tdudgi

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
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
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
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
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
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.