5th December, 2005

Dr BRUCE C WEARNE

In the second of this two-part series - which first appeared in the Fiji Daily Post - Professor Bob Goudzwaard gives a glimpse of what TATA means, and the Christian vision that motivates it...(for part one, click here)

Tell us more about this ‘Way-orientation’ as you see it?
“The Way orientation is not blind about one's destination. But it is different from the usual projects to construct a better world. It is primarily listening and considering how to be or to become more obedient in this moment in relation to what are sometimes very complex situations. The first step is crucial. It is to listen to what justice and God’s love asks from us in our current situation, also in the current global setting.”

It sounds like you are saying one step at a time rather than the ends justifying the means. Is that it?
“Yes. I think so. The first step we take gives us information which adds to our stock of knowledge and thus makes the next step, and maybe a few more, possible. A Way-orientation always implies going forward step-by-step. Why? Because we believe Someone is guiding us on that way. That is different from the logic of this world. The logic of the Way-orientation is: trust that if you begin in justice and love, then a follow-up will be possible as justice and love grow.”

A MORE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH? Professor Goudzwaard argues that living the 'Christian Way' means living according to "the norms of justice and care that withhold and restrain" to help those who live in slums such as this one on Sao Paulo, Brazil. PICTURE: iStockphoto.com "The reduction of the debt of the poorest nations is more than merely a moral obligation of the rich countries. These societies cannot continue as they are. They are captive to burdens, the pressure of which seems endless and it is destructive of the life they should be living. Rich countries are called to provide space for these other countries, and they can begin by just taking a step backwards, stopping their ongoing rush for more.”

So how can this apply to some of the really big global problems we have?
“Well, let me give an example. The reduction of the debt of the poorest nations is more than merely a moral obligation of the rich countries. These societies cannot continue as they are. They are captive to burdens, the pressure of which seems endless and it is destructive of the life they should be living. Rich countries are called to provide space for these other countries, and they can begin by just taking a step backwards, stopping their ongoing rush for more.”

Can you give us practical examples here?
“The amount of international money, which, for instance, is created day-after-day by Western banks, is not only far beyond what is needed for the growth of the so-called ‘real economy’, it is also distributed in such a way that all the benefits accrue to the already rich Western societies. All other societies and nations are expected to ‘borrow’ that money, without receiving any direct share from it. This is a deep injustice that has to be stopped. The growth of world-money should be relinked to the fulfilment of real needs instead of being generated by linking it to the unlimited desire to have more by those who are already too rich. This is not only an element of a healthy economic logic.”

Can you expand on that please?
“Yes. ‘The Christian Way’ means living according to norms of justice and care that withhold and restrain - these were highly visible in the life and work of Jesus Christ. He was willing to give His life to us. Therefore, this has also to be the style of Christian persons and nations.”

Bob, you are worried about Christians, as well as all others, being driven along by their worship of this idol called "self-growth"?
“Our extreme goal-orientation in the West is not a strength. It is a profound weakness. It pops up in all our dominant ideologies. The Church should advocate a thorough-going Way-orientation in all social, economic and political affairs and should avoid idealism. She should be found at the side of a realism, warning against the dangerous risks, the damaging boomerang-effects, that result from the ruling development ideology.”

Maybe you can tell us about some trends that you believe are signs of better things?
“Yes, in several international organisations and multinationals we see a desire for a lifestyle ruled by firm principles and a commitment to bring everyone into fruitful interaction with each other. Some companies have become aware of their inescapable social responsibility. This is now more common than it was, say, a decade ago. Several firms are willing to open themselves up to criticism from outside. In the General Assembly in Canberra of the World Council of Churches, the world-wide ecumenical movement committed itself to 'mission in foreign structures' and so they said that the Christian path was leading them to participate in such organisations, instead of simply standing outside and protesting, instead of adopting an approach that is confrontational to all entrepreneurial activities.”

So how should we try and develop a more constructive, patient, humble perspective on life?
“The most important point, I think, is to take steps to think along with others, to take distance from the destructive processes we see. We need to find partners to talk with about how far we should keep separate. After all we are talking about our neighbours. My first reaction to the question of life-style is that, however controversial it may look, some degree of real distance from our acquisitive societies is needed in this time.”

And as a Christian, as one who is following Jesus on the way, how do you see your own religion in this?
“The Gospel has come to Western culture. It has had one thousand years to show to the world what it could do. But Europe has not only become a continent promoting good medical care, democratic government and beautiful music. It has become a continent where two disastrous world wars were fought. It was the place where colonial imperialism was born. So we have to say that the Gospel not only mobilised possibilities for good but also, by creating freedom and liberty, deepens the possibilities for evil.”

I think this needs to be explained more. You are saying Christians need to take some distance from the results of their own religion?
“Well, the primary question for Western Christians should not be: 'how do we now contribute together to the coming of a somewhat better world and to produce the plan to bring that about?'. After a thousand years we have first to start with confessing our guilt. There is, and has been, ongoing solidarity in sinning, which Christians share with all others. We can not only point to Renaissance and Enlightenment and ‘Ha ha that's the root of our problems!’ Christianity may have been given the Gospel, but did it really listen? If you are not including yourself in this situation, you cannot find a solution.”

So is repentance needed politically as well as spiritually?
“Without a doubt. There is simply no reason for pride. Western culture received a thousand years of possibilities to form a God-and-human response - a culture - but we failed in so many ways. Still, we are invited to see Christ not only as the Saviour of Christians, but as a Saviour of the whole world.”

Is it a matter of rich and powerful being embarrassed when they realise how much their wealth and energy have cost?
“Maybe. C. S. Lewis wrote the book Till We Have Faces. In this book someone wants to accuse the gods of all that they have done wrong in life. However, at the very moment that she gets the chance to make her accusation she realises that she needs a face in order to deliver such an accusation to the gods. You need a face to be able to address God. In my opinion, Western society has lost most of its face. To be an adult, to be emancipated, means to have a face, to stand mature, to be willing to suffer the consequences of all your actions. Western people and Western society live in a face-denying culture. They try to escape the consequences by saying things like: ‘The market has done its job’ or, ‘It is the wrong structures of society that we should be angry at'. But in such responses we hide our face, our responsibility.”

The way you explain it means that world poverty and pollution are linked. The link is our responsibility. The key is finding our face?
"If we Christians take responsibility for what is now going on in the world, and acknowledge what is now happening with our natural environment, we would be willing to see the relationship between the increasing poverty across the globe and the destruction of our natural environment and the continuous enrichment of the richer nations. Then we would begin to realise why living according to 'the Way' is obedient to life. Then we would see that we must help promote a life spiral rather than the opposite. We are now in a death spiral: the environmental problem deepens the poverty problem, poverty leads to migration, migrations leads to destruction of the environment, et cetera."

So you do have hope?
"Yes, if we can find a willingness to open our ears and hearts to hear the cries of the poor then we may find a path that has beneficial effects also for the real well-being of the rich and for the solution of environmental problems. If, in our thinking, problems are linked, then any solutions will also have to be linked. By taking one step on the way at a time we learn to give support to each other. It is together that we must find the path out of the present global-to-local impasse."

So, in a nutshell, what is it in our lives that stops this way-orientation?
"The basic problem is lack of affirmation. There is no inferiority in creation. The mainstream of modernism implies that nature is to be controlled. It states that women as a part of nature are in need of guidance by males. But Christ speaks in a language of affirmation. The way-orientation implies an enormous relief because the outcome is guaranteed by Someone other than myself. I have only the responsibility for the first step I take. The way is under control. I do not own my walk. It is not our way; we do not own it."

And how should we view the future then?
"In the new Church in Delft the Dutch royal family is buried. During Queen Wilhelmina's funeral service, the pastor, Reverend Forget preached a sermon explaining that our belief in Christ falls short if we only speak about the past and the present. Jesus is the King of the entire Earth and stands now and will stand at the end of all of our ways."

And Jesus Christ, who is He?
"He is not only the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet, but He is also the Arché and the Telos, the Source and the Fulfilment of all our earthly ways and modes of being. There He standing on the personal and the political, economic and social horizons. King Jesus calls us from His future to follow Him now, and in His way. He is the beginning and the end."

So Jesus sheds His light on the problems we face too?
"The unity provided by the present style of globalisation is different from that. It is mainly oriented to self-aggrandisement, which tries to close and to restrict the future so that patterns of human self-realisation prevail. But Philip Potter, the former secretary-general of the Word Council of Churches, once indicated that if the Bible speaks about a future and a history, in which God is continually busy to bring all peoples and powers under the coming Headship of the Good Shepherd and Pastor-King Jesus Christ, then we are entitled, indeed invited, to speak of God's own globalisation, which is not characterised by the survival of the fittest but by the rescue of the sick, the vulnerable and the weak."

Would you say you are motivated by your positive hope for the future?
"Yes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer expressed it also his Ethics: we are living in the time before, the penultimate, the last but one, "das Vorletze". We should be living from the meaning coming to us from the end; not just trying to live in terms of the Beginning. The coming Shepherd King comes not to ensure the survival of the fittest but the rescue of the weakest. This is the stronger globalisation which will conquer the world once and for all with love. This is the light we have been given to live here and now in Holland, Australia and Fiji. And for me, I'd say from my flight over Fiji's islands that on the morning of creation, God, must have looked over everything, and seeing Fiji attached a special diamond to it - that is its natural beauty. Fiji as the finishing touch of creation itself. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the ground one day."

Thankyou Bob.

This is an edited version of an interview first published by the 'Fiji Daily Post', Suva, October 27, 28, 30, 2005 and is published here with permission. Readers who would like to discuss the issues raised in this interview with Professor Goudzwaard are invited to email him at bob.goudzwaard@ext.vu.nl.