tempered by

modern democratic movements the influence of Khomeini on

theocratic processes and Islamic fiqh (legal interpretation) and

therefore Iranian Shiite Islam itself, still echo in contemporary Iran.

Within the overarching framework of Islam there are differing

approaches to textual interpretation and representation.

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From a Sunni perspective the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence

were established by the late 14th century emerging from the

teachings of elite scholars (Rippin, 2002, pg.88), individuals whose

legacy had, and still has, a profound effect on the interactive

process of Islamic jurisprudential science, or fiqh, and the

hermeneutical re-interpretation of Islamic law.

As can be seen the influence of faqih, ulama and the interpretation

of Qur’ān, Hadith and sunnah in the Islamic legal process is one of

great importance and exerts significant religious influence over the

adherents of both contemporary Sunni and Shiite Islam and as a

consequence, though with differences in a regional and

jurisprudential scholarly context, individual Muslims.

Another modern theocracy is the Vatican City, governed by the Pope

or Holy See, who, combined with the Roman Curia form the legally

recognised government of the Roman Catholic Church. In a position

analogous to that of the Iranian Shiite Supreme Jurisprudent, the

Pope assumes, through the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, the position

of supreme apostolic authority and his proclamations are therefore

held to be fixed and unchangeable (Zpub.com, Internet, accessed

23.05.04) a consequence of which is that his decisions are said to

hold for all Roman Catholics. In this case an individual, the Pope,

influences both other individuals and the religious tradition of Roman

Catholicism.

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Ethnic and Cultural Identity

If the media and Government social policies and projects are

anything to go by social issues and as a consequence, or because

of, their sense of identity, the interaction between Islam and politics

and social change have never been more apparent, in both global

and regional context. Yet for Muslims the evolution, adaptation and

change of their beliefs and interactions with global, regional and

local politics and social change are intrinsically tied in with their

fundamental identification with Islam from a global emic perspective,

and at the same time with their regional and local national, ethnic

and cultural identity. In particular this applies to subsequent

generations in immigrant Muslim communities where a sense of

identity with Islam can sometimes conflict with the process of

acculturation (Choudhari, 07.04.04, Newspaper Articles). However,

this is not as much of a one way process as might be at first

perceived and as represented by the media with lesser newsworthy

issues such as the influence of the issue of Human Rights on

religious political authority in Islam as can be seen in a recently

issued proclamation outlining thirty-two decelerations of

advancement and development in Iranian Government policy

thirteen of which directly affect the status and protection of women

(Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2004, pgs. 2-3).

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Religions are influencing individuals in the West with increasing

conversions to some of the major religious traditions which have

been culturally and traditionally perceived as outside of the Western

historical cultural Christian milieu as with Islam (Texas Islam,

10.04.04, TV) and Buddhism (Halliwell, 04.04.04, Newspaper

Articles).

Not only does diversity exist between faiths but within faiths and this

diversity exists at a variety of levels; regional-communal, national-

nationalistic, International-Global, and Trans national where the

complexity of cultural concerns, political and socials interests

amongst a diversity of faiths are mediate through political and social

mechanisms that have been developed to manage them. For

instance Li Kwan Yew’s Secular religious pluralism in Singapore

where religion was promoted as a shared cultural anchor rather than

allowing more religiously divisive issues to flourish (Brown, 1994,

pgs. 95-96), and Soekarno and Soeharto’s Neo Patrimonialism in

Indonesia based on pre Islamic, jahiliyyah, cultural values (Brown,

1994, pgs. 117-118). Examples of individuals influencing religions

from within the political process.

The USA has its own share of religious-ethnic issues amongst which

is the rise of the Nation of Islam which is intimately linked to the

issues of African American ethnic politics. In this instance the African

American ethnic identity seems to have been determined as the

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basis upon which has been built a mixture of radical Islam and the

legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, though when combined with

Islamic imperatives the movement becomes substantially more

radicalised. Ethic needs influencing choice of religion and

consequently religion influencing a radical political stance (Gardell in

Westerlund, 2002, pgs. 48-74).

In some cases there has been an historical convergence of ethnic

and cultural identity within the context of religion. Gandharan

Hellenistic and Indian Buddhist iconography (Marx,

http://www.geocities.com/pak_history/gandhara.html, Internet,

accessed 01.10.04), Western representations of the Buddhist

iconography as with statues of Buddhist Bodhisattvas produced by

the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (Jyoti, 2002, pg. 144),

Bon religious iconography adapted to represent Tibetan Buddhist

deities, Christianity and the emergence of a Caucasian Christ

(AD317: Video 2, Band 1), Jesus as represented by Zeus in

Byzantine religious art (Romer, 1997, TV), the Christian inheritance

of Egyptian representations, via Helleno-Roman iconography, of Isis

suckling her son Horus which emerge as the Virgin Mary and the

baby Jesus (Zabern, 1999, pg. 56), and last but definitely not least,

Margaret Thatcher emerging as a Daoist Deity of Wealth (Palmer,

1996).

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If the previous evidence is anything to go by it would seem that

dynamically evolving human communities, alongside routes of

commerce and communication affect religious representation in a

way that seems to parallel the merging of cultural and religious

beliefs with ethnically based representational styles. As a

consequence of which subsequent generations without the benefit

of historical empirical evidence to the contrary eventually assume

the idealistic representation as foundational in its contemporary

milieu which in turn becomes the historical iconography on which

future representations of religious imagery will eventually be

founded.

Economics and Commodity

The availability of spiritual and religious choice as a consequence of

globalization and technology, in particular the Internet, would seem

to fit in with the assertions made by the rational choice theorists that

the privatisation of religion gives those so inclined a wider choice in

the market place. Economics and commodity in the context of

religion is not just limited to the purchase of religious paraphernalia,

goods and services, collectables and museum pieces, and access

to a larger variety of traditions. It is also apparent in the processes at

work within religions themselves. Prosperity religion for an example,

the ideal of the protestant work ethic and global capital, the new

evangelical prosperity religions, the Catholic prosperity ideologies of

Opus Dei, status advancement and church attendance in the USA,

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capitalist uses of new age and spiritual management disciplines

(see Woodhead and Heelas, 2000) all contribute to the issue of

religious economics and would seem to indicate a dialogue between

the ideologies of the economics of globalisation and religious

aspirations.

Religious proscriptions can sometimes have a devastating effect on

both those within the tradition from whence the decree came and

externally. For example; with the ruling in Israel by Orthodox Jews

that hairpieces from India were not considered kosher and their

importation was stopped (Vallely, 21.05.04, Newspaper Articles)

which has devastated the Jewish wig industry worldwide upon which

all practising Jewish women rely; and historically in Iran with the

issue of a fatwah to ban tobacco smoking to destabilise Western

economic interests in the region based in the tobacco industry

(Cole, 2002, Internet, accessed 01.10.04).

Islamic Coca Cola has been produced to compete with the original

Coca Cola and perceptions of the economic dominance of the West,

and the USA in particular (Everyman, 2004, TV) and there are more

and more banks facilitating mortgages and lending for Muslims

based on Shari ‘a law (Evening Standard, 23.09.04, Newspaper

Articles).

Spiritual tourism is on the increase with pilgrims from all over the

world travelling to sites of major interest and pilgrimage such as

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Dharamsala for Buddhists, Varanassi and the Kumbh Mela for those

professing the Hindu faith whether Hindu’s of descent or (an

anathema to Hindu’s of descent) ascent, Mecca for Muslims on the

Haj, the Golden Temple for Sikhs, Santiago de Compostela, Lourdes

and Vatican City for Catholic Christians, Puttaparthi for Sai Baba

devotees, and so on. It’s not until one delves into the issue that a

surprisingly large industry with all of it’s associated economic

benefits comes to light. So in a way in this case religion and the

economics of the global travel industry are intertwined and when

seen from this perspective religion definitely influences the

individual, particularly in the choice of commodity or broker.

Difference and Liberalism

One need to look no further than the current debate on sexual

orientation and religious authority in the Anglican Church to see just

how intense the interaction can become between individual, and by

extension community (in this case the gay and lesbian identified

Anglican community), and religion and how this process can begin

to define the evolution, adaptation and change that can occur within

the overarching umbrella of a tradition; in this case a tradition within

the tradition of Christianity; the Anglican Church (see Pritchard,

19.09.04, Newspaper Articles). Additionally in this particular issue

dissension is apparent in a regional context with regional Anglican

authorities in the Far East, Latin America and Africa lining up against

the acceptance of homosexuality within the Anglican Christian

17
church (Lloyd and Bowley, 13.09.03, Newspaper Articles).

Reinterpretation, adaptation and change in Christianity has and is

occurring as a consequence of this issue with the formation of

lesbian and gay identified church communities and with the

emergence of new forms of liberal denominations such as the

Metropolitan Church and the Catholic identified Dignity.

This paradigm shift in social perspectives has resulted in the

emergence of a variety of sexual orientation related traditions, some

newly emergent, some based on hermeneutical interpretations of

older traditions and many with a basis in Jungian analytical

psychology, yet all with the an underlying theme of liberalisation and

with quite distinct founders; a good case for the influence of

individuals on religion in the context of both religious interpretation

and reinterpretation. Amongst the most influential are; Jungian

focused Thompson, Hopcke, Walker, Kramer and Baldwin; for

Christianity, Boyd; Ram Dass and Harvey for Hinduism; and

Williams and Hall as contemporary spokes people for the Native

American same sex spiritualities. Hay, a prominent and influential

individual in the context of Gay spiritualities, was instrumental in

founding the Mattachine Society (a precursor to a modern,

predominantly secular, Gay Liberation movement), a potentially civil

religious order, with its roots in the medieval French Mattachiné, a

troupe of masked jesters and troubadours whose origins hark back

even further to the Roman rites of Saturnalia; a new religious

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movement perhaps and one which has influenced the emergence of

a quasi religious Gay movement, that of the Sisters of Perpetual

Indulgence. Hay subsequently founded the Radical Fairie

movement, more spiritual focused pagan type of gay movement

(see Thompson, 1995 and 1987; Hopcke, 1989; and Johnson 2000).

Contemporary post second wave Feminism in Islam would currently

seem to be in a unique position, one which allows increasing access

to educational opportunities that facilitate the exploration of the

complexities of Islamic jurisprudence and challenge claims based

purely on the contemporary power dynamic of a patriarchal view of

Islam (Hosseini, 2003, Lecture). This post second wave religious

feminism is not restricted to the Islam but is spreading globally

through modern communications and is affecting worldwide and

regional religious establishments and challenging the purely

patriarchal interpretations of religious traditions in practically all of

the religious traditions. This is helped partially by the interaction

between religious authorities and Western women who have not

been inculcated with the cultural patriarchal traditions associated

with the traditional lands associated with the origins of some of the

more patriarchal religious traditions and who challenge religious

teachers from ethnic and cultural backgrounds in a way that women

of the same ethnic and cultural background might not. Resistance to

change has a tendency to radicalise as with Sujata’s Vahini (army)

in Indian Buddhism who challenge what is perceived to be men’s

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irresponsibility to their religious responsibilities and by extension the

family, caste, patriarchal attitudes and women’s lack of education

(Barnes in Sharma, 2002, pg. 57). In South Africa women’s rights in

Islam have been heavily influenced by the battle against apartheid

the consequence of which has been the ability to elicit and engage

the help of male Muslims through the sense of shared struggle

against apartheid (McDonough in Sharma, 2002, pg. 186). Here it

would seem the individual, in this case women, are influencing

religion.

In one region in Indonesia the gender disparity, equality, matriarchal

and patriarchal issues is turned on it’s head with the historical

cultural matriarchy of the Minangkabau in Western Sumatra

ensuringing the dominance of women in different regional type of

Islam (van Reenen, et al, 1996). Pre Islamic cultural values also

permeate and underlie other regionally, ethnically and culturally

diverse Indonesians and their understanding and practice of Islam.

The Bugis for instance have five genders, women and men who are

attracted to each other, women who are attracted to their own

gender, men who are attracted to their own gender and a male

transvestite priesthood (Blair and Blair, 1996, Video).

Patently issues of gender and liberalism are having an influence on

religion not only through a hermeneutical re-examination,

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reinterpretation and representation of the fundamentals tenets of

religious sources of textual authority, as with Islamic Jurisprudence,

but also through challenges to established institutions, such as the

Anglican Church where a recent paradigm shift finally led to the

ordination of women, and the Buddhist clergy where the reinstitution

of ordained women has yet to take place outside of Taiwan (where

Buddhist women’s ordination lineage remains unbroken). Overall it

can be said that in the case of difference and religious liberalism it is

the individual that is influencing religion.

Representation in Popular Culture and Popular Media

The influence of those in prominent positions advocating for

particular religious traditions via the globalisation of modern popular

culture and through popular mediums is self evident. Some promote

the religious traditions of their choice.

Table 2: Religious Promotion in the Media

Popular Popular Religious Source

cultural figure Medium Tradition

George Music Hinduism Shankar

Harrison, The (1999)
Beatles and
Ravi Shankar
Madonna, Demi Music, Cinema, Kabala Isreal21c in
Moore, Britney Theatre Internet,
Spears & Halevi,
Michael 09.06.04,
Jackson Newspaper
Articles
Harrison Ford, Cinema Buddhism Purify Mind ,

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Richard Gere Internet,
Richard
Gere
Productions,
Everyman
(2004) TV
John Cleese Cinema and TV Buddhism Cherniak
and Joanna (2001) DVD
Lumley
Lynne Franks Fashion and Buddhism Franks
couture (1998)
Mel Gibson Cinema Christianity Glaister,
20.02.04,
Newspaper
Articles
John Travolta, Cinema Scientology Coffey,
Kirstie Ally and 18.02.04,
Tom Cruise Newspaper
Articles

(*Table 1. Note: Nick Drake, a contributory dramaturge to the screen

adaptation of His Dark Materials at the National Theatre in London,

stated that Pullman was not anti Christian but anti Clerical (Drake,

2003, in Interviews)).

Whilst others provoke controversy

Table 1: Controversies in the Media

Popular Popular Medium Religious Source

cultural figure and issue Tradition
Deepa Mehta’s Cinema Hinduism Deepa
Fire Lesbianism Mehta,
Internet
Philip Pullman’s Theatre Christianity Drake,
His Dark Anti Religious 2003,
Materials Institutionalism, Interviews*,
Anti Clerical Sierz,
12.12.03,
Newspaper
Articles
Mel Gibson Cinema Judaism Fraser,
Anti Semitic 07.02.04,

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 Newspaper
Articles

Manipulation of popular media is another route by which some

traditions and their adherents try to influence individuals. According

to one journalist (Donegan, 25.07.04, Newspaper Articles) in the

USA the Christian Right are doing their best to censor what can and

cannot be viewed by audiences.

It is not just cinema, theatre and television that are involved in the

representation of religion and exert an influence on the individual.

Printed material such as books and pamphlets as well as art and

architecture can provide mediums of representation and

interpretation that can exert influence in the context of an

individual’s perception of religious traditions. Currently controversy

rages in India with a fervent anti Islamic feeling permeating the

mass media with attempts by the Hindu Right to influence India’s

religious history; of architecture for instance, where claims are made

that many Islamic buildings were designed and built by Hindus

(Ramesh, 26.06.04, Newspaper Articles) and a critical review of the

influential Indian writer V. S. Naipaul on his failure in his writing to

recognise Islam’s contribution to India (see Dalrymple, 20.03.04,

Newspaper Articles). Gupta asserts that ‘a large part of the mass

popular media in India today has a symbiotic relationship with the

Hindu Right’ (Gupta, 2002, pg. 4). This can be used not only to

reach Hindu communities geographically dislocated from India but to

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manipulate communal violence in India. In post Mughal and post

Colonial terms this sometimes expressed by negating the general

media as tools of Christianity and Islam (Sharma, 2001, pg. 145),

and of the Eurocentric economic dependency of ‘third world’ cinema

(Shohat, 2001, pg. 30).

Other media avenues such as museum exhibitions can bring

historical religious representational art such as paintings, books and

statuary to light in a contemporary context such as; Pre Raphaelite

painting as a response to Darwin’s perceived scientific reductionism

(Conrad, 15.02.04, Newspaper Articles); Encounters: The Meeting

of Asia and Europe 1500-1800 at the Victoria and Albert Museum

(Mishra, 11.09.04, Newspaper Articles); The Silk Road: Trade,

Travel, War and Faith (Dalrymple, 19.06.04, Newspaper Articles)

and the controversy over the ownership of treasures from around

the world held in museums (MacGregor, 24.07.04, Newspaper

Articles) though the question remains for some exhibitions as to

whether it should be classified as art or as funtional religious

paraphernalia as with the Sacred Spaces Exhibition staged by the

Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2000 (Bowman, et al,

2003, pgs. 17-19) and the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and

Art (Bowman, et al, 2003, pgs. 34-38 and AD317 Video 1 Band 1).

Whilst one might be expected to think that for an iconoclastic Islam

this is not an issue, since for Islam God cannot be represented by

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imagery, it still remains a concern as to how the world of Islam is

represented through the media.

There is absolutely no doubt that the popular media is suffused with

religious imagery; Kushner’s Angels in America for instance, makes

considerable use of religious metaphors with the presence of

Mormon characters and images of angels and heaven (Nichols and

Kushner, 2004, DVD); Tsai Chih Chung’s series of comic books

illustrating some of the more difficult concepts of Buddhism and

Eastern philosophy (Chung, 1994); and Karen Armstrong’s books on

religion which have proved so popular that one book in particular,

Buddha (Armstrong, 2002), was listed on the New York Times Best

Seller’s list. There are also many spiritual supermarket focused

books for the spiritual seeker such as The Spiritual Tourist (Brown,

1999), A Fortune Teller Told Me (Terzani, 2002), Holy Cow

(Macdonald, 2004), the Empire of the Soul (Roberts, 1994) and The

Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment (Losada, 2001).

The media world abounds in religious imagery and whilst much of it

is culturally misappropriated, Native American, Hindu and Buddhist

religious paraphernalia as decorative art for instance and advertising

and branding using religious terminology such as Nike and Mazda,

the simple fact that it is there would tend to indicate the influence of

religion on the individual either appropriated to serve as a function of

25
globalisation (selling products) or as a way of promoting and

influencing religious choice.

Conclusion

The question was ‘In today’s globalising world, does religion define

the individual, or does the individual define religion?’

1) Religion has no objective existence without the existence of

human beings so by logical deduction yes, individuals define

religion since it is a subject-object relationship that exists

between the individual and religion

2) Religion defines the individual by virtue of the mechanism of

dynamic and evolving representations by individuals as

sources of authority

3) The mechanism by which this is achieved is what might be

termed an algorithm of relationship between the individual

and religious tradition where contemporary perceptions of

religions are rooted in the ‘continuity’ of the past yet continue

to evolve, adapt and change through the process of historical

hermeneutical interpretation (see below. Diagram 1: Flow

Chart: Religion, Modernity and Change)

26
 4) Undoubtedly prominent individuals also have an influence on

spiritual and religious choice and potentially interpretation

and misinterpretation including established religious leaders

and authorities, those from the popular culture, and popular

media

An attempt to show the complexity of relationships between the

various factors affecting and influencing religions today are

numerous and complex. An attempt to illustrate them is shown

below and includes two examples that illustrate the difference

between emic and etic perspectives.

27
 Emic
perspective

Paganism
The past
Wicca
(Tradition &
Theosophy
Continuity,
Shamanism
Core beliefs &
‘NRMs’
principles)
Privatisation
of religion Hermeneutical
Lens of the
Victorian Cross
Fin de siècle Over
Interpretative
Pluralism, between
hermeneutical
Religious science
lens
Democratic and
(Adaptation &
Secularization Etic perspective religion
Change)

Sources of Modernity
authority Reinterpretation Science
(Text, Orthodoxy
Orthopraxis
Jurisprudence)
Politics)
Belief
Identity
Opt out from
Representation Culture
Institutional
(Text, Media, Popular Culture
Religion
Internet, Images, Adaptation
Film, Political, Change
Popular Culture, Politics
Popular Media Traditions
figures) Scholars
Language
Experience

Community
(Culture, Religion,
Identity, Regional,
Individual
Transnational,
(Identity)
Global)

Atheistic
secularization

Modernity
Globalisation
Technology
Science
Secularization Belief
Identity
Social Change Culture
Pluralism & Diversity Civil Religion
Adaptation
Human Rights Change
Feminism Politics
Traditions
Liberalism Scholars
Ecology Language
Post Communist Experience
Post Colonial
Human Rights Diagram 1: Flow Chart: Religion, Modernity and
Democracy Change

28
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Trevor Skingle - PI U6431382

Course AD317 - 2004
Course Essay – Option 2

43