Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth

FOREWORD
But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like an overflowing stream.
Amos 5:24
In the years since the last assembly of the World Council of Churches
(WCC) in Harare in 1998, injustice and inequality have taken new and
more aggressive forms. Many more people are dying of poverty today than
ever before. Unacceptable levels of poverty coexist with small pockets of
wealth between and within nations. Mother earth is groaning because of
the many ways in which we continue to exploit her. Churches are, therefore,
called to read the signs of the times and respond to the gospel imperative
of justice for all. Can we remain in comfortable silence when over three
billion of God’s people are caught in the web of poverty and death?
So as to engage the churches and the wider ecumenical family in
confronting these realities, this background document explores the
question of how the churches and the wider ecumenical family can respond
to the human tragedies rooted in the project of economic globalization.
Entitled “Alternative globalization addressing peoples and earth
(AGAPE)”, this document was drafted by a small group of representatives
from churches and related organizations. The text is based on the findings
of a series of church consultations and studies on globalization organized
by the WCC and other ecumenical organizations over the period since
the 1998 WCC assembly in Harare.
It is hoped that this process will produce an AGAPE call to action to the
next WCC assembly in Porto Alegre in 2006. The churches and the
ecumenical family will be called to move beyond critique of neo-liberal
globalization to stating how God’s grace can transform this paradigm. The
call will be for an ecumenical vision of life in just and loving relationships,
through a search for alternatives to the present economic structures.
The aim of this document is to inspire the churches and the wider
ecumenical movement to continue to address current global problems so
as to respond resolutely to the intolerable levels of poverty in our world.
The document is being sent out to member churches, world communions,
regional ecumenical bodies, specialized ministries and agencies, and social