Overview: A “loss-of-control” age?.- Introduction: Transfiguring the ground. Religion in our days: Between return, revival and renewal.- A shifting global scenery: The age of re-globalization.- Re-globalization: An array of factors shaking the fundamentals of neoliberal globalization.- Religious re-globalization rhetoric from the United Nations.- The changing European-Western setting: Post-postmodernity and meta-modernity as carriers of a renaissance of values towards “everyday spirituality”?.

This book provides a concise introduction into twenty-one trends that are transforming the role of religion and spirituality in “re-globalizing” societies. In referring to processes of “re-globalization”, the book draws attention to profound ongoing changes in the patterns and mechanisms of contemporary globalization. Inter- and transdisciplinary in its approach, clearly structured, and easy to read, the book analyzes the impact of religious self-understanding, rhetoric, and practice on five core fields: economics, politics, culture, demography, and technology. In turn, it describes the effects of these five fields on religion and spirituality themselves.This book represents a broad, encompassing overview of the main transformations that religion is undergoing today. Roland Benedikter combines a “big picture” approach with a keen attention to the details of specific case studies. With its clear and accessible structure and timely examples, this book is ideally suited for students of international relations and religious studies, and will also appeal to researchers engaged in those fields and to interested general readers. The book is also apt to serve as an encompassing basis for contemporary debates in civil society, including both grassroots and expert discussions.Roland Benedikter is Co-Head of the Center for Advanced Studies at Eurac Research in Bolzano, Italy; Research Professor of Multidisciplinary Political Analysis in residence at the Willy Brandt Centre at Wroclaw University, Poland; and Member of the Future Circle of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the German Federal Government.

Offers a comprehensive overview of the effects of globalization on religion and spirituality, analyzing 21 main trends Explores reciprocal effects of religion and spirituality on economics, politics, culture, demography, technology Combines a “big picture” approach with specific case studies, making it ideally suited for classroom use