The Sellout of Religion.

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Carrette and King (2005) aimed to identify that religion is being commodified in contemporary times to the extent that it is dissipated for the benefit of the current capitalist system. They argue that ‘spirituality’ in many of its current contexts is being marketed to the masses and consequently degrading religion and true ‘spirituality’ in the process. All one has to do is research words such as ‘globalisation’, ‘marketing’ or ‘capitalism’ in conjunction with the words ‘religion’ or spirituality’ and they will find numerous articles on how and why the world should sell religion . One article in particular which sadly highlights the corrupt relationship between religion and capitalism is Sudhir’s (2004) ‘Spirituality, Religion and Globalisation’. Although the title alone is enough to scare anyone with a moral compass, it does get worse. Sudhir depicts a world where religion not only can, but must, be understood not for interfaith purposes but for gaining a financial profit. Sudhir declares:

‘spirituality, religion and globalisation should be topics of vital interest to macromarketers...spiritual needs translate into demand for goods and services worth billions of dollars, and it is important that macromarketers understand these demands’ (Sudhir 2004:92).

Conclusively Carrette and King have an extremely valid argument and there are boundless amounts of prior research to support them; the article above is just one of many pieces that one can find if  they look.  




Reference List

Carrette, J & Richard King. 2005. Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion. Routledge, New York.

Sudhir, H, Kale. 2004. Spirituality, Religion and Globalisation. Journal of Macromarketing. 24:92.