Religion in the New World

A New World Trend

During the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, many leading scholars believed that the world would become more and more secularized. As of 2009, this trend, to the surprise of many, has yet to take place and many scholars who once predicted a completely secularized world have revoked their previous beliefs. While the new, solely secular world has yet to develop, there has been another new recent trend that has popped up. This century's new increased religious pluralism has given birth to interfaith dialogue and a new world culture (known as religio-secular) that can be used for both social benefits and an explanation to how religion and secularism can thrive together.

Over the past few decades, one major characteristic that has developed in religion is its pluralism. Years have seen almost all of the world's religions split into subsets, spread across borders, and reform into new beliefs. When it was once easy to pinpoint the country associated with a religion, today, this feat is nearly impossible. The United States, for example, is considered the world's melting pot of culture and ethnicity, so it is no surprise that the U.S. contains a huge contingency of Christians, Buddhist, atheist, Jews, and others. While the U.S. might be predominately Christian, several other religions could easily consider the U.S. a focal region of their religion. This religious plurality has had several implications on the way that religions survive in today's context. "As religions proliferate and interpenetrate geographically, one common response has been the attempt to deny the validity of other religions" (Fisher 477). This causes much strife and confusion in many nations. What religious institutions should receive state funding? Should new religions have to register in order to be recognized? Should religious symbols be allowed in public schools, or in the streets for that matter? Many religious groups are trying to separate themselves as a fundamentalist group so that they can be known as an unsecular religion that has separated itself from modernity. Even these movements surround themselves with controversy, as many of these groups use the politics of modern day society to try to further their goals. Inevitably, these movements end with the hardening of beliefs between groups because each religious group believes it is right. And whether the political movements strive for the banning of books or the attack of opposing religious nations, the message sends blurred intents because it always ends in violence and in any religion, this kind of hateful behavior is always condemned.

Despite the increased tension that religious plurality has caused, there is something being done about it. Interfaith dialogue is "the willingness of people of all religions to meet, explore their differences, and appreciate and find enrichment in each other's ways to the divine" (Fisher 481). Much good can be done with this kind of cooperation. Many religions share the same principles and have many similar ethical stories in each of their own storied texts. For example, the "golden rule" is seen in Christianity, Confucianism, and Islam. Such similarities and exclusivity amongst different groups, have given some scholars the belief that there is one divine source that all religions stem from and "religions are culturally different responses to one and the same reality" (Fisher 482). This interfaith dialogue could not have come earlier, either. Some very big social issues face the entire world and its' important that all religions take a stance together, or understand why group is acting a certain way. Some major social issues that have religious implications include genetic engineering, terrorism, pollution and the natural environment, racism, and many more. Since each religions older, sacred text do not directly discuss these issues, much is left to interpretation and debate. At many meetings between religious officials, these developments are discussed and a universal role is the ideal outcome, although rarely accomplished.

Martin Marty has a particularly interesting perspective on the new religious view in our modern, secularized world. In his article entitled "Our religio-secular World," Marty claims that true to the claims of previous scholars, our world has become secularized in a way that we are inseparable from, but at the same time has not lost any of its religion. In fact religion has grown in a way that no one has predicted and grown in a way that is able to paradoxically thrive in a secular world. One particularly interesting example that Mary uses is