The Making of Meaning is a Serious Business

             Is Religious fundamentalism a Product of the Market Place?
             "The making of meaning is a serious business"
             In times of great population shifts, occupational and geographical mobility and rapid cultural changes; religion reinvents itself in response to its social circumstances. Since the 1960's in particular, the images and symbols of religion have undergone a transformation. Popular discourses about Religion and Spirituality, about the Self and Experience, about Faith and God; all indicate to crucially important shifts in the connotations of everyday spiritual life. Crucial because increasingly in our society of rampant consumerism, such deviating shifts are commanding our attention and influencing our interpretations of day - to - day experiences. While the 1960's offered us an anatomy of alternative spirituality, today, we are bombarded by a market place of spiritual gimmicks and an imposition of sacrament over shadowing the authenticity of religions doctrines.
             If we accept that religious identities are malleable and multifaceted, the greater evidence of self - reflexivity in modern life further accentuates religious discontinuities, including among evangelical fundamentalists, now presume an awareness of religious choice. Reflexivity is not simply an individual's trait; indeed institutions themselves have at their disposal the ability to deflect religious and spiritual styles to meet social and psychological demands of their consumers and practitioners. As social demographics metamorphose and trends and current events stretch our imagination, religious messages have come to be re-styled and equipped in accordance to fit a targeted clientele; often on the basis of market analysis. The concept of an open religious economy, offers the consumer a spiritual market place, operating in terms of both "demand" and "supply". Religious production and its consumption are now remodelling sp...

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The Making of Meaning is a Serious Business. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:28, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/74357.html