TRANSFORMATION OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

Abstract

Based on empirical material and sociological research, the article analyzes the process of search, the formation of religious identity by modern human in the context of globalization. The ambiguity of the formation of religious identity is due to a complex combination of different factors. Thus, the ambiguity of the process gives rise to a variety of approaches in the modern vision, understanding and explanation of religious identity. They are formed in the process of constant correlation of religious and non-religious in modern religiosity. In the study of religious identity in the context of globalization, the author draws attention not only to the unifying tendencies of globalization, but also to its consequence – glocalization, which manifests itself in the religious sphere through differentiation, fragmentation, localization, cultural unification, primitivization of tastes, consumption. It is stated, firstly, that religious identity experiences constant transformations that correspond to changes in the cultural horizon. It is formed under the influence of a number of phenomena, among which we can point to religious fundamentalism, religious indifferentism (polarization of religion); extra-church searches for religious identity, as a consequence – re-individualism, eclecticism and “patchwork” of religious ideas, syncretism of perception of religion, pluralization of religious space, etc. Secondly, the assumption that the traditional process of formation of religious identity is not implemented in the contemporary cultural environment – neither at the personal nor at the community level – is increasingly confirmed. Religious identity is not thought of as a permanent characteristic, but as a result of a fundamentally open process of religious identification.