wfn.org | Lutheran Ethicists Discuss Complexities of World Economics

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

January 30, 2002

LUTHERAN ETHICISTS DISCUSS COMPLEXITIES OF WORLD ECONOMICS
02-017-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Thirty-two Lutheran ethicists explored economic
globalization from several perspectives Jan. 9-11 in Canada at the
Rosemary Heights Retreat Centre, Surrey, British Columbia.  Speakers
opened conversations around a 28-page publication of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF) -- "Engaging Economic Globalization as a Communion: An
LWF Working Paper."
     The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Division for
Church in Society sponsors gatherings of Lutheran ethicists prior to
annual meetings of the Society of Christian Ethics.  The ELCA is one of
the 133 member churches of the LWF, which represents more than 60.5
million of the world's 64.3 million Lutherans.
     "There was an emphasis on recognizing the complexity of
globalization," said the Rev. John R. Stumme, director for studies, ELCA
Division for Church in Society.  "There is a mixture of good and evil
involved, and ethicists want to recognize both in what is happening and
in the decisions that are being made and have to be made."
     "It is the responsibility of the church and others to recognize
and to name and to struggle against those evils that are present in the
inequalities," said Stumme.  "Massive starvation and the millions of
people who are suffering were vivid reminders and very much present
within our discussion."
     "Ethicists would have to say economic globalization is a complex
phenomenon with aspects that commend it and aspects that are not
commendable," said the Rev. Roger A. Willer, associate for studies, ELCA
Division for Church in Society.
     "I had only a general awareness of the economic globalization
issues," said Willer.  A series of presentations and discussions took
him quickly to a second and a third level of understanding about the
diversity of the issues, he said.
     A panel of speakers -- including Anglican priests, the Rev. Melvin
Cook and the Rev. Larry Durdy -- represented the Tataskweyak Cree
Nation, Split Lake, Manitoba.  They presented a case study of economic
globalization and some of the complex, concrete issues involved, said
Willer.
     In October 2000, the Tataskweyak Cree Nation entered into an
agreement with Manitoba Hydro, an energy utility company based in
Winnipeg, Manitoba.  The agreement creates a partnership in the
generation of hydroelectric power along the Churchill and Nelson Rivers
in the Split Lake Resource Management Area.
     The partnership is "very complex because it involves environmental
issues, economic issues and cultural issues," said Willer.  Conflicts
over the agreement still exist among the aboriginal people of Canada,
within the energy company and within the government, he said.
     Dr. Gary Teeple, associate professor of sociology, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, British Columbia, followed the panel presentation.
Teeple authored "Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform."
     Teeple suggested that economic globalization is driven by many of
the same principles that developed the nation-state back at the dawn of
the modern age, said Willer.  If Teeple is right, Willer added, economic
globalization is more than a new form of corporate enterprise; it's a
revolutionary stage of human development.
     Fred McMahon, director, Centre for Globalization Studies, Fraser
Institute -- a Canadian free-market think tank based in Vancouver,
British Columbia -- gave the Lutheran ethicists a presentation on the
benefits of economic globalization.
     The Rev. David Pfrimmer, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Canada and director of the Lutheran Office for Public Policy,
Waterloo, Ontario, "raised some of the questions the church can raise
probably better than others about who's benefitting from this, what are
the realities and so forth," said Willer.
     "The meeting fit into part of the Lutheran communion-wide
discussion of globalization," said Stumme.  The LWF working paper
provided a focal point for the discussion, he said.  Responses to the
document will inform the LWF's next world assembly, which will be held
July 21-31, 2003, in Winnipeg.
     In the Society of Christian Ethics, the president is a member of
the ELCA.  Dr. Gene Outka, professor of philosophy and Christian ethics,
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven,
Conn., gave his presidential address to the society's annual meeting
following the gathering of Lutheran ethicists.  He is the author of
"Agape: An Ethical Analysis."
     The next gathering of Lutheran ethicists will be Jan. 8-10, 2003,
in Pittsburgh.  Their topic will be war in the Christian and Islamic
traditions.
-- -- --
     The Division for Church in Society maintains information about the
annual gathering of Lutheran ethicists at
http://www.elca.org/dcs/le.gathering.html on the ELCA Web site.  The
division also publishes the Journal of Lutheran Ethics at
http://www.elca.org/jle/ on the Web.

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