GNED07

THE
CONTEMPORARY
WORLD
Sir Larry . Dela Cruz
WEEK 6
GLOBALIZATION
OF RELIGION
Religion is undeniably an essential part of
human’s spiritual life. Because of this, several
religious beliefs and systems were created, then
propagated in different areas of the world.
Thus, globalizing religion has since been part of
man’s history.
The spread of religion went though
developments and innovations which is very
evident why most religion sustained themselves
and get more stronger.
Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students are
expected to:
• Explain how globalization affects religious
practices and beliefs;
• Analyze the relationship between religion and
global conflict and conversely, global peace;
and
• Identify the challenges of religion and
globalization.
CLASS ACTIVITY: (BY GROUPS)
Share your experiences on maintaining and practicing
your spiritual faith during the lockdown period due to
Covid-19 pandemic.

Points to Discuss:
• What have you realized during the situation?
• What made you stronger/ weaker during this time?
• What did you do to continue showing your faith to
the Creator?
• In what ways do different religions reach out to their
believers?
Introduction:

Religion is concerned with the sacred, while

globalism places value on material
wealth. Religion follows divine commandments, while
globalism abides by human-made laws. Religion
assumes that there is “the possibility of
communication between humans and the
transcendent.” “God”, “Allah”, or “Yahweh” defines
and judges human action in moral terms. Globalism is
on how much of human action can lead to the highest
material satisfaction and subsequent wisdom that this
new status produces.
Religious people are less concerned with
wealth and all that comes along with it (higher
social status, a standard of living similar with
that of the rest of the community, exposure to
“culture”, top of-the-line education for the
children). Ascetics - they shun anything material for
complete simplicity - from their domain to the clothes
they wear, to the food they eat, and even to the
manner in which they talk. A religious person’s main
duty is to live a virtuous, sin-less life such that when
he/she dies, he/she is assured of a place in the other
world.
Globalists are less worried about whether they
will end up in heaven or hell. Their skills are more
pedestrian as they aim to seal trade deals, raise the
profits of private enterprises, improve government
revenue collections, protect the elites from being
excessively taxed by the state, and, naturally, enrich
themselves. If he/she has a strong social conscience,
he/she sees his/her work as contributing to the general
progress of the community, the nation, and the global
economic system. Globalist trains to be shrewd
businessperson; they value politics as both
means and ends to further the economies of the
world.
Religion and globalism clash over the
fact that religious evangelization is
in itself a form of globalization. The
globalist ideal is largely focused on the
realm of markets which is to spread goods
and services while the religious is
concerned with spreading holy ideas
globally.
The missions being sent by American
Born Again Christian churches, Sufi and Shiite
Muslim orders, as well as institutions like
Buddhist monasteries and Catholic, Protestant
and Mormon churches are efforts at
“spreading the word of God” and gaining
adherent abroad. Being a Christian, a Muslim,
or a Buddhist places one in a higher plane than
just being a Filipino, a Spanish speaker, or an
Anglo-Saxon.
Opposition to authorities on religious grounds
Priestesses and monks led the first revolts
against colonialism in Asia and Africa;
millenarian movements that wish to break
away from the hold of the state or vow to
overthrow the latter in the name of God.
To their “prophets”, the state seeks to either
destroy their people’s sacred beliefs or distort
religion to serve non-religious goals.
REALITIES
• Peter Berger argues that far from being
secularized, the “contemporary world is
…furiously religious. There are veritable
explosions of religious fervor, occurring in
major religious traditions - Christianity,
Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even
Confucianism and in many places in
imaginative syntheses of one or more
world religions with indigenous faiths.”
Religions are the foundations of modern
republics.
• Malaysian government places religion at
the center of the political system.
• Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini bragged
about the superiority of Islamic rule over
its secular counterparts; Islamic rule was
the superior form of government because
it was spiritual.
Religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate
secular themes and practices.
• Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia has Islamic schools;
religion was the result of a shift in state policy .
• The Church of England was “shaped by the
rationality of modern democratic culture”.
• King Henry VIII broke away from Roman
Catholicism and established his own Church to
bolster his power.
• United States - religion and law were fused
together to help build this “modern secular society”.
Alexis de Tocqueville (French historian)
observed in the early 1800s that “not only
do the Americans practice their religion
out of selfinterest but they often even
place in this world the interest which they
have in practicing it”. Religion has always
been at the very center of all great
political conflicts and movements of social
reform (Jose Casanova).
RELIGION FOR AND
AGAINST
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”.
Religion seeks to take the place of these
broken “traditional ties” to either help
communities cope with their new situation or
organize them to oppose this major
transformation of their lives.
It can provide the groups “moral codes”
that answer problems ranging from
people’s health to social conflict to even
“personal happiness”.
• Religion is a “pro-active force” that gives
communities a new and powerful basis of
identity. It is an instrument with which
religious people can put their mark in the
reshaping of this globalizing world,
although in its own terms.
• Religious fundamentalism continues to use “the
full range of modern means of communication and
organization” that is associated with this economic
transformation; it has tapped “fast long-distance
transport and communications, the availability of
English as a global vernacular of unparalleled
power, the know-how of modern management and
marketing” which enabled the spread of “almost
promiscuous propagation of religious forms across
the globe in all sorts of directions.”
• It is not entirely correct to assume that
the proliferation of “Born Again” groups, or
in the case of Islam, the rise of movements
like Daesh (popularly known as ISIS or
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) signals
religion’s defense against the materialism
of globalization. These fundamentalist
organizations are the result of the spread of
globalization and both find ways to benefit
or take advantage of each other.
• World Council of Churches – an association of different
Protestant congregations; has criticized economic
globalization’s negative effects.
• Catholic Church and its dynamic leader , Pope Francis
likewise condemned globalization’s “throw-away culture”
that is “fatally destined to suffocate hope and increase
risks and threats.
• Lutheran World Federation declaration message
included economic and feminist critiques of globalization,
sharing the voices of members of the Church who were
affected by globalization, and contemplations on the
different “pastoral and ethical reflections” that members
could use to guide their opposition.
• World Bank (1998) brought in religious leaders in
its discussion of global poverty, leading eventually to
a “cautious, muted, and qualified” collaboration in
2000.
• “The preferential option for the poor” is a powerful
message of mobilization but lacks substance when it
comes to working out a replacement system that
can change the poor’s condition in concrete ways. In
Iran, the unchallenged superiority of a religious
autocracy has stifled all freedom of expressions,
distorted democratic rituals like elections, and
tainted the opposition.
CONCLUSION
• Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman - “religion, it
seems, is somehow ‘outside’ looking at
globalization as problem or potential”. The
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.
• The thesis that modernization will erode
religious practice is often called secularization
theory.
• Samuel Huntington - civilizations can be held
together by religious worldviews.
• Max Weber - observed the correlation between
religion and capitalism as an economic system.
• Calvinism - believed that God has already decided
who would and would not be saved; Calvinists made it
their mission to search for clues as to their fate, and
in their pursuit, they redefined the meaning of profit
and its acquisition. This “inner-worldly asceticism”
contributed to the rise of modern capitalism.
• Religious leaders have used religion
to wield influence in the political
arena, either as outsiders criticizing
the pitfalls of pro-globalization
regimes, or as integral members of
coalitions who play key roles in policy
decision-makings and the
implementation of government
projects.