ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the existing theoretical literature on (global) religious organizations and discusses some historical and contemporary examples from four periods of globalization. In recent years, scholars have advocated that ‘religion has always been global’ and that religious communities are ‘among the oldest of transnational entities’. ‘Globalization’ as a concept rose to prominence in the 1980s and in the beginning referred mostly to economic processes of global capitalism. The chapter exclusively examines global religious organizations, while organization in general can be understood as one of four major ways in which religion gains form in today’s world (the other three being ‘social movement religion’, religion thematized in other societal function systems, and ‘social network religion’). The modern period after 1850 saw a proliferation of such organizations, including the emergence of globally oriented non-Christian organizations, for example in the context of Hinduism and Buddhism.
