Religion in Global Civil Society Book

The extraordinary changes in world society at the beginning of the 21st century have involved religion to a degree that would have amazed earlier observers of modernity. Within the past decade religion has been associate with some of the world's most strident forms of political encounter, including new movements of nationalism, the clerical leadership of political sects, and the religiously motivated acts of terrorism. Religion seems to be trying to tear the planet apart, even as other cultural forces seem to be trying to pull it together. Is religion the natural enemy of globalization? The essays in this volume explore the difficulties and possibilities of a diversity of religious groups occupying the same civil society. Religion, these essays demonstrate, plays diverse and sometimes contradictory roles in the new cultural globalization. In a global culture the shared values of different religious traditions can provide a collective sense of virtuous conduct in public life. But religion can also support the position of enemies of global society - those who see in globalization the effort to impose the values and power of one country over the others.Read More