Globalization of Religion

• The topic is the globalization of religion for the second semester of school year 2024-2025
• The lesson aims to explain the effects of globalization on religious practices and beliefs
• The lesson aims to identify diverse religious responses to globalization.
• The lesson aims to discuss the future of religion in a globalized context.

Religion

• Religion involves the belief in, and worship of, a superhuman controlling power, such as a personal God or gods
• Religion is a specific system of faith and worship
• Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance
• Religion's relationship with globalism is more difficult than culture's
• Religion is more concerned with the sacred aspects of life
• Globalism places value on material wealth
• Religion follows divine commandments
• Globalism abides by human-made laws
• In religion, God, Allah, or Yahweh defines and judges human actions in moral terms
• In globalism, human actions will lead to the highest material satisfaction
• Religion views identities related to globalism (citizenship, language, race) as inferior categories
• Religious group membership connects humans directly to the divine and the supernatural

Religious Person

• A religious person is less concerned with wealth
• A religious person avoids material possessions for simplicity
• A religious persons duty is to live a virtuous, sinless life, to be assured of a place in heaven
• Religious persons aspire to become a saint
• Religious persons detest politics and pursuit of power because they highlight human weakness
• Religious people are concerned with spreading ideas and gaining followers worldwide
• Examples of these people are American Born-Again Christians, Sufi and Shiite Muslims, Buddhist monasteries, Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon churches

Religious Groups

• Religious and philosophical differences cause groups to create sanctuaries where they can freely practice their religion without state control
• Followers of Dalai Lama established Tibet
• Buddhist monasteries are located away from civilization for hermits to pray and contemplate
• Rizalistas in Mount Banahaw isolated themselves
• Israel are believers in One God
• Mormons are located in Utah

Religion in the Age of Globalization

• The question is where religion lies within widespread globalization's scheme
• Victor Roudometof (2014) highlights a disconnect between the study of religion and social sciences
• Social sciences focuses on secularization, suggesting religion has a diminishing societal influence
• Secularization reflects the shift towards a secular worldview
• Secularization emphasizes life moving away from traditional religious values and structures, such as the separation of church and state
• In actuality, the relationship between religion and globalization is much more complicated
• Peter Berger argues that the contemporary world is furiously religious
• There are verifiable explosions of religious fervor within major religious traditions
• These religious traditions are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and even Confucianism
• Religions become the foundations of modern republics
• The Malaysian government places religion at the center of political system
  • The Malaysian constitution explicitly states that "Islam is the religion of the Federation"
• Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believes all secular ideologies were flawed
• Islamic rule was the superior form of government because it was spiritual
• Religious movements appropriate secular themes and practices
• The Muslim association Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia has an Islamic school that teaches modern science, banking, education, democracy, etc
• Some religions are the result of a shift in state policy
• The Church in England was shaped by democracy and bureaucracy
  • King Henry VIII broke away from Catholicism and established his own church to bolster his power
• In the US, religion and law fused to help build modern secular society
• The French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans practice religion out of self-interest and place in this world the interest which they have in practicing it
• Jose Casanova said religion has always been the center of political conflicts and social reforms
• Religion has been at the center of independence to abolition, nativism to women's suffrage, and prohibition to the civil rights movement

Religion for and Against Globalization

• Religious movements use religion to oppose profane globalization
• Christianity and Islam view globalization as an opportunity to expand their reach
• Religion can provide moral codes that answer problems from health to social conflict and personal happiness
• Religion is a pro-active force that gives communities a powerful basis of identity
• Religious fundamentalism uses modern communication and organization despite disliking materialism
• Fundamentalist organizations result from the spread of globalization, and both benefit from each other
• Some Muslims view globalization as a Trojan horse of Western values seeking to displace Islam
• The World Council of Churches criticized economic globalization's negative effects
• Pope Francis condemned globalization's throw-away culture as destructive
• The Lutheran World Federation 10th Assembly included economic and feminist critiques of globalization
• In 1998, the World Bank started discussing global poverty with religious leaders

Glocalization of Religions

• A significant aspect of globalization is the glocalization of religion
• Glocalization suggests that universal religion is thematized alongside local particularity
• Glocalization is associated with deterritorialization, describing religious traditions moving into unfamiliar areas: the rise of transnational religions or religion going global
• Major world religions have roots in specific geographical regions and possess territorial connections
• Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism can be traced back to the Middle East
  • Buddhism and Taoism originate from East Asia
• These religions spread globally through cultural exchanges between the East and the West, and during periods of exploration and colonialism
• Traditional territorial connections of religions become tenuous as they establish in new locations worldwide
• Focusing on the history of Eastern Christianity, Roudometof (2013, 2014a) defines four forms of glocalization
• indigenization
• vernacularization
• nationalization
• transnationalization

Forms of Glocalization

• Vernacularization links religious universalism with vernacular language
• Secret practices remain tied to a particular secret language
  • Example is Arabic to Islam
• Indigenization links religious universalism with local particularism
• Religious practices blend with indigenous practices
  • Example is Christianiity meeting African traditional forms
• Nationalization links universal religion and local national particularism
• There is emergence of local religion tied with universal religions
  • Example: the Church of England
• Transnationalization involves the absorption of a universal religion into one's culture, the naturalization of religion, and allegiance to a global religious community
• Example: White Anglo-Saxon Protestants among Americans

Conclusion

• Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman define religion as outside of globalization
• Religion, being a belief system that cannot be empirically proven, is antithetical to modernization
• Secularization Theory is the thesis that modernization will erode religious practice
• Samuel Huntington believes that civilizations can be held together by religious worldviews (The Clash of Civilizations)
• In the 15th Century the Jesuits and Dominicans used religion to legitimize the Spanish empire
• Max Weber observes the correlation between religion and capitalism as an economic system
• Calvinism (a branch of Protestantism) redefined the meaning of profit and acquisition
• Weber's Protestant ethic contributed to the rise of modern capitalism
• Religious persons defend their political participation using moral considerations
• Religions are relatively changeable despite their unchanging features
• Globalists acknowledge that religion is here to stay