Unit 2. A World of Ideas: Cultures of
The religious detests politics and the
Globalization
Lesson 6. The Globalization of Religion
Learning Outcomes:
1. explain how globalization affects
religious practices and beliefs,
2. identify the various religious responses
to globalization, and
3. discuss the future of religion in a
globalized world.
Religion has the most difficult contrasting
relationship with globalism:
1. Religion is concerned with the sacred
while globalism places value on material wealth.
2. Religion follows divine commandments
while globalism abides by human-made laws.
3. Religion assumes that there is the
possibility of communication between humans
and the transcendent. This link between the
human and the divine confers some social power
on the latter. Furthermore, God, Allah or Yaweh
defines and judges’ human action in moral terms
(good vs. bad) while globalism’s yardstick is how
much of human action can lead to the highest
material satisfaction and subsequent wisdom that
this new status produces.
4. Religious people are less concerned
with wealth and all that comes along with it are
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. They are ascetics precisely because 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 they talk,
i.e. lots of parables and allegories that are
supposedly the language of the divine. A religious
person’s main duty is to live a virtuous, sin-less
life such that when he/she is assured of a place in
the other world, i.e. heaven. On the other,
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, the globalist sees his/her work as
contributing to the general progress of the
community, the nation, and the global economic
system.
5. The religious aspires to become a saint
while the globalist trains to be a shrewd
businessperson.
6.
quest for power for they are the evidence of
humanity’s weakness while the globalist values
them as both means and ends to open up further
the economies of the world.
7. Religious evangelization is in itself a
form of globalization while the globalist ideal is
largely focused on the realm of markets.
8. The religious is concerned with
spreading holy ideas globally while the globalist
wishes to spread goods and services.
The missions being sent by American
Born-Again Christians churches, Sufi and Shiite
Muslim orders, institutions like Buddhist
monasteries and Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon
churches are efforts at spreading the word of
God and gaining adherents abroad.
Religions regard identities associated with
globalism such as citizenship, language, and race
as inferior and narrow because they are earthly
categories. In contrast, membership to a religious
group, organization or cult represents a superior
affiliation that connects humans directly to the
divine and the supernatural. 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.
These philosophical differences explain
why certain groups flee their communities and
create impenetrable sanctuaries where they can
practice their religions without the meddling and
control of state authorities. The followers of
Dalai Lama established Tibet for this purpose
and certain Buddhist monasteries are located
away from civilization so that the hermits can
devote themselves to prayer and
contemplation. These isolationist justifications
are also used by the Rizalistas of Mt. Banahaw,
the Essenes during the Roman-controlled
Judea (now Israel) and for a certain period, the
Mormons of Utah. These groups believe that
living among non-believers will distract them
from their mission or tempt them to abandon their
faith and become sinners like everyone else.
Realities
1. Religions are the foundations of
modern republics. The Malaysian government
places religion at the center of the political
system. Its constitution explicitly states that Islam
is the religion of the Federation and the rulers
of each state was also the Head of the religion
of Islam. Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, the late
Iranian religious leader bragged about the
superiority of Islamic rule over its secular
counterparts and pointed out that there is no
fundamental distinction among constitutional,
despotic, dictatorial, democratic, and
communistic regimes. To Khomeini, all secular
ideologies are flawed, and Islamic rule is the
superior form of government because it is
spiritual. Yet, Iran calls itself a republic, a term
associated with the secular.
2. Religious movements do not hesitate
to appropriate secular themes and practices.
Nahdlatul Ulama, the moderate Muslim
association in Indonesia has Islamic schools called
pesantren. The students are taught not only about
Islam but also about modern science, the social
sciences, modern banking, civic education,
rights of women, pluralism, and democracy.
In other cases, religion was the result of a shift
in state policy:
1) the Church of England was shaped by the
rationality of modern democratic and
bureaucratic culture. King Henry VIII broke
away from Roman Catholicism and established
his own Church to bolster his own power.
2) In the United States, religion and law were
fused together to help build modern secular
society. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian
diplomat observed in the early 1800s and wrote
that not only out of self-interest but they often
even place in this world do the Americans
practice their religion out of self interest but
they often place in this world the interest which
they have in practicing it. Jose Casanova
confirms this statement by noting that historically,
religion has always been at the very center of all
great political conflicts and movements of social
reform. From independence to abolition, from
nativism to women’s suffrage, from prohibition to
the civil rights movement, religion had always
been at the center of these conflicts, but also on
both sides of the political barricades.
Religion For and Against Globalization
Religion is a pro-active force that gives
communities a new and
and powerful basis of identity, rather than a
regressive force that stops or slows down
globalization. It is an instrument with which
religious people can put their mark in the
reshaping of this globalizing world.
Religious fundamentalism may dislike
globalization’s materialism but the full range of
modern means of communication and
organization associated with economic
transformation. It has tapped fast long distance
transport and communication, 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 therefore,
not entirely correct to assume that the proliferation
of Born- Again groups or in the case of Islam, the
rise of movements like Daesh, more popularly as
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) signals
religion’s defense against the materialism of
globalization.
While religions may benefit from the
process of globalization, this does not mean that
its tensions with globalist ideology will subside.
Some Muslims view globalization as a Trojan
Horse hiding supporters of western values like
secularism, liberalism, or even communism ready
to spread these ideas in their areas to eventually
displace Islam.
The World of Council of Churches, an
association of different Protestant congregations
has criticized economic globalization’s negative
effects. It vowed that we as churches make
ourselves accountable to the victims of the project
of economic globalization by becoming the
latter’s advocates inside and outside the centers of
power.
The Catholic Church and Pope Francis
condemned globalization’s “throw-away culture”
that is fatally destined to suffocate hope and
increase risks and threats.
The Lutheran World Federation 10th
Assembly’s 292-page declaration message
included: 1) economic and feminist critiques of
globalization, 2) sharing the voices of members of
the Church who were affected by globalization,
and 3) contemplations on the different pastoral
and ethical reflections that members could use to
guide their opposition. It warns that as a result of
globalization: Our world is split asunder by forces
we often do not understand, but that result in stark
contrasts between those who benefit and those
who are harmed, especially under forces of
globalization.
 Today, there is also a desperate need for
healing from terrorism, its causes, and fearful
reactions to it. Relationship in this world continue
to be raptured due to greed, injustices, and various
forms of violence.

These advocates to reverse or mitigate

economic globalization eventually gained the
attention of globalist institutions. In 1998, the
World Bank brought in religious leaders in its
discussions about global poverty, leading
eventually to a cautious, muted, and qualified
collaboration in 2000. It was evident enough
that institutional advocates of globalization
could be responsive to the liberationist, moral
critiques of economic globalization coming
from the religious.

What the Catholics call 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. The
terrorism of ISIS is unlikely to create a Caliphate
governed by justice and stability. In Iran, the
unchallenged superiority of a religious autocracy
has stifled all freedom of expressions, distorted
democratic rituals like elections, and tainted the
opposition.

Assignment 6. Answer the following questions:

1. What are the conflicting ideas
between religious thought and the ideology of
globalism discussed in Lesson?
2. Why is secularization theory
outdated?
3. How do you describe the reactions of
some religious movements to globalization?
How do others facilitate globalization?