Wake Up! Breaking Free from the Hypnosis of Our Age

Fourth Quarter 1999

The 1999 Kuyper Lecture

On October 28, Dr. Bob Goudzwaard, Professor Emeritus, Free University of Amsterdam, delivered the fifth annual Kuyper Lecture. The lecture on international economic dynamics was presented in Sioux Center, Iowa on the campus of Dordt College, this year's co-host with the Center for Public Justice. Goudzwaard is the author of Beyond Poverty and Affluence: Toward an Economy of Care (Eerdmans). Following are excerpts from his address.

"Our nineteenth century is dying away under the hypnosis of the dogma of Evolution." With these words, Abraham Kuyper opened his presidential address at the Free University of Amsterdam on October 20, 1899. Tonight, on October 28, 1999, we meet on the eve of a new millennium as well as a new century. How shall we characterize the world's spiritual and cultural climate at the close of the 20th century? Under what kind of hypnosis are we living?

Trying to answer questions about the spirit of our age may seem like an impossible task. Our society and the world have become so enormously complex, much more so than a century ago. And Christians hold diverse views of reality. Any attempt to interpret the signs of our times must, there-fore, be undertaken with great care and humility, starting with a clear-eyed assessment of the concrete circumstances in which we find our-selves.

The International Arena

The main frontier in the development of human society today is undoubtedly the international arena. Consider for a moment some of the new words and phrases that have entered the media and filled public debate in the last 10 or 20 years: words like "networking," "data base," "transnational corporation," "globalization," "information society," "advertorials" and "edutainment." What is striking about all of these is that they have had an international dimension right from the start. Obviously the globe has become more than simply a possible horizon for human actions; it now serves as a platform from which actions spring.

New transnational corporations (TNCs), for example, transcend the borders of the national state right from their inception. They are, so to speak, born to be footloose, meant to act globally from the outset. At the same time, however, the TNCs are gaining enormous power and market strength inside particular countries, dispersing their commercials to family rooms all over the world. Something similar is happening in the financial sector, especially in regard to short-term international capital flows. These flows are also global from the beginning and are therefore correctly called movements of "global capital." For, just like a satellite, they circle the earth without a tie to a specific country. That kind of capital can leave your country within days or minutes if elsewhere a fractionally higher financial reward is expected.

Changes in the economic and financial sector have been enormous, but they would have remained unimaginable apart from worldwide technological advances. Due to breakthroughs in information technology, financial transactions can now be made within fractions of a second all around the world. Global networking has become part of daily life.

This awakening is also related to new production methods such as bioengineering. Industries adopt technological changes more rapidly than ever before and the changes are patented worldwide—at the global, not the national level—from the outset. More and more economists are now convinced that these changes are producing a "new economics." Productivity is increasing, especially in technologically advanced countries. This entails risks of overinvestment, as evidenced in the recent Asian crisis. Yet the new economics is also characterized by the simultaneous appearance of lower interest rates, lower unemployment, and pressure for greater consumer demand. For to absorb the enormous in-crease in global productivity, global expenditures must grow.

How shall we evaluate these rapidly spiraling changes in technology, finance, and economic practice that are deeply and broadly influencing our societies and making people very insecure?

Assessing Globalization

As in the Middle Ages, so today, we hear many predictions of economic and social collapse and even of the end of the world—the final judgment. Many who condemn the entire process of globalization as a demonic endeavor leading people to the abyss also thereby find an alibi to excuse themselves from any responsibility for what is taking place. I decry this attitude and approach and have three arguments for doing so.

The first is that the Christian church—the body of Christ—was meant, from the start, to become a global community. While some of Jesus' disciples wanted to restrict the gospel message to the Jewish people, the Holy Spirit made it clear that all nations of the world should hear the good news and participate in the new life. Thus, long before the present process of technological and economic globalization began, God's message of global good news went forth and began its work. The idea of globalization, therefore, is not foreign to the Bible. In fact, Paul uses a Greek word that is very close in meaning to "globalization." In his letter to the Ephesians (1:9-10), Paul writes about the last mystery that God is unveiling, namely "to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." God is guiding or ad-ministering the course of history to-ward that end. The Greek word for "administration" which is used here has the same root as the word "economy." Thus, we might say that God's Economy entails its own style of globalization, oriented to the coming of his Messiah King. The question, then, is not whether Christians should be for or against globalization. Instead, it is, "What kind of globalization should we be supporting?"

My second argument has to do with the "fullness" of life, as that word is used, for example, in the Psalms. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" (Ps. 24:1). Scientific results, technological breakthroughs, and worldwide economic developments represent dimensions or sectors of creation's fullness. In attempting to assess the times in which we live, let us, therefore, honor the Lord both for the intrinsic goodness of creation as well as for his guidance of human history. However critical we may be of human irresponsibility and disobedience in these sectors of society, we must never become doomsayers about technology as such, or about government as such, or about markets as such. We may not demonize what God has given us. All these gifts have their own intrinsic calling and dignity before the Lord.

There is also a third important reason why we should not demonize the process of globalization. Christians must be careful to use selective normative criteria to make judgments about such complex developments. We have been speaking about economic, technological, political, and social changes, which manifest deep cultural and religious dimensions. Some economic changes might be positive while certain political changes are negative, and vice versa. We must not confound categories or make sweeping judgments of approval or disapproval when we should be making more precise and distinct judgments. At the same time, we may not isolate different aspects of life as if they have a complete life of their own apart from the rest of life under God's authority.

The Reformation stressed the principle that no part of life may be understood as standing outside the directives—the commandments—of the living God. For he is not only the Sovereign, he is also the Lawgiver and Lifegiver. Economic life, for instance, is placed under the divine rule of oikonomia—good stewardship. Economic life is meant to deliver the fruits of human labor in a way that satisfies the needs of the people of this earth. And so it presupposes care or trusteeship of everything, including everyone entrusted to our responsibility.

It may surprise you to hear me speak not only of a trusteeship of everything, but also of everyone. I do so intentionally. For the Greek word oikonomia, as used in the parables of Jesus, for example, always entails the well-being of those who work on the land. Good oikonomia, Jesus explained, implies that servants receive their food in time. We might think of failure to care for the needy as unethical behavior, but the scriptures present it primarily as uneconomic behavior. For the poor are entitled to share in the fruits of this creation, including rest and time to renew their energies, because the creation is the oikos—the household—of the Lord himself. Anyone who bears responsibility for others and violates the economic criterion of caring for those who labor will hear harsh words when the Lord of the land—the Lord of creation—returns.

The return of the Lord, who is the ultimate owner of the earth, is a theme that permeates the biblical texts that deal with human economy. Jesus interprets economic life as having an eschatological dimension from the outset. A judge stands at the end of all our economic efforts and institutions, for when the Lord comes back to his oikos—his creation—he will ask all persons and all nations to render an account of their economic behavior (oikonomike). This same finality holds for the process of globalization. Perhaps we can frame it in terms of two contrasting action scenarios. In the first, worldwide activity has to prefigure the reign of the coming Lord—the good shepherd-king— who will do justice to the weak, protect the poor, and take care of the land. In the second scenario, economic activity proceeds with the conviction that only the fittest should survive, that victory should go to the strongest, and that might makes right.