UNIT 2

A WORLD OF IDEAS: CULTURES OF GLOBALIZATION

LESSON 6. THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
• Explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs;
• Identify the various religious responses to globalization; and
• Discuss the future of religion in a globalized world.

- Globalization can refer to the worldwide

interconnectedness of all areas of
contemporary social life. One of these
areas is religion, which entails a personal
or organized system of religious beliefs
and practices.
- It implicates religion/s in several ways. From
religious or theological perspectives,
globalization calls forth religious
response and interpretation.

- Religion a set of cultural beliefs and

practices that usually includes some or all
of basic characteristics.
- is a collection of cultural systems, belief
systems, and world views that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality
and to more values.
- Yet religion/s have also played important roles in bringing about and characterizing
globalization.
- Among the consequences of this implication for religion has been that globalization
encourages religious pluralism.

THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION

The Largest main World Religions
• Christianity : 2.1 billion
• Islam : 1.3 billion
 • Hinduism : 900 million
• Buddhism : 376 million
• Judaism : 4 million

Religion has the most difficult relationship with globalism.

RELIGION GLOBALISM
Concerned with the sacred Places value on material wealth
Follow divine commandments Abides human-made law (constitution)
Assumes that there is "the possibility of
Human action can lead to the highest
communication between human and the
material satisfactions and subsequent
transcendent (God).
wisdom that this new status produces.
Believes that God/Allah/Yahweh defines
and judges’ human action in moral terms

RELIGION GLOBALISM/ GLOBALIST

Concern about life after Less worried about whether they will
death (Live a virtuous, end up in heaven or hell
sin-less life)
Their skills are more pedestrian as they
aim to seal trade deals, raise profits of
Less concern with private enterprises... enrich themselves
wealth and all that If she/he has a strong social
comes along with it conscience, the globalist sees his/her
(higher social status. . .) work as contributing to the general
progress of the community, nation, and
the global economic system.
Aspire to become a saint Trains to be a shrewd/skillful
(impose compassion) businessperson
Detest politics and the quest for Values both the means and
power (evidence of humanity's ends to open up further the
weakness) economies of the world.
 Finally, religion and globalism clash over the fact
that religious evangelization is in itself
a form of globalization.

Globalist Idea
Religious Concern
(Largely focused on the realm of markets)
Spreading holy ideas globally; gaining
Wishes to spread goods and services
adherents/ followers abroad (mission).

• Religions regard identities associated with globalism (citizenship, language, and race) as
inferior and narrow because they are earthly categories.
• In contrast, membership to a religious group, organization, or cult represents a superior
affiliation that connects humans directly to the divine and the supernatural.
• Being a member of a particular religious sector places one in a higher plane than just being a
Filipino.

Mormon Missionaries
• The "missions" sent by American Born-Again
Christian churches, Sufi and Shiite Muslim orders,
as well as institutions like Buddhist monasteries
and Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon churches
are efforts at "spreading the word of God" and
gaining adherents abroad.
• Religions regard identities associated with globalism
(citizenship, language, and race) as inferior and
narrow because they are earthly categories.
• In contrast, membership to a religious group,
organization, or cult represents a superior
affiliation that connects human directly to the
divine and the supernatural.
• These philosophical differences explain why certain groups "flee" their communities and
create impenetrable sanctuaries where they can practice their religions without the
meddling and control of state authorities.
• Some religious groups believe that living among "non-believers" will distract them from their
mission or tempt them to abandon their faith and become sinners like everyone
else.
• Dalai Lama established monasteries away from civilization (Tibet), so that hermits (monks)
can devote themselves to prayer and contemplation.

• Rizalistas of Mount Banahaw

- These groups believe that living among non-believers will distract them from their mission or
tempt them to abandon their faith and become sinners like everyone else.

• Communities justify their opposition to government authority on religious ground.

• Priestesses and monks led the first revolts against colonialism in Asia and Africa, warning that
these outsiders were out to destroy their people's gods and ways of life.
• Millenarian movements (contemporary version) that wish to break away from the hold of the
state or vow to overthrow the latter in the name of God.
• To their "prophets," the state seeks to either destroy their people's sacred beliefs or distort
religion to serve non-religious goals.

REALITIES
"In reality, the relationship between religion and globalism is much more complicated."

Peter L. Berger
- An Austrian-born American sociologist and Protestant
theologian.
- Berger argues that far from being secularized, the
contemporary world is. . . furiously religious.

Religions are the foundations of modern republics.

Malaysian government places religion at the center of the
political system.
• Its constitutions explicitly state that "Islam is the religion
of the Federation."
• Rulers of each state were also the "Head of the religion
Islam.
Malaysian Flag

Iranian Flag
Green represents Islam; white represents peace, and red
means courage. The centered symbol is said to
symbolize the five principles of Islam.

Iranian religious leader (Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini)

- Bragged about the superiority of Islamic rule over its secular counterparts
and pointed out that
"There is no fundamental distinction among constitutional despotic,
dictatorial, democratic, and communistic regimes."
- All secular ideologies were the same — they were flawed — and Islamic
rule was the superior form of government because it was spiritual.
Religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate secular themes and practices.
• Nahdlatul Ulama (Moderate Muslim Association) in Indonesia has Islamic schools
(pesantren) where students are taught not only about Islam but also about modern
science, the social sciences, modern banking, civic education, rights of women,
pluralism, and democracy.
• The Church of England was shaped by the rationality of modern democratic (and
bureaucratic) culture.
• King Henry Vlll broke away from Roman Catholicism and established his own church to
bolster his own power.
• In United States, religion and law were fused together to build "modern secular society," as
observed by French historian and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville and confirmed by
Jose Casanova.

RELIGION FOR AND AGAINST GLOBALIZATION

"There is hardly a religious movement today that does not use religion to oppose
'profane' globalization."

CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

• See globalization less as an obstacle and more as an opportunity to expand their reach all
over the world.

Globalization - has "freed" communities from the "constraints of the nation-state," but in the
process, also threatened to destroy the cultural system that binds them together.

Religion - seeks to take the place of these broken "traditional ties" to either help communities
cope with their new situation or organize them to oppose this major
transformation of their lives.

- It can provide the groups "MORAL CODES" that answer problems ranging from people's health
to social conflict to even "personal happiness."

Religion - is thus not the "regressive force" that stops or slows down globalization; it is a "pro-
active force" that gives communities a new and powerful basis of identity.
- It is an instrument with which religious people can put their mark in the reshaping of
this globalizing world, although in its own terms.
Religious fundamentalism
- may dislike globalization's materialism, but it continues to use "the full range of
modern means of communication and organization" that is associated with this
economic transformation.

• It is therefore, not entirely correct to assume that the proliferation of "Born-Again" groups, or
in the case of Islam, the rise of movements like Daesh (more popularly known as
ISIS, or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) signals religion's defense against materialism
of globalization.
• It is, in fact the opposite. These fundamental organizations are the result of the spread of
globalization and both find ways to benefit or take advantage of each other.

Muslims
• Some of them view globalization as a Trojan horse hiding supporters of Western values like
secularism, liberalism, or even communism that can destroy Islamic belief.

The World Council of Churches (an association of different Protestant congregations)

• Has criticized economic globalization's negative effects.
• "Churches are accountable to the victims of the project of economic globalization."

Pope Francis
• Globalization has a throw-away culture that is fatally destined to suffocate hope and
increase risks and threats.

- The Lutheran World Federation 10th Assembly declared a message that includes economic
and feminist critiques of globalization, sharing the voices of the Church members
who were affected by globalization and contemplate pastoral and ethical
reflections.

Results of Globalization
• World will split apart by forces we often do not understand, but that result either will
benefit or will harm us, especially those who are affected.
• There's a desperate need for healing from terrorism, its causes, and fearful reactions to it.
• Relationships in this world continue to be ruptured due to greed, injustices, and various
forms of violence.
AVOCACIES
Globalist Institutions

• The World Bank along with the religious leaders, discussed global poverty and agreed to support
some faith-based anti-poverty projects in Kenya and Ethiopia. Globalist institutions
become responsive to the liberationist, moral critiques of economic globalization.
• Religious sectors are in no position to fight for a comprehensive alternative to the
globalizing status quo.
• Catholics call the preferential option for the poor a powerful message but lack substance to
change the poor's condition.
• Being traditional by the fundamentalist political Islam is no longer alternative.

CONCLUSION
• For a phenomenon that "is about everything", it is odd that globalization is seen to have very
little to do with religion.
• As for Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman observed, "religion, it seems, is somehow 'outside'
looking at globalization as problem or potential."
• One reason for this perspective is the association of globalization with modernization, which
is a concept of progress that is based on science, technology, reason, and the law.
• With reason, one will have "to look elsewhere than to moral discourse for fruitful thinking
about economic globalization and religion."
• Religion, being a belief system that cannot be empirically proven is therefore, anathema to
modernization. The thesis that modernization will erode religious practice is often
called secularization theory.

Debunked much of secularization theory!

Samuel Huntington
- one of the strongest defenders of globalization
• In Huntington's book, "The Clash of Civilizations" he admits
that civilizations can be held together by religious
worldviews.
 Max Weber
- one of the greatest sociologists of all time
• Max Weber observed the correlation between religion and
capitalism as an economic system.

John Calvin
- most important figure in the second generation of the
Protestant Formation
• Calvinism, a branch of Protestantism, believed that God had
already decided who would and would not be saved.

William McKinley (American President)

• When the Spaniards occupied lands in the Americas
and the Philippines, it was done in the name of the
Spanish King and of God, "for empire comes from
God alone."
• Over 300 years later, President McKinley claimed that
after a night of prayer and soul-searching, he had
concluded that it was the duty of the United States
to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very
best they could by them.
• Despite the inflexible feature of religious leaders, the
warnings of perdition, the promises of salvation,
and their obligatory pilgrimages, religions are
actually quite malleable.

Globalists have no choice but to accept this reality that religion is here to stay.