Hannover Airport, Germany, December 2002. Two families standing apart from each other. One family on its way to a holiday in the warmer regions of this world, the other family accompanied by a group of border police, apparently to be deported back to wherever is considered their "country of origin". Two children glancing at each other, one of them throwing an inflated globe-like swimming-pool ball into the air, catching it with her small hands, throwing it into the air again, catching it...

The other child watching for a moment, then trying to also get hold of the globe ball. He stretches out to reach it, he jumps, he quickly extends his short arms - and he fails to get it. His mother embraces him, whispering to him: "You can't get it, son, it is they who play with this world, it is they who play with us. Their world just turns around them."

The interpreter clears his throat, voicing aloud what was said into the silence. Tension is palpable.

A brief encounter, but a parable of the apartness of our world. A reminder of a neoliberal world order that is not in order. A protest of those who perceive themselves at the receiving end of the economic interactions of the "global players". A resistance to what it is, but should not be.

In the history of the ecumenical movement, it is often said, unity is mostly to be found in joint committed action. Churches all around the world affirm their belief in the oneness of this world. They have listened to the voices of those marginalized by neoliberal economic globalization, those facing impoverishment, despair and death. They have argued for life in fullness for all (Jn 10.10), they have worked for justice and equality in all walks of life. And they have joined hands to develop and implement alternatives to an often excluding economic world order.

In December 2002, Lutheran and Reformed representatives came together with participants from Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic backgrounds to compare notes on their various confessional entry points for addressing economic globalization and to work on a common theological approach.

The entry points were certainly diverse, ranging from covenant and confession, through eucharist and communion to the indwelling of Christ, the body of Christ and the family of God, but at their heart was the divine call for greater justice, compassion, solidarity and love. All of them are dynamic, transformative images, moving us towards a world in which there is one oikos, one household of God, with no one lying abandoned outside the gate.

The meeting, held at the Cartigny conference centre of the Protestant Church of Geneva, was jointly organized by the Alliance, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Council of Churches.

Theology is always faith-based, taking its cue from the notion of a life-giving, redeeming and accompanying God. Theology in Cartigny was also face-based: our different images and entry points encouraged us to face the other. In the eucharist, for example, people face each other around the table, gathered together as a sharing and caring community by a narrative which opposes current histories (and herstories) of harmful and often fatal exclusion.

Facing the suffering and despair of those subjected by the interests of the global economic players in the Cartigny consultation was just one more step in the long march towards an economy in the service of life. Many further steps must follow, locally and globally, if it is no longer to be "they" who play with this world, but all of us who play in a world of greater justice, equality and solidarity.

Drea Fröchtling

Read the communiqué from the Cartigny consultation