Whoever says religion says social justice; the only interesting question remaining concerns the boundaries of these Dramas of the Holy POSTMODERN RELIGION AND THE GLOBAL WORLD ORDER Postmodern Theology and Social Justice REFLEXIVE STATEMENT: Progressive scholars in both modern and postmodern work have tended to dismiss religion as myth and/or alien to emancipatory politics. However, postmodern theology can be used to ground the move toward social justice in a globalized world order. The postmodern view of religion begins with Durkheim (1961) who posited the god concept as an embodiment of the social order in which it is found. In the first paper in this series, I made the case that the god construct (the 'Universal' We) has the same ontological status as any other human construct; the family, Philadelphia, the United Nation or the St. Louis Cardinal football team (Young 1992a). This paper carries on to assert that the reality quotient of the god construct depends upon the nature of social justice programs and practices. Thus human beings can realize more or less limited Universal We's by their actions within a solidarity which honors and sustains all members of that solidarity. I posit four over- lapping and deeply connected shells of human activity, called here Dramas of the Holy, in which human beings may sanctify or profane persons, groups, events and whole runs of human activity. INTRODUCTION A Globalized World Order has emerged since World War II which has affected the capacity of localized governments to ensure the quality of life of its citizens. (NOTE 1) With the globalization of transport, trade, communications, banking and industry, transnational Corporations, moral agency becomes displaced from local institutions to transnational institutions. At the same time, localized Dramas of the Holy become too narrow and too parochial to inform those dramas of the Holy which would otherwise ensure social justice and equity within a society. Traditional locations of moral authority and moral agency are, thus, diminished as economics and politics become globalized. Moral questions which need attention in order to realize a truly universal Being include those about the kind and quality of work; around the character and sources of inequality; around access to health care; around care for the young and aged; around the use and pollution of the eco-systems in which all life must perforce live out its days. This paper offers the thesis that a progressively globalized political economy (NOTE 2) can and probably will give rise to a more active and encompassing religious sensibility than is now present in most existing theologies. To that end, a postmodern theology is useful. (NOTE 3) Expanding Moral Agency The first part of this paper modifies the 'globalization' theme; rather than one progressively homogenous world system dominated by the West, some ten or twelve social blocs will emerge in the next quarter century or so. These new, transnational blocs will produce another qualitative change in the god construct comparable to those depicted in the McEvedy maps below. As in previous re-organizations of social life, as the boundaries of social organization expand, the reach of the Universal We and moral sensibility expands. Moral agents and agency, as a concept refers here to a) situated dramas of the Holy which embody a) nonlinear justice: mercy, love and compassion within it as well as b) insightful participation in social policy to expand the 'Universal We,' c) specific programs which speak to the concerns mentioned earlier; health, hunger, homes, safety, resources for young people as well as the amenities of life which vivify and sanctify the human condition. In a distinctly postmodern view of morality, moral agency thus is located as much in the institutions and processes of a society as in the thought and behavior of the individual person. Economics and politics are united with psychology and sociology in postmodern moral development theory. However, specific persons still have a large role in moral agency. Postmodern theologians, both devout and academic, working in this expanded milieu, can offer more embracing and empowering versions of the sanctification process. Whole congregations and whole peoples will become ever more receptive of those understandings and practices in daily life which make real their particular vision of the Universal We in ways less inimical to other religious groupings. The extent to which such religious sensibility has developed to date in various religious traditions has been explored in some depth at the 1993 Conference on 'Religion without Frontiers' meeting in Rome (Cipriano 1994). The results are mixed but all major religions have attributes and advocates which lend themselves to a complex and globalized theology in which contrary and very different religious sensibility can co-exist. As its turns out, the new science of Complexity/Chaos offers a view of the geometry of social forms in which quite different dramas of the Holy can occupy the same time/space continua without, necessarily, destroying each other. I mention this new science and its most unusual ontologies but develop the case in other work still in draft (1994). Knowledge, Politics and Moral Agency A second major premise I make is that the demand for social justice will continue within and between blocs. It is likely that the media, informed by comparative research in the behavioral sciences, will make visible inequalities within and between blocs as well as reporting on effective social justice programs in other social formations. In turn, such information will produce much greater political pressure for democratic moral agency and for an encompassing social justice than is now the case within and between stratified societies. (NOTE 4) Globalization of transport, trade, banking, communications requires a certain social peace. Those who run transnational corporations will insist upon it; those who administer local, national and bloc policies will, perforce, respond to demand for social justice or face de-stabilizing street politics. Transnationals are designed to by-pass those regions, nations, or blocs which cannot maintain peace. There will be great pressure from both directions to administer social justice. As the behavioral and environmental sciences themselves transcend their parochial origins in systems of class, gender and national bias, they will contribute much to an expanded knowledge process with which postmodern theologians may work (Young, 1993). Thus, the causal interconnections between knowledge processes and social structure continue to broaden and deepen in favor of human agency in constituting social conditions of life and death. Social Justice and Dramas of the Holy A third basic idea upon which I build is that whoever says Religion, says social justice (Young 1991b, 1992b, 1993). (NOTE 5) Social justice, in the Globalized World Order (hereafter, GWO), requires both situated and transcendent Dramas of the Holy within and between economic blocs. New, bloc-driven and globalized Dramas of the Holy will be multi-layered and multi-faceted Sanctification processes which reach beyond family, tribe and nation. I will discuss four inter-connected Dramas of the Holy which derive and constitute postmodern understandings of theology and religion. (NOTE 6) They are grounded in a postmodern phenomenology in which every drama of the Holy is understood to be entirely human work in which whole segments of the human population are sanctified or profaned; in which the good earth on which all depends is held to be sacrosanct or mere property to be used, abused or marketed. These new religious practices, multi-layered and deeply connected, will inform a variety of postmodern theologies in Islam, Christendom, Buddhism, Hindu and the many New Age religions emerging. (NOTE 7) Many will be congenial to globalized but highly variable programs of social justice. Some will be inimical. It is the contradictions and contrarieties in both religion and theology which are accommodated by postmodern theology in ways not possible by either pre-modern or modernist theological understandings. (NOTE 8) Fundamentalist theologies which are enabling and affirmative on a partisan, parochial scale while openly exploitative of other peoples will contest vigorously and bitterly these postmodern religions in the GWO. Ultimately, fundamentalist religions which exclude and exploit will fade away as science, politics and economics combine to relocate moral agency in more universalistic programs of social justice. Sad as it might be to lose the sweet innocence and joyous hope of fundamentalist religions, still they are incompatible with the relentless logic of a global political economy. (NOTE 9) GLOBALIZATION OF ECONOMY AND SOCIETY David Wilkinson (1991) has prepared a chart of this globalization process. One can see that, in the 20th Century, our present historical epoch, Wilkinson asserts a global civilization. The only emendation I would make to his charting of this process is that what has been globalized is more a political economy than a civilization. The term, civilization, suggests a common set of values, shared norms, and shared culture spread throughout the peoples in question. A more realistic chart would draw a loose and changing set of allied nations; a more connected and still changing set of Multinational corporations; a few loosely constituted and largely ineffective International Agencies and rapidly changing ethnic concatenations. There are indeed shared values and norms in a globalized political economy but these are largely confined to the few million TNC employees and owners actively engaged in international commerce and finance rather than among given national populations themselves. Indeed, it is this very diversity of culture and ethnic animosity informed by very dogmatic pre-modern religious sensibilities, which drive the major events of the world today. In the Middle East, in South Central Europe, in the former Soviet Bloc countries, as well as in South Africa, Central America and the South Pacific, ancient cleavages still inform modern tragedies. Globalization of Religion and Theology. The second part of this conjecture is that the God concept as well as the nature of the sanctification process change as the political economy of the world becomes more connected by trade routes, by empire-building conquest, by colonization, and now, by globalized communication, transport, industry, finance and commerce. Evidence for this deep connection between religion and globalization is contained in a series of maps which, over the last 3000 years, show the world being more connected about the time each new major religious tradition appears and is received. McEvedy provides us with maps of the globalization process (Wilkinson 1991, pp. 143ff). The first, Figure 2 below, shows an early stage, 825 B.C., of the globalization process. One can see that, just prior to the development of systematic thought about philosophy and religion, there was a loosely connected political economy that encompassed dozens of tribes and clans. Efforts to sustain the notion of local tribal gods ran contrary to both the social facts of the era as well as the political tactics available to conquering tribes to impose their God concept on subjugated peoples. By the time of Thales (ca.640-546 B.C.), the world was interconnected enough for one of his genius to argue against the assumption that worldly events were driven by particular gods; he argued rather that these facts of life had naturalistic explanations and that the explanatory scheme could be turned into a unified whole. Thales assumed that some 'one' thing caused everything else to happen (Jones 1970:10). Such an effort is called 'monism,' an effort to find unity in diversity. It informs modernist concepts of God. Along with Thales, Heraclitus (575-540 B.C.) offered a vision of the God concept that was both universal and detached from particular cultures (Jones 1970:18). Xenophanes found the Gods described by Homer (8th cent. B.C.) and Hesiod (c. 8th cent. B.C) far too human in their '...stealings, adulteries, and decievings of one another.' Empire required one universal and impartial God with one set of Laws rather than myriads of conflicting gods each urging its people to prey on those tribes with 'false' gods. Not yet a monotheism, still the idea that each people have different names for the same God is a concept which matched the political realities of the day (Jones 1970:19). The world looked different by 375 B.C. (Fig. 3), above. Both religion and philosophy had changed markedly in ways compatible with the logic of a global world view. Plato and Aristotle gave us a world view which still informs the knowledge process. For Plato (428-348 B.C.), God was a universal and absolute embodiment of Natural Law. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) also stressed the absolute power and perfection of his God by holding the divine to be an 'unmoved mover,' and the final cause for whatever happens. For both, an emerging set of universal norms in the Greco-Roman Empire served as a base for asserting Universal Law established by an all-powerful God. In five short centuries, both political economy and the god concept changed. With the 'globalization' of the Middle East by the Romans, Figure 4, Empire extended the boundaries of the sanctification process. When first the Spartans and then the Romans extended citizenship to all 'free' peoples in their empire, they also extended situated Dramas of the Holy in time and space. (NOTE 10) A social base for a more 'universal we' now existed in the middle East. Several nations which were practiced in the art of conquest vied for hegemony and with that hegemony came the political reality of having ancient religious animosity imposed on the rest of the tribes. A new Jewish sect, persecuted by Romans and Jews alike, was transformed into a more accessible and less hostile religious sensibility now called Christianity. That transformation came in the reign of Constantine (280- 337 A.D.) whose adoption of a religion now called Christianity changed this splinter group into a major religion. (NOTE 11) It is important that Deuteronomic Law required the forgiveness of debts every seven years; forbade entering into the home of the debtor to collect a pledge on a loan; required contributions to the poor and the stranger. Christianity offered a simple rite of passage in which one became part of the 'Universal We' by confessing a belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior. In a time of inflation and mass evictions, the social justice embodied in Deuteronomy was very appealing to the poor in the Holy Roman Empire. Other religions, Buddhism and paganism aside, required that one be born into the religious community; social justice stopped dramatically at the edge of that particularized 'We.' Another major change in the political economy of the Middle East is apparent by the 7th Century as a new major religious tradition appeared proclaiming itself 'universal.' Figure 5 shows the inclusion of Persia with its own rich religious traditions in the global world order by 737 AD. Hayder Ibrahim (1994) has set forth the conditions in that age which provided a fertile soil for a religion which transcended tribal conflicts. Mohammed (570-632) founded a new religion characterized by a universalistic God, called the 'one true God.' Membership, and thus inclusion in situated Dramas of the Holy, was based on behavior rather than birth status. The call for social justice echoes powerfully through the teachings of Mohammed (Sivan 1985). (NOTE 12) The successes of Islam can be seen in Figure 6; there were, by that time, two major cores to the global system, each having its own 'universal God' predicated on the same five books. As Islam spread across Africa and then North into Spain, traditional trade routes were cut off to the Christian core. A series of explorations West by Portugal, England and France to the Americas set up a process in which the center of the Global World Order shifted from Rome to Amsterdam/Brussels and then to London. That move of the center of the world economic order offered the grounds for a third major change in the Christian tradition. Figure 6 shows a fragmented but spreading 'global' political economy in which England, Spain, France and Portugal were key players. Protestantism arose out of a series of theologic treatises offered by Martin Luther (1483-1546 A.D.). King Henry VIII provided the political means by which this new Protestantism could be protected from the Catholic heart of Christianity. Today only, in the late 1900s, is it beginning to be sensible to talk about a truly global economy. Figure 7 shows the current core of a well connected but still polycentric world 'order.' Both the former Soviet Union as well as Communist China are included in this emerging New World Order since they have both the technology and the social organization to produce and distribute to a world market. There is, of course, much uncertainty about the role of former Socialist Bloc countries in that world market but it is far too early to delete that link from the global system. A fair accounting of the GWO today should include Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and parts of Brazil in the New World Order. A northern strip of Mexico is well integrated into USA economic life and the Union of South Africa as well as Israel export and import on that market. Israel, along with Singapore is gearing its economy for the world market as fast as possible. In all these changes of the world map--tossed and turned by invasions, wars, migrations, colonizations, alliances and enmities--religious sensibility changed as well. With globalization of commerce, transport, and communication since 1945, the social and political base for a new, more encompassing religious sensibility is in place. One cannot know the course of politics, economics or religion in human history but, if the process seen so far continues, then we should expect great transformations in both the knowledge process and in religious sensibility to match the great changes in the global political economy. The remainder of the paper offers some ideas about just what those changes may be. EMERGING ECONOMIC BLOCS Where, for most of human history, the family, clan and tribe were autonomous economic units, since the 1600s especially, production and distribution moved from home and barn to factories, shops, and markets. The central economic fact that presents itself to human history in the last half of the 20th century is the globalization of the economy. Since 1945, global communications, global transport, transnational trading corporations, and loose economic alliances have been instituted by which to produce, distribute and transfer funds. Satellites permit billions of dollars to move hourly; each day over 3 million people board huge aircraft, hundreds of thousands visit other countries. International corporations think locally but act globally to secure markets, raw materials and labor. All these transformations, qualitative in nature, have demoted both family, country and nation-state as the core player in the production and distribution of essential goods and services. As families became integrated into a larger market system, household gods disappeared. As different cultures were forcibly assimilated to empire, tribal gods disappeared or were converted into either Saints or Devils. The central social transformation of interest to postmodern religion and theology may well be the emergence of some ten or twelve economic blocs in the next quarter century. This transformation of the political economy, produced by the movement of private and social capital around the world is the most important social change since the rise of great empires in Egypt, India, China and the Americas and the 'Universal' Gods which appeared with them. Bloc formation will be a key driving force in both political and religious life in the first half of the new century. Bloc Formation In this section, I want to map the outlines of bloc formation and suggest the major anchor points of the GWO. (NOTE 13) The particular configuration of each bloc is, today, open. Any number of permutations can occur in such times of uncertainty but, I rather think, bloc formation will be the next phase in reshaping the global political economy. No one nation or set of nations can impose political hegemony on such a seething, diversified set of cultural and social units. No one church can impose its discipline on such a set of diverse and pious believers. Right now, I would like to list the key parameters which bind peoples and nations together in bloc formation. Later, I will use these factors and more to talk about the key parameters which drive the quest for a more universal concern for social justice. A. Cultural Factors affecting Bloc formation: 1. Language, Religion, Ethnicity 2. Colonial past; present economic ties B. Geopolitical Factors shaping Bloc formation: 1. Proximity 2. Past Alliances (and enmities) 3. Resources 4. Strategic Location on trade and transport routes 5. Climate, geology and biotics C. Economic Factors driving Bloc formation: 1. Cost/profit differences in labor/transport/goods/services/resources. 2. Capital resources: Infrastructure, Labor force, raw materials 3. Capital flow patterns between nation-states 4. Market patterns and potential inside and out 5. Patterns of Inequality (see below) D. Political Factors constraining Bloc formation: 1. Internal distributions of economic, political power 2. governmental forms: autocratic/democratic 3. state/business/labor relations: cooperative/conflictual 4. Locus of moral agency: state, church, university, media, voluntary associations, market, self-system E. Technical Factors organizing Bloc formation: 1. Mass Transport: Rail, Air, Roadway, Seaway, 2. Communications: phone, internet, satellite connections for radio, television, banking 3. Education: engineering, health & medical, computer science, social research institutes The Blocs: 2025 A.D. Taking all these together, we should see some set of economic blocs with these urban anchor points emerging over the next 35 years similar to the following: 1. NAB--The North America Bloc. Toronto, New York, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Honolulu, Los Angeles and Mexico City are the most likely anchor points for this bloc. Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, Montreal and Miami are also strategically located. If the Philippines does not join the PER, below, Manila may well anchor the NAB. 2. WEB--The Western European Bloc. Berlin, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels and Rome are its most important anchor points. Madrid, Dublin, Hamburg and Marseilles are also important. Sidney and Wellington will anchor its periphery; however these last two could join the PER since they provide both agricultural and industrial resources. Stockholm and Oslo are likely partners but may join the CEEB, below. 3. PER--The Pacific East Rim Bloc. Tokyo, Taipei, Manila, and Seoul offer strategic anchor points to this bloc. The financial center of the GWO is moving toward PER. 4. SEAB--The South-East Asian Bloc. Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, and perhaps, Manila, anchor this economic bloc. Singapore is particularly well situated both technologically and geopolitically to lead the bloc. 5. CAB--The central Asian bloc. All by itself, China is a bloc composed of over 100 ethnic groups. Development in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Peiping is proceeding apace. In 1997, Hong Kong joins that Bloc and is now a major finance center. It is not unlikely that Taiwan will be part of that bloc; everyday relations expand between the two. CAB could be, after PER, the next financial center of the GWO. 6. SEB--The former Soviet Socialist Economic Bloc. St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and Novosibirsk are important anchors to the economic life of this bloc. 7. CEEB--The Central European Economic Bloc. Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, Athens, and perhaps Ankara offer the technology, banking and political leadership to guide former satellite nations. 8. BBIS--The Burmese, Bangladesh, Indian, Sri Lanka Bloc anchored by Bombay, Calcutta, Dhaka, and Yangon. India just may become the next center of the GWO replacing Japan; it has the educated labor force and basic infra- structure together with a very large labor reserve. 9. MEB--The Muslim Economic Bloc. Jakarta, Karachi, Tehran, Baghdad, Mecca, Damascus, Cairo, Tripoli, Algiers, Rabat form the heart of an emergent Islamic bloc. Kuala Lumpur could join given its Islamic orientation as could Ankara. 10. SSAB--The sub-saharan African Bloc will be the weakest and most vulnerable bloc for some time. It has many assets in terms of labor, raw materials and later on, a growing domestic market. It will be anchored by Lagos, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Pretoria, Luanda, Kinshasa. Israel has worked to form connections to this bloc; if Jordan and Israel work out a peace with the Palestinians, Tel Aviv would bring much in the way of technical, economic and political life to this bloc. 11. SAC--The South American Cone form a natural bloc in many ways. Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, and Caracas join Bogota to consolidate this bloc. Cuba would have much to offer such a bloc; investment in Cuba from these countries is proceeding apace. BLOC FORMATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. The central thesis of this paper is that as the New World Order consolidates into regional blocs, pressure from excluded minorities for social justice will increase within and between blocs. Religion and especially, postmodern theology will be central to this process. The operative question in this quest for better housing, health care, education, pensions and a larger part in the cultural process will center around the ways in which media, church and university, along with popular political movements set the problems and state the alternatives. Such statements can broaden or they can shrink the boundaries of the human process. In so doing, they can add to the long-term costs of social change or they can reduce loss of life, minimize degradation, and tap into the great potential of genius and knowledge possessed by every peoples. Failing response in institutional politics, demand will be registered in street politics. Political crime both by and against the state increases when social justice fails (Young 1993). As such crime increases, demand for authoritarian control tactics increase among those who are privileged by existing inequalities. However, exigencies of trade and commerce will force local governments to accommodate those grass roots demands for social justice. In turn, local and state governments will transfer much of this demand to inter-bloc negotiations. It is important to note that capacity to participate in a globalized economy: market share, labor flow, access to raw materials depends upon social peace. In turn social peace depends upon social justice. Social control fades and fails as problems increase and uncertainties accumulate. (NOTE 14) After we take a quick look at the factors essential to force state response for the social justice concerns among excluded peoples, we will then make closer connection between social justice and postmodern theology. The short version is that whoever says social justice, says religion, in both material and spiritual terms. Facilitating Social Justice The degree to which such demand will arise, be registered in politics and find response in social policy depends upon a number of factors within and between states in a bloc as well as within and between blocs in the GWO. In other work, I have suggested that bifurcations in class, status and power distributions drive the quest for social justice while the character of the political economy limits progressive response (Young 1991a). The new science of complexity offers great insight on the pattern of these destabilizing bifurcations to which theologians, politicians and theorists alike should pay close attention. (NOTE 15) Failure to respond to demands for social justice results in the formation of several sorts of parallel and/or underground structures (Young 1983). Among the more salient factors shaping the character of prosocial response to inequality patterns, we find: A. Social Research: Research capacity, Public Policy Processes. Politics is fueled by information. Amid all this poverty amid affluence; amid all this disease within a modern medical system; amid all this ignorance in a highly developed knowledge process, a growing sector of the population gathers data, reads it and reflects upon it for its larger patterns and processes. The knowledge industry sits uncomfortably within the globalized political economy while it provides the ideas and understandings with which to create it in the first instance and make sense of it in the second. Academics, engineers, newspaper reporters, television talk shows, special interest magazines all contribute to an expanded knowledge process to ground the political process. (NOTE 16) Good politics requires three kinds of information; how conditions really are at present; how other societies do well or less well and how to make change with a minimum of social and economic costs (Habermas 1970). Good cross cultural data are valuable to purposes of comparison and emulation. Good politics also requires an interactively rich public opinion policy process in which new ideas can be heard and all sectors of a society can speak. That means that class, race and gender privilege give hostage to social justice. B. Economics: Resources, Means & Relations of Production Infrastructure: roads, communications, technology. It is an irony that, before a people can begin to think of social justice, they must reach a level of economic and political security in which they can act beyond the day and reach out beyond the family circle. Modern technology for the production of food and its effective transport are essential to this emancipation of people beyond the moment. C. Cultural Factors: Religious ideas about the geometry of "Universal Being" and about the "Other." Expressions of Dramas of the Holy. The geometry and content of Universal Being is special interest to those interested in social justice. Enlargement of economic units cannot but affect the boundaries of the 'I' and the 'We' concepts and in changing those boundaries, change the way in which social justice is done. That was the message to be taken in the first section above using the McEvedy maps. Exclusive cultural and social units, centered around kin, ethnic and national boundaries of Being, tend to be divisive to dramas of the Holy in that they privilege a given group, a given way of life and a given linguistic system over that of neighboring societies. Within any given society, as pious and devout as may it be, class, gender and ethnic structures divide and dilute the religious impulse. The content of Being itself is thus most important to universal dramas of the Holy. (NOTE 17) How one understands one's own Being is crucial to the ability to expand the geometry of Being. If one is socialized to view oneself as competitive and violent in respect to other sets of Being, then religion is narrowed. If one comes to believe that one's sense of personal self worth depends upon possession of material wealth or upon the holding of title and degree, then it is easy to abandon others to their own fate--a fate which, given the rich connectedness of social life, is in part engineered by those of us who buy and sell, think and teach, own and use. While ethnic origins are most important to the structure of self and while ethnic traditions are indispensable to the daily business of Being, still hierarchal definitions of Being often affect the sanctification process adversely and, thus, the geometry of the Holy. A universal understanding of Being must take in all persons and societies if a religion is to be truly universal. Bloc formation expands the nature of 'Being,' in the religious sense, by another notch. it shrinks the geometry of the 'other' by just that much. D. Demographic Factors: Growth rates, Age grade composition, Morbidity rates. A major result of social justice programs in the developed world are qualitative changes in demographic patterns. A stable or negative growth rate, when combined with increased productivity means a larger pie to share out, politics permitting. Decline in morbidity rates as a result of better food supply, water purification and immunization means a healthier more productive workforce and fewer resources allocated to repair and maintenance of the ill and crippled. But it is age grade composition which plays most dramatically upon the reach of social justice. It is not for nothing that most societies revere the aged. They are a central repository of morality for any society. In the tragedies and travail of their life and in the quietness of their wisdom is heard the fullness of morality. In the USA, the American Association of Retired Persons, the single largest union in the country, has taken upon itself an overarching policy of intergenerational well being. In the 30s, senior citizens in the USA focussed more upon the needs of the elderly for pensions. In the 60s, it was food, health care and housing for the elderly which was the subject of their politics. Now the AARP enlarges the boundaries of social justice to include all age groups. DRAMAS OF THE HOLY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE The boundaries of the 'universal we' vary greatly within and between the 165 or so nations which comprise the political economy of the world today. The task of postmodern religion is to defend the boundaries of 'particular we,' that is of ethnic religiousity while accepting those dramas of the Holy by which other human beings are sanctified to themselves and to each other. A thoroughly sanctified GWO requires radical expansion and addition of new levels of such dramas if the human process is to be served by the global political economy now emerging. Among existing Dramas of the Holy we find: A. Situated Dramas of Solidarity: rites of passage such as baptisms, bar mitzvahs, weddings, confirmations as well as confessions, funerals, Sunday worship services, Festivals and Holy days, together with retreats, renewals and meditations. For the ministry, the liturgy of good work extends to social justice in this world. It is these dramas of the Holy to which we give the most attention and from which we take the most direct spiritual benefit. In as much as these situated dramas of the Holy are oriented to the great questions of being and self as well as questions of moral action in times of trouble or in times of passage, we tend to equate them with all that is Holy. Yet there are other dramas of the Holy, not less important to the human condition. B. Dramas of 'Being itself' in Everyday Life: Parenting, Friendship, Mentoring, Community Service, Citizenship. One must never underestimate the religious content of everyday life. The very banality of cooking, cleaning, sewing, talking, and serving each other presumes a vast drama of the Holy made invisible by that very banality. If, as Hannah Arendt said, evil is banal in a racist or elitist society, so too is the good we daily do in those same societies. Among the new, expanded Dramas of the Holy helpful to a postmodern religious sensibility are: C. Dramas of Change and Renewal: Authentic Social Knowledge, Honest Social Criticism, Change and renewal in social life; Institution of Social Justice Programs These larger, less visible dramas of the holy enhance and expand 'Being Itself' for all citizens. They engage human genius in the solution of social problems. If well done, they extend the gift of grace beyond the single individual and vest it in a community of believers and, oddly enough, unbelievers. D. Dramas of Universal Being: Sanctification Processes which reach out to join with other religions; to reach across generations, as well as to cherish other species as part of 'Being Itself.' International Law, Atmospheric Accords, Protected Lands, Species and Seas, Equitable Economic Agreements within and across blocs. It is this most universal of all dramas of the Holy which is so fragile in the New World Order now before us. For most of history, the dramas of the Holy above suffice to the human process. Now, meagre and mean-spirited social policies subvert the possibility of universal Being even within the towns and cities of the world. The most challenging task before postmodern theologians is how to define a religious sensibility firmly anchored in communal dramas of the Holy but, at the same time, tolerant and even supportive of quite different sanctification processes. There is an technical answer to such questions found in the postmodern science discussed below but human response to such questions are yet to be found. OF HAPPINESS AND DESPAIR, WE DO HAVE MEASURE Sharing and caring for others is central to the message of both prophet and priest; imam and Aytollah; rabbi and preacher; guru and shaman. It is this sharing and caring for others in times of trouble which is the hallmark of religion in both its technical and in its human sense. Social Justice Indicators offer a basis for judging the reach of that religious impulse. One cannot be religious except in the act of sharing and caring. The Indicators below yield a basis for comparison between groups within a nation as well as between nations. With such data before us, we can reflect on our own behavior and, given desire and means, we can improve or disprove our dramas of the Holy. And, when a set of nations join to form an economic bloc, those indicators will have telling effect on the politics of member states. Any quest for political legitimacy; any claim of moral agency; any assertion of religious competence runs up against performance data. In postmodern phenomenology, performance must match prophecy else we see a sociology of fraud more than a drama of the Holy. (NOTE 18) When the clan or the nation state is the effective unit of production and distribution, the fate of other peoples is of small concern. When the economic fate of a set of countries is, perforce, joined in a larger global economy, indicators of social justice have greater impact. A well organized social research capacity and a free press with which to publicize such data can fuel the desire for better sanctification processes. A thoroughly democratic political system, instituted in every realm of social life can provide the means to transform desire into practice. Data from the Indicators below should arouse concern and action to match. Among the more significant indicators of social justice, we find: A. Infant Mortality Rates B. Inequality patterns: 1. Racism, ethnocentric privilege 2. Class size and income ratios 3. Gendering patterns and power relations 4. Bureaucracy, hierarchy and massification 5. Core vis a vis periphery C. The labor process and prosocial work opportunities D. Literacy rates and computer literacy E. Suicide, Depression, Morbidity rates F. Crime rates; violence in homes and streets G. Geometry of Political Participation: thin and remote vs. strong and direct; narrow and concentrated vs. broad and dispersed throughout a membership. H. Quality of life indicators: art, travel, music, drama, housing, cuisine, recreation, architecture I. Communal amenities: parks, public spaces, landscape, street life, evening/night activity. These are not presented in any special order although I tend to think infant mortality rates are, at once, key measures and powerful symbols with which to motivate a more encompassing drama of the Holy. The operative point upon which to focus is that, given the reality of an economic bloc, cross-cultural indicators will be the subject matter of countless television documentaries, newspaper columns, university lectures and religious sermons. Each iteration of each indicator will politicize and mobilize popular demand for social justice. By such means are dramas of the Holy a human work, perhaps the most human work available to men and women. CONCLUSION Postmodern scholarship makes it possible for entirely new understandings of religion and theology to emerge to inform and to vivify the human project. Postmodern phenomenology, anchored by the new science of chaos and complexity, does not necessarily end in the death of God as did modern science, but rather places responsibility for good and evil in human hands where, arguably, it has always been. In short, the future of this particular illusion is up to us. We can sanctify a few people or we can sanctify all life forms...as do some versions of Buddha sasana. If we restrict the drama of the Holy only to a set of those defined as kin or clan or tribe, we are thus able to profane the rest of the peoples of the world and use them to private, unilateral purpose or to ignore them as we choose. Postmodern philosophy of science, with its concepts of fractal structures, nonlinear feedback, and bifurcations of key parameters which lead to great disorder offer a grounding of postmodern theology very different from that of modern science. It is possible for religious structures to co-exist in the same regions of time-space without mutual destruction. Chaos/Complexity theory shows that some mix of order and disorder is more useful to the social process than is order in and of itself. Thus the concern that everyone do everything exactly alike or society becomes disorganized is not supported by this new understanding. There is much in Chaos/Complexity theory which speaks to 'Religion sans Frontieres.' There is much which can be done and much to do to reconcile science and theology in postmodern sensibility. Postmodern theology, based on such a radical phenomenology, thus offers a way to accommodate several 'grand narratives' which now present themselves to the human race in response to the intractable social problems which confront so many people today. Liberation theology is, arguably, the leading edge of postmodern theology. Feminist theology, replacing male gods with female, male values with female, while empowering women, retains the ancient division of gender but only reverses its polarities of pride and privilege. Black theology changes only the color of good and evil but does not change its sources. Gay liberation theology equally privileges a given way of life and, in passing, demotes others as inferior. Liberation theology, with its twin-born sources of good and evil, reaches beyond the personal sin of situated persons to include structures of domination instituted by force and guile in other centuries. Liberation theology, with its two-fold program for social justice requires that both the individual human being and the larger social order be concerned in questions of good and evil. Liberation theology requires respect for the generations which came before and those which will come after. Liberation theology, as I understand it, reaches across gender divisions, ethnic and national divisions, across racial and class divisions to relocate the drama of the Holy in all of humanity itself. REFERENCES and BIBLIOGRAPHY Boardman, John, Jasper Griffen and Wswyn Murray 1986 The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bose, Kurethara. 1993 Religion and Revolution. A paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Miami Beach. Briggs, John and F. David Peat. 1989 Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness. New York: Harper and Row. Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de 1959 (1955) The Phenomenon of Man. Tr. Bernard Wall. New York: Harper Colophon Books. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1989. Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Press. Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1991. Core/Periphery Relations in Precapitalist Worlds. Boulder: Westview Press. Cipriano, Roberto. 1994. Religions sans Fronti‚res? Present and Future Trends of Migration, Culture and Communications [on Religious Sensibility]. Proceedings of Atti della Conferenza internazionale prossa dall'Universit  degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza." 12-16 luglio. Published by Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri: Dipartimento per L'informazione e L'editoria. Davies, Paul 1992 The Mind of God. New York: Simon and Schuster. Durkheim, Emile 1961 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. (J. Swain, tr.). Collier Books. Gleick, James, 1988. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books. [A good introduction and social history of the development of Chaos theory] Griffin, D.R., W.A. Beardslee and J. Holland. 1989. Varieties of Postmodern Theology. Albany: SUNY Press. Habermas, Jurgen 1970 Toward a Rational Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Hook, Sidney. 1974. Pragmaticism and the Tragic Sense of Life. New York: Basic Books. Ibrahim, Hayder. 1994. Islam: Continuity and change. In Religion sans Frontieres, edited by Roberto Cipriano. Roma: Dipartimento per L'informazione e L'editoria. Jones, W.T. 1970 The Classical Mind. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Tr. Colin Smith. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Parrinder, 1971 World Religions. New York: Facts on File. Prigogine, Ilya and Isabelle Stengers 1984 Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. New York: Bantam Books. [Overview of Chaos theory and emergence of new forms of order] Reese, W. L. 1980 Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion. New Jersey: Humanities Press. Rosenau, Pauline. 1992 Post-modernism and the Social Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sivan, E. 1985 Radical Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sunkel, Osvaldo and Edmundo Fuenzalida 1984 Transnational Capitalism. In How the World Works. Ed. by Gary Olson. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman & Co. Wilmore, Gayraud and James H. Cone, eds., 1979. Black Theology. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. Wilkinson, David. 1991. Cores, Peripheries, and Civilizations. In Core/Periphery Relations in PreCapitalist Worlds. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall, Eds. Pp.113-166. Young, T. R. 1966 A Theory of Corruption. Lecture presented to the graduate students in sociology at Colorado State University. Fall Semester. Young, T. R. 1983 "Underground Structures of the Democratic State," Mid-American Review of Sociology. 8(2). Young, T. R. 1991a Part II. The ABCs of Crime: Attractors, Bifurcations, Basins and Chaos. In The Critical Criminologist. Vol. 3, No. 3. Fall. Young, T. R. 1991b Change and Chaos Theory. The Social Science Journal. 28(3). Young, T. R. 1992a Postmodern Understandings of the God Concept: Social Justice and the Drama of the Holy. Philosophy and Theology. V.1, No.3. Young, T. R. 1992b Chaos Theory and Human Agency. Humanity and Society. November. Young, T. R. 1994 Chaos Theory and Postmodern Theology: Explorations in Post-Modern Science and Religion. Draft article available from the author. Young, T. R. 1995 Thick Descriptions of Thin Realities, in Dan Miller and Stanley Saxton, eds., The Carl Couch Festschrift. Forthcoming. NOTES 1. There are some 1500 Transnational Corporations (TNCs) which provide the social and power base in the emerging New World Order. About 300 of the richest are based in the USA. A variety of International instruments, controlled by the USA, support these TNCs; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, Agency for International Development, NATO and other alliances organized by the USA. All this is loosely coordinated by seven rich, industrialized nations: the USA, Germany, France, England, Canada, Japan, and Italy (Sunkel and Fuenzalida, 1984). 2. I would emphasize that a political economy is not yet a 'civilization' or even a social organization...it lacks the shared values and the close personal relationships which reach deep into and between the structures of self to be a culture or civilization. By political economy, I simply mean a political means by which wealth is transferred from one group to another; predatory raids, slavery, military occupation and colonial empire are all forms of political economy with little or no social, moral, or religious dimensions which would constitute them as a human culture. Capitalism is another such means which, instead of direct application of force, uses law and contract among unequals to ensure the flow of wealth to an elite. 3. Postmodern theology accepts that human beings create their god concept in the practices of their daily lives; that such god constructs have no prior nor independent existence apart from such human labor. Instead of explaining and justifying the teachings of particular gods as understood innocently by devout premodern theologians, postmodern academic theologians examine the social nature of those sanctification processes which, together, comprise the god construct. 4. By media, I include a global satellite system with extensive programming on cross-national comparisons of both quality of life variables and quantity of life variables; an enlarging print media offering both new age religious understandings as well as enlivening versions of traditional religions. Globalization of the economy entails globalization of human understanding and with it, expanded moral agency. 5. I use the term, religion, in its technical meaning, ligio, I bind; religio, I bind back. In this usage, anything which binds people together in mutual aid and which refers to the process by which humans are bound (ligio) to each other and to their God (religio) is part of the sanctification process. Social justice practices are thus religious in this sense. 6. The reader will note that I use the term, theology, in two differing senses: the first is a folk understanding of the origins, purposes, organization and future of their society held by those masters who are devout in their belief. The second usage, the one in the title, refers to a systematic explanation of how these folk theories arise, change and shape the world about them. In both uses, I hold a profound respect and deep sympathy for them. I wish both endeavors well in their quest for grace, mercy and peace; I wish to contribute what little I may to that end. 7. Note that I suggest that religious practices, situated Dramas of the Holy, which shape the god concept rather than the reverse. For a look at postmodern theologies in Christendom, see Griffin, et al., (1989). For a look at postmodern theology in Islam, see Sivan, (1990). 8. DaVinci (1452-1519) embodied the modern, scientific view of the god concept. He saw a God who set natural, linear laws into motion and tolerated no tampering of them: O admirable impartiality of Thine, Thou First Mover, Thou hast not permitted that any force should fail of the order or quality of its necessary results. One could use Reason to discover these laws of Nature and Society and one could use them for or against the human project but one could not violate them. Postmodern science offers a view in which both God and Natural Law are less primal while both are mediated, increasingly, by human agency (Young 1993). 9. Postmodern theology sees the desanctification of nature and society as grounds for proclaiming 'death of God.' In the postmodern theology presented here, both the birth and the death of God is entirely in human hands (Young 1994). 10. The concept of citizenship within empire contrasted to the concept of membership in tribe is most important to the sociology of religion. Boardman, et al, have an illuminating history of the politics and economic considerations which forced the Greeks and then the Romans to expand the boundaries of the 'We' (1986, p. 28 et passim). 11. With the adoption of Christianity as a means to legitimate empire and reduce inner turmoil by Constantine and thus ensure his drive to become Emperor, religion became a causal factor in the globalization process in and of its own right at a much larger scale. See Boardman, et al, for a portrait of the turmoil, corruption and attacks on the Roman Empire by Persians, Goths and other germanic tribes at the time of Constantine (1986, p. 808 et passim). 12. See allusions to the writings of Sayyid Qutb in the 40s and 50s in Sivan (they are not as yet translated into the English). 13. The ideas in this section were first presented at the Annual Meetings of the Michigan Sociological Association, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 11-12 Oct., 1991. 14. There is a whole literature on the inability to control systems as uncertainty increases. Generally, this literature is subsumed under the rubric of Chaos/Complexity theory. 15. A research team led by Dr. Patricia Hamilton of Texas Woman's University has reported the first successful use of new research techniques from physics and math to locate hidden attractors in social data. Verification of the presence of nonlinear dynamics in social processes is a very important first step to the use on Chaos/Complexity theory in social policy and thus, in serving social justice concerns. 16. It is here that the writings of Teilhard de Chardin (1959) take on particular cogency. As the knowledge process expands and transcends particular personal and cultural groundings, and as compassion, mercy and mutual aid for others expand in the consciousness of the individual, it makes sense to talk about the realization of God in the world. 17. I use Tillich's construct of 'Being itself.' Paul Tillich said that responsibility for the god process ('Being as such') lays with those who are involved in it. Hook (1974) explains that Tillich insisted that God was not a Being with a mind, a will, a plan, and a personality but rather God was human beings being human. More particularly Hook (1974, p. 193) pursued the logic of Tillich's insight with his usual careful reasoning: he said that, understanding God as being-as-such, people would be: Full of humility and awe before the Power of Being, they would revise or reinterpret their religious symbols in order to express the highest moral reaches of human experience. They would seek more explicitly than in the past to devise symbols which would integrate rather than disintegrate human personality. They would turn to the findings of modern psychology, sociology and moral theory for leads and material rather than go adventuring on an impossible quest for Being [as prior and supernatural]. 18. This point is firmly anchored in the postmodern phenomenology which grounds the postmodern theology offered here. Hegel and Husserl both asserted that such categories were natural, pre-existing human conception and action. Building upon the work of Merleau-Ponty, I make the case that human beings construct both the categories of perception and the structures of social life in their everyday behavior. Such categories and such structures do not exist ontologically prior to such human action (Young 1995).