The Globalization of Religion

RELIGION
-is the anchor of the Filipino life. It has affected their attitudes, characters and
perspectives. This is not only true to Filipinos but also true to most of the former
“Third World,” developing countries, and even the west.
-is one of the areas of the contemporary social life that globalization refers to
for worldwide interconnectedness.

RELIGION and GLOBALIZATION

Globalization
- gave rise to religious nationalism
- led to the turn of religion into public life
- affected the proliferation of international terrorism
- Prompted the increase of individual religiosity
Global migration also influences religion. Because of migration, globalization
has forced the appearance of “religious traditions in places where traditions
of these kind had been unknown of or considered a minority.”
- This is called deterritorialization of religion
- Also resulted in the “easternization of the west”
*Although the west is the starting point for the spread of world religions,
the west is now the recipient of new system of beliefs from the east. Thus,
there is a rise in the number of believers of Asian religions like
Zoroastrianism,Confucianism,Buddhism, and Taoism.
At one end, religion is influenced by global trends and is forced to respond
to such situations. (e.g. use of social media for evangelization)
Global-local religion
- Is the result of the interaction of religion and culture. It is a global religion with
a local mix.

- With this, a model of four distinct religion was developed by Roudometof (2014).

1. Vernacularization-
- blending of universal religions with local languages.
e.g. Arabic is used as Islam’s sacred language even outside the Arab
world, while Greek and Latin remains to be the primary languages of
Christianity.

- resulted to the creation of new branches of religion such as Orthodox

Christianity which stems from Christianity.
 2.
Indigenization
-transforms a universal religion to suit the specifics of a particular ethnic
group.
Ex.-Practice of Islam by various ethnic groups in the Zamboanga
peninsula;
-blending of African traditional Forms of religiosity in Brazil and
the Carribean.

3.
Nationalization
- constructs a link between the nation and the church
- Religious institutions relate to national identities and the realities of that
nation.
4. Transnationalization
- complemented religious nationalization by focusing groups on identifying
specific religious traditions of real or imagined national homeland.
(ex. Iglesia ni Cristo-national in scope but has an international reach
that is easily identified as Filipino)

The globalization of religion brought two opposing results. Religion has been
a source of global conflict and peace (starting from the late 20th century).

Events like:
- Linking the Muslims to the Jihadist attack in Britain in the London
Bridge attack (2017)
- Jewish extremist in Israel were accused of targeting and beating
Palestinians (2017)
- The American-based organization New Christian Right questioned the
teaching of evolution in schools (2017)
With all these events, religion should not be the only one to be blamed as the
cause of conflicts. There are other global factors.
 
The point is not the global conflicts, but the role of religion in these conflicts.
 
Contrarywise, religion is also a source of peace. It plays a vital role in man’s
search for peace.