John Samuel
There is a revival of institutional religion across the world.
In different parts of the world there is an increasing visibility of religion - both in its institutional forms and in terms of assertions of identity. This increasing prominence of religions and new forms of religious formations may have to be located in the emerging social psychology of communities and people who are undergoing socio-economic and cultural transitions. There is an unprecedented transition in the context of migration of communities and the increasing perceptions about socio-cultural and economic inequality across the world. There is an increasing sense of multiple layers and process of alienation, emerging out of multiple levels of "dislocations' of the self, community and identity. The increasing trends of urbanization, migrations within and beyond the borders of a country, consumerism and aggressive construction of images in the context of globalization of media create new sense of individual and collective sense of insecurity and alienation.
However, the relative visibility of the institutional religion may be also due to the increasing role of "image" industry , rather than true 'conversion' or transformation of people from one faith to another. Religion has many manifestations and we often tend to confuse Institutionalized religion- with many other aspect of religion ( personal experience, belief, theology etc).
The revival of institutionalized religion is partly because of high visibility in the context of media explosion in the last ten years. As Institutionalized religions are historically strong in terms of institutionalized resources (money, network, people, structures etc), they could easily make use of the new media and TV to acquire more visibility. The number of genuine Christians ( in terms of personal experience of a preferred personal faith) might not have increased, but certainly the TV marketing has increased many folds. And such new visibility of "images" can create new delusions and illusions of an accentuated religion- without necessary "spiritual" transformation in the real lives of real people.
Then there are new insecurities in the context of social, economic and political transitions- and consequent feeling of alienation in the particular context of globalization. For example, there are enough evidence that those belong to the migrant communities tend to be more religious. This could be partly because of sociological and cultural reasons. The same way I feel happy to meet an Indian or South Asian in Oslo, the Sudanese would like to meet a fellow Sudanese. The nodal points of such identity -network often tend to be religious venues. So many Tamil people may come to know each other in a temple or a Bangladeshi will come to know each other in a Bengali Mosque etc. This is to do with relative marginalization ( in terms of space, cultural-comfort zone etc) of migrant communities.
There are also economic and social insecurity- more tensions and consequences of losing a job or being "alone" in the crowd- in a multi-cultural environment. These too add the quest for a "sense of belonging" and "identity" gets actually accentuated when one "feels" to be marginalized in a given context. So many of the first generation malayali migrants often feel more strongly about "being a malayali" than those who live in kerala. Hence, proliferation of malayali organizations in the Gulf and elsewhere( and many literary awards- and Malayalam blogs etc). This also often takes a religious/denominational ( cast, creed etc) dimensions among newly urbanized or migrant communities , in the context of increased sense of insecurity in a different socio-cultural and political settings.
There is a new sense of alienation due to increased "individuation"- and consequent "feel" of being "lonely" and "insecure". This has also a dimension of age- when one is too young( with an increased anxiety about job) and when one is in to middle-age( the fear of losing job, falling sick etc). This new sense of insecurity has also something to do with new consumerism and globalization of economy, where expectations about oneself( as a consumer who would like to "possess" certain quality of comforts) and consequent insecurity that emanates from the new "hire" and "fire" culture also create new insecurity. So here too one often finds more and more young people and those who cross the middle age tend to seek solace in new "spiritual" market of various sorts- from Deepak chopra to the tele-marketing firms of pop-religion of various sorts.
In the case of countries and communities where there is a social disintegration of erstwhile collective institutional structures( e.g. tribal communities in Africa or joint families or the old-neighborhood parish or temple) are disintegrated, there is a scope for new network-based identity formation. It is in such a space that network religion- and cell-churches grew exponentially. Such a process of social disintegration of erstwhile structures and process of "collective spaces of sharing" also happened due to the unprecedented trend of urbanization and movement/migration of people across countries and world. So the shifts from joint families to post-nuclear families and tribal collectivism also create new forms of individuation and multiple forms of "dislocations" and resultant "alienation".
It is in this context that institutionalized religions get transformed in to "spiritual" or "solace" or "feel-good" modules of customized products in the spiritual market place. Such network mode of marketing helps to get consumers for "psycho-pills" of well-packaged and customized religion of various sorts. In the context of Christianity, the charismatic movement- and its networks forms of "customized' and "personalized" and "flexible" modules of packaged and commodified "spiritualism" got a new market of relatively more "lonely" and insecure people. That is one of the reasons that prosperity gospel is doing so well in a relatively poor African communities - in Africa as well as America. Prosperity gospels and "healing" ministries and "miracle" crusades are all basically working on the new insecurities among various people and communities who are in a state of transit.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented transition- in the history of the world and in terms of sociological and cultural shifts. In such phases of transitions there would be new forms of insecurities and alienation- social, economic and political. This would also create new sense of inequalities. And at an individual level, the most convenient thing is to seek one's own sense of "belonging" through identifying with immediate communities with a shared sense of "belonging". Such "belonging" can be based on color, creed or religion. The biggest and oldest institutionalized structures of "belonging" happened to be institutionalized religion. And such institutionalized religion got adapted to the new technology, media and globalised network to "service" their new "clients', using the good old pill in new modes of delivery.
Then there is also new sense of political insecurity that emanates from the "accentuated identities"( majority and minority) in the context of accentuated sense of insecurity( for example when young Australians find it difficult to find jobs- they would feel the "Indians" are "stealing" their jobs- and then the "Indians’ begin to get mobilized on the basis of being “Indians"). Such "accentuated" identities often become defensive in the minority contexts. So a young Muslim in Europe or UK may feel more "Muslim" often than the Muslim in a Dubai. The Christians Europe will feel "less Christian" than the "Christians" in India or China. The ongoing war in Afghanistan and Iraq or the new political tensions between Iran or North Korea are all a residual accentuation of the post-cold war period of the new geo-politics. And here too recent history gets replayed with history of multiple forms of colonialism and imperialism.
This post-cold war politics moved from "ideological" war to "identity" based contestations in many cases. The political-economy of such 'identities' get accentuated among migrant communities. When 'identity', in its soft or hard forms, tends to be the sub-texts of macro and micro politics, ordinary people often fall back to the most conveniet and accessible network of identity. So there is an increasing assertion of "Muslim' identity even among those people who have rather moderate or liberal approach to religion. There is an assertion of 'Hindu' identity where Hindus are in minority. Such assertions of identity are often cultural 'defensive' mechanism that emenate from social and cultural insecurities and sense of alienation.
