BREAK THE CHAINS OF OPPRESION AND THE YOKE OF ...

anity has been closely related to empire since the Roman days and has thus
spread throughout the world. It is now being used to provide ideological legitimization
for today’s empire. Globalized Christendom and the ‘crusades’ it embarks
upon today are symbiotically intertwined with global capital and the power
of the global empire. In its triumphalistic pursuits, it discounts if not condemns
all other religious faiths and cultures. The indigenous religions of many
communities are destroyed and Islam is vilified.
The convergence of Christian religion with Western modernity has destroyed
the religious and cultural life of peoples and their communities throughout the
world. The powers and principalities of the global market and empire are being
baptized by these theological distortions of ‘Christianity’, which promote religious
conflicts and bigotry globally.
The Christian religion of empire treats others as ‘gentiles’ to be conquered, as the
‘evil empire’ to be destroyed or as the ‘axis of evil’ to be eradicated from the earth.
The empire claims that the ‘goodness’ of the empire must overcome these ‘evils’.
Its false messianic spirit is imbued with the demonic.
These false claims destroy the integrity of faith(s), and radically erode the identity
of Christian faith in Jesus Christ. As the spirit of empire penetrates souls, the
power of global empire possesses the bodies of all living beings. Lord of its domain,
it builds temples for the global market to serve Mammon’’. 15
These bold statements show in a clear way the problem with universal paradigms.
Universal paradigms do not leave sufficient space for the ambiguity of reality.
They do not take into account the existence of different contexts and they
do not sufficiently take into account the role of the individual and the plural
complexity of concrete � �reality. �In this respect the �concept � of ‘Empire’ is (again) a
Western modern and thus universal view on history. It sticks to the existence of
one universal all embracing totalitarian ‘grand narrative’. Finally it does not take
into account the postmodern criticism of modernity.
History as the field of promise
HopE
The critical statements on the role of (Western) Christianity as quoted in the
text above, is not without reason however. Jürgen Moltmann states, that there is
a strong relation between ‘metaphysical monotheism’ and ‘political monotheism’.
16 With ‘metaphysical monotheism’ Moltmann refers to a type of monotheism
in which God is seen as a supreme Being without any affection. In Greek
concepts theology is in duty of the state. The gods are served to assure peace and
15 Idem.
16 J. Moltmann, Trinität und Reich Gottes, München, 1980, 209-217; cf. J. Moltmann,
Politische Theologie-Politische Ethik, München, 1984, 42-48.
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– THEOLOGY OF HOPE IN TIMES OF GLOBALIZATION – 65