Lucas Land - Transforming the Body



GEORGE W. TRUETT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

The Gospel According to Globalization:

Contextualization in a Global Culture

SUBMITTED TO DR. Michael Stroope

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

MSSN 7378 CROSS-CULTURAL LIVING AND COMMUNICATION

BY

LUCAS M. LAND

April 12, 2007

Globalization is one of those slippery buzzwords that seem to elude definition. Yet it is used again and again because it points towards something that we all understand is happening (and has happened) in our world. Competing agendas behind the use of the term further complicate its meaning. What is apparent is that the speed of globalization has increased dramatically in recent decades, creating an ever-shrinking world in which religions, ideologies, systems, and cultures collide. Every corner of the world feels the impact of globalization, and it affects every aspect of the church’s work in the world.

Due to the difficulty of fully grasping globalization, the church has largely ignored it—to its own detriment. As we shall see, the church in the West has largely allowed globalization to influence and shape its identity, undermining its ability to pursue its mission of furthering the gospel and the kingdom of God. First, we will examine some of the competing definitions of globalization. Second, we will consider the possibility of globalization’s creation of a global culture and its implications for mission. Finally, we will address the implications of the transnational corporation’s (TNCs) model of contextualization and its application to the church and the contextualization of the gospel.

Globalization is a complicated web of relationships and influences that deserves closer inspection and treatment than is possible in this paper. However, it is my intention to give a cursory understanding of the basic facets of globalization in order to delineate the underlying mentality and agenda of the globalization process and its impact on the church and its mission.

Demythologizing Globalization

In order to understand globalization we must understand various ways it is described and misunderstood. Globalization is often described in terms of economics, Westernization, communication technology, or culture/religion. Those who attempt to describe globalization in any of the above terms generally fall into two camps: those who decry globalization as an evil system which perpetuates injustice, and those who laud it as the hope and salvation for the future of the world. We will examine each of these and hopefully reach a holistic understanding of the concept beyond this dualistic reaction.

Those who describe globalization in economic terms focus on the “transformation to a global economy which depends in important ways on the relatively successful propagation of corporate-driven discourses, identities and worldviews.”[1] This way of speaking about globalization emphasizes the impact of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank (WB) on the global economy. In his seminal work on globalization, Thomas Friedman describes the radical changes in business and finance over the last two decades which have created the possibility for enormous wealth generation as well as devastating economic destruction, as seen in the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.[2]

One of the easiest ways to understand globalization this way is to trace the economic life of a single basic product. Ruth Valerio traces the life of bananas to illustrate. Bananas are now the world’s most popular fruit, but only a generation ago they were an exotic and rare dish. The UK mainly imported bananas from one of their colonies, the Windward Islands, and formalized this relationship in 1975 with the Lome Convention. Seventy percent of the world’s bananas are controlled by the big three American companies: Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte. The US complained to the WTO about the European Union’s (EU) protectionist policy. When the EU would not back down, the US imposed high tariffs on EU exports. The complaint to the WTO came shortly after Chiquita contributed $500,000 to the Democratic Party. The relationship of these international organizations and corporations to the workers further complicates the picture. In Ecuador, workers get $1 a day. Independent farmers get 3 pence per pound, and on average, only 5% of the price of bananas goes to the producers.[3] Economic globalization describes this web of economic relationships between nation-states, TNCs, International Financial Institutions (IFIs), the WTO, producers, and consumers.[4]

Economic globalization alone is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around, but it is not the whole picture. Some contend that globalization is mainly a process of Westernization, the exporting of McWorld.[5] In this view the main effect of globalization is to create a homogenous global culture based on Western culture. Benjamin Barber compares the top ten grossing films among twenty-two countries representing every continent in 1991. The results are astounding. Not only is there incredible consistency between the countries, but the presence of domestic films among the top ten is the exception rather than the rule.[6] This illustrates the cultural dominance that the Western culture industries have throughout the globe.

However, there is another side to this definition. It appears that globalization has also allowed for the flow of culture in other directions. For example, the Indian film industry, Bollywood, is bigger than Hollywood and has plans for global expansion. The success of foreign films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the importation of Chinese interior and garden design known as “feng shui” are examples of reverse cultural influences.[7]

Globalization is also described in terms of its shrinking effects on time and space. This typically involves “technological advances in telecommunications and transportation that are designed to drive a faster turnover of capital, ultimately resulting in the compression of time and space.”[8] It is possible to be anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. Communication happens instantaneously across the globe through the internet, mobile phones and the increasing proliferation of mobile products that combine the functions of phones and computers into one device. Banking and international finance also happens instantaneously through online systems connected to the omnipresent web. Gone are the days when the traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange were the only ones trading shares. You can now make all of your own investment banking decisions online through personal trading sites such as . Of course this way of describing globalization is intimately related to economics and does not stand on its own apart from that component.

Finally there is the religious/cultural component. Andrew Walls has noted that a change has occurred “in the center of gravity of the Christian world.”[9] The majority of Christians now live in the global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America) and will have an enormous impact on the future shape of the Christian tradition. At the same time, a massive migration of people from the global South to the global North (North America and Europe) has occurred. This has created an environment of pluralization in the Western world as “[t]he saints of other religious traditions offer a challenge to our exclusive claims about the Christian faith.”[10] This migration has created a crisis of proximity in which people are moved from “ethnographic curiosity” to “existential anxiety”.[11]

While many cultural analysts and theologians continue to speak of the current Western environment as pluralistic, Jonathan Wilson, borrowing from Alasdair MacIntyre, suggests that fragmentation is a better description of the context. “Pluralism describes a world of competing outlooks, traditions or claims to truth…Pluralism describes a situation in which these competing outlooks are coherent and clearly defined.”[12] Wilson and MacIntyre both contend that “fragmentation” more aptly describes a Western culture in which “our lives are lived piecemeal, not whole.”[13]

While each of these ways of describing globalization certainly touches on some truth, only a more holistic grasp of the context will enable us to address the problems and questions it raises. That said, the underlying fuel driving the globalization process is certainly economic. While it is important to recognize many of the other effects of globalization are notable, it is of primary importantce to keep emphasize first the underlying economic mentality that has created this phenomenon at the fore of our thinking.

Is There a Global Culture?

If globalization is now a ubiquitous phenomenon affecting the global community, then does it carry with it a ubiquitous global culture? Richard Tiplady emphasizes that globalization is not merely Westernization by pointing out examples of reverse cultural influence, “The Wal-Mart store in Shenzen, China for example sells chicken feet, Ma-Ling brand stewed pork ribs, and Gulong brand pickled lettuce. About 85% of the products come from 14,000 Chinese suppliers.”[14] While the “Made in China” label carries a certain stigma in the US, it means something else when it means a product was made in a local factory. Does this local emphasis dispel the idea of a global culture?

Let us consider Louis Luzbetak’s analysis of the three layers of culture in this example: form, function and mentality. Forms are the surface level symbols minus any cultural meaning. This could include food, dress, or customs. Function is the underlying meaning of a certain form. It is the immediate “why” of the form. For example, the American custom of women wearing makeup is a cultural form. The underlying function involves the value we place on appearance. Mentality is the deepest level of culture involving the “implicit, and ultimate whys.”[15] This would involve our understanding of the concept of beauty.

The form that Wal-Mart exports around the world is basically the same. The structure of the store, the smiley face logo, and the corporate policies remain the same wherever Wal-Mart sets up shop. However, because “local tastes are not easily changed or homogenised,”[16] Wal-Mart adapts to them by selling local products supplied by local suppliers. This may not be an adequate assessment for understanding Wal-Mart’s function within a local context. When we dig deeper, we find that Wal-Mart (as with all TNCs) is exporting an underlying consumerist mentality or worldview. Tom Sine puts it thus:

There is compelling evidence that the marketers of McWorld aren’t just selling products to the global young. They are consciously at work seeking to persuade the young to embrace the same values so they will all buy the same products so they will become part of a homogenized culture of consumption.”[17]

Therefore, even the function, which may appear local, is serving an entirely different worldview and therefore not functioning in the same way as a local market, even if it sells the same products.

So, if globalization is shaped more by economics than we often care to admit and it does carry with it a cultural worldview, then what shape does this global culture take? Michael Budde describes the emergence of global culture industries in his book The (Magic) Kingdom. First, he describes the nature of the new economic order as post-fordist. Fordism can be described as the product-centered economic model resulting from the mass-production techniques pioneered by Henry Ford. The shift in the modern era is from a product-centered to a consumer-centered model. “In our time, problems of production have been replaced by the problem of consumption…generating new avenues for consumption is now a global problem.”[18] It is important to point out that in the minds of economists and capitalists there is no “problem” of consumption. “‘Teaching people to consume’…is as inane as teaching fish to swim or dogs to bark…globalization has made the construction of particular consumption patterns a worldwide imperative, even (strangely enough) in very poor countries.”[19]

Budde goes on to describe the power of the global culture industries in influencing consumption patterns and defining values. The “culture industries” include all forms of media—television, print, film, etc.—as well as the advertising and marketing industries tied to these media. Budde notes several common trends across all sectors of the culture industries:

National variations with regard to major culture industries [television and radio] are diminishing…Divisions within culture industries are softening somewhat due to the integration of industries and overlapping technologies and to corporate strategies that gather a range of culture producers under one roof…Culture industries are seen as increasingly valuable to other sorts of corporations, who acquire/divest the former with a steady level of enthusiasm.[20]

All of this leads to growing power over increasingly pervasive media, concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy of a few TNCs. Tiplady is right in pointing out that this global culture is not merely Western. Budde notes, for example, that only three of the largest Hollywood studios are still US-owned companies. So, while these global culture industries are certainly influenced by American values and style, they can no longer be classified simply as a Western or American phenomenon.[21]

Budde analyzes the trends and influence in marketing and advertising, pointing out the “shift in message appeals from utilitarian, product-focused ads toward the buyer-centered, image-related approaches”[22] A cursory survey of modern advertising quickly reveals that advertisers spend more time selling an image, a brand, values, or a story than they do promoting the features of any product. The truth that “[o]ur lives are shaped more by models, metaphors, stories, and myths than by abstract sets of rules and principles”[23] has not been lost on the marketers, while the church is still struggling to grasp it.

As further illustration of globalization’s exportation of consumerism as its basic worldview, consider the difference in the United States’ approach to Iraq and China and the results that followed. The current war in Iraq was an attempt to export democracy as stated by the administration and the war’s supporters. However, by all measures this undertaking has thus far been a failure. There are minor signs of democracy, but much greater signs of destabilization and sectarianism. Contrast this with the approach to China in which the US has sought to normalize trade and partnered with China in developing that nation into an economic powerhouse. This approach intends to liberalize China, as it inadvertently imports democracy, religious freedom, and other Western ideals through the back door of free-market capitalism. It has been enormously successful, at least when compared to the current state of Iraq. Clearly, the major function of globalization is to export a consumerist worldview in order to feed the rapacious hunger of an ever-expanding free-market capitalist system driven by TNCs and their culture industries.

Glocalization as Contextualization

Glocalization “describes the way in which ideas and structures that circulate globally are adapted and changed by local realities.”[24] We have already considered this phenomenon expressed through the form Wal-Mart takes in China. While we need to reject the consumerist mentality or worldview of economic globalization, the process of contextualization parallels the process of spreading the gospel cross-culturally. The president of Japan’s largest ad agency, Dentsu, said, “Global communication must speak personally to every individual; at the same time its message must be universal”[25] This points out the simultaneity and paradox experienced in contextualization, concerning the global and the local, acceptance and separation. The gospel, especially in a global culture, must be seen as universal—transcending cultures, time, and space—while simultaneously speaking specifically to each local culture. As contextualization happens, the gospel meets the world where it is at (acceptance) but simultaneously challenges it to reorient its worldview around a new and different story (separation). Globalization does the same thing, only it is oriented around the consumerist worldview.

Another important connection between these two processes of contextualization is the biblical principle of unity and diversity. All of Paul’s lists of diverse gifts within the church are followed by exhortations to unity. It seems that for Paul these two always go hand in hand. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul begins his discourse on spiritual gifts by writing, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them.”[26] Paul then goes on to use the analogy of the body and its parts, a clear symbol of unity in diversity. Ephesians 4 follows this same pattern as Paul follows his enumeration of gifts with the purpose of these gifts being “that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith.”[27] The goal of neither globalization nor the gospel is universal homogeneity. “It is not a diversity in the way of unity but a diversity on the way to a unified diversity.”[28] While this is a shared principle, it must be reiterated that the underlying worldview of globalization is incompatible with the gospel.

While the process of contextualizing the global economic worldview parallels contextualization of the gospel, important differences remain. The primary difference is that the agent of change does not experience conversion through the process of contextualizing globalization. Therefore it remains an asymmetrical power relationship in which the TNCs continue to dominate people and cultures wherever they are. The Christian task of contextualizing the gospel, however, “is not only the broadcasting of a message, it is also the gathering of fresh insights into the gospel.”[29] It is a dialectic between the gospel and culture as the gospel moves cross-culturally.

Our understanding of the gospel is always bound by culture, our own culture, the culture of the Bible and the culture of those to whom we wish to communicate this truth we have experienced. The process of communicating the gospel cross-culturally was once understood as a one way transaction in which Western missionaries imparted the gospel along with all of their cultural baggage (Western style of dress and customs) and declared it the only way to understand the gospel. Missiologists today have unanimously rejected this way of understanding cross-cultural communication. Communicating the gospel across cultures, if it hopes to accomplish anything, must involve a dialogue between the gospel, and the two cultures involved in the communication. In this dialectic process it is not only those to whom the missionary is sent who experience conversion, but the missionary him/herself. When we attempt to translate the gospel into other cultural language and forms, it reveals new insight and understanding into the gospel that we could not have gained from a one-way method of communication. Power is not asymmetrical. Instead, it is freely relinquished and given in return. The missionary is changed as much as the one hearing the gospel for the first time.

Globalization and the Church

The forces and processes of globalization have affected and shaped the church, especially in the West. Tom Sine has put it best:

[We] allow modern culture to arrange the furniture of our lives: forty- to eighty-hour work-weeks, single family detached housing, congested time schedules for our lives and children….The problem with this is that we not only sanction giving our first allegiance to decisions about where to work, live, and rear our young; we permit modern culture, as part of the deal, to define our notions of the good life and better future.[30]

A recent article in Z magazine, a publication on politics and economics, recent article revealed the incredible extent to which the consumerist worldview has pervaded our culture. Gary Olson teaches courses on International Political Economy at a small liberal artsMoravian Ccollege in eastern Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In one of his courses, after eight weeks of students being exposed to information on the effects of globalization and systemic injustice perpetrated by their own government throughout the world, he discovered the truth about his students’ worldview. “The overwhelming class sentiment was captured by an ‘A’ student who said, ‘I know what is going on is really bad. But I want a Mercedes 450SL someday and all the designer clothes I can afford. I have the uneasy feeling that if there is too much justice and equality in the world, the good life won’t be there for me in the future.’”[31] Indeed, we have allowed the world to define “the good life” for us.

One of the disturbing trends in the church’s approach to navigating the growing crisis posed by globalization is the attempt to use the tools of the global culture industries to propagate its own worldview. Budde comments that “the push toward greater use of culture industry vehicles…presumes the neutrality of culture industry tools, ethically and in terms of effects on communicators, messages, and audiences.”[32] As we have seen in our discussion of the consumerist worldview, this is not the case. We must recognize that the church may be “incapable of recognizing the threats to Christian practice and life because they are remaking the Church in the image and likeness of the global culture industries.”[33] The church cannot use the tools of the culture industries without participating in and perhaps propagating the underlying consumerist mentality.

Is not the pervasiveness of the consumerist worldview obvious in Western Christians and churches? When someone looks for a church to join it is called “church shopping.” For many Christians, the primary motivation for selecting a church is based on how it meets their needs and fits their lifestyle. It is worth mentioning some of the culture industry vehicles that the church uses: marketing and advertising philosophies and techniques, television, film, radio, and music. There are also Christian financial institutions for investing and banking, perhaps marking the height of this merger between the church and a consumerist worldview.

Given the situation, what is the church to do in the face of such seemingly insurmountable obstacles? TNCs and culture industries have enormous funds at their disposal, incredible reach into the lives of global citizens, and enormous influence in the halls of policy-making institutions and governments. The first step is to realize that we cannot and should not attempt to compete with a consumerist worldview on its own terms. This is a collision of competing worldviews, and what the gospel has to offer is precisely what the consumerist worldview lacks. “Power is more important than meaning in globalization,”[34] and meaning is precisely what the gospel offers.

There are signs of hope within the Western church. The new monastic movement in the UK and US practices a form of alternative economics as they live out the kingdom often in the midst of the urban poor. These communities are living out the values of the gospel in direct contradiction to the consumerist worldview. They live in common housing situations where they share vehicles, appliances, barter for goods and services, and grow their own food. One couple at the Rutba House[35] reduced their combined monthly expenditures to $500 enabling the wife to stay home and create a program for neighborhood kids. Shane Claiborne refers to the alternative economics of these communities as a “theology of enough.”[36] Other expressions of church are challenging the consumerist worldview through more traditional forms of church. The new monasticism, however, seems to be the fullest expression of the gospel in response to globalization.

We are all called to live out the alternative economics of the kingdom of God. This is something anyone can do right where they live. Perhaps it does involve downsizing your lifestyle. This could mean restructuring your finances around kingdom values, changing jobs, or moving to more modest housing. It also means doing without some of the luxuries we "need" so badly and sharing resources with our neighbors (tools, lawn equipment, carpooling, etc.) The important thing to realize is that this is not only something for radical Christians living in communal arrangements. This is the biblical mandate for how the church is to live in the world.

Conclusion

The gospel of globalization is the consumerist worldview. We must continue to keep in mind that the forms and processes of globalization are not neutral. What we are experiencing is a massive push by an economic system to challenge all other worldviews as “it posits itself as a form of religion to replace other religions.”[37] The American Dream of the happy, successful, comfortable life has “made possible the ‘conversion’ of men and women without having to make any drastic changes in their lifestyles and worldviews.”[38] This means that in the West our churches are full of people who hold a primarily consumerist worldview and have yet to be challenged by the worldview of the gospel. Because of this, “we need to invite God to transform us not only spiritually and morally, but culturally too.”[39]

Because the church in the West is in need of conversion, we must recognize the implications for cross-cultural communication. We may encounter the gospel for the first time as we approach another culture and have the consumer blinders lifted from our eyes. As we are converted through the process of cross-cultural missions, we must also realize the implications of globalization for all people around the globe. Often cultures have quickly accepted the gospel or the Christian religion as a means of Westernization and modernization to get their foot in the door of the global economy (or bring the global economy to their front door). This wedding of the gospel and globalization can no longer be accepted. The process of contextualization anywhere on the globe must address the reality that there is a chasm that exists between the consumerist worldview and the gospel. As the gospel is expressed in local indigenous cultures, we must take care to prevent the perpetuation of the consumerist mentality through the processes of contextualization.

If we hope to overcome the consumerist worldview perpetuated by TNCs and those who benefit from the systems of globalization then we must present a compelling alternative. The most important way the church can affect change in a globalized economy is to live out the alternative economics of the kingdom of God as a community. God has given us a vision of what kingdom economics look like in the practice of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years[40]. God recognizes that our brokenness leads to inequitable economic systems, but God also calls us to work toward a just economics under the reign of God, an economics where wealth is distributed, not equally, but equitably. Until we are willing to live out God’s economics ourselves and within our communities, our efforts to communicate the gospel will continue to be neutralized by the consumer worldview that distorts it.

Bibliography

Barber, Benjamin. Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Random House, 1995.

Beyer, Peter. Religion and Globalization. London: SAGE Publications, 1994.

Budde, Michael. The (Magic) Kingdom: Christianity and Global Culture Industries. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.

Buss, Doris and Didi Herman. Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right in International Politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Claiborne, Shane. The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Friedman, Thomas. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.

Guder, Darrell L. The Continuing Conversion of the Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000.

Hogan, Linda and John D’Arcy May. “Social Ethics in Western Europe”. Theological Studies v. 68 no. 1, March 2007.

Hunsberger, George R. Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Lincthium, Robert, Transforming Power, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003.

Luzbetak, Louis. The Church and Cultures: New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,1988.

McGrath, Alister. The Future of Christianity. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.

Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989.

Olson, Gary. “Execution Class”. Z Magazine March 2007, pp. 23-26.

Pearse, Meic. Why The Rest Hates The West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Ramachandra, Vinoth. “Global Religious Transformations, Political Vision and Christian Witness”. International Review of Mission, Vol. 94 No. 375, October 2005.

Sine, Tom. “Globalization, Creation of Global Culture of Consumption and the Impact on the Church and its Mission”, Evangelical Review of Theology 2003, 27:4 (353-370).

________. Mustard Seed Versus McWorld. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.

Sobrino, Jon and Felix Wilfred. Globalization and Its Victims. London: SCM Press, 2001.

Stackhouse, Max L. Apologia:Contextualization, Globalization, and Mission in Theological Education. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988.

Stackhouse, Max L. with Diane B. Obenchain. God and Globalization Vol. 1: Religion and the Powers of the Common Life. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000.

________. God and Globalization Vol. 3 Christ and the Dominions of Civilization. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002.

Thangaraj, M. Thomas. “Christianity and the Religions in the New Christianity”. Review and Expositor, 103 Summer 2006.

Tiplady, Richard., ed. One World or Many? The impact of globalization on mission. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2003.

________. The Four Faces of Globalisation. [article online] accessed April 10, 2007, available online at .

Van Gelder, Craig., ed. Confident Witness-Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999.

Wilson, Jonathan R. Living Faithfully In A Fragmented World: Lessons For The Church From MacIntyre's After Virtue, Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997.

Zahariades, Jason. The Contemporary Time-Space Compression in North America and the Missional Church’s Response. [article online] accessed April 10, 2007, available online at .

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[1] Michael Budde, The (Magic) Kingdom: Christianity and Global Culture Industries (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 18.

[2] Thomas Friedman, “The Electronic Herd” in The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, (New York: Anchor Books, 2000).

[3] Ruth Valerio, “Globalisation and Economics: A World Gone Bananas”, One World or Many? The impact of globalization on mission. Ed. Richard Tiplady, (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2003),13-32.

[4] For a helpful power point presentation describing this complex set of relationships go to .

[5] I believe this term was first coined by Benjamin Barber in Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Random House, 1995). His use of both the terms “jihad” and “McWorld” have been problematic. The term McWorld intends to use the McDonald’s corporation as an example of what is happening throughout the world with all kinds of TNCs. McDonald’s is not the source of the problem any more than Islam is at the root of what he calls “jihad”.

[6] Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld, Appendix B, pp. 299-301.

[7] Richard Tiplady, One World or Many?, p. 5.

[8] Jason Zahariades, The Contemporary Time-Space Compression in North America and the Missional Church’s Response, [article online] accessed April 10, 2007, available online at , p. 1.

[9] Quoted in M. Thomas Thangaraj, “Christianity and the Religions in the New Christianity”. Review and Expositor, 103 Summer 2006, p. 498.

[10] Ibid., 502.

[11] Ibid., 507.

[12] Jonathan Wilson, Living Faithfully In A Fragmented World: Lessons For The Church From MacIntyre's After Virtue, (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), p. 27.

[13] Ibid., 27.

[14] Tiplady, One World or Many?, p. 5.

[15] Louis Luzbetak, Chapter 6 “Integration of Culture”, The Church and Cultures: New Perspectives in Missiological Anthropology, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,1988), 249.,

[16] Tiplady, One World or Many?, p. 6.

[17] Tom Sine, “Globalization, Creation of Global Culture of Consumption and the Impact on the Church and its Mission” Evangelical Review of Theology, 2003, 27:4, pp. 360-361.

[18] Budde, 26.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., 29.

[21] Ibid., 31.

[22] Ibid., 37.

[23] Ibid., 61, quoting John Navone.

[24] Tiplady, One World or Many?, p. 5.

[25] As quoted in Budde, pp. 42-43.

[26] 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 NIV

[27] Ephesians 4:12b-13a NIV

[28] George R. Hunsberger, Bearing the Witness of the Spirit: Lesslie Newbigin’s Theology of Cultural Plurality. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), p. 253.

[29] Richard Mouw, “The Missionary Location of the North American Churches”, Confident Witness-Changing World: Rediscovering the Gospel in North America. Ed. Craig Van Gelder, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), p. 12.

[30] Tom Sine, Mustard Seed Versus McWorld. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), p. 155.

[31] Gary Olson, “Execution Class”, Z Magazine, March 2007, p. 25.

[32] Budde, 84.

[33] Ibid., 104.

[34] Bulus Galadima, “Religion and the Future of Christianity in the global village”, One World or Many? Ed. Richard Tiplady, p. 201.

[35] .

[36] Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 169-172. See also Lucas Land, New Monasticism: Alternative Communities Living Faithfully in the World, is available online at .

[37] Galadima, One World or Many?, p. 204.

[38] Sine, “Globalization, Consumption and the Church”, pp. 367-368.

[39] Ibid., 366.

[40] Deuteronomy 15:1-18 and Leviticus 25:8-38 also see Robert Lincthium, Transforming Power, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 26-40.

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