CWM's Network of Theological Enquiry

The questions which have guided theological reflection over the centuries have basically been the same questions about God, how and in whom God reveals himself, God's spirit, the communities of believers, the divine promises for the end of time, creation, the relationship between human beings and God, salvation, worship, etc. And these question still orient theological enquiry today.

At the same time, the answers given to these questions in the course of history have differed, even if we can note a large measure of convergence among them. Nonetheless, the differences in theological responses to the same questions cannot be ignored. This diversity is rather like variations on a musical theme. There is a basic harmony which is taken up in different modes by different sections of the orchestra, creating a tension but not breaking the harmony because the different modulations are attuned to each other.

The varying responses to such theological questions reflect the vital struggles of Christian communities past and present to remain true to their faith. In other words, they have sought to give an answer to these questions in different, changing contexts. History, it is said, is like an ever-rolling stream. Social, cultural, political and economic conditions are constantly changing, presenting communities of believers with new challenges. The responses given in the past are a help in confronting the challenges of the present ­ but we have to be aware that they belong to the past.

Contemporary theological issues must receive a response that is relevant for today. Doing theology does not mean dogmatically repeating the traditional responses to questions facing communities of believers. Such repetition of traditional formulae belongs to catechesis. A community will produce a vital theology when it has the courage to seek the meaning of its faith within the historical context of the changes that are taking place, confronting the new reality without being afraid of it. (In this task, theologians as members of the community have an important role in theological formation). By giving answers that are meaningful for today, theological work maintains its relevance; the body of Christian thinking remains lively and dynamic, and helps believers to make sense of their lives.⁶

One of the greatest transformations undergone by Christianity, in this second half of the century now drawing to a close, is the large-scale development of Christian churches in places where preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ began only a few centuries or even only a few decades ago. It is important to bear in mind that, while churches in Western Europe are not very full, this is not the case of Christian assemblies in 'mission lands', which draw large congregations. From a sociological point of view, we may say that nowadays Christianity finds social legitimation thanks to Christian communities in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Americas and the Pacific, where Christian churches are growing rapidly and visibly. New churches are springing up, new liturgies are being devised, there are new types of spirituality to give believers the strength to live out their faith, new hymns are being written and new theologies elaborated. The awareness of living out the faith in new contexts is producing new theological responses to the traditional questions, reflecting the specific perspectives of the communities making them. This partly explains the vigorous theological work done in the past few decades in the churches of the so-called 'Third World' and in other regions, when theological reflection is done by African-Americans, Native-Americans and women.

Traditionally, the churches have underlined the need for theology to remain faithful to the depositum fidei, the body of dogmatic statements expressing the intellectual understanding of the Christian faith. However, from the second half of the 18th century onwards a new way of doing theology began to develop in the West, with the coming of the age of modernity. Western theologians elaborated their theological thinking in the specific context in which they lived and experienced their faith, that of modern western culture. In this way a fruitful dialogue developed between Christian theology and modernity, involving theologians and the modern sciences. This was in contrast to previous times, when theologians were basically in dialogue with the traditional sources of Christian dogma. The difference of context led to a dialogue between different actors.

In the past three or four decades, a new way of doing theology has begun to emerge among people living in different contexts, for instance the Christian communities in the 'Third World', or new groups which bring their own consciousness to doing theology, such as women or ethnic minorities in North America. The theology produced in this way has its roots in the existence of these people, their experience of life and their practice of the faith in the concrete conditions in which they live. These new contributions to Christian theology change from one people to another, so that Minjung theology in South Korea is not the same as the Black theology of liberation in the USA, or liberation theology in Latin America. Yet the way of doing theology is the same ­ what changes is the context. These are contextual theologies which, while taking the traditional dogmas of the churches and academic reflection into account, give priority to trying to strengthen the faith of the people. The purpose is above all pastoral: it is a matter of giving form to the body of Christ in the community of believers, which of necessity means taking account of the context in which these communities live. The cultural and historical circumstances of the community are important for understanding the meaning of biblical texts and also for bearing witness to the message of these texts in a way that is relevant to the world of today.

In a situation where the process of globalisation is affecting the life of communities of believers everywhere in one way or another, two things need to be pointed out from a theological perspective. First, the impact of globalisation has taken the great majority of people, including Christians, by surprise. Second, there is more than one way of understanding what globalisation means. Christians and communities of faith understand the process of globalisation in terms of their own specific situations. It is important, therefore, that any reflection on globalisation and the challenges it presents should take account of the diverse positions among the various groups or individuals doing the reflecting, and always be aware that such positions are relative ­ 'variations on a theme', as I have said.

The theme is born of the particular moment of history we are living through, which of course is not experienced in the same way by everyone. It is different in Western Europe than in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, and in North America than the rest of the American continent. Globalisation is differently perceived and experienced by the different peoples of the inhabited earth. Yet these differences are part of the same historical moment, so that we have at one and the same time homogeneity and heterogeneity in a tension that runs like a counterpoint to the theme and its variations.

And in this situation comes the question of God – the theological question par excellence. What is God doing in the world of today? Where is God present? Can we discern theologically the sign of the times? How is God working for the salvation of the nations and of each one of the human beings belonging to them? We have to try to answer these questions if we are to be faithful to God in the situation in which we have to live. This does not have to do only with God, his Word and his action; it also concerns the meaning of our faith and our place in the plan of faith. We may say it is a question about what Tillich calls the 'ultimate'. But we have to conscious that this concern with the 'ultimate' is set in the context of temporal, historical realities.

Before we can tackle this question we first have to ask some preliminary questions about the way in which human beings experience and conceive of the 'absolute being' who directs their existence, and recognise that there is a tension between the forms we human beings use in speaking of the divinity.

These forms have a religious dimension but they are also related to other aspects of human existence, including social life. At this point, the common mind that exists in any human society indicates that there are certain norms which have to be fulfilled religiously. In other words, they are not open to question, and, above all, they must not be shaken. These prescriptions set certain spheres of human life apart as sacred. They cannot and should not be intermingled with other areas of human life. The latter can be modified and changed, they belong to the sphere of the ordinary, the profane. Things to do with the sacred, on the other hand, are perceived as absolute and imperative, and human beings have to accept and to submit to them. The sacred is what gives cohesion to human societies. The norms of social behaviour derive from the sacred, and respect for and compliance with these norms strengthens the power inherent in society. In this sociological dimension of the sacred there is also a spiritual element (the will of the members of a society to maintain the cohesion of their collective life) which is expressed by way of certain objective, material elements.

The sacred cannot exist without reference to the profane. But it is clearly distinguished from the latter in that it is perceived as absolute and unconditional in character, separate from the rest of things which fall into the category of the ordinary and relative. The sacred is considered untouchable. Only those who have been duly initiated into knowledge of things sacred can have access to them. The sacred may be expressed in different forms, but all societies acknowledge an absolute, untouchable nucleus which must not be handled. The forms in which the sacred is expressed are material: they may be images, laws, symbols, totems of different kinds, and they are the objective translation of that which gives strength and unity to a human community.⁷

In the Old Testament, this submission to the sacred, human adoration and worship of sacred objects was strongly criticised as idolatry. For the prophets of the Old Testament, the living God cannot be enclosed in any visible form.⁸ The experience of the living God has to do not with the sacred in the sociological sense, but with the relationship with the God who is holy (cf Lev 19), the mystery of the source of life. Because the living God is mysterious, his presence is both transcendent and immanent. As Rudolph Otto has pointed out, God is mysterium tremendum et fascinosum. For the prophets, God cannot be reduced to a totem, be it a statue or any other material object of human construction. Human beings experience the living God when they express their ultimate concerns. Then God is experienced as transpersonal. The experience of the Holy God encompasses the totality of the human person, not just as an individual but also as a being relation to others, talking to others, in an interpersonal and not just a social relationship.

To communicate the experience of the Holy God, human beings use metaphors and parables. They tell stories drawing on experiences of interpersonal relationships analogous to their experience of the living God. Whereas the sacred has primarily a sociological dimension, the Holy God makes each man or woman who experiences God realise that they are called 'to be', to become the persons they have the potential to be. The experience of the living God, the holy, is the 'courage to be' along with one's neighbours. "Wherever the holy is experienced, the person-to-person character of this experience is obvious."⁹ The experience of the Holy God is not depersonalising as is so often the case with virtual relationships. It leads to care and concern for the other, a sense of closeness to the neighbour. As Emmanuel Levinas has said, the 'other' is not only the person close to me, but above all those who are called "the least" (Mt 25:40,45), "the poor, the widow, the stranger" (Lev 19:9-10). This 'other' demands justice, peace and equity. We have to respect their rights and their being, their integrity, and ensure that they feel included in the human community. There is an ethical dimension to our experience of the Holy God, an imperative to which we are required to respond.

A very striking fact in the process of globalisation is that the market has imposed itself on human beings. If there is financial instability, men and women have to pay the price of the adjustments necessary to restore the balance. The market has become a kind of fetish ("an object that has magical power"; "an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion"), an idol ("an object of passionate devotion"). It has to be 'free' (for which read 'absolute') and human beings are subordinate to it, making adjustments and sacrifices as necessary to maintain it and its demands.¹⁰ To put it another way, the global 'free market' must not be touched. The market is understood as something which ensures the cohesion of our world. As I have said, it is self-regulating. In the life of all this it is quite true to say that the market is being sacralised, treated as something sacred.

Whereas the sacred demands obedience to the norms intended to preserve the forms of social life, the experience of the Holy God challenges human beings to be more, to find new ways of living that include those whose only thought has to do with a struggle for survival, not a better life. The experience of the living God compels human beings to exercise love, solidarity and mutual support.

John Calvin had occasion to observe this in his own times when the modern market began to take shape and develop, contributing to better human living standards and strengthening interpersonal relations. For Calvin, the market was a place where human beings, called by God to serve the whole of society by fulfilling their professional obligations (the professional vocation of every man and woman), could come to understand their interdependence, their reliance on others who are in turn carrying out their activities. In the market-place, human beings exchange the fruit of their labour. It is therefore a place which should enable us to understand the deep, underlying solidarity to which we are called.¹¹ In Calvin's commentary of the Book of Isaiah, he mentions in connection with the passage in chapter 23:17-18 that the city of Tyre, an important commercial centre in the Middle East in the 8th century BC, traded only to gain wealth. The text states that God's judgement would inevitably come down on Tyre. But Calvin says that when Tyre is converted it will continue its commerce, but for the good of all. Calvin was aware that the market is a human construct, a work of human ingenuity, endeavour and interests. As such it can be organised in a way that would make is satisfy the needs of all, or at least the majority of human beings.¹² Consequently, like any other sphere of human life, markets must be subject to the sovereignty of God. Contracts, conventions, treaties, weights, measures, prices, exchange rates and all the rest have to be fair and governed by transparent, equitable rules.

From a theological point of view, sacralising of the market (conscious or unconscious) is unacceptable. It is not an instrument of human salvation, but, as we have seen, the outcome of human effort, and hence subject to limitation and in need of constant correction and improvement. Contrary to certain contemporary economic theories which say that the working of the economy has nothing to do with ethics (i.e. nothing to do with human behaviour) but only how to manage our scarce resources to produce wealth and avoid poverty, various theologians in the past ­ Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and others ­ have insisted that commercial activity is based on a number of tacit moral agreements. Hence, markets cannot be considered as the supreme reference governing human behaviour, nor can they be considered as absolutely 'free' because they are supposedly self-regulating.¹³ This point needs to be discussed not only in terms of economic theory but also from a theological point of view. In other words, it is an issues that needs to be understood and judged in the light of faith in the living God.

Many Christians, and many Christian communities, feel the tension between the imperatives of the global market and the vision of a just and supportive society based on faith in the message of the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. The words of Jesus himself seem appropriate here: "No-one can be the slave to two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the servant of both God and money." (Matt 6:24; Lk 16:13)

Despite these criticisms of the sacralising of the market that seems to be part of the process of globalisation, I believe it is essential not to treat the market as a 'work of the devil'. In this connection it is worth remembering Calvin's position on the importance of markets, industry and commerce and avoiding the temptations of a facile Manichaeism that condemns 'the market' out of hand. Everything in human life, including the production and consumption of goods, can be used by God in the divine economy (Eph 1:9) for human well-being. Great attention must therefore be paid to how markets are built and structured. By the grace of God, human beings have the chance to cooperate in building a better world, in bringing about a more human and just society where none is excluded. The opportunity to participate in God's reconciling work is offered to all of us. It calls for a series of guidelines to be followed in economic life and the current process of globalisation.

a) The globalisation of solidarity should guide economic life. The assumption of the modern bourgeois economy that 'self-interest' is the guiding principle of economic praxis must be questioned both from a theological and an ethical perspective. For Christians, as also many believers of other faiths, the option for the poor, who are the heirs of the kingdom of God, is always the most important criteria for action.

b) Real interpersonal relationships among people should prevail. Virtual relationships will continue to exist and to be developed, but they must be organised to function for the construction of solidarity, as the experience of some networks of international civil society prove.

c) Globalisation can be developed making room for everybody in our societies. Globalisation with injustice is not acceptable. Christian communities are challenged to join efforts with people of other religious convictions and ideological orientations in order to resist perverse trends in the process of globalisation (eg exclusion, ideological homogenisation, the tyranny of the market) as it is driven by neoliberal ideological conceptions. The aim must be that 'globalisation' becomes and instrument to build up inclusive societies.

d) Therefore, the ideological assumptions that strongly affirm that 'globalisation' (as it is now oriented) is the only way for a better future for humanity has to be criticised. In the same way that according to the biblical story, God did not accept one language to be imposed on earth as the only language for all peoples, and affirmed that diversity is better than uniformity. (Gen 11:1-9) It is imperative today to resist the colonising spirit of those who want to impose la pensée unique, that dominant culture, which seems to be peculiar to the interests of globalised finances and trade.

Furthermore, resistance is not enough. It is also necessary to accept those who are different. Inclusion and acceptation of those who are different go hand in hand. They cannot be separated out. This is a necessary affirmation of theology today, when dialogue among different ways of doing theology should be practised increasingly as an unavoidable step in the process of theological research.

e) It seems also necessary to think anew and to reactualise the meaning of the notions of catholicity and conciliarity in the context of 'globalisation'. The importance of this task for the self-understanding of the churches and the ecumenical movement is obvious. In a similar way to what has been already stated in the previous point, it seems appropriate to take into account the conciliarity of the Church as underlined by the plural 'the Holy Churches of God', this pointing to the reality of the existence of many autonomous local churches and communities, which, while professing the same faith and celebrating the same sacraments, do so in their own particular contexts, being independent in their administration. This view about conciliarity calls for an understanding of the catholicity of the Church which cannot be the result of any kind of institutional imposition, but rather an ecumenical witness and celebration of the faith in the Holy Living God.

Endnotes:

1 "Far from producing a solution to the gap between the world's "haves" and "have nots", the changing structures of international business and investment may exacerbate them." Paul Kennedy: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Random House Inc. Vintage Books: 1994. p. 47.

2 VVAA: Confronting Global Powers. Globalisation. A Letter of Concern and Hope. Mimeo. 30/06/1998

3 Cf Fr Von Hayek: The Constitution of Liberty. University of Chicago Press. London: Routledge;1960.

4 Julio de Santa Ana: Spirit of Fire -- Set us Free!, in the Ecumenical Review. Geneva: WCC. Vol 43 No 3; July 1991. p. 365

5This concept has been developed by Michael Walzer: Spheres of Justice. A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books; 1983.

6 Cf Juan Luis Segundo: Liberacion de la Teologia. Buenos Aires: Carlos Lohlé; 1975.

7 Cf the definition of religion given by Durkheim: "Une religion est un système solidaire de croyances et de pratiques relatives à des choses sacrées, c'est-à -dire séparées, interdites, croyances et pratiques qui unissent en une même communauté morale, appelé Eglise, tous ceux qui y adhèrent." Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris: PUF; 1960. p. 65.

8 The criticism of idolatry is very strong in the writings of the "Second Isaiah": "They are all makers of idols; they are nothing and the works they prize are useless. Their servants see nothing, they understand nothing, and so they will be put to shame. Whoever fashioned a god or cast an image without hope of gain?" (Is 44:9. The Jerusalem Bible). In the prophetic criticism of idolatry there is a denunciation of interests of domination and profit which are hidden behind the idol, the totem.

9 Cf Paul Tillich: Biblical religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. London: James Nisbet & Co Ltd. 1955. p. 25.

10 Cf Hugo Assmann e Franz Hinkelammert: A Idolatria de Mercado. Petrópolis: Vozes; 1989.

11 André Biéler: La Pensée Economique et Sociale de Calvin. Genève: Librairie de l'Université Georg & Cie., S.A.;1961. p. 449-ff.

12 Ibid

13 Saying this, I agree fundamentally with theologians like Assmann, Hinkelammert, Duchrow, van Leeuwen, Jung Mo Sun, Daly and Cobb, etc.