Jiyan Lu- Week10

       Attention to religion has faded away due to a notion that it is an outdated ideology. People who are inclined towards modernism and post-modernism era hardly associate their arguments and base their thinking on religious principles. York claims such paradigm yet transformative shift among the individuals thinking is the consequence of New Age commodification and political ideologies. Hence, the main theme signifies that religion is no longer compared with spiritualism rather commodity. 

Since religious properties have become a product in the public domain that anyone can buy. The essence of traditions and rituals have transformed. Post-paganism and New Age have brought commercialization, and its by-products such as secularism, capitalism, and free market has caused sacred to become commodities. For instance, with the availability of technology, digitization, and globalization, everyone can access to the diverse religious scriptures, which has diminished the traditional concept of being born in one religion. Now, people can seek knowledge and change their perceptions: Subscribe to any idea or unsubscribe it easily. Such religious consumer options have improvised the need of secularism. 

Not only such commodities, large-scale immigration has provided individuals in the West to observe religion in more practical way. This concept of “choice” reflects commodity. Therefore, the new religions, such as the New Age and Paganism has focused more on homogeneity and universalism. However, due to lack of central power, their authority has not sustained compared to other major religions. Even though secularism has caused the sacred institutionalisms separate from the state, religious influences have reached far more access beyond traditional means. Its influence and affluence have wedded into the principles of commercialism, which hold more significance and are prone to meaningful creativity and discovery.