The Future of World Religion: Four Scenarios, One Dream

Religious globalization, new religious movements, transnational religions, global proselytism, multiple religious identities, ecumenical services, religious syncretism, secular and postsecular spiritualities—all these are among the many remarkable trends that shape the religious landscape of the beginning of the twenty-first century. Despite the rampant materialism still dominant in an increasingly technocratic world, it is clear that we live in times of rich spiritual diversity, proliferation, and innovation. For instance, when David B. Barret was asked almost ten years ago what he had learned about religious change in the world after several decades of research, he responded, “We have identified 9,900 distinct and separate religions in the world, increasing by two or three religions every day.”

As globalization continues, will religious diversity persist, or might all traditions integrate into one world faith?

Although there may be something to celebrate in this spiritual cornucopia, this apotheosis of the religious imagination can also be the source of profound uncertainty and confusion. Where is the world heading religiously speaking? Will humanity ultimately converge into one single religious credo? Or will it rather continue to diversify into countless forms of spiritual expression often at odds with one another? Alternatively, can we envision a middle path capable of reconciling the human longing for spiritual unity, on the one hand, and the developmental and evolutionary pulls toward spiritual individuation and differentiation, on the other? I believe that we can, and in this essay I offer the contours of such a vision after considering four other scenarios for the future of world religion. As we go through them, I invite you to consider not only their plausibility but also inquire into what scenario you feel is the most desirable: what would you like to see happening?

Religion in the Global Village: Four Scenarios

The first scenario portrays the emergence of a global religion or single world faith for humankind. This global religion may stem from either the triumph of one spiritual tradition over the rest (e.g., Catholic Christianity or the Dalai Lama’s school of Tibetan Buddhism) or a synthesis of many or most traditions (e.g., the Baha’i faith or New Age spiritual universalism). The former possibility, historically the ambition of most religions, entails the wildly unlikely prospect that religious practitioners, except those from the “winning” tradition, would recognize the erroneous or partial nature of their beliefs and embrace the superior truth of an already existent tradition. The latter means that most traditions would ultimately come together or be integrated into one world faith embraced by all religious people, perhaps as the ultimate upshot of increased interreligious interaction. The dream of a global spirituality—however ecumenically or ideologically conceived—inspires spiritual sensibilities at work in such diverse spheres as interfaith dialogue, transpersonal psychology and integral theory, and many new religious movements.

One possible future scenario, Jorge N. Ferrer writes, could involve “spiritual creative unions in which diversity is not erased but rather intensified.” Icons of the Hindu goddess Pavarti and Jesus remain separate but united in this mural from Agra, India.

In the second scenario, which we may call the mutual transformation of religions, spiritual traditions conserve their identity but are deeply and endlessly transformed through a variety of interreligious exchanges and interactions. The distinctive feature here is that, as Teilhard de Chardin believed, religious cross-pollination will lead to spiritual creative unions in which diversity is not erased but rather intensified. This vision is consistent with not only the adoption of practices from other traditions by members of different faith communities, but also the deepening or re-envisioning of one’s own tradition in light of other religious perspectives—a situation that, when mutual, was aptly described by Arvind Sharma as “reciprocal illumination.” A historical precursor of this possibility can be found in religious syncretism (i.e., the mixture of two or more traditions), such as the Haitian Vodou’s blending of Christianity and African traditions or the Brazilian Santo Daime Church’s incorporation of the indigenous use of ayahuasca into...