Bringing God's Glory to All Nations in this Global Era

by Rosana B. Golez

Globalization
Power brokers claim it is a new global order in progress. Liberal elements assess it as neo-colonialism. Vast disadvantaged sectors and struggling countries await the tangible benefits it promises.

Globalization is a complex concept, which involves various ways whereby nations are being drawn together through the flow of capital, goods/services, ideas/information and technology. It refers to an increase in human interdependence, political realignment, and multiculturalism. The globalization phenomenon affects world health, human rights, social justice and the environment. Peoples in many parts of the world are woven closer together via information and mass communication technologies and are affected with interconnected developments. On the macro-economic level, the web of trans-border relations encroaches on national sovereignty.

Increased mobility due to poverty, war and modern technology has caused an unprecedented diaspora of peoples. At least 400 million people travel across international borders, creating shared cultures. There are Berbers in Morocco drinking Coke while watching Baywatch reruns and Caucasians donning ethnic apparel from India, sending emails to Chinese suppliers while eating at a Mexican restaurant in Hollywood.

Much of what we see in globalization is the result of man's inherent drive for money and power. But globalization is also a tool that God is using to extend His kingdom to the ends of the earth.

Origin of a Global Plan
The term globalization began to gain ground about three decades ago. Yet the dream of a global village is as old as men's ambition for world domination. From early civilizations to the end of the Cold war in 1991, history has been overlaid with telling epochs of man's efforts to govern the world. Chapter 11 of Genesis records man's efforts to unite in a God-free system. Islamic forces in the 8th century conquered much of the Middle East, North Africa and most of Spain, to set the stage for a world under the Islamic religious system. In 1859, Karl Marx called for a worldwide working class revolution, which would supposedly lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat and eliminate the need for God. Could the current call for a New Global Order be one more attempt at world domination? Only time will tell.

We can glean much from the account of creation as to why men seek to control the world. Genesis 1:27 (NIV) declared "God created man in His own image… male and female He created them." After God blessed them He said, "Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over…" Hence, mankind is endowed with the noble task to steward and lead over all of God's creation on earth.

After humankind sinned against God by eating of the forbidden fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, depraved humanity found two opposing devices, good and evil, to use in fulfilling its obligation to rule the earth. The world arena has become a battlefield between the evil one and the kingdom of God. This is the field upon which globalization is battling.

Economics and Globalization
The World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund broker agreements that steer countries and regions towards free trade. The economic interests of powerful states and corporations are determining the terms of world trade. The current globalization of markets in the name of free market comes in conjunction with capitalistic finance and the information age. Open markets are achieved through deregulation, which means relaxation of environmental policies and tariffs. Free trade zones in developing countries are hubs where transnational factories relocate to benefit from cheap labor, tax breaks and other cost-reducing perks.

Those with power manipulate prices of commodities while suppressing wages to maximize profits. American workers in the garment industry lost jobs to the world market many years ago. Today, software writers and even financial researchers are also losing their jobs to the world market, according to a May 2003 article in Time Magazine. The jobs continue to go where people will work for the lowest wages. Ultimately, unregulated markets can lead to the rise of international monopolies that benefit a privileged few to the detriment of the burgeoning 6.1 billion people living mostly in the two-thirds world.

Free trade has harmed farmers in the two-thirds world. Since 1997, world coffee prices have declined by 70 percent for local growers in the two-thirds world while big coffee companies rake healthy profits. From Asia, Africa to Latin America about 25 million farmers who depend on coffee for jobs face a severe crisis. Thanks to free trade, the oversupply of coffee is flooding the market and driving the price down. Multinational companies such as Kraft, Sara Lee and Procter & Gamble buy nearly half of the world's coffee beans at 24 cents a pound and sell them at an average of $3.6/lb. The world's leading rice producers, China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand fear prices of rice will continue to fall. How will local farmers be able to make a profit if they have to compete with the lowest prices worldwide?

Countries and Regions in the Emerging Markets
The success of once devastated Asian economies like Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Singapore may be rooted in more than just free markets. They used protectionist measures when their industries were young. They restricted imports and bolstered exports to wealthy nations.

China with 1.3 billion people, has experienced economic growth of about five percent a year for the last two decades while India registered dramatic economic growth for the last decade when they opened their nation to free enterprise. China, the world's emerging global factory, is strengthened by massive foreign investments in manufacturing. China is attempting to upgrade local enterprises with greater industrial sophistication so they can compete on the world market. But there is a widening gap between the rich and poor in both China and India which will continue to get worse until it is addressed by their governments.

With 500 million people, Africa is afflicted with lawlessness, ethnic strife, civil war, drought, famine, AIDS, and international debt. The Africans have seen poverty worsen despite foreign corporate investments in diamond trading and industrialization along with a US trade law designed to enhance the underdeveloped industrial sectors.

Latin America has 150 million people living on less than two dollars a day. The shift of factory work from Mexico to China is due to the latter's lower labor cost and sophisticated base of suppliers, tax breaks, well trained engineers, and efficient ports. The challenges for Latin American nations are to diversify their economies and to negotiate a real free trade agreement within the Americas.

In the Middle East, there are leaders that view globalization as an American imperialist tool that must be countered by politicized Islam. For years to come these oil rich nations will be targeted by both global business interests and Islamic militant groups.

Space does not permit us to describe the global, Western-oriented youth culture, and the emergence of English as a world trade language. These factors tend to dilute the unique cultures of the world and promote some of the most ungodly aspects of Western culture as well. Television programming in India and China, for example, encourage youths to become sexually active before they marry. We may see sexual morals decline in the years to come.

What Can God Do with Globalization?
The world is far removed from the ideal God has had for humanity to rule the earth since the days of Genesis. But in the darkness, the light can shine brighter. We have the assurance of our global God that He will use us to bless all nations of the earth (Gen.12:3). The global Church is in the midst of a final thrust to lead the multitudes from every tribe, nation and language to worship the One true God (Rev: 5:9).

Gone are the days when mission work is done solely by Westerners. As people have come to Christ in the two-thirds world, many of these newer believers are sharing their faith among the unreached peoples. God now has an enormous, unstoppable force to harvest the nations for Christ.

As mentioned earlier, one aspect of globalization is that people are moving around the globe like never before. Many of these non-Western Christians are located in strategic places throughout the globe. There are large numbers of Filipinos living among some of the world's least reached Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula. Han Chinese Christians are all over the world. They have a unique opportunity to share Christ wherever they are doing business in the global economy.

The expanded communication systems of the 21st century have been used for economic globalization, but they can also be used for the propagation of the gospel. Today, the worldwide web can be God's tool to get His message into the most resistant lands.

Globalization is being used as a tool of the forces of darkness, but it is also being used by God. It can be a highway to doom or transformation. With that in mind, let's pray.

• Pray for God to use globalization for His purposes.
• Pray for God to curtail Satan's agenda for globalization.