4.2.5 - Globalisation and the Spread of Religions

Globalisation and religion

Globalisation refers to the growing interconnectedness of societies through migration, trade, media, tourism, and digital communication. For religion, this means beliefs and practices no longer stay bounded within one village, nation, or culture. People move across borders, religious organisations build transnational networks, and believers can access teachings from almost anywhere.

This has two major effects on religion. First, it increases contact between faiths. When several religions coexist in the same social space, no single tradition can assume unquestioned authority so easily. That tends to produce religious pluralism, competition, and sometimes syncretism. Second, it can weaken tradition as an inherited obligation. Religion becomes more a matter of choice, identity, and lifestyle than automatic conformity to the local community.

This is why globalisation does not fit a simple secularisation story. Grace Davie argues that Western Europe may be unusual rather than typical, since religion remains strong in many other parts of the world. José Casanova argues that religion has often become deprivatised, returning to public life rather than disappearing into the private sphere. Norris and Inglehart also suggest that religion remains stronger where existential insecurity is greater, so global modernity does not produce the same religious outcome everywhere. Their comparative surveys are useful for spotting broad patterns, but affiliation data do not always show how deeply people practise what they claim to believe.

Religions on the move

One clear sign that globalisation can spread religion is historical global expansion of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. David Martin argues that Pentecostalism often gives the urban poor a disciplined ethic of hard work, sobriety, and family responsibility, helping them cope with rapid social change. David Lehmann adds that it travels successfully because it is flexible: it can adapt to local cultures while still offering intense worship, healing, and strong community ties. In this sense, Pentecostalism is not just surviving modernity. It is using global networks, migration, and media to expand through it.

Historical Pentecostal expansion in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia illustrates this point; some pastors developed transnational megachurches and media ministries. Period and geography matter: Pew’s January 2026 report on six Latin American countries found relatively stable Protestant affiliation from 2013–14 to 2024 alongside rising non-affiliation. Earlier expansion does not imply continuous uniform revival. Pew dated comparison. This challenges any simple claim that development always leads to religious decline.

The global resurgence of Islam also shows that globalisation can strengthen religion. Migration has created large Muslim diaspora communities in Europe and North America, while satellite television, websites, and social media allow ideas, sermons, and identities to circulate across borders. Shahram Akbarzadeh describes Islamism as a modern political ideology, which reminds us that Islamic revival is not just a survival of old tradition. It can also be an organised, future-oriented attempt to reshape society along Islamic lines. At the same time, there is no single Muslim response to globalisation: reformist, conservative, democratic, and fundamentalist movements all exist.

Globalisation has also enabled a reverse flow from East to West. Hinduism and Buddhism have spread through migration, travel, publishing, and digital culture. Some people encounter these religions through temples, monasteries, or organised movements such as Hare Krishna. Others encounter selected practices such as yoga, meditation or mindfulness, sometimes stripped of religious meanings and used for secular wellbeing. Their diffusion is not automatically conversion to Hinduism or Buddhism. That matters sociologically because it shows both diffusion and commodification: religious ideas can travel widely, but once they travel they may be repackaged for consumer culture and individual self-improvement.

Clash of civilisations

Some sociologists and commentators argue that globalisation does not just spread religions but turns them into sharper lines of conflict. Samuel Huntington claims that, after the Cold War, the main global tensions are increasingly organised around major civilisations defined largely by religion and culture. In his view, globalisation intensifies contact between these civilisations, so conflict is likely to emerge along cultural fault lines.