CHAPTER 9

RELIGION and
GLOBALIZATION
 Religion is part of people culture. It is part of many people way of life. It caters into the
spiritual need of people since people always have that belief of a being greater than
themselves. This being is thought of to have both physical and spiritual attributes that capture
the human spirit to the extent that it develops in people a sense of faith and the beliefs in the
unseen - the all-encompassing Supreme Being, God, who has been attributed different names
across cultures. Yet, even if religion aims is to immerse people into the possession of a sense of
God, it is also ironic that because of religion, people are hurting and killing each other. This was
manifested in the Crusades launched by the Catholic monarchs in the middle Ages and the
Jihads by the Muslims when they feel that their culture and their religion are attacked by
external invaders. This includes the most recent move by the Islamic States of Iran and Syria
(ISIS) a radical Islam group to establish caliphate.

However, there is more to religion than the above-mentioned things. Though said things
have greatly affected the lives of people at each particular moment of their history, religion at
present has taken a radical twist. In many countries in the world today, there is always the
challenge of the secularization of religion. According to Grace Davie, secularization in the
present world could be blatantly construed in the ambience of “believing without belonging”-
simultaneous public flagging of religious beliefs that is not matched by religious practice
(Steger, 2014). People now have a choice between beliefs and non-beliefs unlike those that live
during the times of Spanish colonization and the pre-World War II era where people were
necessitated and always had the access to know and worship God. In this current age, people
seem to enjoy the things that the materialistic world has offered to them to the extent that
people would say that they belong to a certain religion but are not actually practicing it.

A lot of factors have contributed to the emergence of secularization and the utter
disregard of religion. One of the factors could be pointed at the influential philosophies of the
19th and 20th centuries. For instance, Nietzsche’s strong assertion that “God is Dead” which
come as a result of his view of Christianity as a weak and slave morality and his suggestion that
Man must transform himself into a “Superman” where he can make the best out of himself.
This philosophy has seemed to drive away people from the realm of religion and their reliance
on beings greater than themselves and instead give premium to human capacities. To add to
this, there is Jean Paul Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism that gives premium to human
freedom. “Man is cursed to make choices in life since precedes essence”. This philosophy again
makes man realize of his potentials to actualize himself fully in the midst of a materialistic
world all by himself. These European philosophies have estranged man away from religion and
view the world as something that is there for his taking.

Moreover, these European philosophies that lead to the strong influence of

secularization in the man’s consciousness is further strengthened by the American philosophy
of Pragmatism as espoused by Charles Sanders Pierce. C.S. Pierce Philosophy of pragmatism’s
main premise is to view actions and brings satisfaction. This philosophy sees goodness in people
and things only if they are of value to a person. Hence, in line with this thinking, a person or
thing is only good if it is only of value and not good if they have no value at all. This philosophy
contradicts the tenets of religions, most specially, Christianity which looks at the innate
goodness of man whoever and wherever he is. The above-mentioned philosophies are
indubitably major causes of secularization since they give premium to human freedom to
determine himself and the world before him.

THE CASE OF THE PHILIPPINES: RELIGION AS AN END PRODUCT OF

GLOBALIZATION
Filipinos are predominantly Christians because the Christian religion had been infused
into their consciousness and way of life, which had been successfully passed on from one
generation to the other. Yet, it is quite ironic that Europeans infuse Christianity to the Filipinos
not by their native ancestors. The same holds true with the case of the spread of Islam in the
mostly attributed to Ferdinand Magellan’s discovery of the Philippines. Magellan happened to
discover the Philippines because of his mission to find new trade routes to the Spice Islands—
this is what Anthony Reid referred to as the generative view of globalization (Steger, 2014). A
rider on Magellan’s expedition had the mission to propagate the Christian faith to new found
territories, which later on became an efficient instrument for colonization. The quest to find
gold and other goods in the colonies with the intention to enrich the crown reflects today’s
transnational and multinational corporations’ gross exploitation of developing nations’ natural
and human resources.

With this, there is no doubt that religion is something that could infiltrate into the
consciousness of a person. It indubitably had the Filipinos exploited as the history of the
Philippines could attest. Yet, religion, though foreign in origin, had also been employed to
advance the early Filipinos people’s innate longing for independence from foreign colonizers.
After all, religion could also be likened to a two-edged sword since it could also enable people
to do things that might be detrimental even at the expense of their own well being. For
instance, Apolinario Dela Cruz, also known as Hermano Pule, make use of the early Filipino
Catholic Pasyon (Ileto, 1997). Religion penetrates the inner core of people’s consciousness in
such a way that it has become an integral aspect of their lives. Hence, with the things
happening in the modern world because of the workings of innovation and globalization,
religion remains to be a very influential element in the lives of people.
OTHER CHALLENGES TO THE RELIGIONS
During the Second World War II era, fascism posed a great challenge to religion. Fascism
was very against Christianity, specifically the Roman Catholic in the sense that religion served as
a great competitor of fascism in relation to capturing people’s hearts and support. Fascism
relation with religion ranges from persecution, to renunciation, and at times compromise
(Laqueur, 1996). After all, fascism and religion are very opposite from each other since many
religions are products or have been introduced by foreign entities while fascism is
ultranationalist and authoritarian. While religion would allow someone from outside to
determine its direction, fascism gives premium on the things from within. While religion is one
of the off shoots of globalization, fascism gives credence to the nationalistic flavors, which
denounce some sorts of external internal interference and intervention.

Aside from fascism, another challenge to religion is communism. Like fascism,

communism is nationalistic in the sense that it espouses each workingman’s loyalty to the state,
which is governed through the dictatorship of the proletariat or the working class. While
religion demands and requires the working class to be loyal to the state. Not only that, in many
religions, there are, according to hard-core communists, semblances of hypocrisies in favor of
the interest of the capitalistic society (Mason, 1924). This is true to many religions in the world
that owns big businesses. Aside from Catholism, other religions such as Protestantism have
strong connections to the development of capitalism. In fact, the famous sociologist, Max
Weber, has, in one way or another, asserted that capitalism finds its roots from many
Protestant cities (Novak, 2010). Hence, religion, which transcends beyond borders of states, is
very much in contrast with the teachings of communism. After all, communism is a challenge to
internationalism, which is one of the drivers of globalization.

GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
People today could easily travel from one place to another or from one country to another
because of the availability of transportation and easy travel that indubitably manifest the
workings of globalization. If travel would take days in the past to reach one’s destination, those
travel days have indubitably been reduced into hours because of modern innovations. These
changes in ways people live also globalized local religions across the globe. Yet, even if people
travel and immersed themselves to other cultures, there is still a great tendency from them to
retain their religion. People’s contact with other cultures has altered the essence of religions’
playing fields across the world. People tend to bring along their religious orientations when
they travel around the globe, and thus, carry with them their religious affiliations and leanings
wherever their destinations are and wherever they tend to settle down. This creates a process
of reconstructing, creating, or recreating locality can be construed as also a product of
globalization (Appadurai, 1995).

This is referred to as the “globalization of religion”. This manifests the retention of one’s
religion and culture in a foreign land with completely different ways of life. This is what is
referred to as cultural hybrids. As globalization enables people to move from one place to
another and one timeline to the next, it would be easy to assert that this will further leads to
another development in the realm of religion, culture, and the way people view and perceive
the contemporary world (Steger, 2014). This is the reason behind the phenomenon on why
there are Filipino communities in Europe, America, the Middle East, and other countries around
the world that still profess and practice their Christian faith or religion is a product of a long-
term process of inter-civilizational or cross-cultural interactions (Streger, 2014). Yet, even with
the fact at hand religion still has to face the challenges and adapt to changes of what are put in
front of them. After all, religions have to adapt to existing globalities in order for them to be
relevant in this ever-changing contemporary world.

TRANSNATIONAL RELIGION AND MULTIPLE GLOCALIZATIONS