LA VUELTA DE DIOS

Realmente este artículo de Andrés Ortega, es personalmente una reflexión profunda de como en estos últimos tiempos la política y la religión esta entremezclada y como esos grupos sociales se han convertido en grupos de interés no sólo en países desarrollados sino en países considerados del llamado tercer mundo. La religión como concepto y sin diferenciación de credos concibe una base filosófica de liberación y de paz individual, sin embargo, esa interacción con los intereses políticos le da un nuevo significado (sin dejar de considerar sus desviaciones) en un mundo donde la velocidad de la globalización de la economía y las comunicaciones,se transforman ya no sólo en un espacio mental de armonía para un individuo sino una nueva arista de un mundo en constante movimiento y caos.

Me parece superficial e incongruente el análisis de Andrés Ortega, pues 1º afirma que a mayor pobreza, mayor religiosidad, pero al final atribuye los 2 triunfos de Bush al voto religioso del cristianismo fundamentalista de los gringos. ¿Entonces cuál es la verdad?

Change on the theoretical perspective: the resurgence of religions in a time of crisis, within the frame of Samuel Huntington´s theory.

According to Samuel Huntington in its polemic work “The Clash of Civilisations”, further to the developments and results of the 2nd World War the intellectual elites started to withdraw the paradigm of earlier decades that economic and social modernisation was leading to the withering away of religion as a significant element in human existence as science, rationalism and pragmatism would eliminate and replace the superstitions, myths, irrationalities and rituals that formed the core of existing religions.

The second half of the 20th century experimented instead a global revival of religion parallel to the economic and social modernisation worldwide. To a large extent, this religious resurgence involved people returning to, reinvigorating and giving new meaning to the traditional religions of their communities and in some part it also involved expansion by some religions, which gained new recruits in societies where they had previously not had them. These two trends have manifested in the daily lives and work of people and in the concerns and projects of governments.

How can today's global religious resurgence be explained? The most powerful cause is the process of social, economic and cultural modernisation that swept across the world in the second half of the 20th century. People needed new sources of identity, new forms of stable community and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose. The old customs and religions, no longer completely satisfy. There is a quest for some higher explanations about man´s purpose, about why we are here. This is associated with periods of great stress in society.

People do not live by reason alone. They cannot calculate and act rationally in pursuit of self-interest until they define their self. Interest politics presupposes identity. In times of rapid social change established identities dissolve, the self must be redefined and new identities created. Religion provides compelling answers and religious groups provide small social communities to replace those lost through urbanisation. All religions furnish people with a sense of identity and a direction in life. The changes in religion reflect the inability of the former established credo to meet the psychological, emotional and social needs of people caught in the traumas of modernisation. The current trend goes towards further religious radicalisation and fragmentation and the increase of political and social conflicts having religion as a basis.

However there are always exceptions to these trends, for instance, I believe my study and research undertaken towards my PhD,focussing on the relationship established between the two systems of values of Confucianism and Christianity in contemporary Korea, characterized by their mutual influxes, might constitute an example of tolerance and peaceful respect for countries affected by the problems of integralism. Nonetheless this unique example of convivial is not exempt of potential criticisms (the weight of recent history accounts within Christianity for the confusion of means and ends in detriment of the development of a more spiritual and ethical moral).

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Susana Luengo Gallego
PhD ABD, Salamanca University