GLOBALIZATION OF

RELIGION
• Learning Outcomes
• Articulate a personal definition of global citizenship
• Appreciate the ethical obligations of global citizenship
• Globalization of Religion
• In this, the fundamental research question pertains to the spread of religions and specific
genres or forms or blueprints of religious expression across the globe. Beyer (2006)
proposes that the very notion of what constitutes a ‘religion’, as commonly understood, is
the product of a long-term process of inter-civilizational or cross-cultural interactions.
• Globalization and Religion
• In this second, the position and place of religion is problematized within the context of globalization.
This problematic concerns the relations and the impact of globalization upon religion. From this
point of view, even religions that are not conventionally considered ‘global’ such as Eastern Orthodox
Christianity ; are nevertheless influenced by globalization; These face up to the global condition and
reshape their institutional practices and mentalities (Agadjanian and Roudometof, 2005). In so doing,
religious institutions generally tend to adopt either strategies of cultural defense or strategies of active
engagement with globality (Roudometof, 2008). Although a religion can reject globalizing trends and
impulses, it is nevertheless shaped by them and is forced to respond to new-found situations. This
problematic incorporates notions of resacralization as a response to secularizing agendas and views
instances of transnational nationalism cloaked in religious terms as cultural expressions stimulated by
globalization (for examples, see Danforth, 2000; Zubrzycki, 2006). This second problematic does not
necessarily address the historicity of globalization; in large part because it is concerned with
theorizing contemporary events and trends
• Transnational Religion and Multiple Glocalizations
• Transnational studies emerged gradually since the 1990s in connection to the study of post-
World War II new immigrants or trans-migrants who moved from Third World and
developing countries into developed First World nations. New immigrants no longer
assimilated into the cultures of the host countries but rather openly maintained complex
links to their homelands, thereby constructing, reproducing and preserving their
transnational ties. International migration has provided the means to theorize the relationship
between people and religion in a transnational context (Casanova, 2001; Ebaugh and
Chafetz, 2002; Hagan and Ebaugh, 2003; Levitt, 2003, 2004; van der Veer, 2002).
• Vernacularization involved the rise of vernacular languages (such as Greek or Latin or
Arabic in the case of Islam) endowed with the symbolic ability of offering privileged access
to the sacred, whereas indigenization connected specific faiths with ethnic groups, whereby
religion and culture were often fused into a single unit. Vernacularization was often
promoted by empires, whereas indigenization was connected to the survival of particular
ethnic groups. It is important to stress that this is not an exclusively contemporary
phenomenon. The creation of distinct branches of Christianity; such as Orthodox and
Catholic Christianity; bears the mark of this particularization of religious universalism.
Nationalization connected the consolidation of specific nations with particular confessions
and has been a popular strategy both in Western and Eastern Europe (Gorski, 2000;
Hastings, 1997; Roudometof, 2001
• Religion in Global Conflict
• The contemporary conflicts with which religion has been associated are not solely about
religion, however, if one means by ‘religion’ a set of doctrines and beliefs. The conflicts
have been about identity and economics, about privilege and power – the things that most
social conflicts are about. When these conflicts are religionized – when they are justified in
religious terms and presented with the aura of sacred combat – they often become more
intractable, less susceptible to negotiated settlement. Thus although religion is seldom the
problem, in the sense of causing the tensions that produced the conflicts in the first place, it
is often problematic in increasing the intensity and character of the struggle
(Juergensmeyer, 2004b).
• First Stage: Revolt against Global Secularism
• The first stage of the encounter was characterized by isolated outbursts. It began in the 1970s by a variety of groups –
Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim – that were revolting against what they regarded as the moral failing of the secular
state. One of the first of these religious rebellions was nonviolent – the Gandhian movement in India led by Jayaprakash
Narayan, who called for a ‘Total Revolution’ in 1974 against the corruption of the Indian government.
• 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini led a revolt against the secular regime of the Shah of Iran
• Buddhist activists violently resisted attempts by the Sri Lankan government to appease the growing movement of Tamil
separatism that had arisen in that island nation in the 1970s
• the Khalistani movement of Sikh separatism gained momentum and unleashed a reign of violence in the north Indian state
of Punjab throughout the 1980s
• The gathering power of Muslim extremists in Egypt led to the brutal assassination of President Mohammad Anwar al
Sadat in 1981.
• The common element that ran through all of these otherwise isolated nonviolent and violent incidents of Hindu, Sikh,
Buddhist, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim rebellion in the 1970s and early 1980s was an implicit moral critique of secular
politics.
• By that time a revived anti-colonial mood had developed against the cultural and political legacies of European modernity
in the Middle East and South Asia that gave the movements a new force.
• Secular authorities treated these rebellious religious movements simply as attempts to usurp power. The secular leaders left
unchallenged the moral critique that the movements conveyed.
• In some cases, they regarded the new religious activists as versions of the legendary Robin Hood – extra-legal though
virtuous challengers to the political status quo
• Second Stage: Internationalization of Religious Rebellion
• The next stage of the developing warfare between religious and secular politics was the
internationalization of the conflict in the 1980s. This stage is best represented by the ad hoc
international coalition of jihadi Muslim radicals that developed in the Afghan war. It is hard
to underestimate the formative power of their experience, shared by thousands of volunteer
soldiers in the Afghanistan struggle against the Soviet regime in the 1980s. In one central
theatre of involvement activists were brought together from throughout the Muslim world.
The fighting force of mujahadin included erstwhile jihadi soldiers who came from Muslim
countries from Pakistan to Northern Africa. It also included some of the Egyptian militants
linked to Sadat's assassination and Saudis who would later be identified with the al Qaeda
movement of Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan became the crucible for creating the
international Muslim political networks that would infuriate global politics for the next two
decades.
• Third Stage: Invention of Global Enemies
• The third stage in the gathering cold war between religious and secular politics was
characterized by a growing anti-American and anti-European sentiment in the 1990s. In this
stage the target of the religious activists' wrath shifted from local regimes to international
centres of power. Increasingly the political and economic might of the United States and
Europe became regarded as the source of problems both locally and worldwide.
• Third Stage: Global War
• Originally jihadi leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and bin Laden had been fixated on
local issues – in bin Laden's case, on Saudi Arabia. He was concerned especially about the
role of the United States in propping up the Saudi family and, in his mind, America's
exploitation of the oil resources of the country. He then adopted a broader critique of Middle
Eastern politics, following the general jihadi perspective of Maulana Maududi, Sayyid Qutb
and other Muslim political thinkers who rejected all forms of Western political and social
influence in the region. Increasingly the goal of bin Laden's and the other jihadi activists was
not just to get American influence out of Saudi Arabia but out of the whole Muslim world.
This meant a confrontation of global proportions on multiple fronts.
• The era of globalization brought with it three enormous problems. The first was identity, how
societies could maintain a sense of homogeneity when ethnic, cultural, and linguistic
communities were spread across borders, in many cases spread across the world. The second
problem was accountability, how the new transnational economic, ideological, political and
communication systems could be controlled, regulated, and brought to justice. The third problem
was one of security, how people buffeted by forces seemingly beyond anyone's control could feel
safe in a world increasingly without cultural borders or moral standards. Religion provides
answers to all three of these problems. Traditional definitions of religious community provide a
sense of identity, a feeling of belonging to those who accept that fellowship as primary in their
lives. Traditional religious leadership provides a sense of accountability, a certainty that there are
moral and legal standards inscribed in code and enforced by present-day leaders who are
accorded an unassailable authority. And for these reasons, religion also offers a sense of security,
the notion that within the community of the faithful and uplifted by the hands of God, one has
found safe harbor and is truly secure.