MODULE-9-Globalizations-of-religion.pptx

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1. Globalization of Religion

2. Learning Outcomes Articulate a personal definition of global citizenship Appreciate the ethical obligations of global citizenship

3. Globalization of Religion In this, the fundamental research question pertains to the spread of religions and specific genres or forms or blueprints of religious expression across the globe . Beyer (2006) proposes that the very notion of what constitutes a ‘religion’, as commonly understood, is the product of a long-term process of inter-civilizational or cross-cultural interactions .

4. Globalization and Religion In this second, the position and place of religion is problematized within the context of globalization. This problematic concerns the relations and the impact of globalization upon religion . From this point of view, even religions that are not conventionally considered ‘global’ such as Eastern Orthodox Christianity ; are nevertheless influenced by globalization; These face up to the global condition and reshape their institutional practices and mentalities ( Agadjanian and Roudometof , 2005). In so doing, religious institutions generally tend to adopt either strategies of cultural defense or strategies of active engagement with globality ( Roudometof , 2008). Although a religion can reject globalizing trends and impulses, it is nevertheless shaped by them and is forced to respond to new-found situations. This problematic incorporates notions of resacralization as a response to secularizing agendas and views instances of transnational nationalism cloaked in religious terms as cultural expressions stimulated by globalization (for examples, see Danforth, 2000; Zubrzycki , 2006). This second problematic does not necessarily address the historicity of globalization; in large part because it is concerned with theorizing contemporary events and trends

5. Transnational Religion and Multiple Glocalizations Transnational studies emerged gradually since the 1990s in connection to the study of post-World War II new immigrants or trans-migrants who moved from Third World and developing countries into developed First World nations. New immigrants no longer assimilated into the cultures of the host countries but rather openly maintained complex links to their homelands, thereby constructing, reproducing and preserving their transnational ties. International migration has provided the means to theorize the relationship between people and religion in a transnational context (Casanova, 2001; Ebaugh and Chafetz , 2002; Hagan and Ebaugh , 2003; Levitt, 2003, 2004; van der Veer, 2002).

6. Vernacularization involved the rise of vernacular languages (such as Greek or Latin or Arabic in the case of Islam) endowed with the symbolic ability of offering privileged access to the sacred, whereas indigenization connected specific faiths with ethnic groups, whereby religion and culture were often fused into a single unit. Vernacularization was often promoted by empires, whereas indigenization was connected to the survival of particular ethnic groups. It is important to stress that this is not an exclusively contemporary phenomenon. The creation of distinct branches of Christianity; such as Orthodox and Catholic Christianity; bears the mark of this particularization of religious universalism. Nationalization connected the consolidation of specific nations with particular confessions and has been a popular strategy both in Western and Eastern Europe ( Gorski , 2000; Hastings, 1997; Roudometof , 2001

7. Religion in Global Conflict The contemporary conflicts with which religion has been associated are not solely about religion, however, if one means by ‘religion’ a set of doctrines and beliefs. The conflicts have been about identity and economics, about privilege and power – the things that most social conflicts are about. When these conflicts are religionized – when they are justified in religious terms and presented with the aura of sacred combat – they often become more intractable, less susceptible to negotiated settlement. Thus although religion is seldom the problem, in the sense of causing the tensions that produced the conflicts in the first place, it is often problematic in increasing the intensity and character of the struggle ( Juergensmeyer , 2004b).

8. First Stage: Revolt against Global Secularism The first stage of the encounter was characterized by isolated outbursts. It began in the 1970s by a variety of groups – Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Muslim – that were revolting against what they regarded as the moral failing of the secular state. One of the first of these religious rebellions was nonviolent – the Gandhian movement in India led by Jayaprakash Narayan, who called for a ‘Total Revolution’ in 1974 against the corruption of the Indian government. 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini led a revolt against the secular regime of the Shah of Iran Buddhist activists violently resisted attempts by the Sri Lankan government to appease the growing movement of Tamil separatism that had arisen in that island nation in the 1970s the Khalistani movement of Sikh separatism gained momentum and unleashed a reign of violence in the north Indian state of Punjab throughout the 1980s The gathering power of Muslim extremists in Egypt led to the brutal assassination of President Mohammad Anwar al Sadat in 1981. The common element that ran through all of these otherwise isolated nonviolent and violent incidents of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim rebellion in the 1970s and early 1980s was an implicit moral critique of secular politics. By that time a revived anti-colonial mood had developed against the cultural and political legacies of European modernity in the Middle East and South Asia that gave the movements a new force. Secular authorities treated these rebellious religious movements simply as attempts to usurp power. The secular leaders left unchallenged the moral critique that the movements conveyed. In some cases, they regarded the new religious activists as versions of the legendary Robin Hood – extra-legal though virtuous challengers to the political status quo

9. Second Stage: Internationalization of Religious Rebellion The next stage of the developing warfare between religious and secular politics was the internationalization of the conflict in the 1980s. This stage is best represented by the ad hoc international coalition of jihadi Muslim radicals that developed in the Afghan war. It is hard to underestimate the formative power of their experience, shared by thousands of volunteer soldiers in the Afghanistan struggle against the Soviet regime in the 1980s. In one central theatre of involvement activists were brought together from throughout the Muslim world. The fighting force of mujahadin included erstwhile jihadi soldiers who came from Muslim countries from Pakistan to Northern Africa. It also included some of the Egyptian militants linked to Sadat's assassination and Saudis who would later be identified with the al Qaeda movement of Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan became the crucible for creating the international Muslim political networks that would infuriate global politics for the next two decades.

10. Third Stage: Invention of Global Enemies The third stage in the gathering cold war between religious and secular politics was characterized by a growing anti-American and anti-European sentiment in the 1990s. In this stage the target of the religious activists' wrath shifted from local regimes to international centres of power. Increasingly the political and economic might of the United States and Europe became regarded as the source of problems both locally and worldwide.

11. Third Stage: Global War Originally jihadi leaders like Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and bin Laden had been fixated on local issues – in bin Laden's case, on Saudi Arabia. He was concerned especially about the role of the United States in propping up the Saudi family and, in his mind, America's exploitation of the oil resources of the country. He then adopted a broader critique of Middle Eastern politics, following the general jihadi perspective of Maulana Maududi , Sayyid Qutb and other Muslim political thinkers who rejected all forms of Western political and social influence in the region. Increasingly the goal of bin Laden's and the other jihadi activists was not just to get American influence out of Saudi Arabia but out of the whole Muslim world. This meant a confrontation of global proportions on multiple fronts.

12. The era of globalization brought with it three enormous problems. The first was identity, how societies could maintain a sense of homogeneity when ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities were spread across borders, in many cases spread across the world. The second problem was accountability, how the new transnational economic, ideological, political and communication systems could be controlled, regulated, and brought to justice. The third problem was one of security, how people buffeted by forces seemingly beyond anyone's control could feel safe in a world increasingly without cultural borders or moral standards. Religion provides answers to all three of these problems. Traditional definitions of religious community provide a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging to those who accept that fellowship as primary in their lives. Traditional religious leadership provides a sense of accountability, a certainty that there are moral and legal standards inscribed in code and enforced by present-day leaders who are accorded an unassailable authority. And for these reasons, religion also offers a sense of security, the notion that within the community of the faithful and uplifted by the hands of God, one has found safe harbor and is truly secure.