Religion in the Market Society

With the growth of the theory of the economic system of the market and its efforts to globalize, many concerns have been raised in the social, cultural and religious areas of societies. The main question of the article is what are the potentialities of religion in contemporary marketized society? In other words, how differently religion is regulated and applied, in a neoliberal social context which means the domination of logic and the market economy over all the social realms.
In this paper which is descriptive-analytic, based on the characteristics of the subject, the documentary method has been used to study the effects of neoliberalism on the religious realm and the reactions of religion to the influx of market forces. The results show how the relationship between religion and state changes in the economic and social system based on free-market logic, and religion may change based on market adjustments. At the global level, some of the possibilities for the relationship between religion and neoliberalism are as follows: the reformation of religion through consumerism, the expression of new or neglected religious activists, conservatism or traditionalization of religion (rather than its degradation), the weakening of the critical role of religion specially in terms of providing moral criticism, the commodification of man and the depletion of society from natural and human values. In Iran, we have seen the combination of economic neoliberalism and political conservatism since the post-war era. The reduction of social phenomena to a specific pattern of the economy (the abandonment of the social affair) and the defense of the market economy in a religious context-which has been accompanied by an abuse of religion and a monopolistic and exclusive use of economics - has created a new bourgeoisie in our society.