RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

In this contemporary era, as we can see the society progressing day by day and adapting itself to
new changes every day, it is deemed by many that religion acts as an obstruction in the progress
that the society is to achieve. It is usually put forth that religion, no matter in what form,
organized or unorganized leads to conservatism and therefore is a factor leading to various issues
in today’s world, such as xenophobia, and thereby inhibiting social progress. But however, the
world has seen movements achieving its objectives which are otherwise from the
aforementioned, amounting to progressing social growth and at the same point of time,
promoting the religious values as well. In this chapter, we shall be discussing some social
movements across the globe that helped in bringing up social revolution.

1. Chartist Movement: The Great Britain, from the time span of 1838 to 1850 witnessed a
great religious movement, commonly referred to as the Chartist Movement, which
primarily aimed at achieving freedom and social justice. The movement started during
the economic depression in Great Britain, wherein the unemployment was present in the
entire country following the Poor Law Amendment of 1834. The movement used the
Methodist thought so as to perform the first ever labor reform in the country for which,
they incorporated the teachings of Christ in the movement and by the virtue of which,
they consequently had a wider support base in the country. This movement has a
significant remark in the history of the country in terms of widening social thoughts and
providing social freedom to the citizens. One of the major developments led by this
movement was of granting voting rights to the working class of the society. Various
social institutes played a significant, adding to the success of this movement, for which
we can take examples of various Chartist churches which were impacting the movement,
out of which, twenty alone in Scotland played the above mentioned role. These churches,
in order to create a stronger impact, amalgamated their ideologies with the Christian
teachings. Generally, there was a distribution of pamphlets at such churches by the virtue
of which, the movement acquired a larger support base.

2. Muslim Women’s Association: Zainab Al-Ghazali, an Egyptian activist, gave rise to the
foundation of MWA(Muslim Women’s Association) during the 1930s, which aimed at
expanding the scope of rights of women under the Islamic framework and believed that
the women should be liberated, and the rights imposed upon them shouldn’t be so highly
restrictive in nature as compared to that of men. Zainab Al-Ghazali believed that under
the ambit of Islam, women possessed many rights and due to which, MWA focused on
fighting for the same. MWA performed various actions, such as mediation of family
disputes, educational access to women in Islam and furthermore, they worked towards
upliftment of women from all the backgrounds, particularly those with poor economical
conditions. Zainab Al-Ghazali’s ideology of feminism primarily focused on using Islam
 and its proposed teachings so as for liberation of women, and to uplift them, both in
socio-economic aspects.

3. Environmentalism: This is one of the most famous movements in the contemporary era,
which aims at preserving the mother earth. Due to challenges such as global warming and
other factors of pollution, it is very well known that the environment is under serious
threat nowadays. The religious groups and organizations are also aware of this danger
and by the virtue of which, they are coming together to fight this grave problem so as for
sustainment of the future generations. This can be explained with various examples, of
which, one constitutes various religious groups coming together so as to save Ganges in
India, which is one of the most polluted rivers in the country. Furthermore, there are
several Christian1 Organizations which encourage its believers to work towards a greener
way of living in order to protect the environment.

4. Fundamentalism: Fundamentalism, by the very definition of it, worked towards

resolution of conflicts that mainly arose between the scientific advancements, in
comparison to the religious ideologies. It was fundamentally a theological movement
(Christian), it focused on working towards ad accommodation of Protestant Christianity
in the modern society. So as to gather support of their ideology, they established
connect/link between scientific advancement and their religious ideologies, by which it
was established that this particular religion worked in correlation to scientific
advancement. Hence, fundamentalism developed to be one of the most essential
movements in modern day era.

1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smj.234
Evolution of Religion

1. Axial Stage (900-200BCE)

In this era of history, it was laid out that in simultaneous and independent manner, the
spiritual foundations of humanity were laid down and if we technically look at it, these
are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists in the present day world. During
this stage, foundation of various influential and philosophical traditions was laid down,
such as monotheism, Buddhism etc. The aforementioned ideas were later laid down into
texts, which attracted a number of followers, thereby establishing the concept relating to
religious scriptures.

2. Middle Ages
Most of the religions established themselves in the middle ages, wherein it was laid down
that there was a spread of religions due to various occurring conflicts that took place
during that point of time. Consequently, conquests took place, due to which there was a
shift and spread of ideology in the world, by the virtue of which, we can establish that
ideologies such as religion were also spread consequently. This can be explained with the
example of Arab conquest of Iran/ Muslim conquest of Persia wherein there was a
downfall of Sasanian Empire of Iran (Persia) and a consequent decline of Zoroastrian
religion and there was a significant rise in Muslim religion in the aforementioned region.
Just like the aforementioned, various other reforms and evolutions in the mediaval period
took place consequently. Many medieval religious movements emphasized mysticism,
such as the Cathars and related movements in the West, the Jews in Spain, the Bhakti
movement in India and Sufism in Islam. Monotheism reached definite forms in
Christian Christology and in Islamic Tawhid. Hindu monotheist notions
of Brahman likewise reached their classical form with the teaching of Adi Shankara (788-
820).

3. Modern Period
Modern period saw the proliferation of various religions as a result of making colonies at
that period of time. For instance, we can take into account the European colonization
during 15th-19th centuries which consequently resulted in the spread of Christianity in
various regions globally, an example of which include Sub-Saharan Africa, America,
Australia. One of the major discoveries that helped in spreading the European colonies
during the modern period was the invention of printing press. It played a major role in
spreading of religious ideologies then, such as the protestant reformation under various
leaders, Martin Luther being just one of many. Thereafter, various wars on religion broke
out, the ‘Thirty Year War’ being just of them. When we talk about the aforementioned, it
is generally followed that in this, initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic
states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general
conflict involving most of the European great powers. Thereafter, from 18th century
onwards, the concept of Secularism started to develop and this ideology did not take a lot
of time to mark its prominence around the globe. It gained its absolute resilience during
the French Revolution and thereafter by the 20th century, religion had declined in most
parts of the Europe due to secularism. In recent cases, he people started to use internet as
a means of attaining or affiliating themselves to religious beliefs. An example for the
same could be derived from ‘Beliefnet’, wherein various contexts were provided, such as
that related to topics of inspiration, spirituality, health, family, etc.