Toward a confessing stance for resistance

Kim Yong-bock

We have participated in the Warc programmes of the processus confessionis for economic justice and life during the last several years. We have been conscious of the global regimentation of the neoliberal political economy. In Asia we experienced "financial crises" in many countries in 1997. Speculative capital, domestic weaknesses in the economy of these nations and the dictation of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO caused these crises. People in Asia are experiencing intense pain and suffering in the process of structural adjustment. In this and many other ways, the impact and effect of globalization and global market regimentation are so serious that we need to take a strong stance of resistance with an ultimate seriousness against the "principalities and powers" that dominate the global political economy.

The seriousness of the Asian situation can be exposed in terms of the massive death and suffering of people in Asia, caused by hunger, disease and poverty under the dominant global regime of western capital and its Asian allies. People in Asia and Africa especially suffer in an unprecedented way, and their life and life on Asian soil are under the threat of massive destruction. We do not have space to tell the stories of victimized life in Asia here. But this is the chief sign of the times that compels us act resolutely.

In 1997 Warc called for the processus confessionis against Mammonic principalities and powers, which cause massive suffering and death of the people and destroy life on earth. After three years, we feel that the time has come to consider the status confessionis (confessing stance of resistance) against the demonic forces of death and destruction of life. It is not because there was much progress in the process of confession. The opposite is the case. It is because the signs of the times become clearer for a confessing stance for resistance.

In the immediate past there were discussions in the ecumenical movement about invoking status confessionis against nuclear weapons in the 1980s and early 1990s. Around the same time the question of economy as a matter of faith has risen in the ecumenical movement around the process of "covenanting" for justice, peace and integrity of creation. Asian Christians also participated in this history and sought to relate it to people's movements during the past decades. Now the time has come to explore fully the meaning of the stance of confessing in resistance against the global principalities and powers from the Asian locus.

As we have already indicated, the story of the people and of life on Asian soil is a starting point of our consideration on the confessing stance of resistance against the powers that be in the world. In the story of Asian peoples and Asian Christianity there has always been a definite theological rationale behind historical events. This requires examination and study of western Christian mission in relation to the western powers, economic, political and cultural.

For Asian people the history of globalization started with the western colonial encroachment. Part of western Christianity justified this process with the theological rationale of "saving the souls" of the pagan people. Any atrocity was tacitly justified as inevitable. When the T'aiping peasants in China were crushed, the theological rationale of their being heretical justified the atrocities of the colonial military. This may not be an exceptional case. There is a need to investigate the theological justification of atrocities committed by the colonial powers, in order to establish the nature of "colonialist" Christianity. Christian missionaries viewed the Tonghak peasant movement in a similar light. We cannot overlook the crusades, American atrocities against Native Americans,¹ and other similar incidents, which are implicitly and explicitly justified theologically. Given the nature of the US power, which has been dominant, there has been an explicit and implicit symbiosis between American power and the American religion.²

Under American hegemony the Christianity of the "free world" demonized communism during the Cold War era. This was especially the way of American Christianity. This has the theological justification that communism is an atheism. Christians have justified wars against communism in Korea and Vietnam in theological terms. As recently as the Gulf War, the US justified the war as a just war. (Islamic people defined the war as holy.) This is a Christian theological justification of war. This is a kind of crusade syndrome. Christianity is hostile to other religions and secular ideologies such as communism. This is an indication that the Christianity has been functioning as a religious ideology. This makes it very difficult to convince Asian people that Christianity is the gospel of liberation. Was there any theological justification for capitalism? Are the rights to life, ie rights to private property and individual freedom, God-given? A theologian ³ characterizes the transnational corporation as having "missiological" significance, for it is a most creative institution to produce food for the hungry and to manufacture medicine for the cure of the sick. A reaction against communism drove western Christianity to be tolerant towards capitalism. The economic symbiosis between western capital and western Christianity cannot be underestimated. There can be established a broad relationship between capitalism and western Christianity.

Power in the global political economy in its economic, political and geopolitical dimensions is something that cannot be controlled. There are no legal means to restrict and control the powers of transnational corporations. No moral rules make them sensitive. Power grows and expands its influence without limit. It has a technocratic character, which is of "despotic" regimentation.

One needs to discern the dynamics of the imperial power centre in our understanding and analyses of globalization. This should be the first and primary point in our analyses.

1. The transnational power of global capital and its technocratic despotism needs theological scrutiny. The claims of the transnational corporate entities are extremely pretentious and hypocritical.
2. The nature of the state power of the United States and its allies needs be exposed, including its intelligence operations. The United States exercises its political power beyond control in the name of US interests. The political realism of American Protestantism needs another theological analysis.
3. The unipolar military hegemony of the US and its allies needs a thorough theological examination, including its military weapon systems, which are capable of destroying all life on earth.

In general terms the current process of globalization, in which uncontrollable powers and principalities are dominating life on earth, contains the economic, political, social and cultural dynamics of the ultimate destruction of all life. The financial power of capital in the global market directly causes the radical impoverishment of people and the massive death of people due to hunger. At the same time people die massively due to diseases and illness that are basically caused by poverty and hunger. The HIV/Aids epidemic is a prime example of this situation. In the process of globalization the geopolitical situation of omnicidal war has risen. Cybernetic technology, nuclear weapons, biochemical weapons and missile technology have radically transformed the nature of war in a radical way so as to cause the total destruction of life.

The powers that be are claiming a false ideology of life. It is an ideology of survival, in the form of unlimited economic growth, uncontrolled manipulation of microcosmic life, unlimited military build-up, and the uncontrolled destruction of life on earth. Yet the powers that be falsely claim life and peace.

We Asian Christians need to have a clear stance of resistance based upon our faith, even as we seeks links with the "faithful" stance of the people of Asian religions and philosophies.

The power of Mammon in the form of corporate financial power

The biblical basis for status confessionis on the power of money is clear:, " No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Mt 6.24; Lk 16.13). Likewise, the status confessionis on the political power of the Nazis and similar powers is undergirded by the first commandment, " You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them." (Ex 20.4f) There is a close relationship between the two biblical foundations, in that the principalities and powers in political and economic forms are not to be "worshipped" in place of God.

The faith content of these biblical words is a claim that faith in God is incompatible with the power of Mammon.

Christian churches have used Matthew 4, Romans 13 and other biblical quotations to justify their symbiotic relations with political and economic power. The financial life of the churches is closely interwoven with the powers and principalities of the financial market, ie they became a "den of thieves". We need to investigate and expose the implication of Christians and churches in the power of the Mammonic power.

Mt 21.13, Mk 11.17 and Lk 19.46 lament the Jerusalem temple and its financial life. "He said to them, 'It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer"; but you are making it a den of robbers.'" The symbiosis of the church and market at the point of financial power and life gives another reason for the status confessionis in regard to the power of the money. It is churches' doing that the house of God is turned into a "den of robbers."

Resist the manipulation of life for restoration of the original order of life

The unlimited power of genetic manipulation in the food system and the health system in the hand of the transnational corporate entities is dangerous for life in the most "apocalyptic" terms. Here the term "apocalyptic" should be understood in the original and proper meaning. It refers to a situation of ultimate resistance. It is the core of the language of resistance. Somehow it needs to be restored.

The tree of knowledge is a symbol that represents the ultimate limit (taboo) to human attempts to control and dominate the mystery of life and its destiny. It is a human ideology to determine any knowledge of life by arbitration of what is good and evil. This belongs to God, not to humans. Moreover, the question of everlasting life belongs to God. In this Genesis story, the eating of the tree of knowledge is in order to be like God. Any knowledge that makes humans pretend to be God will surely cause death. Scientific knowledge and technological skills are hijacked by the powers that be to replace the wisdom and understanding that give the foundation for life. The powers that be are disturbing the "arche" of the life, the "original order" of life, as God has created and sustained it. This is against the created order of life, the original form of life. The ideology of survival is behind the genetic manipulation of life for food and health. In the name of human survival, the unlimited pursuit of scientific and technological investigation into the microcosm of the life is carried out. The healing of human life, which suffers diseases, gives another justification to corporate powers to work toward "a scientific and technological miracle" in the field of medicine. Eugenics is a part of this process of human dominance and manipulation of life.

We need to unpack the meaning of the creation story in which the ultimate ordering of life is not entrusted to humans.

"Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.'" (Gen 2.9, 16f).

Is it not true that the powers that be violated the biblical taboo of life? Jesus' healing ministry cannot be used as a justification for transnational corporate enterprise to enter into any manipulation of the "original order" of life.

"Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people." (Mt 4.23; Mt 9.35; Lk 9.6).

"...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." (Acts 10.38).

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." (Rev 22:2).

Jesus' healing is to restore the original form of life. Often medical science gains a certain theological significance in relation to the healing ministry of the church. Jesus' healing ministry and medical mission of the church cannot be any justification for the unlimited biotech investigation of the life. This is against the integrity of life as God has created it.

Resistance against the powers that be, which destroy the life on earth in the ecosphere

Ecological destruction is no long merely a policy issue. It is an issue of systemic power. There is an inherent arrogance of human power over life on earth. This arrogance is coupled with greed in the name of survival and prosperity. It is charged that the western God is responsible for the ideology of human domination over life through science and technology (technocratic domination of modem industrial civilization). It is the question of the tower of Babel in which human arrogance sought to become ultimate and to overcome natural disasters through human power.

The modern despotic dynamics in technocracy is manifest in industrial civilization and in the globalization process. The motive of conquering nature is an historic imperial ambition of the empires. Modern industrial civilization has to be exposed in these terms. Ecological destruction through conquering nature is not merely an ecological question. It is a question of the political domination of the universe.

Resistance to totalistic war and violence, especially against omnicidal weapon systems

Today wars on the global level are organized in a totalistic manner. They are organized in a highly technetronic and cybernetic form. It is global and transnational in scope. We need to expose the nature of war today, which has radically changed since the second world war.

The power of technocracy in the form of weapon systems of mass destruction, ie nuclear weapons and biochemical weapons, is to be resisted with the stance of faith and confessing. The corporate powers that destroy life on earth, ie the ecosystem, are an integral part of technocratic power.

Resistance against "cultural genocide"

The global market and its technocratic powers dominate the world of culture. Cultural identity, cultural values, and the reservoir of beauty are destroyed in various manners. This is experienced in Asia and other parts of the world. This may be a making the culture of the garden of life into the culture of jungle in the wilderness. This is turning the feast of life into the carnival of desolate life. Historically there is an unholy alliance of western modernity and its cultural dynamics with the Christian theology of culture, which has condemned the cultures of the people.

Resistance against the Christian religion's exclusive monopoly of truth

It is said that religious fundamentalism in Asia is one of the most serious problems. There is a rise of religious conflicts, in which different religions seek to prevail in the struggle.

However, it is the Christian church that is most exclusive. Christian fundamentalism in the form of western Christian right-wing politics is the most serious apostasy to date. In faith terms as well as theological terms, western modern capitalism, unipolar global military hegemony, global cultural domination, and global religious colonialism are justified and promoted.

We need to look at the missiology of the Christian right in this regard. Given the strategic notion of the clash of civilisations, the religious Christian mission is to conquer non-western and non-Christian civilizations.

We need to resist all forms of fundamentalism, but we must especially resist the Christian fundamentalism of the Christian Right, which is deepen entrenched and seeking for a position of dominance in the heart of the globalization.

Political power of the global hegemony for globalization is to be resisted

It is very difficult to identify a global Nazi who claims a divine mandate to rule the whole world. But we find political messianism in western political hegemony, which is justified in pseudo-missiological terms and which threatens to destroy the whole of life on earth.

It is the nature of this political power that it integrates all other dimensions of power, economic, military, cultural and religious. It is imperialistic in that it seeks total hegemony. It demands total and ultimate legitimacy. We need to approach global political power not merely in terms of nation-states and their peoples. It must be approached integrally and globally.

Starting a reflection with historical experiences

While we need to take account of all the ecumenical experiences of confessing stance for resistance, we need to start from Asia in order to take up the issue in a glocal [global-local] manner.

Christian experiences of resistance in Asia

In the 1930s, there were political situations where Korean Christians were forced to worship the Japanese emperor. They had to resist the Japanese imperial power, which was justified by the Shinto religion.⁴ In Germany, Christians had to resist against the "demonic political powers" of Nazism, which were justified by Christian religion. There have been subsequent historical resistances, such as in South Africa against the power of apartheid.

The two confessing events of the Korean Christians are 1) the Theological Declaration of Korean Christians, 1973, and 2) the Declaration of Peace and Reunification in Korean Peninsula, 1988, by the Korean National Council of Churches.

Similar experiences are found in the Philippines and in Asian ecumenical movements and action groups. Particularly the CCA-URM movement in Asia is an excellent example of the faith stance for resistance.

Asian religious experiences of resistance

The burden of Asian Christians is that the people and the states in Asia do not recognize the Christian language as interpretative of their experiences. The question of the stance of confessing for resistance is posed as one that is church-centred and west-centred. It escapes the people, as well as states. Perhaps the Philippines might be an exception.

However, the western powers and principalities in their political, military and economic forms have legitimized and sometimes absolutized themselves explicitly or implicitly in Christian theological languages. In so far as these powers affect the people in Asia, the question is relevant for Asian people, especially for Asian Christians' participation in the movement of people's resistance.

If Asian people are to make a commitment similar to status confessionis, they have to bring their own religious and philosophical languages and commitments to strengthen their position. What are the Asian religious and philosophical counterparts of status confessionis? This demands multireligious and multi-philosophical inquiry into ultimate commitment and resistance against the "demonic" principalities and powers. One is reminded of the Vietnamese monk, Tri Quang, who expressed his Buddhist resistance against the US military power. Another example is the Gandhian fast as the Hindu resistance against the British colonial power. One can easily find similar examples in Islamic people's situation and in the Confucian tradition.

Asian philosophical experience of resistance

There are people who out of strong philosophical convictions resist the evil powers, which justify themselves in ideological and religious terms. Asian intellectuals and leaders of the social movements have often acted out their resistance in the secular mode of conviction.⁵ This is to account for the ultimate commitments of non-religious people.

Faiths give a foundation for resistance. We cannot take only Christians in terms of the stance to resist against the evil powers that be. However, Christians need to take their faith. One of the problems in the Christian faith in its relation to the powers that be is its misuse of the Bible as their book of faith.

1. Biblical foundation: covenant with life
2. Asian religions foundation: Confucian sincerity, Buddhist self-emptying and so on
3. Philosophical foundation: social philosophies in Asia

Building an ecumenical network of resistance: Asian contribution

1. The network of people's movement of resistance
2. The religious and philosophical network of resistance
3. The Christian network of resistance and its place in the ecumenical network of resistance, ie in relation to the network of people's resistance and the multireligious and philosophical network.
4. The role of the Asian Christian network of resistance in the global Christian network of resistance

The modalities of taking a confessional stance of resistance

The signs of the times call for a comprehensive invocation of the faith stance of resistance against the demonic powers in the world (status confessionis)

1. Confessing is a spiritual act and struggle. It is an act before God. It is the spiritual subject of life, individual, communal and cosmic, that takes the ultimate action. It can take various forms, beginning from prayer and meditation, to fasting and retreating, to various liturgical rites, and even to martyrdom.
2. Confessing is repentance before God and a public manifesto of guilt, individual and collective. It is a radical self-examination as well as an examination of the powers that be. It can lead the repentant to reparation and so on.
3. Confessing says no to the idolatrous powers that claim to be ultimate things. Confessing is a denunciation of powers that are evil and demonic.
4. Confessing is a firm belief in God who is sovereign over life on earth, in God who promises the new garden of life in the new heaven and on new earth. This means that confession is the envisioning of new life. Confessing is the foundation of all imagination about new future.
5. Confessing is a celebration of the feast of life in the kairos that confronts us.
6. Confessing is taking a stance on a definite alternative, even if it may not be perfect and ultimate.
7. Confessing is participation in the movement of resistance in solidarity with the people.
8. Confessing is a humble posture to be open completely to all the deeply committed people, religiously or philosophical.

A concluding word

We face several difficulties in the consolidation of a confessional or faith stance of resistance against the powers that destroy the life.

1. Christian faith and its theology are too deeply implicated in the problematic.
2. Christian confession is too dogmatic, too narrow to embrace the depth and breath of faith-commitments of the people in Asia. The conciliar process is too Christian-centred.
3. The churches in Asia are too compromised to be the base of resistance.
4. The churches in Asia as minorities are too isolated to be the base for a universal movement of resistance.
5. Christian churches in Asia are tied and associated to their western counterparts, in terms of theological and cultural dependency for the most part.

The situation demands that we deal with these questions in a quite different manner. We must find the strong base of resistance in Asia - among the people, among religious communities, among the groups of strong convictions, philosophical and cultural.

We may have to work for a double conversion: the conversion of the church to the church of life, and the conversion of the church to the people in the world and to the whole life on earth. What this means is the following at least:

1. We need to work for a network of resistance movements in terms of Christian bases.
2. We engage Christian churches from these bases.
3. We need to find and consolidate popular bases of resistance.
4. We need to be related to the bases of resistance among groups of religious, philosophical conviction.
5. How are these related to the movement of the processus confessionis? In the final analysis, the confessing stance of resistance to the evil and demonic powers is the very life of faith, no less and no more. In Asia this means that the very life of faith should be radically open to be together with the people of religions and philosophical conviction.

Notes