Lesson 9 Globalization For Religion
Lesson 9 Globalization For Religion
Lesson 9 Globalization For Religion
LEARNING OUTCOME
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
1. Define Religion
2. Identify some of the greatest religions of the world
3. Explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs;
4. Analyze the relationship between religion and global conflict, and conversely, global peace.
Define Religion
1. A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when
considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional
and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human
affairs.
2. A specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of
persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. The body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices:
So, the effects on religion of globalization can be seen in the following areas:
1. Rising religious fundamentalism as people feel culturally threatened by an influx of ‘strange’
cultural factors resulting from the increasingly multicultural societies triggered by globalization.
2. Conversely, the movement of people and information across national borders increases the
rate of social and cultural liberalization resulting in potential loosening of traditional religious
structures.
3. The rise of nationalism as a counter pressure to globalization may put pressure on
ethnic/religious diversity in some countries. Particularly, countries that do not have long
histories of multiculturalism or where there has been historical conflict between
ethnic/religious groups that had been suppressed due to the rise of globalization.
4. Same cause as #2 above, but, different effect. The ease of information flow also allows the
rapid movement of religious proselytizing across the world. So, the converts to regionally non-
traditional religions i.e. Mormonism and Fundamentalist Christianity in Latin America have
increased dramatically.
Since globalization, according to many scholars, is aimed at the hybridization of the world
cultures around the pattern of the Western culture; and since it entails liberal values and
norms, religion (particularly Islam) constitutes a challenge to it. This is because Islam’s norms
and values are incompatible with the liberal values of globalization.
Challenge of religion
Though religion is strengthened and fortified by globalization, it represents a challenge to its
(globalization’s) hybridizing effects. Religion seeks to assert its identity in the light of
globalization. As a result, different religious identities come to the fore and assert themselves.
Such assertions of religious identities constitute a defensive reaction to globalization. Scholte, in
this respect, maintains that “At the same time as being pursued through global channels,
assertions of religious identity have, like nationalist strivings, often also been partly a defensive
reaction to globalization’’.
Globalization is associated, as an American or a Western project, with westernization and
Americanization. The dominance and hegemony exerted by these two processes, particularly
on the Third World countries, makes religions-related cultures and identities take defensive
measures to protect themselves. In this respect, Islam takes caution and resists the
encroachment of globalization forces on its cultures and livelihoods in many ways.
Islam cannot contribute to the hybridizing consequences of globalization not only because it
is always resistant to and defiant of globalization but also because the Islamic culture and
identity in general are incompatible with the norms and the values that are related to
globalization and to other distinct religions (such as Christianity, Judaism, etc). It has been
difficult for religion to cope with values that accompany globalization like liberalism,
consumerism, rationalism, etc. Such phenomena advocate scientism and secularism.
Islamic norms and values contradict those advocated by globalization. For Muslims,
globalization is a source of the loose Western morals, according to the writer. The imperialist
aspirations of globalization and its incompatibility with Islam make the former completely alien
to the Muslim realities. In this respect, the leading Islamic scholar, Salim Al-Awwa, maintains, as
paraphrased by Ehteshami, that globalization is an invasion. Since it is a cultural construct at
its heart and its meaning is the Western discourse, Al-Awwa adds, promoting and engaging with
it on the part of Muslims is like accepting and promoting Western cultural values and their
dominance.
To put it in other words, while religion takes caution against the norms and the values
related to globalization, it challenges the latter since it (religion) does not approve its
hybridizing effects. The idea of de-hybridizing effects of religion is approved also by Samuel
Huntington Clash Theory which maintains that such de-hybridising upshots spring also from the
religious partitioning and clashes.
http://www.summerschooles.uni.lodz.pl/wgrane_pliki/the-influence-of-globalisation-on-
religious-issues.pdf
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2013/01/75121/religion-and-globalisation-benefits-and-
challenges/
Instructions:
1. The teacher will be the one to facilitate and provide materials for the video presentation of
the ‘RISE OF THE ISIS’
2. The students’ are required to submit a reflection paper the next meeting in class based on
the guide questions enumerated above.
3. The reflection paper must be computerized in 1 bond paper only, font is 12, aerial, single
space and make it sure that the whole bond paper is filled up.
4. Copying from classmates’ work is cheating and strictly prohibited