GLOBALIZATION

OF RELIGION
Globalization results from the
removal of barriers between
national economies to
encourage the flow of goods,
services, capital and labor.
 The world became a smaller
place where political, social and
cultural events affects everyone.
As a result, individuals search
for space-bounded identities
like religion.
Globalization of religion has paved its
way…
Global North Core

Global South Peripheries

 RELIGION
A systematic belief and practices.
It comes from the Latin word
“Religare” which means “to bind
together again.”
MOST KNOWN RELIGION IN THE
WORLD:
• Christianity
• Islam
• Hinduism
• Buddhism
How has
Globalization
impacted
religion?
• People are able to
travel to religious
sites.
• Religious traditions
can be easily
understood.
• Spread of the scope
of vast religious
beliefs such as
Catholicism and
Islam. / Expanded
Cross-Disciplinary Considerations:
Beyond the Secularization Debates
 "The study of religion is an
inter- or cross-disciplinary area
of inquiry.“
- Crawford, 2001
Major Associations that have maintained their
institutional autonomy:
1. American Academy of Religion
2. Society for the Scientific Study of
Religion
3. Association for Sociology of Religion
 Even though these religious organizational
influences initially led to marginality and
mainstream sociology, the field has become far
more central to sociology and other social
sciences since the 1980s.
Secularization traces the decline of religion and
the rise of secular belief systems. But it also
touches on the transition from traditional to
modern systems of organization, the
replacement of metaphysical beliefs
with science the transition from community to
association and much more besides.
The debate about secularism and secularization
has become the central issue in politics, public
policy and international affairs.
 SECULARIZATION VS
SECULARISM
It involves both the increasing state control of spheres
formerly controlled by religious institutions and the
expansion and freedom from religious control of non-
religious institutions, both state and private, and
comprising education, social welfare, law, publication
and the media, and the forums for the expression of
belief and action.
 SECULARIZATION VS
SECULARISM
It involves belief in the priority of this-worldly
considerations, and an end to religious doctrinal
influence on law, education, and welfare, and the need
for equal treatment of various beliefs and believers.
Two broad streams of ideas concerning
secularization:
1. The Notion of Post-Secular Society
2. Secularism is seen as an active project that is
articulated alongside the western Modernity of the
post-1500 world
The conventional framework of religion
is viewed in mainly two dimensions:

Institutional Individual
 Secularization Paradigm
It is constructed based on the
historical trajectories of a selective
group of Western nations, while
ignoring non-Western regions. The
paradigm is in turn derived from the
broader modernization paradigm that
has been the target of numerous
criticisms since the end of WWII.
TRANSNATIONAL RELIGION AND MULTIPLE
GLOBALIZATION
 TWO MAJOR RESEARCH
AGENDAS:
TRANSNATIONAL RELIGION AND
STUDIES CULTURE
TRANSNATIONAL STUDIES

TRANSNATIONAL
It is going beyond the national boundaries.
Merriam-Webster dictionary

DETERRITORIALIZATION
It is the movement by which one leaves territory;
eradication of social, political or cultural practices from
their native places and populations.
Transnational religion emerged in post WWII.
The spread of Protestantism.
RELIGION AND CULTURE

Easternization of the west.

Global-Local or Glocal Religion

It involves the blending or fusion of global religious
expression with local particularity.
TRANSNATIONAL STUDIES

Universalism
Universal Salvation
Religious Universalism
Is central reference for immigrant communities.

Institutional transnationalism
communities living outside the national territory maintain religious
attachments to their home churches or institution.
4 CONCRETE
FORMS OF
GLOBALIZATION:
Vernacularization
It is involved the rise of vernacular
language endowed with the symbolic
ability of offering privileged access to
the sacred.
Transnationalization
It has complemented religious
nationalization by forcing groups to
identify with specific religious traditions
of real or imagined national home lands
or to adopt a more universalist vision of
religion.
Nationalization
It connected the consolidation
of specific nations with
particular confessions and has
been a popular strategy both
western and eastern Europe.
Indigenization
It connected specific faiths
with ethnic groups, whereby
religion and culture were
often fused into single unit.
BRANCHES OF CHRISTIANITY

ORTHODOX CATHOLIC
(EASTERN) (ROMAN/WESTERN)