Originally written as a reflection paper for Globalization, The Poor, and Christian Mission, a class I'm taking at Fuller Theological Seminary toward my MAGL.
Scholars generally agree that globalization is a very long-term process. Many trace globalization back at least to the 15th century explorers. However, in the past couple of decades, globalization has begun to rapidly bring about a new ordering of the world. Fareed Zakaria makes the assertion that the rise of the rest of the world is soon creating a world where America is not the dominant world power. This book has very important implications for my personal life as well as for ministry. The dominant nation in the world can afford to be provincial in outlook, but a nation that is in the thick of competition cannot. As American Christians, and as an American Christian church, we must increase our awareness and involvement with the world around us, rather than focusing locally.
The world has been a “Western world” for over 500 years (Zakaria 2011, 65). During that time, America was colonized, established, and grew to dominance on the world stage. America may be likened, in this way, to an adult who has lived a sheltered youth. With no understanding of the world around her, she continues to think herself the center of the universe. This has led to the buildup of some anti-Western frustration around the world (Zakaria 2011, 36). The world is opening up, however, even as America is closing down (Zakaria 2011, 60), and this is leading to the rapid rise and growth of the rest of the world. Indeed, Americans are still not broadly oriented outwardly (Zakaria 2011, 58).
This process is strikingly similar to the process of the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity. Over the last hundred years, the center of Christianity has shifted to the “global south” which includes the Eastern world (Jenkins 2007, 1). Many Christians have been slow to accept this phenomenon, continuing to cling to a conception of Christianity as a white, Western religion (Rah 2009, 13). America still believes itself to be the dominant leader of Christianity, but the rest of the world has risen and now American Christians are just one of many players on the stage. The task then, is the same for American Christians as it is for Americans as a whole: throw off their blinders and release the world from an American and Western captivity, which stands contrast to reality (Rah 2009, 20). For Christians, we must remember that our narrative is not one of globalization, but of people in relationships with God and each other (Groody 2010, 25). God’s story is far broader than ours, and he is no respecter of people groups.
The new post-American world means that I must become a global American. Being insular in my outlook would be contributing to the problem, rather than being part of the solution. I cannot be uninformed about the world. A study showed that 21 percent of American news coverage was internationally-focused, and the majority of that focused on US foreign affairs (Ghemawat 2011, 26). That means that less than 10 percent of the readily-available news media is on international affairs that are not immediately related to the US. I need to break free from that and be aware of global happenings and develop at least a basic understanding of world history, culture, politics, and current affairs. This will allow me to operate as a global citizen, rather than merely an American citizen.
Second, I must become a global Christian. Rather than continuing to think of my own theology as the baseline theology that must be contextualized into other contexts, I need to think of the Bible as the baseline theology that had to be contextualized to become American. This means that, before I export my own beliefs, I need to give thought to stripping away American lenses from them. I have a great deal to learn from Christians around the world, and to learn this I need to engage with Christians around the world. This may mean travelling, or it may simply mean reading their works and having dialogue with them through the wonders of globalizing technology.
Finally, it means that my church must become global. Without diminishing the crucial importance of local mission and community outreach, the American Church, and my church in particular, must become immediately engaged internationally. My local church recently allowed its entire international mission program, which had been a vibrant and thriving part of the congregation for many years, to come to a complete halt. Shutting down and outsourcing all international mission work, it has stepped away from sending missionaries overseas. This is a regression from the direction implied by globalization and the coming post-American world. The church should be even more focused on becoming involved internationally, especially in ways that are nationally-led rather than American-led. The church ought to seek out existing local mission efforts abroad that it can support and be involved in, not as leader, but as a resource.
Furthermore, globalization and the shifting center of Christianity means that success in mission requires resources from all over the globe. Western societies have become mission fields themselves, with missionaries coming from the global south to revive Western Christianity (Escobar 2003, 18, 162-165). Therefore, the American church, and my church in particular, need to seek out opportunities to bring non-Western missionaries to our community. We ought to recognize that receiving missionaries may be one of the best ways to reach the non-white members of our community, who likely have more in common with overseas missionaries than with our church staff. Biblical mission work establishes reciprocal relationships (Escobar 2003, 157), and my church has the opportunity to create these both abroad and locally.
In conclusion, I, and my fellow American Christians, must increase our awareness and activity globally. It is no longer enough to act locally and think locally, nor is it even enough to think globally. The slogan of the “glocal” movement was once “Act locally, think globally.” In a truly globalized world, and especially as Americans in a post-American world, we must also act globally. The blessing of technology means that acting globally is no longer exclusively possible by long-distance travel, although that can never be replaced. We must expand our outlook globally, then follow that up with true reciprocal global action that goes to the world and simultaneously receives from the world, all in a deep posture of humility. God’s story of the entire world existed before American Christianity, and it will exist long after we are gone. We are merely brief actors upon His stage.
Works Cited
Escobar, Samuel. 2003. The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone. Edited by David Smith, Christian Doctrine in Global Perspective. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Ghemawat, Pankaj. 2011. World 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Groody, Daniel G. 2010. Globalization, Spirituality, and Justice. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Reprint, Seventh.
Jenkins, Philip. 2007. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Revised and Expanded ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Rah, Soong-Chan. 2009. The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Zakaria, Fareed. 2011. The Post-American World, Release 2.0. Release 2.0 ed. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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