 The best scholarly description of globalization

is provided by Manfred Steger who described

the process as “the expansion and
intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world-time and across
world-space.”
 Expansion refers to “both the creation of new
social networks and the multiplication of
existing connections that cut across traditional
political, economic, cultural, and geographic
boundaries.”
 According to historians Dennis O. Flynn and
Arturo Giraldez, the age of globalization
began when “all important populated
continents began to exchange products
continuously-both with each other directly and
indirectly via other continents-and in values
sufficient to generate crucial impacts on all
trading partners.”
 Still others imagine a system of heightened
interaction between various sovereign states,
particularly the desire or greater cooperation
and unity among states and peoples. This
desire is called internationalism.
A WORLD OF IDEAS:
MODULE 2

 CULTURES OF
 GLOBALIZATION
This second module focuses on how
the globalization structures discussed
in
Module 1 affect various forms of
cultural life. “Culture” is used here in
the broadest
possible sense, referring to the daily
practices of people. Thus, if the first
module
focuses on a “large” form of
globalization, this module will zero in
on everyday
globalizations in the realms of
religion, culture, and city life
 LESSON THE GLOBALIZATION OF
RELIGION

 Religion, much more than culture, has the most

difficult relationship with globalism
 . First, the two are entirely contrasting belief systems.

 Second, religious people are less concerned with

wealth and all that comes along with it.

 Third, globalists are less worried about whether they

will end up in heaven or hell.

 Lastly, religion and globalism class over the fact that

evangelization is in itself a form Of globalization
 The following are some of the important
distinctions of religion and globalism:
 Religion is concerned with the sacred, while globalism
places value on material wealth.

 Religion follows divine commandments while globalism

abides by humanmade laws.

 Religion assumes that there is “the possibility of

communication between humans and the transcendent,”
while globalism’s yardstick, however, is how much of
human action can lead to the highest material satisfaction
and subsequent wisdom that this new status produces.
 The religious is concerned with spreading holy
ideas globally, while the globalist wishes to
spread goods and services.

 The last item boils down to the idea that

religion and globalism clash over the fact that
religious evangelization is in itself a form of
globalization
 Realities
 In actuality the
relationship between
religion and globalism is
much more complicated.
Peter Berger argues that
far from being
secularized, “the
contemporary world
is…furiously religious.”
 In Islam
 The Malayan government places
religion at the center of the political
system. Its constitution explicitly
states that “Islam is the Religion of
the Federation.” and the rulers of
each state was also the “Head of the
religion Islam”.
The late 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.”
The moderate Muslim Association Nahdlatul
Ulama 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
 Christianity
 The Church of England
was shaped by the
rationality of modern
democratic and
bureaucratic culture.

 King Henry VIII broke

with the Roman Catholic
Church and established
his own Church to
bolster his own power.
In the United States, religion and law were fused to
together to help build this “modern secular society”. It
was observed in the early 1800s by French historian and
diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote “not only do
the Americans practice their religion out of self-interest
but they often even place in this world the interest
which they have in practicing it.”
Jose Casanova confirms this
statement by noting that
“historically religion has always
been at the very center of all
great political conflicts and
movements of social reform

It remains the case until

today with the power the
Christian Right has on the
Republican Party.
 Religion for and against Globalization

 Religion is FOR 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 bind them together.

Religion seeks to take the place of these broken

traditional ties to either help communities cope
with their new situation or organized them to
oppose this major transformation of their lives.
 Religion is AGAINST
Globalization

Some Muslims view globalization as Trojan

Horse hiding supporters of
Western values like secularism, liberalism or
even communism ready to spread these
ideas in their areas to eventually displace them
As 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.
” 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

Globalists, therefore, have no choice but to

accept this reality that religion is here to stay.