The Challenge and Impact of Globalization: Towards a Biblical Response
Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 2002. 194 pages. S$14.90.
Editors: Tong Suit Chee and Allan Wong
IN 2002, the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore, with the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship as a co-sponsor, organised a seminar on “The Challenge and Impact of Globalization”. The papers presented at the seminar have now been compiled and published in this book “as a means of furthering discussions and understanding of the impact of globalisation and the Christian responses”.
Stuart McAllister contributes four devotional-like chapters setting the tone for the other papers. He shows sufficient awareness of the issues in globalisation and of the key players who are debating such issues. Perhaps the constraint of his approach does not allow him to explore the issues in greater depth than one wished he had done.
It would be interesting, for example, to see him engaging with the political philosopher, John Gray, who is critical of the American-led free-market agenda reflected in False Dawn, a book McAllister himself recommended. Yet to ask McAllister for such a detailed interaction with an important thinker is unfair. It is like asking a pastor to offer an academic paper in a 30-minute sermon, although I wish more pastors are as well-read as McAllister.
Other papers of different quality and length were presented by an array of contributors, including theologian Rev Dr Choong Chee Pang, economists Dr Lee Soo Ann and Prof Wee Chow Hou, stockbroker Mr Lim Hua Min and pastor Rev Edmund Chan.
The Rev Dr Choong draws lessons from the Old and New Testaments for clues on how the Bible might cast light for a Christian understanding of the current globalisational phenomenon. In a world made small by technological innovations and economic interdependence, with its paradoxical push for inter-penetrational cultural reform and the pull for a tribalised retreat, he highlights the benefits which Singaporeans have enjoyed from a globalised economy and hints at the responsibility which Singaporean Christians ought to assume in sharing such benefits.
Mr Warren Beattie offers a general and well-documented survey on Asian contributions to missiological debate, whereas the Rev Chan and Pastor Edwin Lam, in their short and somewhat lightweight response papers, touch briefly on the related subjects of evangelism and discipleship.
Like a patient teacher, Dr Lee traces the history of economic development from a primitive structure to a highly globalised state, and explains the challenges each stage of development posed for Christians and the people of the world. He had Prof Wee as an able respondent who summarises his key points and proceeds, in a limited way, to ask how globalisation might be “a boon or a bane” for the fulfilment of the Great Commission.
Two papers I find informative come from contributors who work in the business world. One, B. Pwee, said to be the “Managing Director of an Asian-based business consulting firm”, gives an intriguing “conversation-starter” (p.76) in his essay on “Globalisation and Missions”. He calls for a paradigmatic shift in the way we do missions, and think missions, particularly in the spheres of what he describes as a) terrain and tribes, b) theology and thinking, c) technology and time, and d) teamwork and talent.
Mr Lim Hua Min’s “Globalisation and the Economy: A System Response” explores the evolution of economic systems and points us to more changes to come which will bring about greater impact on the way societies are organised and the way we live.
Plucked from somewhere else, but included in the book, is a chapter contributed by BG (NS) George Yeo, the Minister for Trade and Industry, giving a perspective on Realpolitik and international relationship.
The book gives more than sufficient space to discussions on missions. Important though missions is, the seminar was not about missions.
What the book lacks is a discussion on globalisation and social justice, for example. Absent too is a thorough discussion on the downside of American capitalism which is currently dominating the drive for globalisation and the values it engenders and promotes. I am interested in looking at American capitalism, its impact on churches in the US and the insidious influence it has on Singapore churches, especially in the way this may have played itself out in shaping our world-view and lifestyle.
There are a few glitches. The Preface provided by the editors mentioned about “starting reality” (p. ii) when, I suspect, the editors meant “startling reality”. Surely those who are acquainted with the works of Dr Ng Kam Weng of Malaysia will say that he is more than a “Christian sociologist” (p.97).
Despite the shortcomings, globalisation, however one might understand it — and there are various definitions found in the book — is an issue which we cannot ignore. The organisers should be commended for offering such a seminar and having the papers published to ensure that more Christians are given the opportunity to read and, I hope, to think.
The Rev Dr Daniel Koh Kah Soon is the District Superintendent (West) of Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC) and a lecturer at Trinity Theological College.
