Paper short abstract:

Using Balinese Hinduism as an example, I look at three intersecting global trends in contemporary religion which all reflect a postmodern context of globalisation: the 'revitalisation' of local religions, monistic new age spirituality and the new surge of fundamentalism in the world's religions.

Paper long abstract:

Religion, the human endeavour of pursuing the inner purpose of life in the context of an ever changing social and material world, has been integral to the lives of many individuals and to the constitution of human societies throughout the ages, and continues to be so. As the world we live in changes, however, our experience of life changes with it. New forms of experience create demand for religious concepts and practices commensurate with contemporary life. Max Weber took the pulse of this process of attunement when, in the early 20th century, he charted the commensurate features of modern life and modern religion in his classic essay on The Protestant Work Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism (1958 [1904]). The world and its political economy have changed again since. Perhaps the current, post-modern shift may not be as profound as the advent of modernity, which saw a large proportion of humanity move away from agriculturalist or pastoralist ways of life to an alienating experience of life as urbanised wage-earners in an industrialised capitalist society. And yet the post-modern shift may be just as significant because the transition has been so much quicker.

In this paper I will briefly discuss new forms of religiosity that have been emerging as broad international trends from the 1960s onward, and how these trends in religions are commensurate with our contemporary experience of life in the post-modern context of a technology-driven process of economic and cultural globalisation. I will then focus on one of these trends, the emergence of "new local religions" that seek to uphold the uniqueness and often stress the exclusivity of local traditions. This trend will be exemplified by presenting an ethnographic case study on the revitalisation of Hindu Balinese identity in the aftermath of the 2002 terrorist attack. Before I turn my attention to Bali, however, I will attempt to draw some connections between this trend and two coeval trends: One towards a universal, post-traditional monistic spirituality, which stresses the uniqueness of each 'traveller' and his or her spiritual journey through life, and through the maze of cross-cultural religious diversity; the other towards a fundamentalist approach to religion that negates the contemporary experience of increased exposure to cultural and religious heterogeneity.