Globalised Religion?: The parliament of the world's religions' (Chicago 1993) in theoretical perspective
This paper tests the hypothesis that contemporary global and globalised religion as exemplified in the Chicago Parliament of the World's Religions' of 1993 may be regarded as a resource which is central, rather than marginal to current human concerns in a threatened world. The paper is st...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Carfax Publ.
[1995]
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| In: |
Journal of contemporary religion
Year: 1995, Volume: 10, Issue: 2, Pages: 121-137 |
| Further subjects: | B
Parliament of the World's Religions (1993) Chicago, Ill
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | This paper tests the hypothesis that contemporary global and globalised religion as exemplified in the Chicago Parliament of the World's Religions' of 1993 may be regarded as a resource which is central, rather than marginal to current human concerns in a threatened world. The paper is structured as follows. First, a short personal narrative gives some sense of what happened at the Parliament, and how this affected one of those present. Second, as a means of conveying the scale of the meeting, a brief content analysis and interpretation of the programme shows how (within certain limits) collaboration was made possible. Third, three insights are drawn from current sociology that facilitate an informed, albeit preliminary, evaluation of the Parliament as emancipatory event. These are: i) recent globalisation theory of the world system (Roland Robertson and Peter Beyer); ii) differentiation in a social reality understood as an "economy of signs and space"; (Scott Lash and John Urry); and in) the search for "meta-theory"; in the "condition of post-modernity"; (David Harvey). Fourth, some implications of the analysis and interpretation are drawn out which suggest that religion can be understood as a differentiated global resource, an ambiguous, yet dynamic form of cultural capital' of vital import in an era of post-materialist value formation. Fifth, in conclusion, it is argued that thus understood the globalised religion represented by the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions' has wider implications for the study of contemporary religion and forms of religiosity. Religion returns from the theoretical and cultural periphery (a marginalisation promoted by traditional secularisation theory) into a close relation to the core issues of our time. This is an optimistic interpretation of an event, the significance of which, in the opinion of this writer, should not be underestimated in the evaluation of religion as global resource. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9419 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/13537909508580733 |