Sermon

Yes, the world is getting smaller every day. Getting smaller and more interconnected.

The crash of the Hong Kong market recently wasn't just a Pacific Rim problem. We saw big losses in. equities markets here and in Europe. Today, huge amounts of capital are being invested all over the world in search of a good return. A developing nation need not rely on foreign aid to jump start its economy. It can court investors controlling private financial resources anywhere in the world.

Our natural resources are coming under greater and greater pressure from an expanding population. Because everyone needs to eat, growing populations create a greater demand for food and tax shared resources such as fresh water and air. The great conflicts of the future are expected to be over of fresh water rights. Changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere will affect where it rains and how much of the polar ice melts. Those living just above sea level, as much of the world population living in low lying coastal regions (like Charlotte County) have great mutual interest and concern.

The greater mobility of people because of airline travel is creating new challenges for world health organizations which try to stop the spread of disease. As populations concentrate in urban areas, an outbreak of disease in one city easily can propagate to another--anywhere in the world. And tropical diseases lurking in the jungle like Ebola are harder to contain. Diseases we thought we had a handle on like Tuberculosis are coming back to haunt us.

Global pollution and expanding desertification, preserving the genetic and species diversity on the planet, maintaining peace and order in the face of increasing international crime and weapons trafficking, finding ways to deter terrorists, and finding economic means to resolve political problems are all forces which are causing the nations and the individuals of the world to seek common solutions and rely on each other.

And as we get closer together, our competitive economic needs, differing religious commitments and cultural values sometimes create friction. As the people's of the world become more globally interdependent, the aggravation can intensify.

In the bad old days, states resolved these problems by going to armed, economic and even holy war. But the fear of nuclear Armageddon , of weapons of mass destruction, and of a much greater interdependence between adversaries is motivating nations to seek other means for solving their problems without violence.

Actually, reliance on non-violent solutions is relatively new in the global arena much more conversant with the conquer and pillage school of international relations. The United Nations over the last 52 years has been a powerful stabilizing force in the world to keep the peace between nation states. It has been a forum for words rather than bullets and gradually has gained more power and prestige as nations rely on more international organizations to resolve differences.

The cooperation began at the edges. When the United Nations began, the sovereignty of each nation was the foundation of international cooperation. Each country was responsible for what went on within its boarders. If Stalin wanted to exterminate a large portion of his population that's the Soviet Union's business not the U.N.'s. Negotiations and treaties were signed at the borders.

As the world has gotten more interconnected, nations have begun gradually to lose their sovereignty. In order to promote free trade, for example, in agreements like NAFTA and GATT, nations have been giving up some of their autonomy in order to participate. Protective tariffs were eliminated, labor laws examined, environmental regulations scrutinized, investment practices dictated, and legal rights initiated. Treaties supporting the elimination of Fluorocarbon emission and the reduction of green house gases will restrict certain kinds of economic activity. A treaty to stop whaling or regulate international fishing will hurt some countries' economic base. Whether one likes these changes or not, it is clear that for nations to participate in international agreements, each must implement internal changes to bring themselves into conformance with the treaty or face expulsion.

Because we are more and more in each other's pockets internationally, we are much more regularly coming into contact with customs, ethical affronts and business practices within those countries which strike one group or another as offending their sense of ethical propriety. As we get to know each other, along with the discovery of shared ideas, dreams and visions, we also encounter sometimes shocking differences.

Those concerned with establishing the equality of women in American have looked on with anger as women in Afghanistan have lost their freedom as the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban party has seized power in this war ravaged nation:

Within days of the takeover, the Taliban forced women off their jobs, closed schools for girls and made it mandatory for women to wear the all-enveloping burqa. Women also are not allowed to travel without a male relative.[1]

Labor advocates in the developed world have decried the use of child labor in the developing world. We highly value education and protecting children from full time work. In the developing world, children's labor are needed to survive.

In Southeast Asia [however], attractive daughters are a boon to many poverty-stricken families. They can be sold into prostitution rings, earning money for their relatives. Many die young from disease or abuse.

The news isn't much better in Kenya, where poor families send their young daughters to live with wealthy families in the capital. The children, put to work in those homes, are usually treated no better than slaves.

And in Colombia, many of the country's coal miners are children -- as are some diamond cutters in India and rug weavers in Turkey.[2]

The recent visit by Jiang Zemin from China has brought many Chinese human rights abuses into the limelight. While China claims it has the right to handle its internal affairs the way it wants (the old sovereignty argument), Amnesty International catalogues the abuse of individuals within that country. Detainment and torture without explanation of charges of minority political and religious figures and frequent use of the death penalty after sham trials and the use of excessive force to deal with social problems has raised great concern in the West along with the opposition to the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

But let us not just look outward beyond our borders for offenses of human rights, we can also look inward. We can look at our own use of the death penalty. I'll spare you the gruesome stories I read recently describing botched executions in this country. There aren't any sure fire ways to kill people that work perfectly without error. What is more upsetting to me are the cases of people being convicted and given the death penalty when they are innocent.

[By 1993,] least 48 people have been released from prison after serving time on death row since 1970 with significant evidence of their innocence. In 43 of these cases, the defendant was subsequently acquitted, pardoned, or charges were dropped. 21 more cases have been reversed since 1993.[3]

If we had a "better," death penalty law that didn't allow so many appeals, some of these innocent people would be dead like the 23 documented cases of innocent men, women even juveniles put to death.[4]

What all these humanitarian concerns and struggles call out for is the development of a global ethic by which all nations can be held to the same standard. The dream of worldwide standards for how governments and individuals relate to each other has been a desired goal for many years. Many have been worked out for tribes, city states, and nations but they have often yielded to the sword of their neighbor. It is only now as the world community seeks non-violent ways to solve problems, that the opportunity for such a solution has the room to emerge. Our great thinkers are rising to the task.

Probably the most important fundamental global ethic is human rights. The United Nations has been an important leader in this regard. Part of the reason the UN exists is to guard against the repetition of the horrors of The Second World War[5]. On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which still sets a high standard for the nations of this world to attain. These rights include life, liberty, security, freedom from slavery false imprisonment and torture, to equal protection of law, to redress of grievances, privacy, property, to freedom of conscience and religion, to participation in government, to work for equal pay, to education and to a basic standard of living. Even though these rights are not uniformly observed, almost all the nations of the world voted for this resolution and continue to support it.

What was not outlined in the UN resolution was a list of responsibilities. Václav Havel's words to the US Congress in 1990 put it bluntly:

Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in our being as humans, and the catastrophe toward which our world is headed...will be unavoidable....We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of all our actions--if they are to be moral--is responsibility: responsibility to something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success, responsibility to the order of being where all our actions are indelibly recorded and where, and only where, they will be properly judged.

As we are seeing being argued by folks like Bill Bennett in this country, rights must be balanced with responsibilities, commitments and obligations to support the integrity of the society. It is our mutual obligation to each other that allows us to protect each other's rights in the first place.

In my research for this sermon, I came across an interesting web site for an organization called the Commission on Global Governance[6]. It is an independent organization made up of 28 leaders from around the world who have published a book on global ethics called: Our Global Neighbourhood. In it they offer an interesting list of proposed responsibilities I offer for your consideration:

They believe all people share a responsibility to:

• contribute to the common good;
• consider the impact of their actions on the security and welfare of others;
• promote equity, including gender equity;
• protect the interests of future generations by pursuing sustainable development and safeguarding the global commons;
• preserve humanity's cultural and intellectual heritage;
• be active participants in governance; and
• work to eliminate corruption.[7]

  Great list isn't it? The Commission extends the ideas of the rights of the individual into the rights of the communities in relation with one another. Along with the individually oriented rights of respect for life, liberty, justice and equity, they add social norms of mutual respect, caring, and integrity which tend to stabilize international relations.

  The Commission's report offers us a powerful metaphor for considering global ethics by asking how we can be good neighbors. While trying to resolve an ethical dispute between a Pygmy or Bushman from Africa and a yak herder from Mongolia may be disorienting, all of us can understand and have a common sense notion of how we should relate to our neighbor. In the Bible we are commanded to love our neighbor. In the Koran we find honored the Arab obligation of hospitality to strangers. Religion and culture around the world share a common idea of setting affirming boundaries with one's neighbors.

  Unfortunately, relations with neighbors are not always easy. My neighbor may spray his fruit trees with pesticides next door while my children are playing in the yard. My neighbor may allow his dog to run loose and relieve herself on my lawn. My neighbor may not maintain her property which may decrease the value of my home. Thankfully most of us don't mine our property's perimeter to keep the neighbor's kids from chasing a ball into our yards or dig a bunker in the front yard with a machine gun nest to keep solicitors away (although it sounds like this happens sometimes in Montana).

  The deeper problem of relating to one's neighbor is relational distance. If we are very close, we can practically treat each other like family. If we are very hostile, we might want to string barbed wire between our homes. In the neighborhood, the closer we are the more we will feel like a community. The more separate, the more we will feel like individuals sharing the same sub-division of land. This relational distance will greatly determine how much mutual respect and caring get expressed and how much integrity each person is permitted. The closer one gets, the fuzzier the boundaries. If people's relational distance is shortened or lengthened for them, not by their choosing,, then expect trouble.

  The speed at which cultures and peoples are coming into contact may be faster than each culture can adapt to the other in healthy ways. We are flooding the world with our values and ideas filtered through the distorting lens of Madonna's music, Big Macs, satellite TV and video games. Many of the problems we decry in the world such as prostitution in Thailand, Brazil leveling their rain forests, child labor in Vietnam, torture of Christian missionaries in China, are fallout from contact with Western culture. The Islamic Fundamentalist movement arose as an effort to hold on to their cultural identity to counter Western influence. We need to ask ourselves the question: Global ethics--for who's benefit?

  I've really been struggling this week to come up with some innovation in international relations and proclaim some grand and lofty solution. Gradually it has been dawning on me that this way of moving forward is fundamentally flawed. Before we come up with THE answers, we need to spend time getting to know and understand those with greatly different values and beliefs than our own. Only in person to person dialogue can we find bridges to common values through rigid ideological postures .

  I suspect the tension between the rights of the individual and the responsibility of the individual to the group has no perfect resolution. It will be different for each nation, each city, each neighborhood, each religious sect, and each family at each point in its development conditioned by the culture of the people who compose the group. While we may be able to find universal values such as the affirmation of life, every culture will deny that value if the individual becomes a threat. Police around the world carry the ability to use deadly force be it gun or baton.

  In a speech during his visit Jiang Zemin commented that they have been working in China on the best way to live in harmony for 3500 years. We, here in this country, have been working on good government for at best 350 years. I'm sure we could learn something about the way to global ethics in China. We could also learn something about global ethics in Thailand and Africa. We need to slow down and listen. In dialogue with each other, a real global ethics can begin to emerge through the spark of creative interchange.

  And a great way to start the conversation is to explore how we can be good neighbors.

  Copyright (c) 1997 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

  [1] Associated Press report: U.N. probes discrimination against women, 13 November 1997, Web posted to www.cnn.com at: 03:42 JST, Tokyo time (18:42 GMT) from KABUL, Afghanistan
  [2] Cable News Network, World conference seeks end to child labor, October 26, 1997 Web posted to www.cnn.com at: 3:12 p.m. EST (2012 GMT) OSLO, Norway
  [3] http://www.essential.org/dpic
  [4] Researchers Radelet & Bedau found 23 cases since 1900 where innocent people were executed (In Spite of Innocence, Northeastern University Press, 1992).
  [5] UN Human Rights web page (http://www.un.org/rights/dpi1774e.htm)
  [6] visit http://www.cgg.ch for more information and to read the text of their book.
  [7] http://www.cgg.ch/ch7.htm