The Contemporary World

• Differ as to causes
• Specialized and general
What are contemporary challenges to regionalism?
• Resurgence of militant nationalism and populism
• For example, Trump’s standpoint regarding NATO does nothing for America any
more than taking advantage of the military resources; the urge to dismantle these
alliances.
• Continuing economic crisis
• #Brexit – Amid the worsening economic crisis, Britain finally aimed for a more
flexible economic transactions that the European Union alliance was limiting them
for the longest time.
• Sovereignty vs. Regional stability
• Take for example the China and Philippine territorial dispute. Even the international
ruling favored the Philippines, votes and statements from fellow ASEAN countries
were about pursuing diplomacy over confrontation against China.
• Differing visions of what regionalism should be for
• Singapore, China, and Russia are some of the countries that are not in favor of
this democratic style of decision-making. The lengthy debate before an economic
policy rolls out simply means a delayed in probable economic growth.

LESSON 4 CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF CONNECTIVITY

Unit 1: Religion and Globalization

Introduction

Religion is one of the binding forms of networks that have intensified people’s sense of
community across the world. The study of religion involves the study of religious practices,
customs, beliefs, and rituals in the context of social structures such as -religious institutions,
education, community, and family. The class will learn how the distinct belief systems embedded
in distinct forms of religion bind people together across different areas of the world. It is a
significant phenomenon to examine since it illustrates how globalization has transformed the
contemporary world through these forms of connectivity.
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Learning Objectives
By the end of this unit students must be able to:
1. Understand Religion as a social system that binds people together

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2. Explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs

3. Understand how globalization changes the religious landscape of the contemporary
world
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Sections of the Unit:
1. What is Religion
2. Connection between religion and economic structures
3. Religion and Globalism and its realities
4. Religion and Globalization
5. The Global Religious Change Landscape
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What is Religion?
Source(s): Durkheim, Émile, 1858-1917. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in
Religious Sociology. London : New York :G. Allen & Unwin; Macmillan, 1915. & Claudio, L. E., &
Abinales, P. N. (2018) The Contemporary world. South Triangle, Q.C.C & E Publishing, Inc.

According to Emile Durkheim, ” religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to
sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite in one
single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”
There are three elements in defining religion.
● Beliefs that some things are sacred, set apart from the ordinary things
● Practices (rituals) centering on the things considered sacred
● A moral community (a church) resulting from a group’s beliefs and practices.
There are two types of church: The literal church (the structure), and the Church with one moral
community.
Durkheim has three main findings in his study of Religion.

● That the world’s religions are so varied that they have no specific belief or practice in
common.
● That all religions develop a community centering on their beliefs and practices.
● That all religions separate the sacred from the profane

What is Sacred and Profane

• Sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were
embodied in sacred group symbols, or totems. An aspect of life having to do with the
supernatural that inspires awe, reverence, deep respect, even fear.
• Profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns or aspects of life
that are not concerned with religion or religious purposes but, instead, are part of the
ordinary aspects of everyday life.
For example: CASE STUDY: India’s Sacred Cow.
In India they treat cows as sacred, why? They used Cow as a main source of living, killing a
cow is a taboo especially female cow. It gives them livelihood. Cow serves as a symbol of
wealth, strength, and abundance.
Read “India’s Sacred Cow” by Marvin Harris

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Connection between religion and economic structures

In the book of Max Weber, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber (1904/1958)
theorized that the Roman Catholic belief system encouraged followers to hold on to their
traditional ways of life, while the Protestant belief system encouraged its members to embrace
change. Roman Catholics were taught that because they were Church members they were on
the road to heaven, but Protestants, those of the Calvinist tradition, were told that they would
not know if they were saved until Judgment Day. Uncomfortable with this, the Calvinists began
to look for a “sign” that they were in God’s will. They found this “sign” in financial success, which
they took as a blessing that indicated that God was on their side. To bring about this “sign” and
receive spiritual comfort, they began to live frugal lives, saving their money and investing it in
order to make even more. This, said Weber, brought about the birth of capitalism (Henslin,
2015). Protestant ethic as to describe the ideal of a self–denying, highly moral life
accompanied by thrift and hard work and Spirit of Capitalism Weber’s term for the desire to
accumulate capital—not to spend it, but as an end in itself—and to constantly reinvest it.
Religion and Globalism
Religion has the most difficult relationship with globalism. Globalism as widespread belief among
powerful people that the global integration of economic markets is beneficial for everyone, abides
by human made laws and Religion as a divine commandment. Religion is concerned with our
sacred beliefs and globalism on our material wealth.
Religion Globalism
• A Divine Entity that defines and • A globalist is not worried whether he
judges’ human action in moral terms, will end up in hell or heaven.
what is good or bad.
• Religious people are less concerned • Globalism deals with how much of
with wealth and all that comes along human action can lead to the highest
with it. material satisfaction and subsequent
wisdom that this new status produces
• When a religious person aspires to be • The globalist trains to be a shrewd
a saint. businessperson.
• Religious people are ascetic because • Globalists deals more in the seal
they avoid anything material for trade, raise the profits of private
simplicity. From what clothes should enterprises, improve government
be worn and food to eat. revenue collections, protect the elites
form being excessively taxed by the
state and naturally enrich themselves.

The main duty of Religious person is to live morally upright to be assured of a place other than
this world ( ex: Heaven) and the globalist values politics and humanity as both means and ends
to open up further the economies of the world.
As religion and globalism clash, Religious evangelization itself is a form of globalization.
For example, how Islam and Christianity spread their words to the world.
The religious are concerned with spreading holy ideas globally, while the globalist wishes to
spread goods and services.

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Realities in Religion
Peter Berger argues that the contemporary world is … furiously religious. There are veritable
explosions of religious fervor, occurring in one form of another in all the major religious traditions
like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and in many places’ imaginative syntheses
of one or more world religious with indigenous faiths. `
Religions are the foundations of modern republics, for example, in Malaysia the government
places religion at the center of the political system. Also, Religious movements do not hesitate to
appropriate secular themes and practices, like in Indonesia, the moderate Muslim association
Nahdlatul Ulama has Islamic School where students are taught not only about Islam but also
about modern science, the social science, modern banking, civic education, rights of women,
pluralism, and democracy.
Religion has 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 has always been at the center of these conflicts.

Religion and Globalization

Globalization less as an obstacle and more as an opportunity to expand and spread to
reach all over the world. Globalization has freed communities from the constraints of the nation-
state but in the process, it threatens to destroy the cultural system that binds them together. For
example, Religion as a form of solidarity, as Ferdinand Tonnies analyzed the fundamental shifts
in relationship, Gemeinschaft as type of society in which life is intimate; a community in which
everyone knows everyone else and people share a sense of togetherness, sharing similar beliefs
and practices, has a traditional ties in the community. And in contrast, Gesellschaft, a type of
society that is dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-
interest. Religion seeks to take the place of these broken “traditional ties'' to either help
communities cope with their new situation, a Gesellschafts type of society or organize them to
oppose this major transformation of their lives and remain Gemeinschaft type of society.
Religion can provide the “moral codes” answering problems like people’s health and personal
happiness. Religion is not the regressive force that stops or slows globalization, it is a pro-active
force that gives communities a new and powerful basis of identity. It is an instrument with which
religious people can put their mark in the reshaping of this globalizing world.
Religious fundamentalism may dislike globalizations materialism, Fundamentalism as a form of
religion that upholds belief in the interpretation of scripture. But with globalization it continues to
use the full range of modern means of communications and organizations that is associated with
economic transformation, which enabled the spread of almost promiscuous propagation of
religious forms across the globe in all sorts of directions. Religious Fundamentalism is the result
of the spread of globalization; both find ways to benefit or take advantage of each other.

The Global Religious Change Landscape

• Muslims are the fastest-growing major religious group, largely because they have the
highest fertility rate and the youngest population. As a result, the Muslim population
is expected to increase from 1.6 billion people (23% of the world’s population as of
2010) to 2.76 billion people (30% of all people in 2050). At mid-century, Muslims will
nearly equal Christians – the world’s largest religious group – in size.
• The share of the world’s population that is Christian is expected to remain steady (at
about 31%), but the regional distribution of Christians is forecast to change

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significantly. Nearly four-in-ten Christians (38%) are projected to live in sub-Saharan

Africa in 2050, an increase from the 24% who lived there in 2010. And the
percentage of the world’s Christians living in Europe – which fell from 66% in 1910 to
26% in 2010 – will continue to decline, to roughly 16% in 2050.
• The number of religiously unaffiliated people, also known as religious “nones,” is
increasing in places such as the United States and Europe, and we project continued
growth. Globally, however, the opposite is true: The unaffiliated are expected
to decrease as a share of the world’s population between 2010 and 2050 (from 16%
to 13%). This is attributable mostly to the relatively old age and low fertility rates of
large populations of religious “nones” in Asian countries, particularly China and
Japan.
• In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the
population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, with corresponding rises of religious “nones”
as well as Muslims, Hindus and others. At mid-century, Judaism will no longer be the
largest non-Christian religion in the U.S.: Muslims are projected to be more
numerous than people who identify as Jewish based on religion.
• Buddhists, concentrated in Asia, are expected to have a stable population (of just
under 500 million) while other religious groups are projected to grow. As a
result, Buddhists will decline as a share of the world’s population (from 7% in 2010 to
5% 2050).
• Indonesia is currently home to the world’s largest Muslim population, but that is
expected to change. By 2050, the study projects India to be the country with the
largest number of Muslims – more than 310 million – even though Hindus will
continue to make up a solid majority of India’s population (77%), while Muslims
remain a minority (18%). Indonesia will have the third-largest number of Muslims,
with Pakistan ranking second.
• The farther into the future we look, the more uncertainty exists, which is why the
projections stop at 2050. But if they are extended into the second half of this
century, the projections forecast Muslims and Christians to be roughly equal in
number around 2070, with Muslims the slightly larger group after that year.
Read: The Changing Global Religious Landscape by Pew Research Center (Link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1luwz3R_y6F2V_uOc3LNhU6lIrUiZlO_6?usp=sharing )

With all the changes in Religion because of Globalization, between religious and globalist,
differences, and struggles, one is true that Religion is here to stay, it is within society and every
one of us. As changes take place, Religion remains.
Supplementary reading/material (optional):

● Read “India’s Sacred Cow” by Marvin Harris

● Watch Why Are Cows Sacred in India?
(Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvjle50pByg) and Do Hindus Worship Cows? -
Hindu Beef Taboo Explained (Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ReneZkyGHI ).
● Read: The Changing Global Religious Landscape by Pew Research Center

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