RELIGION AND

GLOBALIZATION

CARREON I PEDRAJAS I SALVILLA

INTRODUCTION

Since GLOBALIZATION can be

defined as a PROCESS OF AN
EVERMORE 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.

CONTINUE….
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!

Globalization Engendering
Greater Religious Tolerance

Globalization Creating Backlash

of Religious Parochialism

Religious Identity and

Globalization
 A. Globalization
Engendering Greater
Religious Tolerance

CARREON I PEDRAJAS I SALVILLA

 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.

CONTINUE….
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.

CONTINUE….
 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.

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 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.

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
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 FF.

Globalization breaks down traditional communities and

them with larger, breaks
Globalization
replaces impersonal down
organizations.
traditional communities and
Modern society losses ethical values and increased
replaces them with larger,
corruption
impersonal organizations.
Globalization causes mental stress. Globalization breaks
Modern society losses ethical
down traditional communities and replaces them with
larger, impersonal organizations.
values and increased corruption
Modern society losses ethical values and increased
Globalization causes mental stress.
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.
Religious Identity and
Globalization

20
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.”
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:

1) corporations are prohibited from

involving in bribes and corruption,
2) corporations are prohibited from
discriminating on the grounds of race,
religion, ethnicity, or gender in the
conduct of business, and CONTINUE….
3) 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.