Contemporary World
Globalization and Religion
Sociology of Religion
• Focused on the Secularization
• Modern world is a secular world not because of a mere
decline in mere spirituality or of the growing Church-
State divide, but because frameworks of understanding
have shifted radically.
• Secularization is understood as a shift in overall
frameworks of human condition; it makes it possible
for people to have a choice between belief and non-
belief in a manner hitherto unknown.
Two Broad Ideas on Secularization
1. Post-secular society put forward by Jurgen Habermas
• Post-secularity is viewed as a contemporary phase of
modern societies, whereby religion makes a return to the
public sphere from where it was cast out during the era of
modernity.
• In some context, it gives rise to a phenomenon called
“fundamentalism.” In others, it gives rise to religious
association without concomitant practice (semiotic or
symbolism).
• “Believing without belonging”
Two Broad Ideas on Secularization
2. Secularism is seen as an active project that is
articulated alongside with the Western
modernity of the post-1500 world.
• Secularism is a multifaceted movement.
Secularization as an outcome of a social
action.
Critique on Secularization Paradigm
• Constructed on the historical trajectory of
Western nations
• Western-bias and non-inclusivity
• Space-Time Dimension
• Spatial Dimension
– Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization
– This dialectic entails trends toward greater ecumenical
orientation as well as transnational religion
– Reshaping of world religious geography through
increased cross-cultural contact.
Some religious-centered reaction to
contemporary globalization
• Rise of religious nationalism
• Return of religion in the public life
• Proliferation of international terrorism
• Increasingly personalized construction of
individual religiousity
Globalization of Religion VS. Globalization and
Religion
• Religion as an important bridgehead between
pre-modern and modern social formations.
Axial Age of Civilizations
• Approximately 500 BC to 700 AD
• Rise of Universalist philosophies and world religions in
the Afro-Eurasian landmass including the Abrahamic
religion, Greek philosophy, and Persian, Indian and
Chinese religions (Zoroastrianism, Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Taoism).
• Can be also viewed as the pre-modern wave of
globalization
Transnational Religions and Multiple
Glocalizations
Social-Scientific study of Religion
1. Transnational Studies
– International migration has provided means to theorize the
relationship of religion and people in a transnational context.
– Deterritorialization of religion (effloresence of a religious tradition
where it was previously unknown or a minority. Ex. Protestantism
and Latin America)
– Migrants allegiance is now not to their original homeland but to
their global religious community; religion offers a means for
transnational transcendence or identities and boundaries.
– Transnationalism and the changing of borders.
2. Religion and Culture
– Employment of culture in ways that can forestall
secularization’s success (Martin, 2005)
– Easternization of the West (Campbell, 2007)
– Religion and local integration
– Blending of religious universalism with local
particularism
Four concrete forms of glocalization basing on Christianity
1. Vernaculariation – rise of vernacular languages (such as Greek or
Latin) endowed with symbolic ability of offering privileged access to
the sacred. Often promoted by empires.
2. Indigenization – connected specific faiths with ethnic groups,
whereby religion and culture were fused into a single unit. Connected
to the survival of an ethnic group.
3. Nationalization – connected the consolidation of specific nations with
particular confessions and has been a popular strategy in Eastern and
Western Europe.
4. Transnationalization – complemented religious nationalization by
forcing groups to identify with specific religious traditions of real or
imagined national homelands or to adopt a more universalist version
of religion.
