With globalization, church must offer different view

By Linda Green*

The Rev. Joerg Rieger explores the church's role in globalization as he delivers the Willson Lecture to the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.A UMNS photo by Donnie Reed.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)-Making a difference as a church in an age of increasing globalization requires a new level of engagement with biblical resources and the resources of the Christian tradition.

Such was the challenge presented to higher education leaders in The United Methodist Church by the Rev. Joerg Rieger, professor of systematic theology at United Methodist-related Perkins School of Theology in Dallas.

Rieger has written extensively about the intersection of Christian theology with economics, globalization and poverty. He delivered the Willson Lecture Oct. 10 to the governing members of the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

Globalization today is about the aggressive expansion of the free-market economy, driven by a philosophy that firmly "believes in the trickling down of its benefits and in its God-given freedom," Rieger said. But critics warn of increased suffering and disorder for the world's poorest people under the new paradigm.

The process of globalization doesn't end with economics and politics. Rieger warns that the powers of globalization seek to extend their rule into culture and religion and will not stop until they reach "our innermost selves."

A big part of meeting the global challenge, he said, is to investigate the Bible in a "historical self-critical mode" to see what messages it offers and what responses it calls for from the church in a changing world. The interpretation needs more "bite" and can no longer be approached as "if we were living in isolation, in the ivory towers of the academy or the ivory towers of the church."

There also is no turning back, and the changes must be faced honestly, according to Rieger.
Challenging globalization may be like "trying to push a camel through the eye of the needle," he said, adding that "unless we address these real issues that make it impossible for us to enter the kingdom of God, the life of the church will be reduced to playing sandbox games.

"Even our most pious and spiritual moments are located in the context of the global expansion of power," Rieger said.

Global power, he notes, moves from the top down-from people who have it to those who do not. Religion, meanwhile, plays a role. "Religion is never an uninvolved bystander," he said.

The church's calling is to promote a bottom-up philosophy related to power. After all, the philosophy is among the guiding principles of Methodism founder John Wesley, who said religion must not go from the greatest to the least, lest power would appear to be of men. Wesley realized that religion could "go the other way around," starting from the bottom with "the least of these." The Methodist movement depended on the common man to multiply Wesley's message.

Globalization today shapes culture, religion and the ways people think and feel as individuals, families and communities. Unless the flow of power and how it affects all aspects of life are analyzed, "we are bound to become part of the problem rather than the solution," Rieger said of the church's role.

The Apostle Paul rejected the greatest-to-the-least concept of leadership within the Roman Empire and instead saw Jesus' model of leadership and power as an alternative-one that both challenges the empire and spreads the Gospel.

"Christ's power as Lord decidedly moves from the bottom up and generates a new way of being in the world," he said, noting that the United Methodist mission is a bottom-up approach to globalization by making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Rieger hopes that seminaries and theological schools will help the church impact globalization by developing new leadership models that are more accountable to the alternative kind of leadership that God demonstrated in Jesus Christ. Theological education is not just about the training of new ministers but about ongoing education needed by everyone at all levels of ministry in the church.

"We are all in this together and we are all learning all the time," he said.

The annual Willson Lectures are designed, in part, to contribute to the spiritual and intellectual enrichment of people associated with boards and agencies of The United Methodist Church.

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.