Toward a Global Vocation of Justice

Fourth Quarter 2002

by Nelson Gonzalez

We are still reeling from our rude awakening to the new realities of global citizenship. But one might wonder whether this awakening has been complete, whether there is still a hazy slumber to our perception of what is before us and required of us. That the U.S. must now live with the reality of terrorism—as others have done for many years—is a case in point, not the point. The point is that we are experiencing a transformation of our global order as radical as any since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which enshrined the increasingly contested notion of national sovereignty. What are the requirements of global public justice in this context? What is the just and merciful role for the planet's sole hyperpower? To what public vocation are Christians who happen to be citizens of this colossus called? Our domestic conversation regarding the challenges and opportunities of this moment has unveiled how poorly versed we are in the rich heritage of Christian political reflection that has informed public life in other times and places. As Christian citizens of a power vastly greater than even the Roman Empire in and to which our Lord spoke, we must apply these partially hidden resources as we wrestle with the broadly unexamined notions of national sovereignty—born at Westphalia—that still frame our foreign policy.

An Endangered Multilateralism

There has been, in my estimation, a disconcerting lack of coherence in the Bush administration's foreign policy, which has wavered from brief moments of isolationism, to long bouts of unilateralism, to more hopeful glimmers of multilateralism. Whether on Iraq, Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, or protectionist trade policies, we have not seemed capable of articulating fruitful policy alternatives grounded in a consistent public philosophy concerning our role in the world. This is simply not good enough from a country such as ours in a time such as this.

A useful recent starting point in defining a better alternative—an appropriately engaged multilateralism—is Joseph Nye's The Paradox of American Power. Nye's basic assumption is that, barring unforeseen catastrophe or our use of power in too heavy-handed a way, the United States will remain the undisputed global military, economic, and cultural leader. To sustain this power and to shape the international environment in ways that serve its best long-term interests, the U.S. must choose to reflect more deeply on the changing nature of power. "Hard power" (military and economic might) is becoming less important as influence moves away from governments to other institutions, and as sovereign states become increasingly porous. "Soft power" (cultural, ideological, and institutional suasion) is becoming more relevant particularly through the explosion of information and communications technology and the globalization of the market. In this context, the U.S. must "entice and attract" as much as, or more than, we coerce, in order to "build a world congenial to our basic values in preparation for a time in the future when we may be less influential." To do this, says Nye, we must develop transparent, accountable institutional vehicles that will serve "global political goods."

U.S. Responsibility and the Role of American Christians

Foreign policy experts (Nye among them), however, consistently bemoan the indifference of the American public to foreign policy. Indeed, the lack of public attention to international issues is a serious hindrance to the change of mind that Nye calls for, insofar as indifference often translates to congressional silence. To mitigate this indifference, the public must be educated to the fact that the U.S. is uniquely poised (and is indeed called) to help build a just global order, to lead by example in helping to construct an institutional infrastructure that will advance the common good. In fact, much of what needs to be clone today is a translation of our own constitutional commitments to the rest of the world. We believe in the separation and balance of power in our own government. What does it mean to believe in this principle so strongly that we are willing to abide by it in the international community? We have struggled to institutionalize the precept that all men are created equal. Does our responsibility to institutionalize this principle stop at our borders?

Christians are no strangers to fueling revolutionary social and cultural reform of the type required to achieve this translation. Having helped build a nation whose institutions have (imperfectly, but progressively) sustained the founding values of our Republic, Christians must now embrace a global vocation. And we are not alone, but have been entrusted with the heritage of a great cloud of witnesses. Responding to the gospel teaching about love for our neighbors and for strangers, we should be working politically for an engaged multilateralism by means of which we may be able to perceive that Samaritan strangers are, actually, family. It is ironic, therefore, to read contemporary analyses (like Nye's) that contemplate—as if for the first time—issues on which Christians have, for at least a century, reflected deeply.

As many are now reporting, it is a fact that around the world political power is being diffused in various directions, away from the state. In 1931, Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno articulated the principle of subsidiarity as a way of organizing this diffusion. As Nye hints, it is true that the nature of national sovereignty is changing, as layers of overlapping loyalties multiply in postmodernity. In 1951, Jacques Maritain's Man and the State analyzed the development of the notion of national sovereignty from the medieval era to the 20th century, and called for the development of an understanding of international order and authority that was better suited to the realities of a post-war world and to the divine purposes for humanity, as expressed in the principle of personalism.

Recovering from the ashes of two world wars, European Christian Democrats drew on these very principles to expose the "heresy of national sovereignty" and to articulate an alternative vision of international order that would bind nations together into a new and supranational family. Responding to the needs of an impoverished populace, Chilean Christian Democrats in the 1960s defined a personalist economic reform strategy deeply influenced by the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Emmanuel Mounier, and Maritain. More recently, scholars have noted that the postindustrial societies of Europe and North America have a great deal of power, but require complex moral justifications to convert this power to force. In 1987, Rene Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World articulated how the Cross of Christ has subversively and forever changed the ways in which (particularly Christian) societies use violence and power to organize themselves over against a scapegoat. Addressing the need to root human rights and international law in a global ethic, thinkers in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and Colombia are attempting to define the political meaning of this subversive gospel.

These rich resources are highly relevant to the challenges we face today. Moreover, they are in the hands of Christian believers to translate and enact in this extraordinary moment in world history when the human family, longing for its ultimate redemption, is also longing for a temporal system beyond the limitations of national sovereignty, through which to negotiate the challenges and opportunities of our common humanity.

Embracing Our Global Vocation

If we are at a tipping point in the ways in which the U.S. will engage with the rest of the world, the most strategic lever available to us is an informed, open, rigorous conversation about the meaning of national sovereignty, the kinds of institutions required for just global governance, and the ways in which our Congress and Executive can most effectively provide leadership in constructing such institutions. This conversation needs to engage ethicists and political theologians, seminarians, priests and pastors, and leaders of relevant Christian organizations to help articulate an engaged multilateralism of the variety advocated by analysts like Joseph Nye, but drawing on the resources of our unique traditions of Christian political reflection.

As human generations continue their pilgrimage from Eden to Jerusalem, from an enclosed garden to a global city, American Christians should indeed awaken to the threat of terrorism, but we should do so by urging that the United States accept the vocation to use its unprecedented power and intellectual resources to help build an effective infrastructure for global public justice.

[Nelson Gonzalez is a Managing Consultant at The Ulanov Partnership, an international strategy consulting firm, where he focuses on philanthropy and public policy. A Fellow of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation, he will spend the next year as an International Scholar at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, researching the role of Christian Democracy in the construction of the European Union.]