CRES Module 2 Globalization and Faith International trade: sign of the times or sign of the Kingdom?

International trade: sign of the times or sign of the Kingdom?

“During the 21st and 22nd centuries, sea levels worldwide began rising due to global warming. Port cities around the planet were faced with a choice: construct flood control measures, or drown. In Mombasa, it was decided that, rather than shore up the old docks on Mombasa Island, it would be easier to build brand new ports on the mainland, southwest of the city. … For a time, these docks brought prosperity to the mainland. Shantytowns were demolished to make way for new office buildings, highways were constructed, and commerce thrived”[1]

An internet site supporting a video game series set 544 years in the future may seem an unusual place to begin this study which seeks to consider whether international trade has a future in the context of the Kingdom of Heaven, but the extract quoted above touches on important issues already confronting the global society of today. A cursory examination of the background to the “Halo” video game reveals a conflict between forces of good and evil, and for many who are concerned with issues of global significance today, international trade is quite often cast in the role of the villain.

“The global market empire ….requires the constant exchange of great quantities of goods and materials through ports and airports and along highways. These exchanges often involve coercive and immoral contracts, new forms of human slavery and grave biological and ecological risks”[2]

There can be no denial that international trade is a feature of globalization, and in many instances a significant contributor to some of the problems confronting planet Earth in the twenty-first century. Northcott is quite correct in positing that a future “good earth” cannot sustain current levels of international trade without a greater degree of moral and ethical responsibility than is at present the case:

“If collapse in the earth system is to be prevented the global economy will have to be brought back into scale with the ecology of the earth. … Food, fibre and fuel will need to be grown and utilised locally … and where distant exchanges continue these will need to be re-moralized so that fossil fuel use, and the full ecological and social impacts of all traded commodities… are known and resolved at all stages in the production and consumption process.”[3]

It is worth bearing in mind, that the desire to advance more localised solutions as an alternative to a globalized economy, may be pre-empted by the distinct likelihood that current climate change trends could, in themselves, enforce radical changes to the world of international trade, bringing about greater levels of inequality and poverty, than are presently experienced in the developing world. Referring to the book Adapting Cities to Climate Change [4], an article in the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper[5] suggests that by 2020, and with no reduction in the current level of carbon dioxide particles in the earth’s atmosphere, a sea-level rise of just 0.3 metres will see 17 per cent of the East African port Mombasa (4,600 hectares) submerged. Mombasa is an essential link in the international trading systems of East Africa, and contributes both cause and effect as the “globalization processes such as the expansion of trade and transport drive overconsumption and environmental degradation”. [6] The expansion of the city and the increases in population there and, to a far greater extent, in Nairobi, en route to interior African markets have seriously encroached on fragile landscapes. At the same time, the long-distance transportation of freight by poorly-maintained road vehicles from the port to Uganda, Tanzania and the Sudan continues to have a major polluting effect on the surrounding areas, with the consequence that, quite apart from the globalized impact of climate change, the local environment is further adding to the impending disaster.

It would appear that the developing nations of the world are in a no-win situation. They need to integrate with the dominant culture of international commerce in order to have any hope of emerging out of poverty, and yet are not going to be able to do so if their vulnerable infrastructures are decimated or if very necessary global restrictions are imposed upon them by the developed world which is suddenly developing a conscience about the environment it has damaged over the course of the past two centuries. For Northcott, in direct contrast to the secular world view that: “uniting economic growth and environment protection is a crucial pre-condition for the ever more globalizing world”[7], there seems to be no future role for economic growth and accordingly for international trade:

“The global movement of goods and peoples that distantly connect consumption and production procedures on different continents are sustained through energy-hungry transportation. (…) And with the present trend of economic globalisation, planes and ships between them are forecast to more than double their CO₂ output by 2020. Land transportation of goods and people is an even more crucial component of economic globalisation and presently produces three times the CO₂ emissions of planes and ships.”[8]

The world-renowned Kenyan biologist Stella Simiyu pleads the cause of the developing world, speaking in Vancouver in 2006, and quoted in Kingfisher’s Fire. In response to the question “How can we possibly defend all the energy use involved in bringing peas from Kenya….?”, she argues:

“You just have to concede that poor communities in Kenya have no other markets for their goods, no other way of gaining foreign currency. As the Brundtland report[9] showed, solving our environmental problems requires healthy industries and a healthy economy, simply because it is when an economy is growing that we can afford to make the choices that are essential if we are to live within the planet’s means” [10]

It is at this point in the debate about the value of international trade that issues of ethics, justice and equality surface, and at which point, accordingly, faith communities could be expected to become engaged. This, however, is not a widespread expectation. Such contemporary commentators who are predisposed to give consideration to faith communities and their involvement in issues of globalization, see issues of faith as being as much a part, or even ultimately a cause of the problem as the solution:

“Judaeo-Christian humanism … contains deeply dualistic values that put human beings at the centre of the universe….Unless we are willing to change the underlying cultural and religious value structure that has combined with the social and economic dynamics of unrestrained capitalistic accumulation, the health of ( the planet) is likely to deteriorate even further”[11]

It may possibly be less of a challenge for the world at large to acknowledge and encourage Christian activities that would seek to preserve the wonders of the natural world, but the reality is that international trade, founded upon human exchange and interchange exists. Like any other aspect of life involving relationships within the created order in a fallen world, it is in need of redemption and transformation. In seeking to bring this dimension of human existence under the values of Christ’s Kingdom, the world of international trade has to meet with the incarnate Christ. This can only come through the active application of Christ-like attitudes and principles by those faith communities that themselves have experienced and understood His living presence within them.

Writing in a web article espousing engagement on the grounds of Christian ethics, Holler says:

“We need social policies and laws that at least attempt to ensure equity and justice in the economic system for all people. That’s why I thought (my Christian denomination) needed a global trade expert who could operate deftly in both social ethics and global economic policy…. (yet) Our churches and educational systems have not caught up to preparing us for global awareness and a few loud voices are actually opposed to it.”[12]

William Carey, the Baptist Missionary presented in 1792 a seminal treatise that has influenced much modern mission, [13] and in which he quotes from the prophet Isaiah: “Surely the Isles shall wait for me; the ships of Tarshish first, to bring my sons from far, their silver, and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord, thy God” (Isaiah 60.9). Isaiah 60 is a prophecy into the Kingdom to come, and this sentence reveals a very positive future for international trade. The ships of Tarshish were trading vessels transporting goods around the then-known world, and for Carey “this much therefore must be meant by it, that navigation, especially that which is commercial, shall be one great means of carrying on the work of God; and perhaps it may imply that there shall be a very considerable appropriation of wealth to that purpose.”[14]

In the same way that Paul the Apostle provides a practical application to Carey’s theory, and incarnated Christ into the maritime world through his own international journeys[15], so too is it incumbent upon Christians to do the same in the globalised maritime environment of the twenty-first century.

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Bibliography

Books:

Northcott, M. S. (2007) A Moral Climate – the Ethics of Global Warming DLT, London

Hodson, M.J. & M.R. (2008) Cherishing the Earth – How to care for God’s creation Monarch, Oxford

Steger, M.B (revised 2009) Globalization – a very short introduction OUP, Oxford

Bhagwati ,J. (2004) In Defense (sic) of Globalization OUP, USA

Harris, P. (2008) Kingfisher’s Fire – A Story of Hope for God’s Earth Monarch, Oxford

Bellefontaine N & Linden O (ed.) (2009) Impacts of Climate Change on the Maritime Industry WMU, Malmø

Leichenko R.M. & O’Brien K.L (2008) Environmental Change AND Globalization – Double Exposures OUP USA

Articles:

Murithi Mutiga ( 2009) Rising Sea Could Swallow Mombasa in 20 Years http://allafrica.com/stories/200906280011.html

Hollon L. Social Ethics, Global Trade and Christian Faith http://perspectives.larryhollon.com/?p=1201

McGilchrist D. The Ships of Tarshish http://insidework.net/featured/the-ships-of-tarshish

Freeman Dyson. Speaking out against Climate Change BBC Focus Magazine August 2007

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[1] http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Mombasa

[2] Northcott, p.8

[3] Northcott, pp. 15-16

[4] Bicknell, J, Dodman D, Satterthwaite, D (eds) (2009) Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Understanding and Addressing the Development Challenges Earthscan London

[5] Murithi Mutiga, The Daily Nation, Kenya: Rising Sea Could Swallow Mombasa in 20 Years 27 June 2009

[6] Steger p.87

[7] M Segar Abdullah in “Environmental Challenges for Shipping and Port Activities”, Bellefontaine & Linden p.60

[8] Northcott p. 36

[9] Bruntland G H Our Common Future report from the United Nations World Commission on Environment & Development 1987

[10] Simiyu as quoted in Harris p.96

[11] Steger pp84 & 86

[12] Holler: Social Ethics, Global Trade and Christian Faith http://perspectives.larryhollon.com/?p=1201

[13] Carey Wm. An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/enquiry.html

[14] Carey p. 68 in Section IV as quoted by McGilchrist

[15] E.g. Acts 21:2-4

CRES Module 1 The Living World Is Creation always and forever good?

Is Creation always and forever good?

Introduction

This paper seeks to begin to explore the Christian conviction that Creation is good, and that it is the work of a good Creator, particularly in the face of suffering and decay within the non-human world. It will also give consideration to the Biblical picture of a new created order at the end of time, and how Creation transformed will reflect the variety and indeed voracity of this good Creation.

“In the beginning God created….God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” Genesis 1:1- 31 (The Bible - New International Version)

The popular television wildlife series: Springwatch (© BBC) annually opens up the treasure trove of the natural world to millions of viewers, and, together with many other high quality documentaries, regularly bring fresh insights into the wonders of the non-human world well within the reach of “everyman”. There is no doubt that we live in times of great abundance in terms of knowledge and understanding of the natural world, and its variety and beauty, and at the same time, an increased awareness of just how seemingly brutal and violent much of nature is. Even the most domesticated and naïve of wildlife enthusiasts cannot escape the reality that nature is “red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson – In memoriam), and the seemingly callous, and ultimately fatal, attack of a magpie upon a juvenile blackbird, observed no more than ten meters from the back door of an urban garden is sufficient to raise the question: “how good is creation?”

This is of course, only a problem to those who would seek to hold on to a belief in a benevolent Creator God: “The crux of the problem is not the overall system and its overall goodness, but the Christian’s struggle with the challenge and goodness of God posed by specific cases of innocent suffering”[1]

Predation, disease and parasitism, and indeed extinction of species are all examples of suffering in non-human nature, none of which can easily be described from an anthropocentric world-view as “good”. For the evolutionary scientist, the brutality of nature is an inevitable, and indeed necessary part of non-human existence, and in the process individual species have developed into finely-tuned, efficient killing machines. For the Christian scientist, seeking to hold the notion of a good creation and a good Creator in tension with the reality of nature, there is no easy solution: “I still struggle with evil in the natural world – the brutality of nature.”[2]

The Biblical assertion in the book of Genesis about the goodness of creation in the eyes of the Creator, is modified by later scriptures, which, like Genesis were written under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, with Paul in Romans 8:22 describing a creation, groaning in travail, a creation longing for its transformation at the coming of the Lord Jesus. Whilst ultimately the Christian holds out a belief in a future hope for the complete renewal of creation, there equally needs to be a present acknowledgement of the goodness that the Creator saw in His creation, and which He, being beyond time and space, still sees in it as the processes of creation continue. “Ecologists today realize that the world is not a static system, in which natural processes operate according to a fixed, predetermined pattern, but one that is evolving in response to a complex range of variables. The cycle of death and decay is necessary for life…”[3]

It is prudent, therefore, for the Christian, wrestling with these ethical tensions, to maintain a degree of humility, recognising that human perceptions and assumptions about goodness will inevitably not fully reflect the way that goodness is to God, until His good and loving purposes are fully and finally known.

“The wolf will live with the lamb; the leopard will lie down with the goat”” Isaiah 11:6 (The Bible - New International Version)

The nature of the new created order at the end of time forms the basis for the second part of this paper, and, not surprisingly, any consideration in the realm of the world to come, will inevitably draw heavily on imagination, as “we don’t yet see things clearly…but it won’t belong before …we’ll see it all as clearly as God sees us” (1 Corinthians 13:12) The Bible – The Message translation), or as Southgate puts it: “It is very hard to see how the leopardness of leopards could be fulfilled in eschatological coexistence with kids”[4].

Our comprehension of the world is constrained by our mortal physical experiences, and yet the core conviction of the Christian faith is that through God’s redemptive initiatives, fully and finally worked out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a new relationship between Creator and creation is secured. “There is in the Bible no redemption, no social and personal life, apart from creation. It is therefore reasonable… to hold that the Bible as a whole is concerned with the future of creation”[5]

Indeed, it is a reasonable to suggest further that “only in the light of the eschatological consummation may the [the verdict “very good”] be said of our world as it is in all its confusion and pain.”[6]

A Christian theology of the new creation has to allow space for the existence of representatives of every species ever created by the One who declares it good, whilst at the same time has to have the humility to admit, to use the words from the title of the well-known and currently popular hymn: “I cannot tell…. But this I know”.

The Christian does know the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how in His resurrection appearances He was encountered by His followers in a new physical and spiritual dimension, no longer constrained by time and space, yet immediately recognizable as the Jesus who had lived amongst them, and who had the scars to show of His complete embracing of mortality.

In the final book of the Bible, a new created order is proclaimed: “I am making all things new”, (Rev.21:5 NIV), and the environment features as part of that new creation: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month”. Whilst it should always be allowed that the Creator can enable alternative means of pollination in His new created order, an acceptance that the bee, whose species is currently engaged in that process of creation is part of the creation declared to be good, and therefore destined to be part of that new order, albeit, with a transformed nature which diminishes its capacity to inflict lasting pain and suffering through its sting!

Conclusion

The inspired Word of God, the Bible, asserts that Creation is good, and is the handiwork of a good Creator. Science reveals a wonderful and complex variety of characteristics within non-human nature, including elements which do not sit comfortably with an innocent understanding of goodness. The goodness, which Christians are encouraged to consider as an essential characteristic of Creation has to allow space for both the variety and voracity of nature, which is “red in tooth and claw”. It therefore follows, that a Christian understanding of the nature of a good God, has to consider a broader concept of goodness, than one understand from a purely human moral and ethical point of view. When God says His Creation is good, that affirmation brings with it an endorsement of all such characteristics which make non-human life forms different, and even those which have an inherent tendency to cause suffering for others.

Furthermore, the Bible holds out the prospect of a new creation order at the time of the fulfilment of all of Gods good and loving purposes, a foretaste of which is revealed in the resurrection nature of Jesus Christ. His physical body, still retains and reveals scars from His active engagement within human mortality, whilst at the same time demonstrates characteristics that are no longer bound by time or space. A new created order will surely still reveal the rich variety of all forms of non-human life, even those species which have survived and thrived as a consequence of predatory supremacy, and accordingly will retain and reveal characteristics that will enable them to be identified as specific species with differentiating attributes, but, at the same time, something new and different, akin to the resurrection characteristics of Jesus, and as yet, not evident to mortal humanity, will be revealed.

A further consequence of the transformation that will be brought about by this new creation order, will also surely be, the ability for all of Creation, human and non-human, to fully comprehend the mind and workings of the Creator, so that any present lack of clarity or conviction as to what might be good in God’s sight, is removed, or rendered irrelevant in the everlasting presence of the Lord of all.

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Bibliography

Books:

Berry. R.J. (ed.) (2000) The Care of Creation – Focussing Concern and Action IVP, Leicester

Marlow, Hilary (2008) The Earth is the Lord’s – A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues, Grove Books, Cambridge

Southgate, Christopher (2008) The Groaning of Creation – God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil. Westminster John Knox Press, London

Wenham, Gordon J (1987) Word Biblical Commentary – Genesis 1-15 Word Books, Waco, Texas

Wilkinson, David (2002) The Message of Creation – Encountering the Lord of the Universe Bible Speaks Today, Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham

Articles:

Wilkinson D. (2009) ­God, the Universe and everything! Interview in A Rocha magazine issue 30

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[1] Southgate p.13

[2] Wilkinson in A Rocha p. 13

[3] Marlow p.12

[4] Southgate p.86

[5] Gunton C. Christ and Creation; The Didsbury Lectures 1992 quoted in Southgate p. 81

[6] Pannenberg W. – Systematic Theology Vol 3 1993 quoted in Southgate p.16