MODULE IN GEC 3
(THE CONTMPORARY WORLD)
CHAPTER IX-B: THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
Chapter Introduction
Religion, much more than culture, has the most difficult relationship with globalism.
Religion is concerned with the sacred, while globalism places value on material wealth.
Religion follows divine commandments, while globalism abides human-made laws.
Religious people are less concerned with wealth and along that comes with it. (Claudio,
2018).
Value/Thrusts Integration
Effects of globalization to religious beliefs and practices
Lesson 3 - THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
Introduction:
This chapter focuses on the effects of globalization to religious practices and beliefs,
various religious responses to globalization; and the future of religion in a globalized world.
Intended Outcome/Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson the students will be able to:
1. explain how globalization affects religious beliefs and practices;
2. analyze the relationship between religion and global conflict and the global peace.
Stimulating Learning (Motivation)
1. What religion are in? Do you think religion can be affected by globalization or
globalization can affect religion?
Inculcating Concepts (Input/Lesson Proper)
Since globalization can be defined as a process of an “ever more interdependent
world” where “political, economic, social, and cultural relationships are not restricted to
territorial boundaries or to state actors,” globalization has much do with its impact on
cultures.
As goods and finance crisscross across the globe, globalization shifts the cultural
makeup of the globe and creates a homogenized “global culture.” Although not a new
phenomenon, the process of globalization has truly made the world a smaller place in which
political, social, and economic events elsewhere affect individuals anywhere. As a result,
individuals “search for constant time and space-bounded identities” in a world ever changing
by the day. One such identity is religion.
What is religion? a “system of beliefs and practices.” More specifically, the word comes
from the Latin “religare” which means “to bind together again that which was once bound
but has since been torn apart or broken.”
Globalization - individuals feel insecure - rapid changes
Hence, “in order for a person to maintain a sense of psychological well-being and
avoid existential anxiety,” individuals turn to scripture stories and teachings that provide a
vision about how they can be bound to a “meaningful world,” a world that is quickly
changing day-by-day. Challenges: 1) Globalization Engendering Greater Religious
Tolerance; 2) Globalization Creating Backlash of Religious Parochialism; and 3)
Religious Identity and Globalization
A. Globalization Engendering Greater Religious Tolerance
Globalization brings a culture of pluralism, meaning religions “with overlapping but
distinctive ethics and interests” interact with one another.
Major religions of the world values such as human dignity, equality, freedom, peace, and
solidarity. More specifically, religions maintain the Golden Rule: “what you do not wish done
to yourself, do not do to others.” Therefore, through such religious values,
Globalization engenders greater religious tolerance in such areas as politics,
economics, and society.
Examples:
Jubilee 2000, an international effort advocating for cancelling Third World debt by the
year 2000
The World Faiths Development Dialogue, an effort of international faith leaders
along with the World Bank to support development agendas corresponding to the UN’s
Millennium Development Goals.
Religion has tremendously benefited from technological advancements
Websites provide information and explanations about different religions to any person
regardless of his or her geographical location, as well as provide the opportunity to contact
others worldwide and hold debates which allow religious ideas to spread.
Television allows for religious channels that provide visual religious teachings and
practices.
Hence, by making the leap onto the information superhighway, which brings religious
teachings into every home and monitor in a global setting, religions have come together into
one setting.
Globalization allows for religions previously isolated from one another to now have
regular and unavoidable contact.
B. Globalization Creating Backlash of Religious Parochialism
Since globalization is considered as “the first truly world revolution,” “all revolutions
disrupt the traditions and customs of a people”—that is, “people’s very security, safety, and
identity.”
With religion’s power to “convey a picture of security, stability, and simple answers” through
stories and beliefs—unlike economic plans, political programs, or legal regulations—
individuals turn to religion.
Consider the following …Globalization breaks down traditional communities and
replaces them with larger, impersonal organizations.
Modern society losses ethical values and increased corruption
Globalization causes mental stress.
Globalization causes mental stress. Although globalization allows for crisscrossing
borders, it also leaves individuals worrying about losing work, status, or other privileges.
Moreover, since globalization favors material prosperity as the aim of life over inner peace,
individuals focus on attaining some material possession such as a house, car, game, or
simply any object. When they attain such item(s), however, they find themselves empty
inside and, therefore, realize that inner peace can never be achieved through material
possessions.
By responding to individuals’ desire for welfare, as well as acting as a cultural
protection against globalization, religion plays a social role and gains more recognition from
the marginalized, particularly those in Third World countries. For instance, religious
organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, World Vision International, and Islamic
Relief Worldwide help serve the disadvantaged in areas such as poverty relief, health care,
the HIV/AIDs crisis, and environment problems.
Religion provides them the way to inner peace and the sense of personal fulfillment.
For example, individuals who feel insecure in the globalized world, in business or personal
life, will often pray to God for his spiritual support.
C.) Religious Identity and Globalization
Since God has set the rules and has made them difficult to challenge, religion
provides answers to questions concerning self-identity. However, in providing such
answers, religion also institutes a notion of “truth,” which implies an automatic exclusion of
the one—called an “abject”—who does not adhere to such “truth.” In times of uncertainty
like globalization, therefore, collective identity is reduced to a number of cultural religious
characteristics —“them” and “us” and “they” and “our.” In other words, the abject suddenly
becomes recognized as a threat.
For example, since the 9/11 attacks, there has been a tendency of the West to link
the religion of Islam with terrorist practices while Al-Qaeda links the US as Christian or a
Judeo-Christian nation. On the one hand, Al-Qaeda men who hijacked the planes on 9/11
saw the passengers and those working in the World Trade Center and Pentagon as
“abjects” of Islam.
On the other hand, the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq turned into wars
of “Islamofacism” and a “crusade” to the divine in getting rid of evil. Moreover, other attacks
on innocent people based on cultural religious characteristics occur today: Muslims in the
United States, Western Europe, or India, Kurds in Iraq, and Jews in France. In other words,
though socially constructed, these cultural religious characteristics become a unifying force
against others not adhering to a particular truth.
As long as religions see themselves as “world religions” and reinforce their specific
identities, the chance for religions to avoid conflict among one another is grey.
Religions have, indeed, taken part in dialogues beforehand. As a further example,
religious leaders gathered at the UN’s Millennium Peace Summit in September 2000 to
mark the turn of the millennium. A milestone in itself, as the UN is not a common ground
in the sense of a ecumenical meeting inside a church, synagogue, or mosque but rather a
global common ground, the Summit’s conversation encouraged that world’s religious
communities stop fighting and arguing amongst themselves and begin working together for
peace, justice, and social harmony. As then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed
to the Summit, “Whatever your past, whatever your calling, and whatever the differences
among you, your presence here at the United Nations signifies your commitment to our
global mission of tolerance, development, and peace.”
Moreover, as transnational corporations increasingly become actors in the
international system, one could argue that religious communities have agreed on “the
emerging global ethic” which consists of three major components: corporations are
prohibited from involving in bribes and corruption; corporations are prohibited from
discriminating on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, or gender in the conduct of
business, and ; corporations are prohibited from activities that pose a significant threat to
human life and health. Simply put, these components are, in themselves, religious values
used to regulate the way transitional corporations increasingly engage in the global market.
The bottom line is that the pieces of interreligious dialogue to manage religious
diversity and to avoid violence are there, but the problem may be of globalization’s
intentional and/or unintentional consequence of making religions more conscious of
themselves as “world religions,” as well as the undesirable consequences of disrupting
traditional communities, causing economic marginalization, and bringing individuals mental
stress—all reinforcing religious cultural characteristics and identities.
Hence, the relationship between religion and globalization has brought new
possibilities but also furthering challenges.
THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
“Religion epitomizes the definition of globalization due to the fact that it can be spread more
efficiently than ever before through the use of different technological tools.”
Tools of uniting people all over the world on religious basis
1. Books
2. Movies
3. Cell phone apps
4. Social networks
5. Charity funds
6. Special internet sites
7. Religious schools
Globalization has played a tremendous role in providing a context for the current revival
and the resurgence of religion.
Today, most religions are not relegated to the country where they began – in fact spread
and scattered in a global scale.
According to Scholte (2005) “Accelerated globalization of recent times has enabled
co-religionists across the planet to have greater direct contact with one another. Global
communications, global organizations, global finance, and the like have allowed ideas of the
Muslims and the universal Christian church to be given concrete shape as never before.”
Media also play an important role in dissemination of religious ideas – a lot of television
channels, radio stations, and print media are advocating religions.
Modern transportation contributed considerably to the emergence, revivalism, and
fortification of religion – according to Turner (2007) cited that, “Islamic revivalism in Asia is
related to the improvement in transportation that has allowed many Muslims to travel to
Mecca and return with reformist ideas.”
Modern Technology, therefore, has helped religions of different forms, such as
Fundamentalist, Orthodox, or Modernist to cross geographical boundaries and be present
everywhere.
Globalization has allowed religion or faith to gain considerable significance and
importance as a non-territorial touchstone of identity. Being the source of identity, it
(religion) promoted by its practitioners so that it could reach the level of globality and be
embraced by as many people as possible.
For instance, Muslims aspire to establish the Islamic Ummah, a community believers.
By paving the way for religions to come in contact with each other and providing a context
for their flourishing and thriving, globalization has brought such religions to a circle of
competition and conflicts.
As Turner (2007) explained, “Globalization transforms the generic ‘religion’ into a
world system of competing and conflicting religions. This process of Institutional
specialization has transformed local, diverse and fragmented cultural practices into
recognizable systems of religion. Globalization has therefore, had the paradoxical effect of
making religions more self-conscious of themselves as being “world religions.”
Such conflicts among the world religions exhibit a solid proof confirming the erosion
and the failure of hybridization. Although globalization makes religion more conscious of
themselves as being “world religions” reinforcing their respective identity, however, they
cannot be hybridize due to distinct internal structures, and contradicting rituals and beliefs
(i.e. Islam and Christianity are incompatible with each other and cannot be homogenized
even if they often come in contact).
Though is strengthened and
fortified by globalization, it represent a
challenge to globalization’s hybridization
effects – each religions assert its identities
which constitute a defensive reaction to
globalization.
Scholte (2005) maintained that, “ as
pursued by through global channels,
assertions of religious identity have, like
nationalist strivings, often also been partly a defensive reaction to globalization.”
Globalization is also associated with Westernization and Americanization.
The imperialist aspirations of globalization and its incompatibility with Islam make it
completely alien with the Muslim realities.
Since it is a cultural construct, and its core meaning is western discourse, “promoting and
engaging with it on the part of the Muslims
is like accepting and promoting Western
cultural values and their dominance.”
Hence, globalization challenges
religion – religion takes caution against
the norms and values related to
globalization, and it also challenges its
hybridizing effects.
According to Samuel Huntington’s Clash of
Civilizations, which maintains that such
dehybridizing upshots spring also from the
religious partitioning and clashes.
Religion has entered the “information age”
and has globalized at accelerating rates, in
the methods religions use for teaching and in belief systems.”
Through the use of magazines, the media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, commercials,
podcast, cell phone apps and much more.
It is now possible for any religion to spread beyond national borders, allowing even
small new religious movements to engage in overseas activities and leading to new unseen
religious developments.
Small religious movements are also spreading thanks to the celebrities following and
advertising them
Expansion of terrorism on religious basis
Videos and audios in the Internet of sermons read by missionaries which contain extremist
ideas, call for crimes, murders, terrorist attacks
The possibility of communicating with anyone across the world and sharing ideas provoke
the spread of terrorists and expansion of their band
Conclusion
Globalization has a great impact on religion. As people and cultures move across the
globe, as ideas are mobilized and transported by media technology, the religious
globalization will go on and on. It has its pro and cons. People should cope with the flow of
info and choose their own and peaceful way. And to our mind, finally, the globalization will
end in complete domination of one of them over the rest. Evidently and hopefully, it is Islam.
Activity/ies: Divide yourselves into groups. Each must be assigned one religion (Buddhism,
Christianity-Catholicism, Christianity- Protestantism, etc.) Surf for a web and research the
history of the assigned religion. Then describe the following:
1. the religion’s concept of good;
2. the religion’s concept of evil
3. the steps needed by a person to become good and avoid from becoming evil.
Using/Applying Knowledge (application/integration)
Conduct a research on religion’s assigned with its relationship to politics, the method used
on how they campaign. Do they utilized media or social media.?
Evaluating Understanding (Assessment)
Answer in a one whole sheet of paper:
Quiz/Assessment:
I. MULTIPLE CHOICE. Choose the correct letter of your choice:
1. The medium is the message of presenting the details of your company to your
audience.
A. LinkedIn C. Blogs
B. Websites D. Instagram
2. He believed in the impact of print capitalism in facilitating the ‘imagination’ of nation,
and allowed the emergence of national consciousness rather than colonial
consciousness.
A. Guy DeBord C. Marshall McLuhan
B. Benedict Anderson D. Michael Billig
3. The medium is the message of efficiency and urgency.
A. LinkedIn C. Twitter
B. Facebook D. Instagram
4. According to him, “The Medium is the Message,” and further believed that it was not
what we said, but the way we said it that mattered most.
A. Guy DeBord C. Marshall McLuhan
B. Benedict Anderson D. Michael Billig
5. It is now possible for any religion to spread beyond national borders, allowing even
small new religious movements to engage in overseas activities and leading to new
unseen religious developments. This is done through:
A. Magazines B. the media C. Facebook
D. Twitter E. All of the above
II. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS (10 POINTS EACH):
1. Compare and contrast the social impacts of television and social media.
2. How does globalization influence and exploit popular music?
Upgrading Competence and Expanding Insights (enrichment phase)
Make a reflection paper regarding the positive and negative impact of media in the spread
of global culture.
Reference to/Reflection on Value/Thrusts Integration:
1. Lisandro E. Claudio and Patricio N. Abinales. The Contemporary World. C and E
Publishing, Inc. 2018, 839 EDSA, South Triangle, Quezon City.
2. Martinez, et.al. The Contemporary World. Mindshapers Co. Inc. Intramuros, Mtro
Manila
