This article engages the interface of religion and globalization through the concept of ‘globalizing modernity’. An introductory section offers an overview of recent treatments of religion and globalization and identifies a number of key themes prevalent in academic discussions. The introduction then gives way to a more detailed treatment of globalizing modernity as constituted by transnational networks and border-transcending flows. The next section treats religion and globalizing modernity by engaging a number of scholars who reject the relevance of purportedly exogenous theories of modernity for understanding the Latin American context. The same section then identifies a growing number of academics who argue that the transnational networks and border-transcending flows of the contemporary globalizing world both necessitate and make possible a kind of ‘world’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ social science that transcends the hermeneutical limitations of unqualified claims to regional particularism.
The article then concludes by revisiting its key points and outlining their implications for contemporary understandings of religion and globalization.