Aspects of the Commercialisation of Religion and Religious Practices in Latvia

The society in Latvia, like many other societies, is driven by commercial practices and consumerism. Commercialization can be viewed as a part of a wider globalized consumer society aimed at increasing the profit of some players through marketing certain products. Religion is about a set of values that keep the society integrated but commercialization of religion leads to higher levels of self-proclaimed individualism and egoism. More often religions have been commercialized for the benefit of certain groups of people. This paper reveals some aspects of commercialization and simplification of religion and religious practices of members of the Latvian population who have no religious training and background as well as those generations of people who have grown without any religious upbringing at all. This can be explained by the historic circumstances of the atheistic ideology imposed on the whole generation that was raised without any substantial religious training and a new generation that was raised in the circumstances of globalization when religion was perceived mainly as one of the goods in the global marketplace to be consumed. Research questions: How is the commercialization of religion and religious practice viewed by the representatives of different generations as reinforced by media? For this purpose the author conducted semi-structured interviews with ten participants representing two different generations. The methodology of the paper involves individual interviews with representatives of two generations, namely, Generation X that grew up in the conditions of the ideology of atheism and Generation Z that has grown up in the circumstances of globalization and consumerism.