NETWORKING WORKSHOP
May 2, 2009
University of California, Santa Barbara
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PARTICIPANTS
WADE CLARK ROOF
University of California, Santa Barbara
Wade Clark Roof is Professor of Religious Studies and J.F.Rowny Chair in Religion and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His area of academic interest include: American Religious Trends, Sociology of Religion, and Ethnography. His recent publications are: “Religious Pluralism and Civil Society,” published as issue of The Annals, 2007; “Myths Undergirding War: American Presidential Rhetoric from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush,” (Social Compass, forthcoming); “Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Region: Fluid Identities (edited with Mark Silk)-published by AltaMira Press, 2005. His most research projects focus on Progressive Religious Voices in the US, Religious Pluralism and Civic Culture, and Generations and Religious Change.
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RELIGION AND GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY
By Wade Clark Roof
This of course is a huge topic, but my thoughts at the moment are shaped by the two last books I read - Robert Wuthnow's Boundless Faith and John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge's God is Back. Both address religion in a global world. Both also address an increasing Americanization of religion abroad.
A big issue in any discussion like this is the very word “religion,” and what we mean when we utter the word. As all of us here know, religion as both substance and function in all its multidimensionality is highly debated; we do not have time here to unravel it. But clearly, a student of globalization and religion must.
Here I simply want to underscore the exporting of an American model of religion throughout the world, which cuts across continents and traditions. It is not altogether a new phenomenon but its contemporary style and the scale on which it now occurs is unprecedented.
I refer of course mainly to a particular approach to religion, one which we see manifested most clearly today in American-style evangelicalism, and especially in the megachurch. Today we are witnessing the growth and global spread of the megachurch - combining structurally huge audiences in ecstatic worship along with dozens of small groups catering to individual needs and interests. Be it the megachurch or the megatemple or the megamosque, particularly in urban areas around the world, something similar is emerging. I quote Hanna Rosin who reviewed the God is Back book in the New York Times this past Sunday:
…….American churches began to operate like multinational corporations;
Pastors became “pastorpreneurs,” endlessly branding and expanding, treating the flock like customers and seeding franchise all over the world. The surge of religion was driven by the same forces driving the success of market capitalism: competition and choice.”
Religion is thus mass marketed and tinged with hopes for finding meaning, sharing with others like you, and upward mobility and success.
The new battle line appears to be between religious communities that adapt to this market-driven, individual and success-oriented culture and the more traditional bastions of inherited religious faith. The former accommodates and tailors the message to people's concerns, the latter hardens into moral absolutes and defensive eternal truths. What are the implications for global civil society?
