Rev. Dra. Ofelia Ortega

“Biblical – Theological Answers to Globalization”

Our Church dilemma in front of FTAA

(Free Treat Agreements of America):

The most important thing of this class should

be the unanimous purpose of raising our

voices to prophetically denounce a process,

which according to many economy experts,

has been secretly dealt.

The committee, which has been working since the end of the year 1999,

integrated by the vice ministers of trade of each country (except Cuba), has

totally worked without taking into account the demands of the civil society

and the demands of the Second Summit of the People of the America in

their declaration of April 19th, 2001 in which it is affirmed that:

“Neither the people of the region, nor the diverse group of union and social

organizations, nor the parliaments have been able to participate on the debates

nor to know the detail of the agreements. On the contrary, with great cynicism,

the negotiators affirm that they have taken note of the recommendations of the

Managerial Forum of the America.”

“And these recommendations have been

valuable contributions to the process of the

FTAA. The governments prepare

themselves, in a few weeks, to secretly sign

a treaty behind the people’s back and

threaten to radically deepen the terrible

consequences that the effective neo-liberal

politics afforded”

As Germán Gutiérrez, from the Ecumenical

Department of Investigation of San José, Costa

Rica, affirms:

“The main objective of U.S. in the FTAA is to

strengthen its domain over Latin America and

the Caribbean, inside the context of their

economic confrontation with the European

Union and Japan and to exclude the latter from

their influence in the region.”

“It is about to narrow the control over Latin America in the conflict for markets

or investments, for placement of speculative capitals, but mainly for the access

to natural and energy resources, petroleum fundamentally, for the access to

the drinkable water that is another great interest; and for the access to the

wealth of biodiversity of the region.”

We have to admit, that at the present time, winds of reaction prevail against

the social values and the humanitarian attitudes. The power is in hands of

those that manage the financial capital and control the most important

markets in the world. These impose a neo-liberal vision, which attempts

against the people’s expectations. Life is difficult, especially for those that

lack privileges.

Another objective is to destroy the

current intents of economical

integration of Latin American and

Caribbean that promote relationships

with other economical areas of the

world in order to attenuate its

excessive dependence on the North

American economy”

Those that dominate seek to impose a vision

according to which we come closer to the “end

of the history.” Or with other words; that the

transition that we are experiencing is definitive

and it can not be reverted. Simplifying their

message, we can say that their vision is that of

a world formed by winners and losers. The

winners are those able to compete, to be

aggressive and to be authoritarian. The losers

are most of the population of the planet.

However who sees history with the eyes of faith in the God that calls, has the

conviction that the human beings can not definitively determine the historical

processes. It is God who moves history, not the human beings.

This conviction was already expressed by a prophet in times that the life of

the community of believers was extremely difficult, in moments that there was

little or any hope. In their proclamation, the prophet called up the people to

believe, not to give up.

“Turn to the Lord and pray to him,

now that he is near. Let the wicked

leave their way of life and change

their way of thinking. Let them turn

to the Lord, our God; he merciful

and quick to forgive”.

Then the Lord says: “My thoughts

are not like yours, and my ways

are different from yours. As high as

the heavens are above the earth,

so high are my ways and thoughts

above yours” (Is. 55: 6-9).

The prophetic word points out to a mystery of

history: the final result of the historical processes will

always escape to the control of the established

powers. This means that we have to expose the

ideology that proclaims the end of history and the

definitive character of the domain over the world on

the part of the established powers. It is necessary to

clearly establish that powers generate injustice!

An incompatibility exists between its regime and the promises of the gospel,

where it is said that Mary, Jesus' mother who praised the Lord after she

received the news that she was conceiving the Son of God, went to see

Elisabeth and sang: “He has stretched out his mighty arm and scattered the

proud with all their plans. He has brought down mighty kings from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the

rich away with empty hands.” (Lucas 1: 51-53)

We have to recognize that the biblical

texts were written in different historical

periods. However, they are always

related with very concrete economical

and political contexts. In certain

historical periods God’s message was

directed to kings and feudal lords.

From the century VIII b.c. the biblical texts confronted the new economy

dominated by the private proprietors, the credit, the money and the

mechanisms of debts. This new economy was developed in the political

atmosphere of the empires of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome.

Different biblical traditions in

different contexts:

The absolute power about the property

introduced by Greece in the century VIII b.c

introduced an endless chain of loans,

interests on the loans, the debtor's slavery

and absolute prevalence of poverty. It was

necessary to pay tributes and taxes to the

imperial powers; all these mechanisms led to

poverty and hunger, to slavery and even to

death (Nehemías 5; 1-5).

When we understand the context and what happened in this historical

period, we find many reading keys that can help us in our specific situation

in front of the contemporary International Financial Institutions.

Examining the biblical texts from the perspective of justice, four

fundamental biblical traditions can help us to be able to define how to

settle down and to maintain fair economic relationships, which can serve

as specific points of reference and guide even nowadays.

The biblical writers affirm that God

can mobilize different against-

strategies in front of the mechanisms

that lead to poverty, to hunger and

slavery in its people, creating, at the

same time, alternatives for what we

can call the structural and corporate

sin.

This biblical tradition calls us to:

1. To criticize the injustices prophetically

and to create new visions.

2. To support all the possible legal

reformations so that the political and

economical structures serve the

theology of life.

3. To courageously resist the totalitarian and globalizing powers and to

try the alternatives that the Kingdom of God offers us to live.

4. To live and to promote those alternatives that we have to go

discovering in the practical daily experience of our people.

Prophetic Critic of the

injustices and creation of the

new visions:

A great number of churches have

begun to follow the examples of

the prophets, criticizing the

injustices and creating new visions.

The Churches in the Pacific have developed a alternative vision called “the

Hope Island” as an answer to the challenge of the economical Globalization.

The “Cry of the Excluded Movement” in Latin America constitutes a sign of

hope in the Continent. We have among us Bishop Federico Pagura that has

been one of the initiators of this process.

The World Council of Churches, in an answer to this economic dominance,

responds that:

3. The dominance of globalization should be

challenged by the creation of effective

institutions of global ruling - (United Nations).

A concrete form of responding to this

dominant phenomenon of the economical

globalization is to support the United Nations

as a structure that tries to carry out a fair

world order).

1. The vision of globalization should be challenged by the vision of our faith.

2. The logic of globalization should also be challenged by alternative forms of

life in community.

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches is wrapped in a “process

confessions” in connection with all the economical injustices and the ecological

destruction considering this process as an integral part of the reformed faith

and of the confession of that faith nowadays.

The Lutheran World Federation has expressed the same commitment in a

process that they call “Facing the Economical Globalization with the concept

and the practice of our Communion”

The prophet Isaiah (5:8) criticizes the

accumulation of wealth through property, credit,

interests and mechanisms of debt. In the same

way Jesus challenges the rich proprietors of the

earth in Marc 10: 21 indicating that he knows

that the wealth in that system is derived from the

exploitation of the poor. At the same time the

prophets also present us the vision of justice in

all moment (Isaiah 60:21-22)

The basic ideological pattern in which the International Monetary Fund and

the World bank is based should be prophetically criticized in the light of the

biblical teachings.

Of course the economists of those

institutions affirm that they are based on

the science and not in the ideology. They

try to force us so that we believe that the

pattern of mercantile growth that they offer

leads to the good common, this is opposed

to all the empiric evidences that manifest

the opposite.

The rhetoric of the IMF and the World Bank is simply distorted in the

analysis of the reality that our live.

The alternative vision should be:

- No economy can be considered

successful if it is not socially

ecologically and democratically

successful at the same time.

Consequent with our ethical

principles we should reject all the

“Programs to reduce Poverty” from

the IMF and the World Bank until

they stop imposing the structural

adjustments and the continuous

collection of interests and payment

of the debts for the benefit of the

rich at the expense of the poor.

- The human beings are not for the

economy but the economy is for the

human beings.

Defence of the legal reformations:

There is a theory that the money was

historically linked to a new economy related

to the property that was created in the VIII

century b.c.

In the first place, the emphasis in the property (the land) was a fruit of the fight

of the peasants against the feudal lords that possibly led to the formation of

the polis (city-state). But the value of the property led to the credit system by

means of which those that requested credit had to pay not only the capital but

also the interest.

On one hand as the work force and the land of

the family they had to be a guarantee for the

credit, if families could not pay the credit they

had to suffer the loss of the land and slavery,

on the other hand, the moneylenders could

accumulate more and more lands, slaves and

money.

The prophets strongly criticized these mechanisms (Isaiah 5:8). Also the

legal reformations of the “The book of Covenant” (Exodus 21-23),

Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code (in the book of Leviticus) provide

measures that were taken in Israel to counterattack these mechanisms, for

example, the prohibition of the interests charge and the regulation of

guarantees (Exodus 21:27) the regular cancellation of the debts every 7

years (Deuteronomy 15:1-2) and the redistribution of the land every 50

years (the “jubilee” of Leviticus 25).

The basic theological argument is: “the land belongs to God” (Lev. 25: 23);

therefore, each family should have its means of production, for the support of

its family. The same thing is true for all the human beings. They should not be

enslaved. They belong to God who freed them from the slavery of Egypt (Lev.

25: 29).

The Bible is very clear in connection with the legal

reformations that have to break the absolute will

of property and money and to create a fair

distribution of the wealth created in the society. In

consequence the states should be agents that

facilitate the common good of the countries. This

means that they have to regulate the economy

according to social, ecological and democratic

approaches.

To resist with anger:

The resistance can be the only option

when the prophecy and the legal

reformations fail and the economical and

political powers become totalitarian.

This was the case in the time of the Hellenistic-Roman empires. The Book of

Daniel tells us the history of the three men that refused to lean before the

statue of gold that symbolized the absolute, political, economical and

ideological power of the imperial power.

The risk was that they would be burnt alive. They are miraculously saved from

the fire but this is not enough guarantee in the resistance. The resistance can

lead to the suffering.

Jesus suffered in the cross for his “civil disobedience.” He challenged the

central economical power of the priests of the temple of Jerusalem, who

betraying their people, were protected by the Roman Empire. Jesus attacked

those that supported the sacrificial system exploiting the poor (Marc 11:15).

This resistance can take different forms:

1. To reject the legitimation of the neo-liberal

pattern. This system serves to the totalitarian

power of the transnational capital through the

mechanisms of the global economy and the

instruments such as IMF and the World Bank.

2. To let know the feet of mud of the system

exposing their vulnerability and the present

and future disasters (Daniel 2: 43-45), to follow

strategies that ridicule the system and help us to conquer fear that we can

show of their absolute power.

3. To not cooperate with the terms that the IMF and the World Bank

impose.

4. To participate in campaigns that lead us to a fundamental

transformation of the mechanisms of control of the IMF and the

World Bank.

5. It is necessary to resist all cooperation

with the macro-economic paradigm of

the IMF and the WB; that imposes the

impoverishment of the poor at great

scales and the global enrichment of the

rich. We should also help to dismantle

the apparent democratic genuineness of

these global financial institutions.

The system tells us: “there is not

alternative.” Jesus helped the poor and

hungry multitudes guiding them to share

what they had at hand building this way

what we call “The economy of the Grace of

God” (Marc 6:35 and 8:1).

There are local and regional alternatives that can be implemented and

supported by the churches and the congregations.

The Primitive Church challenged the system of the private property and

emphasized the necessity to share all the possible resources, what allowed

that those primitive communities became witness of the full life in God (that is

to say the resurrection), trying that there were not poor among them (Facts 4:

32).

Visions and alternative projects of life:

Conclusion:

We would like to finish with the proposals of

Franz I. Hinkelammert and Henry M. Mora in

“Coordinación Social del Trabajo, Mercado y

Reproducción de la Vida Humana” book on

which they say the necessity that we have of an

ethic of good common.

This ethics of common good has to be of resistance, of interpellation, of

intervention and of transformation.

This ethics introduces values. Value to which any calculation of utility (or of

own interest) has to be subjected. They are the values of the respect to the

human being, to its life in all dimensions, and of respect to the life of nature.

They are values of the mutual recognitions

among the human beings, including in this

recognition the natural being of all human

being and the recognition on behalf of the

human beings toward the external nature to

them. They are values that are not justified

for calculable advantages in terms of utility

or of the own interest.

These values question the system, and on their behalf it is required to

exercise resistance to intervene it or to transform it. The common good is this

process in which the values of the common good are faced up to the system

to question it, to intervene it and to transform it.

Nevertheless, they are the base of the human life, without which this is

destroyed in the most elementary sense of the word. Its principle is: Nobody

can live, if the other can not live.

The values of the common good are not

laws or norms; they are approaches on

laws and norms. In consequence, their

force is the resistance, the

interpellation, the intervention and the

transformation.

We have to actively work around

concrete and feasible alternatives to

the neo-liberal pattern of economic

integration to the service of the great

transnational corporations.

The calendars of the social movements will go appearing,

strengthening the great dream to which we, all the Latin Americans

and Caribbean, aspire that are able to live in a society where we all fit,

in a society even more humanized and involved, in which the values

and approaches of life, peace, solidarity and coexistence are always

imposed to the values of war, power and domain, vanity and

vengeance.