Review: God and Globalization

Third Quarter 2002

A Four-Volume Project by Max L. Stackhouse

Last year, the Center for Public Justice and Baker Books published Bob Goudzwaard's Globalization and the Kingdom of God. Since then, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins (Oxford), and secular volumes such as On Globalization, by George Soros (Public Affairs) have been rolling off the presses.

Now we have a four-volume series (three of which are out) edited by Princeton Theological Seminary professor Max L. Stackhouse, titled (as a whole) God and Globalization (Trinity Press International, 2000-2002). The first volume is Religion and the Powers of the Common Life; volume 2, The Spirit and the Modern Authorities; and volume 3, Christ and the Dominions of Civilization.

Stackhouse's first concern with this series is to show how foolish people are to engage in discussion and evaluation of globalization without paying attention to God. This means, in his terms, doing theology and theological ethics and not just economics and political science. Each of the first three volumes in the series has a key word in the title that highlights biblical references to "principalities (powers), authorities, and dominions." As Stackhouse explains, "the Greek term for the powers, exousia, appears in the New Testament more than one hundred times, and is often linked with official leaders, but more often with the symbolic power of the offices and roles they play in the common life—that is, with principalities, authorities, or dominions. Each of them," Stackhouse continues, "manifests a distinctive 'dynamic' energy, or dunamis. What is distinctly theological about these offices is that they can become corrupted or distorted when they become preoccupied with their own value and declare independence from any transcendent source or norm. They then become threats instead of blessings to life and can only be restored to right order and good purpose by being re-related to their source in ways that reconstitute their norms."

"Christians," explains Stackhouse, "believe that Christ redemptively reestablishes a relationship between God and the world, which is alienated from its source and norms. This relationship not only includes people, but also these powers."

In volume 1, Stackhouse and co-editor Peter Paris draw in Roland Robertson to write on the future of traditional religions; Yersu Kim on philosophy and the prospects for a universal ethics; William Schweiker on Mammon and transnational corp orations; Donald Schriver on Mars and violence; Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen on the family, and David Tracy on the Muses and mass media.

The three volumes published thus far present widely diverse perspectives and an eclectic array of topics and modes of argument, all of which is in fulfillment of Stackhouse's purpose. The primary thread of coherence that runs through the volumes is developed by Stackhouse himself in his substantial introductions to each volume.

Volume 2, on modern authorities, with co-editor Don Browning, includes essays on the teaching ministry in a multicultural world by Richard Osmer; on law and human rights by John Witte, Jr.; on medicine and health care by Allen Verhey; on science and technology by Ronald Cole-Turner; on ecology and theology by Jurgen Moltmann; and on moral exemplars by Peter Paris. In his introduction to this volume Stackhouse explains, "The professions of education, law, and medicine...have largely defined modernity and are leading us to the new postmodernity. The authors in this volume seek to put the genius of these powers into a larger moral and spiritual context, one shaped by consciousness of the Holy Spirit .... Our question will be whether Christ is, can be, and should become Lord over all the powers, principalities, authorities, and regencies in a global civilization."

Behind the design of the third vo1ume, writes Stackhouse, "is the presupposition that something deeper than the religions themselves stands beyond every religion. Indeed, the divine reality to which the religions seek to point is present not only in religion but in all the spheres of life, and the specific way in which the spheres are formed and the ways in which they interact are influenced by the specific kind of religion." Here Stackhouse features an essay by co-editor Diane Obenchain on the study of religion, and essays by Scott Thomas on religion and international politics; John S. Mbiti on tribal religions; Sze-kar Wan on Christian contributions to the globalization of Confucianism; Thomas Thangaraj on Hinduism from a Christian point of view; Kosuke Koyama on Buddhism; and Lamin Sanneh on Muhammad and Islam.

Volume 4, writes Stackhouse, will deal historically and systematically "with Christian theological and ethical probabilities or possibilities as they may, or should, influence globalization in the future."