What does globalization do to religion?

Abstract

Both of these dynamisms pose profound challenges to contemporary religious communities. The challenges of homogenization are well recognized. The erosion of local cultures impoverishes individuals and communities, reducing them to consumers bereft of traditional wisdom. Heterogenization, on the other hand, involves the increasing purification and differentiation of communities. Rather than syncretism, it threatens sectarianism; that the intimacy brought about by globalization will bring not communion, but polarization and strife. This can undermine the desire of many religions to be sources of social harmony. The heterogenizing effects of globalization foster a cultural ecology where communities close in on themselves, becoming ever-purer enclaves of the similar and thus less able to deal with difference, making religion more likely to function as a source of polarization and division both in global geopolitics and in local communities