Religion and Globalisation : general overview with special focus on the thought of Roland Robertson and the Roman Catholic Church's theological response to the process of globalisation

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-98)."Two strong features of contemporary sociology are the rapidly growing interest in globalization, on the one hand, and an increasing tendency to discuss values, morals and ethics, on the other" (Robertson, 1997: 69). Derived from such interest, the main objective of this paper is to discuss the often obscure role religion plays in today's society against the backdrop of the globalization discourse, thus marrying the twofold sociological quest mentioned above. According to Jan Aart Scholte, "globalization has considerably redrawn the contours of the world political economy" (Scholte, 2000: 173). I suggest that the same can be said of religion. Even though some argue that globalization in "neither good nor bad; [i]t is and will be what people make of it" (Dewane, 2002:2), it undoubtedly affects the role, form, and influence of religion