Power has been the perennial problem in human history. The reality of power is complex; and its use and misuse in all human, social and political relations and interactions has been a question of utmost importance for all peoples. In movements for liberation from oppression, the question has been always raised not only in terms of use or misuse , but also in terms of the very nature of power. Now, with breakdown of the socialist states, the crisis of modern liberal nation states, and upheavals in traditional or semi-traditional despotic and authoritarian states, new questions are being raised in the emerging context of global market. The nation state structures are being radically questioned, for they are the unit structures of the political powers that have been most destructive; and the global market agencies are realizing the restrictive nature of the modern nation state structures for free interaction and movement of goods and services.

As human history moves towards the 21st century, the reality of power is being formed in the context of the global market.

The movements of the peoples of God in the inhabited earth are in a rapid transition, great trends lead us to a radically different world. We do not have a definitive analytical grasp of these trends and changes that are determining the life of peoples today. Yet we have to keep trying to discern the signs of the times, as we live and move together in this world.

In the post-Cold War situation and the post-modernization process, the breakdown of modern social philosophies and political ideologies, as well as traditional social thoughts opened the door to great confusion in social thinking among Asian peoples and to a lack of ecumenical theological direction in the Christian communities; but at the same time it has opened a new era of creative and active social thinking in ecumenical movements and social movements around the world. This demands fresh initiatives in theological and social thinking by the ecumenical movement on the question of power.

Signs of the Times: Fundamental Trends and Changes among Peoples

1. The world has become one global market. All life on earth is now condemned to the global market. There is no realistic option for life outside of the market, whatever it is and however it operates. While socialism existed, this was not the situation. Practically speaking, the market has become an absolute reality, although some question whether this is the case, at least, in theoretical terms. This market globalization has profound implications for the peoples of Asia and all life on earth.

The center of rapid economic growth in the world is being shifted to Asia, with Japan and China becoming the axis of this shift; and Asian dragons and "tigers" are playing a dynamic role in this process; and the global market is being shaped by these developments in Asia.

The peoples of Asia are those most effected by the market globalization, as rapid economic growth takes place in some Asian countries. Yet the main player in the market are the corporate entities of capital in and outside Asia, rather than the nation states which are even losing control over the economic life of their own people. The corporate economic entities are most "creative and efficient" and, therefore, most powerful, controlling modern science and technology as well as information and communication in the global market and seeking to knock down all cultural, national or political barriers in order to open high ways for their market plays. This new reality has become more clear since the Urguay Round agreement. What is unique in this market globalization is the Asian socialist countries, which have also embraced the market economy or are in the process of doing so. They call it "socialist market economy". It is not yet clear what this means for the Asian people. What is clear is that these socialist market economies are also growing very rapidly.

2. The geo-political change and resultant market globalization have brought about the fusion of the local, national, global and cosmic (natural) horizons. all persons or communities and corporate entities must deal with the new multi-dimensionally fused horizons. One must simultaneously think and act locally, nationally and globally, realizing that a local action will have effect not only on the local level, but also on the national, global and cosmic levels. In addition, issues of life and relations among people, groups and communities are affected by these fused horizons on all levels.

As the nation states adjust to the global market, In this process of geopolitical changes, Asian nation states are no exception. They too face a changing role including the possible weakening of their power to protect their own people. What will be the new role of the nation states in Asia? The people are beginning to re-organize their life into one that is locality-centered , religious community centered, culture-centered and, ethnic-centered life, away from the political center of the nation state.

This means that the people's sovereignty (participation) is being organized locally to respond to the global dynamics of the world market as well as to the national dynamics of powers and principalities. The people seek to participate directly and immediately, bypassing the ambiguous political mediation of the nation states.

The symbiotic centers of the power nexus have shifted substantially from the nation state structures to the global corporate entities, deeply affecting the life of the people, and their communities. In response, people are seeking various forms of participatory or direct democracy as a framework in which they can participate directly and form multilateral and multi-dimensional solidarity linkages for creative interventions in the global market process.

3. All problems and issues of peoples' life in all dimensions, are being inter-connected by the globalized market in an oppressive manner. In the past the natural, economic, social, political, cultural and religious dimensions were analytically distinguished, differentiated and even fragmented; they were compartmentalized on both analytical level and the concrete practical level. Or life was reduced to one dimension, the material or spiritual, disregarding all other dimensions or subjugating them to one and organizing them hierarchically with a single dimension on the top, whether this was spiritual or material. Interconnection is needed, but it must be made in a liberating manner.

4. Socio-political relations in the globalized market are not merely structural but also dynamically relational; therefore, contradictions and conflicts in the global market are dynamically relational. Likewise, the struggles, negotiations and cooperation and even solidarity among Asian peoples in the global market are characterized by power relations across classes, castes, races, genders and all other contradictory camps among groups, communities and ecosystems.

5. The electronic information and communication and order, with its hi-tech multimedia communication and processing of information, is a dominant feature of the global market. Its value-added network of communication and information enforces and accelerates the market dynamics in the life of the people. Human subjectivity as the participatory agency of life in all its dimensions, is subjugated under this new post-industrial global information order.

6. Religious entities in Asia will emerge as counter-veiling centers of life, giving identity, values and meaning. Initially they will feel the crisis posed by in the global market, but Asian religions will be great reservoirs of spiritual energy for the life and struggle of the Asian people.

The Victims Tell the Reality of Asian People in the Vortex of the Global Market

1. The market globalization process has engaged the vitality of life and the power of death in bitter contest, as the garden and oasis of life is being turned into a jungle and desert of destruction.

The fundamental contradiction between society and nature that is implied in modern industrial culture and society is being intensified in the global market, which is dominated by fiercely competing corporate agencies. Natural and cultural (spiritual) life are dominated by global market and its relations with the result that natural life is being victimized by market-dominated economic and cultural artificiality and arbitrariness. Hitherto the Western industrial culture has dictated the relations between life in nature and life in human society, both capitalist and socialist. Now it is the dynamics of the global market that will dominate these relations. The culture of the globalized market is neither life-preserving nor life-enhancing. Its limitless competition upholds the logic of the survival of the fittest and the strongest. The market will allow the winners to dominate the losers, and life will be the ultimate loser, becoming deprived of its spiritual foundation as well as its natural base due to the arbitrary contradiction between the natural and the spiritual, imposed by the global market. So far there seems to be no strong counter-veiling trend that can control or balance this negative dimension of market globalization.

2. The economic victimization of the people, -- Minjung, communities and consumers, -- will be absolute and limitless in the global market and dominated by the mamonism of the giant corporate entities, led by the global financial corporate powers. The financial victimization of the people will be noiseless and bloodless but extremely effective. Natural life, human persons, the hungry, the poor and even the not-so-poor middle class people, together with relatively weak economic agencies, will be powerless economic losers in the globally competitive market.

National economic security nets of self-reliance and protection, wherever they exit, are rapidly eroded in the name of the open market, as the weak economic agencies in every nation are exposed to the market plays of the globally powerful economic agencies. The traditional communities are likewise more vulnerable under the pressures of the global market forces which are destroying life everywhere. Hunger, impoverishment, and wasteful consumerism are being promoted by a process of victimization which paradoxically, is taking place in the midst of global economic growth and technological advancement.

In this global context the people must take initiatives for economic justice, for direct participation and intervention in the market process, and for economic actions for sustainable life.

3. The common security of life is being dismantled and subjugated to the jungle of the globalized market, exposing the people to economic, social, political, cultural and spiritual violence which is fundamentally caused by the global market process. Life will no longer; and it is vulnerable to the violent conflicts and confrontations, produced by limitless competition. This violent process is permeating the relations among international and political powers, social classes and cultural groups, national and ethic groups, and caste and religious communities, making it making it very hard to bring about peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes among the struggling parties, and eroding the foundations of peaceful life.

There has been a tendency for the peace question to be reduced merely to the question of the reduction or elimination of violent military confrontations among nation states and political groups; but now it is the question of securing the common life of all living things on earth. The question of peace and security over against violence is to be understood on the economic, cultural and spiritual levels as well as on the social and political levels.

4. Life contains a politically living subject as its core. It cannot be reduced to a passive object. The global market with its "neo-liberal" developments has weakened the liberal democratic subjecthood of individual persons, powerless groups such as racial and ethnic minorities, and local communities. The people as participating agents in the political process succumb to the syndrome of apathy, hopelessness, and de-capacitation, and the national democratic states are weakened. This political victimization goes beyond suppression of the political subjecthood of the people, but to weaken the participatory process at the global level, taking away national and community protections of political subjecthood.

5. The global market process is strongly supported by the cultural process of communication and information through hi-tech multimedia. The victimization of life is being advanced culturally on the levels of spirituality, consciousness, perceptions and senses. The multimedia, directed by the corporate powers and agencies of the global market, subjugate cultural subjecthood, cultural values, life styles, perceptions of beauty and religious mystery, as well as ethnic national identities of persons and communities to the market's cultural wasteland. The arena of our consciousness and perceptions has become the battle ground between the forces of life and anti-life. This is truly a "cultural war." The exploitation by the market of post-modernistic sensibilities, especially those emerging among the young generations, is a good illustration.

The global market powers will do battle against the people's religious communities and spiritual powers, sapping their spiritual strength and promoting spiritual wilderness and wasteland where souls and spirits will be broken and people's spiritual sources of life will be lost. Religious revivals and the emergence of new religions must be seen in this context of spiritual victimization of the people.

Minjung Politics

In Minjung theology it is a truism that the question of power cannot be separated from the life of the Minjung grassroots people in history. Rather than raising the question of the power merely raised as the objective question of power as such, or the structure or phenomenology of power, this affirms that the true nature of power can only be properly understood in relation to the lives of the Minjung. Furthermore, as the victims of the dominant power, it is the Minjung who are the prime perceiver of the reality of that power. Contrary to the common claim that scientific analysis of society provides deeper understanding of the reality of power, such analysis in fact has not fully revealed the Minjung experiences of the power realities. The Minjung experience power as its victims, which is something the objective scientists cannot do.

It is a fundamental principle in Minjung theology that the social biography (or story) of the Minjung reveals who they are in their persons and in their corporate body. Suffering and struggle is their prime reality, which is directly related to the reality of power. The power reality is just as complex as the experiences of the Minjung. While it is claimed that power can be analyzed scientifically and objectively, its reality is revealed most clearly in the story of the Minjung. The experience of the Minjung and the reality of power must each be understood as a whole.

Today the Minjung throughout the world face a complex situation of power that is local as well as global. The power complex has a certain socio-economic base, mingled with political organization and influence, and with religio-cultural values and influences as well as highly developed scientific and technological capacities. Power is never one-dimensional, but is a complex mixture of multi-dimensional factors. The Minjung experience the power of transnational corporations as well as the power of local and national economic powers; they live under the domination of the imperial powers, local and national ruling powers, and the combination of all of these. As for the powers of modern and traditional religions and cultures, the Minjung experience these in the form of technocracy as well as traditional "despotism." This reality is felt acutely among the Minjung at the present historical juncture, with its radical global transition and uncertainty about the future. The powers have become conservative and reactive to changes that might jeopardize their interests. Beginning with the changes in Eastern Europe, the world is in the process of a "re-constellation" which is characterized by the breakdown of the cold war ideological polar structure, the realignment of the military powers, the reordering of the economic powers, and the rapid globalization of communication and cultural life. The participation of the Minjung is being short-circuited in the vortex of these complex global power dynamics; their network is undercut in every direction, so that their struggle is difficult; and the violence of power against them grows more sophisticated day by day, intensifying their unrelieved sufferings. The Minjung experience of economic power is more than poverty, hunger and exploitation; it is the distortion of their political economy, which is their basis of life. The modern industrial economy destroys and distorts life on earth. The people cannot participate meaningfully in the planning, production and distribution of their political economy, whether it is capitalist or socialist. The question of the economic life of the Minjung goes beyond the issue of class. The question is whether they enjoy a full life or suffer the distortion of their life. This involves ecological questions as well. The economic life of the Minjung should be based upon life protection and enhancement. Social injustice against the Minjung is based upon social status differentiation, ethnic and racial discrimination, gender discrimination and other factors-all intertwined with the economic base of the society, although the relation between economic and social is not necessarily logical or mechanical.

Social bonds by blood, by region, by nationality and religion are interrelated in a complex webwork, so that social injustice cannot be reduced to a purely economic considerations. The political victimization of the Minjung is also very complex. Their basic human dignity is violated by the state structures and by the actions and procedures of government. Their rights of participation are curtailed, restricted and suppressed. The capitalist powers, be they liberal or authoritarian, limit and suppress Minjung political participation. The socialist powers also prevent Minjung participation in political, cultural, social and economic life. Secret police operate in both capitalist and socialist states to suppress Minjung engagement. The violence employed against the Minjung by the oppressive powers is not only physical but also economic, social, political and cultural; it is psychological and communal, corporate and spiritual, as the exercise of power becomes ever more sophisticated. The rising tide of "people's powers from below" to confront the powers and principalities in these various arenas, has brought new mechanisms of suppression by use of technocratic means.

The Minjung are deprived of access to science and technology in the industrial society; and they are denied the cultural means to cope with the world information and communication order, now dominated by the global corporate powers. National traditions, religious traditions, and even cultural values are being harnessed and manipulated to suppress the Minjung as they confront the powers-that-be. The emerging new constellations of powers and principalities are so complex that it would be illusory to try to analyze them in terms of structures and systems. They are far too complex for such analytical calculation, though we might still have to rely upon this till we have better means to grasp the new dynamics of power. This power reality is not remote from the life of the Minjung; rather they experience it immediately in their everyday life.

Here we need to go beyond mere analyses of power contradictions: we have reach out to grasp the interconnectedness of powers in terms of time and history, in terms of space, locus, expanse and dimension. Social theories have failed in this respect: social contradictions have either been too simply interconnected according to logical or structural analysis or left unconnected to fall into fragmentation or reductionism.

The stories of the Minjung as victims of power truthfully reveal the reality of power: this is a fundamental thesis. Any analysis, however scientific it may be, which does not take into account the story of the victims of the powers, is not a faithful account of those powers. Political theories and ideologies are fundamentally justifications of the powers; they are not theories about the sovereignty of the Minjung. Any theory of social transformation must include the fundamental question of the Sovereign Minjung, including how it is suppressed by the powers. The fundamental failure of Marxism is that it does not have an adequate theory of Minjung participation; and the failure of liberalism is that it has absolutized the individual self, turning it into the private corporate self, which is the core of its polity. Political liberalism has failed to establish Minjung Sovereignty against the private corporate self, such as the TNC.

Political Biography of the Minjung

The people have suffered under the powers and principalities throughout history. Their political experiences reveal the nature of political history and, thus, the nature of political power. Under the political regimes of the political totalitarianism and absolutism as well as colonialism and imperialism in the West, and ancient despotism and imperialism in the oriental civilizations, the people suffered severely and political sovereignty completely.

For the sake of concreteness, let us take Korean modern political history as an illustration. The Minjung suffered under Confucian despotism till the beginning of the 20th century. The political economy of this regime was that of agriculture, mainly producing rice. The people, commoners, were discriminated against by the ruling Yangban class; they were exploited as tillers of the land and producers of goods, they were forcibly conscribed as corvee, and most of them were subjugated as private and public slaves. They served obligatory military duties and were excluded from political participation, being only the object of power. The legal institutions, which existed were to protect the status and power of the ruling Yangban class; therefore they functioned punitively turning the people into the victims of the local magistrates, who were the administrators in judicial and other areas. They did not defend the "rights" of the people. Under such despotic rule, the people's sovereignty was legally non-existent. However, the people steadily resisted this despotic power.

Under the Japanese empire and in the divided land under the cold war system of the four imperial powers the Minjung also experienced the suffering imposed by modernized totalistic, authoritarian and military dictatorships. Here we find the stories of the Jungshindae (the "comfort women"), the war widows, and the workers, peasants and urban poor, exposing the nature of the political powers in the modern Korea.

Biblical Political Order

as the Paradigm of a Minjung Politics of Doularchy

I. Political Biography in the Bible

The stories of the Hebrews under the imperial rule of Pharaoh are told and retold as a paradigmatic expression of the political social biography of the people. The stories of the Minjung under the Davidic reign appear in the Bible as illustrated by the story of Naboth and his vineyard. The story of the Suffering Servant under the Babylonian Empire appears in the Servant song of Isaiah 53. The stories of the Crucified One under the Roman Empire and many other crucified ones are also political biographies of the Minjung which expose the unjust despotic, imperial regimes led by the principalities and powers.

II. The Biblical Paradigm of Dominant Power

The nature of the despotic and imperial powers is described throughout the books of the Bible in the stories of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman empires and small kingdoms in the ancient Middle East. The nature of power is very well expressed in Samuel's opposition to the establishment of a kingship for the people of Israel. In I Samuel 8:10-18:

"He said, 'These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.' "

The socio-economic slavery, military regimentation, "official robbery", and negation of the just rule of Yahweh are some of the manifestations of the arche of DESPOTAI (despotic rule). The fundamental character of the despotic rule is that the ruler is the legislator and therefore above the law. This is extended to the point that the king becomes an absolute authority, a religious deity. It is very clear that the Biblical rulers used religious trappings to absolutize their authority. Even the Davidic monarchy, as in the cases of king Solomon and king Ahab, used religious institutions and trappings to justify their arbitrary actions and rules.

The political power (Exousiai=authority and force, principalities and powers) of the Pharaohs, Emperors, and Caesars of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek and Roman empires assumed a divine status to absolutize their authority and power. Witfogel(1) calls this oriental despotism, which has the distinct political economy of the hydraulic civilization. T. Van Leewen(2) calls it ontocracy. The point is that the political authorities of these empires are regarded to be divine. This makes them the legislators, and since the laws are the very expression of their will, they are above the laws and are bound to none. Their authority is hierarchical, despotic and authoritarian. Baalism in the Old Testament is a similar despotic polity; and for this reason the prophets attacked it fiercely, as it crept into the Davidic monarchy. The monarchs of the Davidic kingdoms were constantly subjected to the pressures and temptations by the despotic rules of the empires and kingdoms surrounding the people of Israel (I Kings 21:1-15).

The political authority of Arche in the Bible is expressed in various forms of hierarchy, patriarchy, monarchy, Basilei (Regime), Despotai (despotism), Pharaoh, Caesar, Kurios, Baal (Lord), and finally Diabolos (Devil or Satan). Diabolos is the Prince of the World, self-appointed ruler of the world to injure the people and cause their death. Diabolos is the rule over the whole world, directly resisting God and God's sovereign rule. This is the ultimate denial of God; and when humans obey the Diabolos, they are resisting God. Biblically and historically, God and Diabolos cannot co-exist in the world.

When the Sovereignty of God is not recognized by the earthly authorities, the powers become sovereign by themselves, and thus ultimately deny the sovereignty of the Minjung, suppressing and subjugating them.

III. The Sovereignty of the Minjung under Doularchy

The reign of DOULOS in OIKOS TOU THEOU is the conclusive theme in the Bible.

If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all(Mark 9:35).

"And Jesus called them to him and said to them, 'You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' " (Mark 10: 42-45).

"Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities." (Is. 53:1-11)

This is the political economy (OIKOS) of God in which Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Servanthood to serve all, that is, to raise them up as the subjects of life in the global market.

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Phases of Development of Doularchy in the Bible

Phase I

The Covenant declares the slaves to be the subjects of liberation in the story of the Exodus. The sovereignty of Yahweh is the denial of the sovereignty of Pharaoh against Yahweh and over the Hebrews, thus opening a historical space for the sovereignty of the Minjung. The meaning of the Covenant is that God has established a relationship of partnership with the slaves in God's sovereign rule of all creation. Thus, the event of the Exodus is an original paradigm of the political economy of God, in which the servants are lords and subjects.

Phase II

The Covenant Code in the tribal confederacy is a conjugation of the Exodus doularchy paradigm. In the tribal communities in the Palestine area after the Exodus, there had continued the reproduction of the slave-based productive relations. In this situation the Sovereign rule of God is expressed in the form of the covenant code, especially in the Sabbath laws (Exodus 21:1-33:33).

"Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.

When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, `I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt faithlessly with her. If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money (Exo 21:1-11).

In this covenant code the slave is transformed into someone who has "rights" over the master. In fact, in the productive relations of slavery, it is the role of the slaves which undergirds the status of the master, functionally speaking.

Phase III

In the Davidic monarchy under the Covenant Code the reign is legitimated on the basis of the covenant code. This means that the rights of the slaves will be protected and the rule of God's justice will be established. The Prophetic Movement against the powers and principalities is fundamentally towards the order of doularchy where the powerless, the weak and the slaves are the partners of God, participating in the Reign of God.

The historically existing paradigm of power, such as despotic monarchy, was to subjugate the people and to rule over them. The Davidic covenant demanded that the king be under the Covenant Code in which the slaves are to be liberated and they should be protected. That is, the institution of the king existed to serve the people in covenant with the (elders of the) people (II Samuel 5:1-3). If the king was established according to the model of the despotic ruler, the people would be turned into the slaves (I Samuel 8:10-18). Here the king becomes the servant of God; and the king is to serve the people, who is the partner of God in the covenant. At the same time the king is doubly in covenant with God and with the people of God. The reason for the existence of the king to is implement the covenant code, which is the order of the Exodus.

When this order of reign was disturbed by the "despotic rule", the prophets resisted against the kings. The first king who was challenged on this ground was King David himself, when he took Bathsheba, killing her husband Uriah (II Samuel 12:1-15).

Typical of the despotic king was Ahab, against whom the Prophet Elijah rose up to defend people like Naboth (I King 21:1-29). The model king was described as one who was faithful to the covenant with God and with the people (II Kings 23:1-3).

Phase IV

The EBED YAWEH under the imperial rule of Babylon is envisioned as the king of the peoples of God. The Suffering Servant appears on the scene who would reveal the Justice (of God) to all nations and who would establish peace. The suppressed nation as the corporate subject of the Suffering Servant provided the form of political identity which would bring about the Messianic Reign of Shalom in which the suffering Minjung would be vindicated (Isaiah 50:4-9). This does not mean that the Suffering Servant will become the despotic ruler. It means that the oppressive rule will end and it will be replaced the rule of the Shepherd, who gives his life of the sheep (Ezekiel 34).

Phase V

When Jesus described himself as the "doulos or diakonos of All", it was against the worldly political order of the Roman empire and against the political order of hierarchy, even in the mind of his disciples. Jesus's reference is to the Suffering Servant and to the Shepherd, who serves and dies for the sheep (Mark 9:35; Mark 10: 42-45).

Jesus' practice of servanthood in John 13:1 ff (Jesus' washing the disciples' feet) is to establish the doularchy directly and personally in the midst of the community of the people of God. Therefore Jesus took the form of the servant, as it is expressed in Phil. 2:7 (Morphe Doulou).

Thus Jesus' doularchy is a direct transgression of the Roman political economy of the slavery and the Roman exousia of the Caesar; his doularchy is being the servant of all, against all oppressive politics; and his doularchy is to make all people and Minjung the sovereign partners of in the Messianic Reign. In the Doularchy, politics means making the Minjung the political subjects.

Phase VI

Participation under Doularchy in Common Bond is the connection between Koinonia and Diakonia. Doularchy and Koinonia (Bond) is closely connected: The Minjung in Corporate Bond become subjects to serve each other so that the Minjung become serving sovereigns and sovereign servants. In Gal. 5:13 "Serve each other through agape" is the order of the One Body in Christ in inter-linking faithfulness (covenant) (Gal. 3:26-29). Thus ecclesial order is the paradigmatic manifestation of the Jesus doularchy in the political order of humankind, including the Roman Empire.

Concluding Word

God's Sovereignty is for the Sovereignty of the Minjung, debunking the arche of the diabolos. Power does not have any independent ontological status; it is non-being. Only the Minjung can erect the authority to rule; the Minjung are the Sovereign; and the Arche is Doulos. Doulos makes Arche. (Servant makes master.) The Doulos are in common bond to establish Exousia.

What is the polity of feminist politics? What is the polity of liberation politics in Latin America? What is the nature of the political order that is sought by Black liberation theology? How should the theologies of liberation seek a common political order in this coming 21st century?

The political economy of the Minjung is mutual servanthood and a mutual Bond that makes them sovereign, and turn Arche into Doulos: Doularche, which guarantees the Minjung's participation as Sovereign-in-Bond (Covenant). This is radically different from social contract theories.

Doularchy in 21st century politics should mean that the Minjung become a comprehensive sovereign in the bond of servanthood, liberated and not enslaved, erect and not bowed down. This means direct participation in authority and politics by the mutually serving community for the enhancement of all life; it means the covenant solidarity of all Minjung and all living things throughout the earth.

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Biblical References

1Sa 8:11 He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots;

1Sa 8:12 and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.

1Sa 8:13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

1Sa 8:14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.

1Sa 8:15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.

1Sa 8:16 He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and put them to his work.

1Sa 8:17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.

1Sa 8:18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day."

1Ki 21:1 Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

1Ki 21:2 And after this Ahab said to Naboth, "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money."

1Ki 21:3 But Naboth said to Ahab, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers."

1Ki 21:7 And Jezebel his wife said to him, "Do you now govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite."

1Ki 21:8 So she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal, and she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who dwelt with Naboth in his city.

1Ki 21:9 And she wrote in the letters, "Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people;

1Ki 21:10 and set two base fellows opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, `You have cursed God and the king.' Then take him out, and stone him to death."

1Ki 21:11 And the men of his city, the elders and the nobles who dwelt in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. As it was written in the letters which she had sent to them,

1Ki 21:12 they proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.

1Ki 21:13 And the two base fellows came in and sat opposite him; and the base fellows brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, "Naboth cursed God and the king." So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death with stones.

1Ki 21:14 Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, "Naboth has been stoned; he is dead."

1Ki 21:15 As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, "Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead." 

Preface

Who is Jesus Christ among the people of Asia is very closely related to the question of who is the Minjung. Who Jesus Christ is very much dependent upon who the Minjung is. Two questions are mutually dependent with each other. In Minjung theology, there is an affirmation that the Messiah is of the Minjung and the Minjung is of the Messiah, and the two cannot exist without each other.

In this consultation, our question is how the Minjung experience God in their concrete historical context today. This is indeed a very important question and a very fertile one to bear much fruits in the near future.

Methodologically let us first discern the socio-biography of the Minjung? Then, we will briefly review how our Christian communities viewed Jesus Christ in Asia. This will lead to our question who Jesus Christ is among the Minjung of Asia, that is, who they experience who God incarnate is. We raise this question as a sharply Christological one, for the theological question has to become truly Christological in order that it become truly historical.

I. The Minjung in the Global Market Place

The people are becoming global victims in the new global vortex of marketization.

(1)Victimization of the peoples in the global political economy

(2)Erosion of nation states structures and political apathization of the people

(3)Diffusion of violence from international-national to global-local

(4)Religious cultural subjugation of the peoples in the culture of global market

II. Reflection on the Past Christologies

There are certain difficulties for Asian peoples to accept the Western Christological formula. There may be two reasons: one is political one and the other is cultural one. Christ has been presented as politically unacceptable, for Christ has been clothed as the dominant ruler such as king, conqueror, or even colonizer. And Christ has been presented as culturally alien to Asian peoples. Christ as God-man is o alien to the Confucian mind that Christ was regarded a SPIRIT-INTOXICATED MAN.

The Western Christologies have been introduced and deeply ingrained in the life of the Christian communities of Asia. We cannot ignore these Western Christologies completely; but we must also recognize their severe limits. The Chalcedonian Christology has not been intelligible to the Asian people, for they did not have same mythological and/or metaphysical categories to understand it. Reformation traditions have introduced Christ as individual person for each individual ; and this has severely limited social dimension of Christ.

Recently Western modern theologies heavily dependent upon modern philosophical (epistemological or other) concepts for theological interpretations; and this trend, too, neglected the religio-cultural and intellectual life of Asian peoples for theology, while claiming universality of Western theologies. Quest for historical Jesus and for secularization of the gospel, for example, was very much influenced the modernity of the Western civilization; and, consequently, Asian religious-cultural traditions were regarded as pre-modern and neglected not only as "pagan", but also as antiquated.

There has, however, been various efforts to indegenize Christian theology, especially Christology. In paintings of Asian Christian communities Christ took Asian cultural forms in a most vivid way. Asian Ecumenical movements have tried to view Christ as a person among the suffering and struggling peoples of Asia. Here Christ has been viewed as the liberator of the poor, alienated, oppressed and discriminated peoples in Asia. Perhaps we need to review these contributions more systematically.

In Minjung theology, Christological reflections have been closely related to the life of Minjung. Classical "Christological statement" of the Minjung theology has been, "Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the Minjung(Kim)." Or a statement, "Jesus is the Minjung, or the Minjung is Jesus (the corporate person)(Ahn)." This last statement has caused considerable discussions. But the intent of such statement is to avoid the Western metaphysical and mythological Christology and to make Christ radically historical.

III. JESUS CHRIST IS THE MESSIAH OF THE MINJUNG

Biblically Jesus has been given various titles of Messiah: (1) King and Lord is a prominent tile. In KJV Mar 15:32 it is written, Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him. In KJV Luk 2:11, it is written, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. In KJV Luk 23:2, it is written, And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this [fellow] perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.

In KJV Joh 1:41 he is called a messiah : He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. In KJV Joh 4:25 it is said, The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. In KJV Joh 4:42 it is stated, And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard [him] ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. In KJV Joh 20:31 it is said, But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

(1) JESUS THE SUFFERING SERVANT

There is no way to experience God on earth in separation with the question of the power; and there is no other way to grasp the reality of the power without Minjung experiences of the power. Particularly because Christianity in Asia has been closely associated with the Western powers, colonial and neo-colonial, and because Asian Christianity in general has tended to be associated with the powerful in Asian societies, this question is critically important.

Even Christology of Jesus as the liberator has to deal with the question of power in liberation process in a clear and unambiguous terms. Otherwise, it could fall into a triumphalist mode of Christology and it may face an ambiguous situation in the post-liberational situation as well as in the liberational process itself. Thus any Asian Christology has to deal with the question of the power.

Biblical Christology has been misunderstood by Christologies of the powerful, for Christ has been often called as the King and the Lord which say,"Jesus is the powerful over the people." Thus, Jesus Christ became a captive of the powerful, with a GOLDEN CROWN.

The Minjung theology takes the KENOSIS OF POWER as the fundamental Christological statement:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father (KJV Phi 2:5ff.)

The other Christological notion is social and collective modality of EN CHRISTOS : in KJV 1Co 15:22, it is stated, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. In KJV Gal 3:13- 28, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

In John the decisive social incarnational statement is pronounced; and this is consistent with the O.T. tradition.

KJV Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Minjung and Power : A Biblical and Theological Perspective

The reality of power is complex; and in human history the power has been the perennial problem. Use and misuse of the power in all human, social and political relations and interactions has been the question of utmost importance. In the liberation movements from oppressive powers the question of power has been always raised not only in terms of use or misuse of the power, but also in terms of the very nature of the power. In the Minjung theology it is a truism that the question of power cannot be separated from the life of the Minjung in history. The question of the power is not merely raised as an objective question of the power as such or phenomenology of power.But it affirms that the true nature of power can only be properly understood in relation to the lives of the Minjung. Furthermore, as the victims of the dominant power, it is the Minjung who are the prime perceiver of the reality of that power. Contrary to the common claim that scientific analyses of society, both structural and systemic, provide a deeper understanding of the reality of power, in fact such analyses have not fully revealed the Minjung experiences. The Minjung experience power as its victims, not merely as objective scientists.

It is a fundamental principle in Minjung theology that the social biography (or story) of the Minjung reveals who they are in their persons and in their corporate body. Suffering and struggle is their prime reality, which is directly related to the reality of power. The reality of power is just as complex as are the experiences of the Minjung. The experience of the Minjung and the reality of power must each be understood as a whole.

Today the Minjung throughout the world face a complex situation of power that is local as well as global. The power complex has a certain socio-economic base, mingled with political organization and influence, and with religio-cultural values and influences as well as highly developed scientific and technological capacities. Power is never one-dimensional, but is a complex mixture of multi-dimensional factors. The Minjung experience the power of transnational corporations as well as the power of local and national economic powers; they live under the domination of the imperial powers, local and national ruling powers, and the combination of all of these. As for the powers of modern and traditional religions and cultures, the Minjung experience these in the form of technocracy as well as traditional "despotism."

This reality is felt acutely among the Minjung at the present historical juncture, with its radical global transition and uncertainty about the future. The powers have become conservative and reactive to changes that might jeopardize their interests. Beginning with the changes in Eastern Europe, the world is in the process of a "re-constellation" which is characterized by the breakdown of the cold war ideological polar structure, the realignment of the military powers, the reordering of the economic powers, and the rapid globalization of communication and cultural life.

The participation of the Minjung is being short-circuited in the vortex of these complex global power dynamics; their network is undercut in every direction, so that their struggle is difficult; and the violence of power against them grows more sophisticated day by day, intensifying their unrelieved sufferings.

The Minjung experience of economic power is not merely poverty, hunger and exploitation, but is the distortion of the very political economy for life. The modern industrial economy destroys and distorts life on earth. The people cannot participate meaningfully in the planning, production and distribution of their political economy, whether it is capitalist or socialist. The question of the economic life of the Minjung goes beyond the issue of class. The question is whether they enjoy a full life or their life is distorted. This involves ecological questions as well. The economic life of the Minjung should be based upon life protection and enhancement.

Social injustice against the Minjung is based upon social status differentiation, ethnic and racial discrimination, gender discrimination and other factors--all intertwined with the economic base of the society, although the relation between economic and social is not necessarily logical or mechanical. Social bonds by blood, by region, by nationality and religion are interrelated in a complex webwork. Social injustice cannot be reduced to the economic base of the society.

The political victimization of the Minjung is also very complex. Their basic human dignity is violated by the state structures and by the actions and procedures of government. Their rights of participation are curtailed, restricted and suppressed. The capitalist powers, be they liberal or authoritarian, limit and suppresses Minjung participation in political life. The socialist powers also prevent Minjung participation in political, cultural, social and economic life. Secret police operate in both capitalist and socialist states, to suppress Minjung participation.

The violence against the Minjung is not only physical but also economic, social, political and cultural; it is psychological and communal, corporate and spiritual. The victimization of the Minjung under oppressive powers has intensified as the exercise of power becomes more sophisticated. The rising tide of "people's powers from below" to confront the powers and principalities in all these various arenas, has brought new mechanisms of suppression by use of technocratic means.

The Minjung are not only deprived of access to science and technology in the industrial and post-industrial societies; but also they are suppressed by technocracy; and they are denied the cultural means to cope with the world information and communication order, now dominated by the global corporate powers. National traditions, religious traditions, and even cultural values are being harnessed and manipulated to suppress the Minjung as they confront the powers-that-be.

The emerging new constellations of powers and principalities are so complex that it would be illusory to try to analyze them in terms of structures and systems. The dynamics of this power is far too complex for such analytical calculation, though we might still have to rely upon this till we have better means to grasp the new dynamics of power. This power reality is not remote from the life of the Minjung; rather they experience it immediately in their everyday life.

Here we need to go beyond mere analyses of power contradictions: we have reach out to grasp the interconnectedness of powers in terms of time and history, in terms of space, locus and expanse, and dimension. Social theories have failed in the respect that social contradictions are either too simply interconnected according to logical or structural analyses or left unconnected to fall into fragmentation or reductionism. The stories of the Minjung as victims of power truthfully reveal the reality of power: this is a fundamental thesis. If any analysis, scientific or not, does not take into account the story of the victims of the powers, it is not a faithful account of those powers.

Political theories and ideologies are fundamentally justifications of the powers; they are not theories on the Sovereignty of the Minjung. Any theory for social transformation must include the fundamental question of the Sovereign Minjung, including how it is suppressed by the powers. The fundamental failure of Marxism is that it does not have an adequate theory of Minjung participation; and the failure of liberalism is that it has absolutized the individual self, turning it into the private corporate self, which is the core of its polity. Political liberalism has failed to establish Minjung Sovereignty against the private corporate self, such as the TNC.

A). The biblical stories of three victims which expose the reality of the dominant power.

One of the predominant Christological notion is that of THE SUFFERING MESSIAH. In KJV Luk 24:46 it is written: And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day and in KJV Act 3:18 it is said, But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.

(1)The Hebrews under Pharaoh

The story of the Hebrew slaves exposes the despotic power of Pharaoh, and God makes political intervention in the political and economic affairs of the slave people; and the Mosses become a messianic figure in the context, who obeys the law of God. This is the first covenant framework.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which [are] in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.( KJV Exo 3:7 -8)

(2)The Minjung under the Davidic Arche

Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint [them] for himself, for his chariots, and [to be] his horsemen; and [some] shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and [will set them] to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters [to be] confectioneries, and [to be] cooks, and [to be] bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, [even] the best [of them], and give [them] to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put [them] to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day. (KJV 1Sa 8:9-18)

(3)The Suffering Servant under the Babylonian Empire

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth.Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (KJV Isa 53:1-11.)

(4)The Crucified One under the Roman Empire
And the crowd said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And [Pilate] saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify [him], crucify [him]. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify [him]: for I find no fault in him. When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify [him], crucify [him]. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify [him]: for I find no fault in him. (KJV Joh 19:3-6)

II. Biblical Paradigm of the Dominant Power

When the Sovereignty of God is not recognized, the powers become sovereign by themselves, and thus deny the Sovereignty of the Minjung. It is the devil that challenges the Sovereign Rule of God. The following references show that the Empires and despotic rulers are regarded devils, when they are against God:

KJV Deu 32:17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new [gods that] came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

KJV Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

KJV Mat 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

KJV Act 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

KJV 2Ti 2:26 And [that] they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

KJV Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

KJV 1Jo 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

III. The Soverignty of the Minjung under Doularchy

Phase I

Phase II

Covenant Code in Tribal Confederacy

Phase III

Davidic Monarchy under the Covenant Code.

Prophetic Movement against the powers and principalities.

Phase IV

Israel as the EBED YAHWEH

The Suffering Servant reveals the Justice (of God) to All Nations.

The Vindicated(Isaiah 50:4-9)

Phase V

Jesus as the Doulos or Diakonos of All

Mark 9:35

Mark 10: 42-45

Jesus' practice of Servanthood

John 13:1 ff (Jesus' washing the disciples' feet)

Phil. 2: 7--The form of Doulos(Morphee Doulou)

IV. Participation under Doularche in Common BondŠ

Doularchy and Koinonia(Bond): The Minjung in Corporate Bond is the key element of Messiaship of Jesus Christ as it is in the suffering at the cross. In Gal. 3:26-29, Being One Body in Christ who is Inter-linking Faithfulness(covenant) to the people of God a Christ-eccelsial reality. Here God's Sovereignty is for Sovereignty of Minjung, debunking the arche of the diabolos. Power does not have any independent ontological status; it is non-being.

Doularchy is the fundamental structure of Messiaship as it is expressed in the following:

In KJV Mar 9:35 and 10:45, it is stated, And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, [the same] shall be last of all, and servant of all. But Jesus called them [to him], and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

In the decisive confessional statement of the early church, Chrsit the Servant is dramatically presented:

In KJV Phi 2:5 ff, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Only the Minjung can erect the authority to rule; the Minjung is the Sovereign; and the Arche is Doulos. Doulos makes Arche. (Servant makes master.) Doulos are in Bond to set up Exousia. This issue must be discussed in the context of ddebates of Power in Feminist Theology such as Discussion of Baalism) and in debate in What is the polity of Feminist politics as well as Power in Liberation Theology (Taking of State Power) and What is the polity of liberation politics in Latin America?

The political economy of the Minjung is mutual Servanthood and a mutual Bond that makes them Sovereign, and makes Arche into Doulos: Doularche, which guarantees the Minjung's participation as Sovereign-in-Bond (Covenant). This is radically different from social contract theories

JESUS IS THE MESSIAH OF THE PEOPLE WHO RISE UP AS SUBJECTS OF THEIR RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL LIFE

The People Are Subjects of Religious And Cultural Life. The religio-cultural life of the peoples of Asia has a long, diverse and complex history. Among them have risen the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Indas-Gangis and Hwanghwa; and the great world religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism, as well as rich Minjung religions, have permeated the religio-cultural life of the Asian peoples. Their communities have been fertile grounds for new religions and cultural movements, and their history is filled with religious-cultural encounters and conflicts of all sorts.

Being closely intertwined with the historical developments of civilizations and religions, the stories of the Asian peoples are rich and complex. Religions have constituted the core of the lives and communities of the people; cultures have expressed and transmitted their values, forms, styles and tastes; and civilizations have formed through the long accumulations of the peoples' religio-cultural achievements and failures. In short, the life and history of the peoples of Asia has been the womb of many great religions and civilizations, including Christianity.

We define religio-culture as that aspect of earthly human existence on earth which is created by human action. In fact all aspects of human existence are closely related to the religio-cultural life. Even the so-called natural aspect can be differentiated from religio-cultural life, but it cannot be separated from it; natural history and religio- cultural history are mutually and closely intertwined with each other. Political economy, political and social life are included in religio-cutural life, which is the all-pervasive dimension of human existence. This is the broadest definition of religio-culture. Religions, arts and literary creations by human acts are only one aspect of human culture, although they represent the flowers of the culture. Civilization is the dimension of religio-culture which, through its long process of historical cumulation and geographical expansion, constitutes the matrix of community life of the peoples; its inner, organic nexus crosses the boundaries of human communities, organizing them into a large-scale constellation.

It is the fundamental reality, from the people's perspective, that throughout history, religio-cultural institutions have often been dominated by the powerful; their norms, contents, styles, communication and transmutation, have been controlled by the powerful elite. Those who dominate the religio-cultural institutions have often dictated the cultural life of the people. The power elites have manipulated the people's religio-cultural practices for the maintenance and expansion of their own power. On the other hand, the religio-cultural elites are often themselves the power elites in the society.

Religio-cultural histories as well have been dictated and written by the religio-political and socio-cultural power elites. Yet it is the people who are the true bearers of religious and cultural experiences and creativity, since religions and cultures belong to them. When a people has had a common religio-cultural heritage over a long period of time, it forms a nation. Nations are peoples with distinct religio-cultural heritages; and the people as nations have interacted among themselves throughout history. World history is a history of ethnic, national and civilizational interactions and encounters. As Arnold Toynbee tried to show, the people (religio-cultural proletariat) are true creators of religio-cultural "mutations" in the process of cultural encounters, for they are the true bearers of the experiences of interaction and encounter among religions, cultures and civilizations in world history.*

Our thesis here is that a true religio-cultural history is faithfully known through the immediate experiences of the people, which they tell in the form of stories, including religio-cultural forms. The true religio-cultural story of civilizations is told through the people's victimization under the powers that dominate their religions and cultures. The people's religio-cultural life story, however, cannot completely controlled by the powerful. The people as victims of the historical religions and cultures provide the key to our understanding of the real history and world of religio-cultural experiences.**

In their religio-cultural struggles, the people do not remain as passive objects and helpless victims of the dominant culture, but positively affirm their cultural subjecthood. They speak in their own languages, express their feelings in their own style, create their own cultural forms, and establish their own norms. The people are creators, preservers, transformers and fulfillers of their religion and culture. Against cultural domination, theysustain their own cultural identity and are subjects of their own cultural life. The people struggle to be subjects of their cultural universe, with their spiritual self, thinking self(cogito), vital self(psyche), feeing self, and perceiving self all forming integral parts of their subjecthood, enabling them to experience and create their own religio-cultural realities.

This means that the religious and cultural experiences of the people in terms of new religions and new cultural movements, and also in terms of religious and cultural "deviations" from the norm, may be very instructive for understanding the overall story of victimized people's religious and cultural experiences. It is in this sense that our new understanding of the peoples' religio-cultural movements in struggle against the dominant cultures, religions and civilizations is of utmost importance. The life story of the people is indeed that of religio-cultural struggle against the dominant religious and cultural powers.

We will use the terms "culture" and "religio-culture" interchangeably, for they constitute an integral whole in Asia.

The cultural elites regard the cultural life and struggle of the people as vulgar and crude; they impose their own culture, setting it up as the values and norms of the society. But the people religiously and culturally resist such imposition; they create new religious beliefs and new cultural values, attuned to their own needs, life and vision.

For example, Shamanism, Buddhism and Confucianism are used by the power elites of Korea and other parts of East Asia to rule and subjugate the people and dictate their cultural life. This is a central aspect of the religious history of the area. But orginally and fundamentally, religious beliefs are systematic human acts of struggle against the power elites which dominate the people. The people are the subjects of believing, in the ultimate reality, and the religious culture is originally their creation. Religio-cultural reality can be created only when the people are subjects of their own feelings, consciousness and spirit.

Throughout history the power elites have monopolized the religio-cultural media, for media control is the most effective way of dominating religio-cultural life. The languages, letters and characters, printing tools, artistic and literary media, and modern printed and electronic media are all dominated by the powerful elites of the society and the world. But the people are the subjects of speech, language, and all other expressions of their religio-cultural experiences; and they resist the cultural domination that is wrought by the control and monopoly of the media.

II. THE PEOPLE LIVE IN THE MIDST OF CULTURAL WAR

The world has been in religion-cultural turmoil during the last two centuries, as the Western civilization has encroached into, penetrated, destroyed and dominated non-Western religions, cultures and civilizations on a global scale. The process of Western religious and cultural domination has been experienced by the world's peoples as corrosion, an "external virus," Western imposition and control(A. Toynbee, The World and the West). The spirit of the people is broken, and their religious veins and cultural sinews are injured. They experience religio-cultural death everywhere in this chaotic wasteland. The people have become the victims of the religio-cultural domination of the West.

Such cultural violence may take the form of cultural deprivation through the monopoly of cultural institutions by the power elite of a given civilization, or cultural repression through the arbitrary imposition of the values and norms of the powerful. The people may wander and become lost in a cultural desert. They may lose their cultural subjectivity, or it may be mutilated by the dominant cultural process. Paulo Freire calls this situation "cultural silence".

The modern Western culture has been both a blessing and a curse to life in the human and natural world. Modern Western science and technology has dominated the world, functioning as an essential part of the giant transnational corporations, modern war machines, government organizations and communications media. Science and technology as they constitute the central dynamics of modern societies in the world, may be called technocracy, which is the social process in which the scientific and technological elites play dominant roles(Kim Yong-Bock, Messiah and Minjung:CCA, 1992). The people are victims of this technocracy, as well as its beneficiaries.

POWER SEEKS TO CONQUER AND THE PEOPLE RESIST: CULTURAL

BATTLES IN THE GLOBAL MARKET

The particular context of global market about which we want to speak is the field of "cultural war" between power and people, waged through political propaganda, commercial advertisements, the educational process, the public media, and information technology. This cultural war takes place on national and global levels, assuming the form of ideological or propaganda wars. Sometimes it works to domesticate the minds and desires of consumers, inducing them to buy the goods and services that are produced and offered, in order to control and conquer the market. The educational system acts to establish hegemony over the minds of students in the name of socialization. Traditional cultural processes and religious institutions are also mobilized to serve the causes of power. But the most important aspect of this cultural war is manifested in the modern mass communication media such as newspapers, wire services, radio and television.

The ideological battles between the two superpowers have been fought through mutual political propaganda (communism vs capitalism), through ideological inculcation in formal and non-formal education systems, public media and information processes,and often through religious institutions and practices. Now this ideological war seems to be lessening; but power conflicts, violent or otherwise, will continue to involve semi-ideological battles for legitimacy and justification of power. In the communist societies, which previously had complete control over the propaganda process, the effectiveness of the ideological control has recently come into question. Societies which allow a liberal press have a facade of free speech, while in fact those in power are controlling the media and education in highly effective ways.

Dictatorships around the world have sought to control the speech, thoughts, feelings and perceptions of the people. Today the process of control by power (economic, political and cultural) is done through hi-tech communication and information media, which is intensive and brutally effective.

The economic life of the people is also very much affected by the cultural process of communication and information. Decisions on economic policies involve fundamental cultural struggle in terms of economic philosophies and objectives, including economic growth and distribution. The most direct way in which the economic life of the people is swayed is through commercial advertisements in the communications media, which are the chief means of marketing. Media advertising is the main stimulator of consumerism, which bends the minds of the people with enticements to cheap materialism and economic hedonism.

Moreover, information has become a commodity and service in economic transactions, for information is both power and resource. The information and communication network encloses economic and socio-cultural life as well, and the powerful expand and sustain this network on a global scale, dominating the life of the people.

There are several inter-related networks that operate globally. The political, military, police intelligence and information network of governments; the economic information network of transnational corporate powers; the global media; and the religious-cultural networks of world religions wield powerful influence over information and communication throughout the world.

The term "international information and communication order" is a misnomer reflecting the power reality of the present communication process nationally and internationally, although the McBride report has clearly shown that this "order" is dominated by the powerful, that is, the Western media powers.

[We will discuss three inter-related issues in dealing with the subject of communication as it dominates the religio-cultural life of the world today. The first issue is communication and information in relation to the people as subject of history and in relation to the powers that dominate the people. The second issue is a theological reflection on communication. Third is the issue of fundamental principles that will guide the practice of communication and information action.]

The McBride Report disclosed the domination of the international communication and information order by the western media, which are cultural manifestations of the western powers. The breakdown of the socialist states as well has been accompanied by the process of their subversion by the western media; and the Gulf War has given us an example in which even war and peace have been effected through the media by the Western powers.

Global communication has become technetronics-intensive, and increasingly encircles the life of the people.The most serious consequence of this communication and information revolution is the subjugation of the spirit, perception and will of the people to the dictates of the dominant powers. Human subjectivity, the core engine of human life, is the final territory being conquered through this cultural process. The western development of modern science and technology in the past has excluded the human subject from the epistemological world; now its advancement allows the powers to dominate human subjectivity for the domestication of life itself.

The dominant western political power, especially the U.S., with its pervasive network of information industries, wire services, satellite communications and so on, interlocks with the Asian national communications media and subverts these on political, economic and cultural levels, producing a powerful impact upon the peoples of Asia.

The giant transnational corporations use the public media to dominate and control the market, to create arbitrary needs among consumers resulting in a deep sense of deprivation, and to coverup the ugly image of the corporate powers. There is no marketing without the media; the advertising of products and services fosters unsound economic thinking, often providing false information and images of products. This process distorts sound economic values and promotes "cheap and pragmatic materialism". The media serves the corporate powers as a techno-structure to carry out the total planning strategy of profit-maximization by controlling marketing as well as production. Without such subservient media the corporate strategy of total planning would not be possible. The people as workers and consumers are molded according to the plan of the economic powers in and through the media; the people have lost their subjectivity in production as well as in the market; they have become victims of the distorted information imposed on them, and have an inverted self-image implanted in their consciousness, by the media.

The Asian national media, under the influence of the Western-dominated global information and communication order, have subverted and are gradually replacing Asian cultural values and lifestyles with Western ones. Asian cultural identity is being suppressed. Religious and cultural heritage are disparaged as pre- or anti-modern (meaning anti-Western); Asian languages, symbols and images are suppressed and replaced by Western ones. This process causes profound cultural dissatisfaction among the people, even to the point of unhealthy national and cultural romanticism and nostalgia. The people are being uprooted by the mass media, with its heavy infusions of Western culture in the present international information and communication order.

Such cultural corrosion, subversion and even "genocide" are brought about by the cultural subjugation of the people through the western-dominated global media, and this is inevitable, given the inherent character of the present global information order, which excludes people's participation, dialogues and interactions.

The communication and information media create a strange world out of an arbitrary combination and superficial construction of colors, images and languages that are simplified and separated from reality. The media create a perceptual world that has no relation to the real world and is even in opposition to it. This world of illusion is permeating the minds and hearts of the people everywhere.

[The peoples in Asia are victimized by power militarily, politically, socially, economically and culturally; and the international media networks, as the cultural tool of domination, play a central role in this process.]

Media stereotyping of the people's movements, including the ecumenical movement, has been standard practice in the low- intensity battles of the cold-war era, particularly in the global market place, where communication is the major instrument of war.

In the media's low intensity strategy against the people and their communities, the people of low social class or status are stereotyped as second-class humans in religious and cultural terms, as well as in socio-economic terms. Low and outcast people are perpetually condemned to such traditional and reinforced stereotypes, mutilating their human dignity and subjectivity.

The stories of the people in Asia, past and present, are full of old and new stereotypes. Modern examples are that the Asian people are "aesthetic, contemplative and intuitive," meaning incapable of rational thinking; that Asians are prone to authoritarianism and incapable of democracy. The poor and oppressed are stereotyped as lazy or violent; outcast people are dirty and ignorant; the ethnic, national, racial, religious and cultural minorities are subject to old and new stereotypes in their own situations as political or social separatists. The Christian west has its prejudices and stereotypes against persons who believe in Asian religions. These false images and stereotypes are powerfully and subtly projected through the global communications media.

In all these areas, the media role in the final analysis is to support the powerful in the final analysis and victimize the peoples of Asia and other parts of the world including the West.

III. JESUS IS THE MESSIAH WHO RAISE UP THE PEOPLE AS THE SUBJECT OF RELIGIO-CULTURAL CREATION AND CULTURAL ACTION

The people are cultural actors, spiritual souls responding to an ultimate reality, moral and ethical actors discerning and doing good and evil, aesthetic perceivers appreciating beauty. They are singers of songs, poets, painters and actors of dramas. The people are the original creators and sustainers of cultures and religions, which arise out of their primal experiences.

Cultural processes such as information and communication are not merely the objective order of society and community, but penetrate the soul of the whole human being. The battleground is the consciousness, mind, heart and spirit of the human person as well as the community. Communication and information must be "of the people, by the people and for the people," that is, the people are the subject of the communication. When information and communication are dominated by the powerful, the people as the subject of communication are violated.

The most original form of communication is the telling and hearing of stories in the community of the people. In the story form, the teller and hearer are subjects, not objects. Communication is the sharing of stories of the people among themselves, and as such stories are accumulated and interwoven, the cultures of the people and their communities are formed. No other form can replace this original mode of communication; other orms can only supplement it.

In the original story of the people, all the powers and authorities take the position of antagonist, with the people as the protagonist. The people are subjects of the story's content, as well as being its communicators. The traditional religious and cultural stories of the people, for example the story of the Hebrews in the Exodus and its counterparts or equivalents in Asian religions, are concrete manifestations of the original story of the people. For this reason, the religio-cultural stories are co-opted by the powerful and are twisted into authoritarian stories in which the people are turned into objects of subjugation.

But the people have past memories and future imagination as well as immediate experiences of perceiving, knowing and acting out the present reality. This enables them to be cultural actors, and thereby to resist cultural domination and repression, through their various aesthetic, artistic, musical and literary expressions, and their stories and dramas. Ultimately the people's resistance takes the form of new religious/cultural movements, counter and alternative to the dominant cultures and civilizations.

In the context East Asia, the T'aiping Tienkuo Movement of 19 century and the May 4th Movement of 20 century in China, and the Tonghak Minjung Movement of 19th century and the March 1st Independence Movement of 20th century in Korea [and the Japanese counter parts] are paradigmatic examples of cultural resistance and transformation movements by the people.

Messianic Paradigm for Cultural life ?

"The Gospel and culture" is the greatest theological issue of global Christianity today. Both Western and Eastern Christianity have long been captivated by the cultures of domination. Of course this statement should be refined and qualified in terms of the historical development of the relations between Christianity and culture in Western and Eastern Christianity. Richard Niebuhr's formulation gives some indication of this qualification, but he has never treated the subject of Gospel and culture in a global dimension. In Western missiological

thinking, the theme of Christ against (so-called non-Christian) culture has dominated mission history. Hendrik Kraemer represents this thinking. We feel that this theological framework is West-centered and cannot properly treat the fundamental problem of Western cultural domination. This theology of an unduly negative attitude towards indigenous religio-cultural traditions. The result of this negative cultural attitude is that the churches remain as a sort of Western institution and experience a certain cultural "poverty". (We must examine the liturgy and theology of the churches, which contain this theology against culture.)

Now we have alternative theologies of culture. Indigenization of the churches is one theological program; others are theology of dialogue with other religions, and theology of religions.

Our position is that theology of culture is not merely a question of indigenous hermeneutics of the biblical texts and translating theological concepts into the religio-cultural categories of the people. It is not merely a question of mutual enrichment between Christian religion and other world religions; and it is not even merely a question of theological interpretation of religions to discern God's "hands and feet." Theology of culture is the question of cultural liberation of the people for their cultural freedom and creativity and their cultural identity and community. It is a matter of the cultural struggle of the people for their cultural subjectivity and cultural life together.

A Biblical Paradigm of Cultural Struggle of the People of God

The creation story is a story of cultural struggle between the people of God and the power of the Babylonian Empire (Christianity in World History: Theodore van Lueewen). The culture of Marduk and Tiamat is the despotic religio-cultural domination of the Babylonian Empire; and the culture of Life and Garden is the culture of the people of God, who resist the culture of "darkness and chaos." This cultural struggle of the people of God is the same as their struggle for the culture of their covenant with God against the culture of the Egyptian Pharaoh. The culture of Baalism surrounded the people of God; and the culture of the imperial powers of Egypt, Babylon and Assyria encroached against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

The prophetic movement is a cultural movement to purify and transform the illicitly mixed and distorted cultural forms threatening the community of God's people. It is a movement of cultural resistance against the culture of despotic domination with its god of Power. The cultural struggle of the people of God is to establish the faithful covenant community in which the glory, justice and peace of God, and the life of the people of God are fully realized and expressed in religio-cultural forms as well as in political and socio-economic terms. The worship, poetry, wisdom and prophetic pronouncements are religio-cultural actions and manifestations of the culture of the people of God.

When God's people were completely dominated by the imperial powers, and their independent cultural life was abrogated and assimilated, they had visions of the Messianic Reign. The prophetic visions and dreams of seers were precisely a cultural struggle against "genocide" by the imperial culture of violence and death. The apocalyptic movement was the struggle of the people of God for the culture of life, against the culture of death, and this struggle created the culture of the Messianic Reign of life, justice and peace.

The movement of Jesus for the Reign of God is a combined struggle against the culture of the Roman and Greek imperial powers and principalities, and against the encroaching cultural pollution in the life of God's people. Jesus' movement has connections with the prophetic and apocalyptic movements; indeed, it is the culmination of the cultural movements of the people of God. In the life, ministry, cross and resurrection of Jesus, we see the Paradigm of cultural struggle. The story of Jesus' temptation manifests the contours of his struggle, and his pronouncements and teachings, his healing and care for the poor are all part and parcel of the Great Cultural Movement of Jesus the Messiah.

The Pentecostal event of the Spirit shows the emergence of a cultural movement for new covenant community under the domination of the Roman Empire. The story of the early church shows us the great cultural movement of Christian communities which transformed the culture of the Roman Empire. Jesus' cultural movement for the Reign of God is based on the vision of the Messianic Reign, as manifested in Revelation 21 and 22. This is a cultural struggle against the culture of violence and death of the Roman Empire.

Biblical and Theological Affirmations on Culture and Communication

God has created humans as cultural subjects, not objects. God is the Lord of people's cultural life, and the Minjung are subjects in this life. The people of God are the people of the covenant community, in which culture flourishes. This community is a network of culture for the life of the covenant people. Still, religio-cultural realities are subjugated by the powers that be; and theologically speaking, this is a result of original sin, the human rebellion against God which betrays the true religious-cultural life.

BLESSED ARE THE NATIONAL, ETHNIC AND CULTURAL PEOPLES!

Asian Christology affirms nations with their religious and cultural heritage. The biblical notion of nations and languages or tongues needs to be understood positively as it is amply demonstrated in the Bible:

In KJV En 10:5 the gentile nations were affirmed clearly: By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations. And Abraham's role is also understood in relation to nations: in KJV En 17:4 and 5, it is written, As for me, behold, my covenant [is] with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

In KJV Psa 22:27 it is more explicit to affirm nations: All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. In KJV Psa 22:28, it is sung, For the kingdom [is] the Lord's: and he [is] the governor among the nations. Also in KJV Psa 57:9, I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. The following Psalms are affirmative of nations:

In KJV Psa 67:4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. In KJV Psa 72:11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. In KJV Psa 72:17 His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and [men] shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. In KJV Psa 86:9 All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name. In KJV Psa 108:3 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.

Prophets also have basically affirmed nations so long as they are not subservient to the devils, that is, the powers and principalities that be rebellious against God: In KJV Isa 66:18 For I [know] their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. In KJV Jer 1:5 Jeremiah find mission among nations: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, [and] I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. In KJV Jer 1:10, he said, See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. In KJV Jer 3:17 At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In KJV Jer 4:2 And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.

In KJV Mat 28:19 , Jesus himself gives the ultimate status to nations: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: In KJV Gal 3:8, Paul, too, affirms gentile nations: And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, [saying], In thee shall all nations be blessed. In KJV Rev 2:26 nations participate in the Messianic Reign, And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: In KJV Rev 7:9 it is stated, After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

This is a remarkably different picture of the Western theologies' position on so-called gentile cultures.

JESUS THE MESSIAH AS COMMUNICATOR OF GOOD NEWS AMONG NATIONS

The Bible is the book of communication among the people who call themselves the people of God or the people of the Messiah. Therefore, we should turn to the Bible for a paradigm of communication among the people.The Hebrew (HAP'IRU) people and their descendants lived under empires throughout the ages: such empires as ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece and Rome, and their vassals. This meant that they lived under the imperial communication order of the ancient empires.

In the classical account of the Tower of Babel, the imperial building project required, among other things, a moon-lingual communication (command) system. This meant the suppression of the languages and cultures of all nations and peoples for their integration into one imperial language: the language and communication of imperial domination. This paradigm of communication under imperial power basically holds true in all imperial situations, even today.

The counter paradigm to such communication is the Biblical communication of the people of God. When they were filled with the Spirit, the imperial communication paradigm gave way to a new model of communication as God's people, which is illustrated in the Pentecost experience. At Pentecost, people of diverse cultures all spoke and heard the message of God in their own languages, and this event marked the creation of new koinonia (PARTICIPATION), new household (OIKONOMIA), new identity as a people of God (NEW CULTURE), and new community(NEW SOLIDARITY).

Thus, the movement of the Spirit means freedom and liberation of the people from the oppressive languages and communication of the ruling powers. The Spirit creates liberating communication, overcoming cultural domination and standing against the "legal" communication of domination.

The Bible consists of several genres of communication: it is communication among the people of God throughout their history. It is a story of the people. It is an account of events. It contains various forms and contents of communication, the first being God's promise of a new future and its vision over against the imperial order. The story of Creation (Genesis 1 and 2), the Vision of the Messianic Reign (Isaiah 11, Rev. 21 and 22) and other apocalyptic visions belong to the same category. The content of this communication of the vision is the Messanic Reign in which Life and Shalom will prevail over against the power and violence of death.

This vision of the future is deeply rooted in the Exodus story of liberation of the Hebrew people from the imperial despotism of ancient Egypt. The Hebrew slaves cried out in their toil, agony and suffering, and their God Yahweh listened to their cries and knew their predicament. God communicated the message of liberation to the people through Moses and his company, against the Pharaoh who refused to release them, and thus the Exodus event materialized in history. This vision, manifested clearly and decisively in the message and movement of Jesus among the people, is named by him: the Reign or Realm of God.

Jesus' message about the Realm of God is indeed the good news--the Gospel--for the Galilean Minjung. His message, teaching and actions, whole life and death and resurrection are the ultimate communication of God among the people who are subjugated under the powers of death. The people of God then become the bearers of the message of God's Reign--the Gospel--to all nations.

Secondly, communication in the early community of the people of God took the form of the Covenant Code and the Torah (meaning "wisdom and guide"),both of which originated from the Exodus. The people of God were liberated by God and were given the wisdom of the covenant code to prevent the encroachment of Pharaoh's ideology and religion of oppression, and to undercut the vicious bond of slavery and protect the poor, the oppressed, the weak and alienated. Literally, the Torah of the covenant is the living Word of God spoken among the people and indwelling in their hearts. The Wisdom's are an integral part of this form of communication.

The Old Testament prophetic movement is a third form of Biblical communication among the people of God. Under the kingships which were often in alliance with--or under the influence of--the surrounding imperial or despotic powers with their domineering communication systems. The prophets spoke out for justice. The classical example is the confrontation of Elijah's message with King Ahab and Jezebel the Baalist over the destiny of Naboth, the steward of the vineyard. The prophetic movements, led by major and minor prophets, were movements to communicate the message of God's justice, judgement and promise of shalom among the people, who had become subservient to the ideology and religion of the despotic kingdoms and dominant empires.

Fourth, priestly practices and movements are the message of restoration, reconcilation and healing of the community of the people of God, sharing the message of shalom. Rites of sacrifice and worship are the form of communication which restores broken relationships, injured bodies and communities divided by hostility and enmity. The Psalms are an integral part of this communication. As depicted in the Letter to the Hebrews, the Prince of Shalom Himself is the sacrificial lamb and at the same time the priest who presides over the sacrifice of reconciliation, forging a new covenant of shalom. This is an act of communicating the peace of God among the people who have become the victims of violence and wars among nations and powers.

The Bible is the book of communication among the people of God. In it the people are the partners of God, who communicates with them through various media, channels and modes of communication. Often the people are hardened in their hearts and refuse to be communication partners with God and with each other. They see but do not see. They hear but do not listen. They are taught but do not understand. This is because they are enslaved, in their hearts, minds and spirits, to the dominant communication of the powers-that-be.

But Biblical communication is the event of the Word among the people, to restore them as partners of communication with God and therefore with one another. God's message is heard, understood, and becomes the spirit and the power of the people to overcome the power of communication that enslaves and objectifies
them.

Biblical communication builds new, faithful relations between God and the people, and among the people: new bonds of solidarity in place of domination, enslavement and enmity. Solidarity is the covenant of faithful relations among the people, that is, the foundation of humane community.

VI. CULTURAL ACTION (COMMUNICATION) FOR PARTICIPATION AND SOLIDARITY OF THE PEOPLE

The people as subjects of history have been struggling throughout the centuries to overcome the dominating communication and information processes. They have created their own ways of communication, ranging from stories in oral traditions to folk art and music, from popular histories to religious and cultural sysmbolism. The history of popular communication of the people is not well investigated, just as their cultural history is not written from their own perspectives. Traditionally, the people's communication processes are suppressed by those of the powerful rulers, who have controlled the message and media through the ruling elites and the established cultural and religious institutions. The people's communication could not be completely suppressed, however. People have asserted their subjectivity in communication through ingenious and creative ways. The rise and development of people's movements have usually been accompanied by new and creative communication processes, which often are closely associated with popular religio-cultural communities.

The original sacred books of people's religious communities have been rediscovered as new ways of communicating new messages among the people. The stories and writings of the T'aiping movement in China and the Tonghak in Korea and similar movements in Asian countries are manifestations of new people's communication paradigms. The Bible is the best example.

The main feature of such communication of and by the people is direct participation in the communication process and the immediacy of the message .Another characteristic is its bonding of a new and liberating community, with the holistic solidarity of the people. This implies three fundamental characteristics of genuine communication: immediate participation, solidarity and liberation.

FIVE COLUMNS UPON TWO FOUNDATIONS IN MESSIANIC HOUSEHOLD

We regard that the two foundations of the household of God are people's participation and their solidarity. The five columns standing upon these foundations are justice, human dignity, peace, creative identity and life. We seek to discern these structural elements from Biblical communication in the context of the present global order of communication and information.

We have already indicated that it is the people of God whom the sovereign God takes as sovereign partner of covenant and communication, not the powers-that-be. The powers subjugate the people to their ideology and religion of domination, the condition of their participation. We have recognized that the concept of the free individual subject in the liberal democracy is precarious and illusory in communication, just as in all other areas of power relations. Therefore, the people's participation should be more than the individual freedom of liberal democracy. Participation should mean direct, immediate and effective access by the people, as much as possible, to the process of deciding and relating. Jesus made the people directly accessible to the Realm of God through his communication of the Good News and through the people's faith which was evoked by his message.

The people as sovereign partners have entered newly into the covenant with God, breaking all their enslaving bonds to the dominating powers. The sharing of new bonds of koinonia, love, justice, peace, hope and life has been communicated through the crucifixion of Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb of the New Covenant. This communication is re-enacted in the sacraments of the Baptism and the Holy Supper, both of which are symbolic manifestation of the solidarity bond, forged among the people through Jesus their Messiah.

The Galatians were advised by Paul about the fundamental truth of the Gospel in Baptism. In his letter to them, he declares that there is neither chosen nor gentile, neither free nor slave, neither male nor female and so on. Communication is a cultural act binding the people together as one body, one household, one nation and one people. It is a cultural act which forges a new covenant among the people.

The people in this covenant are the stewards of the economic household (OIKONOMIA). We have seen the centrally planned command economies of the socialist states. One of the chief causes of their problem may have been the lack of people's participation in economic planning and management, as well as distribution. Many third world economies are also centrally planned and controlled according to the dictates of the IMF and IBRD. The giant global corporations are highly centralized as planning techno-structures. They neither recognize the OIKONOMIA as the common household nor allow the people's participation. The people are relegated to be the role of objects of big projects, and communication instructs them to follow and obey the rules of the dominant economic powers, both states and corporate entities. Communication should awaken the people to self-realization as as autonomous economic subjects, as the sovereign stewards of their own life. Self-reliance is not the message of the rich to the dependent poor; but people's claiming of their sovereignty over their own household (OIKONOMIA). The people must participate directly in planning and management, in production and distribution, and in the market. People as sovereign users of resources must participate in communication(advertising) to resist being domesticated as obedient consumers. People must make direct interventions in the market to fight domination and monopoly, since the political process does not work in this direction. It is essential that people participate in economic communication in order to be economically sovereign over their own life.

The celebration of the rise of liberal democracy in the third world and in Eastern Europe could prove to be a deceptive political ritual. The political reality is that those people have become more powerless than before to decide on their own political life and destiny. The information and communication work of the intelligence agencies is more efficient and pervasive than ever, and it takes the place of forcible means. The powers rely heavily upon intelligence, the information process, and communication: from ideological propaganda to political campaign, from war management to character assassination of enemies, and from political domestication to political control of the people. Information and communication are being used as a primary means to achieve the political objective of domination and control over the people.

The people are deprived of their own means of communication and knowing (information), and thus become objects of the communication process. They must regain their subjectivity as sovereign partners and participants in communication, in society and in the world. This demands people's participation in the existing communication media; it also demands counter communication networks to fight the existing information process. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the people's communication network as an alternative communication order that promotes participation and solidarity linkages throughout the world, across all the barriers and boundaries. Thus, communication and information with people's participation may be an important way to attain their political self-hood, for such communication can overcome the domestication and fragmentation of human beings and their community.

The communication and information process that is dominated by the powerful creates violent conflicts on the social psychological level as well as on cultural levels. It accentuates and fuels cultural, social and political conflicts in many nations, when they serve the interests of the dominant powers. Racial, ethnic, religio-cultural and communal conflicts are created through manipulation of the communication and information process, when even the powerful need such conflicts weaken their enemies. Above all, the powers wage small- and large-scale cultural battles and wars, to destroy their enemies, physically, religio-culturally and spiritually.

The Biblical paradigm of communication is characterized by peace-making, reconciling and enemy-loving. It is the communication of the Prince of Peace, who became the victim of cultural and religious violence of the Roman Empire and its allies. The vision of the Messianic Reign, depicted in the 11th chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, is the real vision of peace that has been transmitted to the people of God throughout history.

In the present changing military alliances and global security setup, there is clear danger of intensified violence along the lines of race, ethnicity, religio-cultural and socio-economic divisions as well as political and military conflicts. It is no wonder that the communication and information process has become arena of cultural wars and battles. Communication and information are used as low intensity conflict strategies against the religio-cultural forces as well as social and political movements that seek and struggle for liberation for justice, peace and life.

In the process of the encroachment of Western powers and their culture into Asia, the people are being denied their own cultural roots; their cultural self-determination and identity are eroded to the extent that their community is devoid of cultural life. Herbert Marcuse called this internal cultural situation of the globally expanding technocratic civilization "one dimensionalization"; Soelle calls it apathy and others call it a "cultural wasteland." Modern hi-tech communication and information processes ultimately injure beyond recovery the cultures of the peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America; it is a kind of cultural genocide.

The world that God has blessed is a world of many races and nations with different cultures and religious traditions. The Messianic Reign will be a gathering of all nations with their own cultures and religions in solidarity and harmony. The nations will speak their own languages and share their experiences and cultures through their own communication. The extremism of nationalistic, ethnic and religious communal conflicts is rising these days due to their suppression by powerful cultures and groups. But cultural identity and abundance is an integral part of human community. Communication and information must promote the creative abundance of cultures and strengthen the cultural and ethnic identities of peoples and races, without being exclusive. Today no society can be wholesome without allowing the self-determination of racial, ethnic and religio-cultural minorities. Communication must be understood as cultural koinonia, in which all the cultures interact creatively to enrich and fulfill each other. Communication must be understood as a cultural feast of the peoples.

The koinonia of life extends beyond the human community. Communication which is rooted in the koinonia of life means the sharing of life by all in heaven, on the earth and below the earth; the sharing of common perceptions about the reality of life and the threat of death. This is communication among living beings-- quite different from perceptions gained through abstract images and symbols. Living beings are in communion with each other and thus communicate each other. Communication thus should be a koinonia which enhances and enriches life.

The modern communications media separate human life from the reality of life and place it in a deadly artificial cultural environment. Our children live in cultural boxes that are manufactured arbitrarily by the communication media. They do not have real life, which is full of tears, lamentation, and "HAN" (a deep sense of justice rising in people's hearts, when they are wronged in history), as well as joy and happiness.

Today communication must touch the living reality, which is full of agonizing toil and grass-smelling freshness. In the Orient there is a saying that KI (active life energy) is communicated among living creatures. It is like the Spirit that is the breath of life in the creation.

Communication inter-connects and inter-penetrates and stimulates interactions among all living things. Communication binds together the five columns of justice, human dignity, peace, creative identity and life in its network of participation and solidarity in humane community. As such it is the most crucial element of cultural action for the development of the people's abundant life.

The interconnectedness in the people's vision, analyses, goals and strategies is expressed as a network of solidarity linkages of their participatory movements. This may be a new paradigm for a future ecumenical movement.

IN THE MESSHIANIC BANQUET ALL THE NATIONS WILL CELEBRATE THE FULL AND ETERNAL, UNDESTROYABLE LIFE. NATIONS AS MINJUNGS PARTICIPATE IN THE MESSIANIC REIGN. THUS, THE MESSIAH IS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE PEOPLE ARE OF THE MESSIAH.

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ADDITIONAL BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO CONSIDER

KJV Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

KJV Act 3:6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

KJV Act 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.

KJV Act 15:11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

KJV Act 26:23 That Christ should suffer, [and] that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

KJV Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

KJV Rom 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

KJV Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

KJV Rom 5:11 And not only [so], but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

KJV Rom 5:17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)

KJV Rom 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

KJV Rom 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

KJV Rom 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

KJV Rom 8:10 And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.

KJV Rom 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together.

KJV 1Co 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

KJV 1Co 4:10 We [are] fools for Christ's sake, but ye [are] wise in Christ; we [are] weak, but ye [are] strong; ye [are] honourable, but we [are] despised.

KJV 1Co 10:4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

KJV 1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

KJV Gal 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

KJV Gal 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

KJV Eph 1:5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

KJV Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; [even] in him:

KJV Eph 3:8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

KJV Col 1:24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church:

KJV Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

KJV Col 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free: but Christ [is] all, and in all.

KJV 1Ti 2:5 For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

KJV Heb 9:11 But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

KJV 1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

KJV 1Pe 2:6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

KJV 1Pe 2:7 Unto you therefore which believe [he is] precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,

KJV 1Pe 2:8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, [even to them] which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.

KJV 1Pe 2:9 But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

KJV 1Pe 5:14 Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace [be] with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.

KJV Rev 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become [the kingdoms] of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

KJV Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

KJV Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

KJV Rev 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you all. Amen. 

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it(Genesis 2:15)."

It has been a great concern for humanity to deal with the natural environment, for the nature has been the "source of human life" as well as the threat to it at times. In recent years there has risen a new type of the same concern in that the advancement of human ability to control and manipulate the natural forces by means of science and technology has created life threatening situation in terms of the pollution, nuclear weapons, and intervention of the natural process with the unforseen consequences.

The issue of the relation of the human life and the nature is not merely the question of how to deal with the natural environment but that of the total creation, which involves the justice, participation and peace in an integral unity. One warning on the use of the terms is in order: theologically the term, creation, does not refer only to the nature, but the whole creation, human and otherwise. Sometimes there has been confusion between the terms, creation and nature. The nature is only a part of the creation. The theological notion of creation is to express the relationship between God and the whole reality. In reality the God's act of creation is over against the power of darkness, formlessness and chaos, perphaps symbolized by the " Babylonian Power." It is God's saving and liberating act for the whole creation.

The present paper assumes an historical perception that the Creation of God is being undone by the power of science and technology, which is being manifested in the form of powers of exclusive truth of scientific knowledge, unlimited technological know-how, and their economic and political organization, such as the transnational corporation and the state, including the military machinery. This phenomenon is called here as technocracy, which can be discribed as a social process in which an elite controls the total or main aspect of human life with the sense of absolute certainty of scientific knowledge and of technological skills. This is manifested in the economic life as the giant economic corporation, in the political life as the state bureaucracy and modern military organization, in the cultural life as the information and knowledge industry such as the universities and coqunication media.

Science and technology dominate the human life today. The scientific epistemology has dominated human knowledge; especially the method of the natural sciences has been regarded as most reliable not only for natural sciences, but also for social and human sciences. Although the history and philosophy of science testifies the various understanding as to the nature of the scientific knowledge, it can be said that there is a fundamental structure of knowing, that is, the knowing agent as reason and the knowledge as the rationally organized object. The fundamental tenet of this structure is found in the theories of Rene Descartes and Iqanuel Kant, which is still in their full force in epistemological theories. In this structure of knowing there is a fundamental split between the subject of knowing and the known object. This discussion masy be too simplistic; and yet it points to the basic problem of the Western epistemology as an act of rational domination. Furthermore, there has been tendency to attribute in a varying degrees the certainty to the scientific "truth" as universal, and as unchangable, beyond its proper scope. Limited observation, limited procedure, and limited hypothesis have been often regarded as univerally valid, although some schools of thought are realizing the folly of this assumption. When such rationalistic and scientific claims dominate not only in their proper domain, but in the other domains of social and human life, the situation is very serious, and yet this is the present situation. The reliance to such scientific knowledge marks the modern Western civilization that dominates the world. Furthermore, this scientific knowledge is controlled by the Western power complex of the industrial-military-university.

As the scientific knowledge cannot be separated from the technological process, we should consider the technocratic process as a whole. The most important manifestation of the technocracy is the giant transnational corporations, which has a larger share of the control over science and technology. As Galbraith as stated in his book, NEW INDUSTRIAL STATE, the the giant modern corporations seek to control their total environment through planning, done by techno-structure. This process is dominant in the state structure and in the military organizations of the industrial nations. This prcoess governs the coqunication and information process through electronic technology.

Technology in modern times has distinct characteristics of self-augumentation and qualitatively accelerating tendencies in its operation as it described by such analysists as Jacque Ellul(The Technological Society). Here again the technology has a cjaracteristic of something more than a simple extension of human agency.

The technocracy is not merely dominating in its inner nature, but also it is the unusually dominant power reality, that cannot be checked by the traditional and conventional means means. Let us take the case of the transnational corporations. t is increasingly felt that the power of the TNCs are not and cannot be sufficiently controlled by the parlimentary democracies in the West, and the behaviors of the TNCs in the third world countries are like an unbridled horse. They do not know any laws or rules in expanding their power and making profits in the Third World countries. The power of the TNCs are determined by the logic of the profit maximization and the limitless of expansion of their power. The other case is the powers of the military organizations. The super power military organizations are deadly locked into the fierce arms race against each other in the name of the security and survival. The capability to destory the enemy has beyond its limit and now can literally destroy everything in the world. And yet the arms race continues in terms of its quantitative aspects as well as qualitative dimensions. The military powers are not power realities in themselves, but they influence every aspect of the human life in a given society and in the world, for militarization of politics, economic structures, and cultural values is the pervasive phenomenon.

The technocracy is manifested as power reality in the information and coqunication order. The production of knowledge, decemination of information, and coqunication of the data are very much controlled by the TNCs, the industrialized states, and the global news agencies of the West through the highly sophiscated electronic means. The power of knowledge, information and coqunication are increasingly the most formidable power reality that dominates the people in the global scale.

The power realities of the technocracy can be analysed in terms of its internal dynamics and in terms of the general impact upon the people and their coqunity, and yet the best way to reveal their nature would be through the stories of their victims, that is, the people or Minjung in the society and in the cosmos, where the modern Leviathan--a symbolism for the principalities and powers-- and the modern Dynasau --a symbolism for an ever-growing economic power entity--dominate. The Leviathan represents the power that seeks its security through the logic of the survival of the fittest and through the logic that the stronger will eat the weaker. The Dynasau represents the corporate power that depends on the unlimited growth which exploits and integrates other weaker entities for the profit maximization.

Especially in the third world the technocracy is experienced as power reality that comes from the outside, penetrating the coqunity of the people. Transnational corporation penetrates as the mighty economic power, and the military of the powerful nations penetrate politically through inter-locking systems alliances and their strategic and tactical coordinations in the name of peace and security. The government systems are integral part of this process of the technocratic penetration, be it democratic or dictatorial. The International Information fundamentally represents the dominance and penetration of the technocratic culture into the life of the peoples in the third World, either in the form of science and technology transfer, or in the form of economic development and coqercial advertisement, or in terms of the inculcation of military values such as national security doctrine and peace propagenda. In this process there are the third world people, who are victimized not only in terms of exploitation and oppression but also in terms of errosion of the human coqunity and the spirit of the people. And furthermore, the natural enviroment become inhabitable, for the technocracy destroys the nature that sustains the life, human and natural.

This reality of technocracy as experienced by the peoples in the third world is known as concrete historical knowledge in the stories of the victimized people. The historical experience of the technocracy by the people is not esoteric and abstract knowledge, but it is concrete and bodily experience of the people, individually and collectively. Their knowledge is experiential, not theoretical. It is not merely rational, but perceptual.

We enlist some of the salient stories of the suffering people under the impact of the technocracy.

Women workers are a paradigm of the suffering victims of the TNCs in Asia. Let us take the case of the Korean women workers. Women workers that work in the factories usually suffer from extremely poor working coditions and their wages very low. According to the Korean Government's Economic Planning Board, in 1977, 75.2% of the workers are living below the subsistence level.In a small survey carried out between May 1 and July 31, 1979, it was found that most men workers earned between 100,000 and 200,000 monthly while most women workers earned between 50,000 and 70,000. Not only the women's wages much less than that of men's, the women's working hours are also longer. This situations is particularly severe in the textile industry...

Over 100,000 workers are employed in the electronics industry, 905 of whom are young and unmarried women. Most of them find their eye-sight deteriorating rapidly due to intensive "scope" work. They also suffer from the chronic conjunctivitis which is often toxic gas pollution in the air. the workers are often required to work two to three hours overtime each day, and also nightshiftss. Sexual discriminationj against the women is demonstrated in the division of labour in the electronics industry. Assembly work is performed by women operatives under the supervision of male engineers and supervisors.

The story women workers are the same all over Asia, with unending sufferings. They come usually from very poor rural family. By the time they work several years in the factories such as in the textile or electronics industry, they bodies are almost in ruins.Then there is unemployment. Their rights are mutilated when they are fired for various reasons. After they are laid out, they do not have hay place to go but the bottom of the society, where they can be exploited bodily in the soc-called informal service sector. The prostitution is the prime example. They get caught in the bondage of the debt, physically illness, and human degradation. The is the other end of the technocracy. They bear the brunt of the burden of the technocratic planning of the so-called economic development.

Given the potentential of the destruction of the military technocracy it is very relevant to know the story of the atomic bomb victims during the World War II.

The day when the atomic bomb exploded over the people in Kwangdo and Chang Ki* was the most terrible and tragic day in human history. It was the day when World War II ws fatefully decided; no, the end of world history became manifest in qualitative terms, for Korean Minjung numbering possibly as many as 70,000 suffered the 'ultimate' death as far as we are able to know. 40,000 nameless persons died and up to 30,000 survived with the curse of atomic disease on their bodies and spirits and in their very being.

Who are the Korean A-bomb victims? This question has escaped our perception and thinking even when we ask the most fundamental questions of human history today. It was their story, unrelated to us. Why? Because it is the most horrible part of the horrible event, and therefore the powers suppressed

the story of those of Korean origin who were bombed. Perhaps human consciousness is incapable of grasping this historical reality of ultimate death. Certainly we have no way of telling the story of the Korean atom bomb victims in terms of their total suffering. In human history there has never been another such experience. There is in some sense an epistemological impenetrability to the experience of suffering of the A-bombed Koreans. It is impossible to know the full story. If there is a way to know in part it is through their own telling of their own story of suffering. Even their own story of suffering cannot be fully known because of the inability to remember those experiences by the victims themselves. Their memories are somehow shut out.

Above all, they were victims of the deadly modern military technocracy, the fruit of which is history's most destructive weapon, the nuclear bomb. Modern military science and technology is behind the explosion of the bomb. The atom bomb is not just a bomb. It is a systemic reality that is worldwide in nature; it is the pinnacle of the giant global war machine. Those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first victims of this world's giant 'death machine.

They were the Minjung who suffered most cruelly in World War II. The powers, the U.S. and Japan, fought for their own reasons; but these Koreans were cruelly innocent sufferers. It was the political and economic forces of the world that triggered the most tragic Second World War over the heads of these Korean A-bomb victims without their choice and even without their knowledge. They now shared the burden of th cold war pervading the Korean society in a very, very lonely way of life.

In life, in spirit and in body, these persons exist in a condition of disease, destruction and misery that is beyond imagination.

They do not have knowledge about their own disease which was caused by the atomic bomb. Their poverty and their disease form the most vicious cycle of life. The medical knowledge developed in Japan was not available.. Due to their disease and the prejudice against such disease, they cannot get married, and the married ones have had to get divorced, because their symptoms appear years later.

The bodily pain, disfiguration and destruction are practically beyond description.The loss of memory is a coqon phenomenon among the Korean atom bomb sufferers. Often they cannot remember their life in Japan and their direct experience of being bombed. Strangely,when they do remember,it isonly expressed in the Japanese language, which in turn makes them feel ashamed. When they remember their experiences, these are most often: - The sorrow of losing or being robbed of their national identity.- The memory of being taken away from their families as they were conscripted as forced laborers.- The memories of Japanese oppresion and hard labor.- The shame of being a prostitute.These memories surge up, and then a feeling of extreme sorrow, a sense of hopelessness, resignation, and helplessness sets into their lives. It is said that the atomic bomb disease is not inherited by the second generation, but strangely, the children of A-bomb victims suffered unexplained physical illnesses.

This is the bare frame of the social biography of the Minjung who suffered through the atom bomb explosion in 1945. They were 'conscripted prostitutes' to the colonial military in World War II; they were forced laborers in the military industries of Imperial Japan; they were forced migrants in search of work for survival. They were the children and families of these people. This social biography is the story of broken lives in terms of spirit, body, coqunity and history--the heritages of oppression and exploitation of the Yi dynasty rule, the destructive power of brutal colonialism, the horror of the atomic bomb. Its whole accompanying military technocracy, the matrix of world economic and political dynamics of World War II, and the political process surrounding the U.S., Japan and Korea--all these are directly related to the infinite and unfathomable suffering and death of the A-bombed Minjung.

It is our contention that the war victim's story tells more about the reality and quality of the suffering of the people than analyses of the technocratic military mega-machines. In the name of the national security the military technocracy is being expanded in an accelerating pace and in a fierce competition.

C) The stories of the people whose human rights are violated all too familiar. In the name of economic development, the political powers are instituting technological apparatus to suppress the people to prevent their participation and to control and manipulate their consciousness and opinion on the political matters.

This process manifests itself sometimes as the state intelligence or security apparatus or othertimes as the controlled media andinformation process, including public media.

D)The story of the people and coqunity, whose life have become miserable due to the corrosion of their cultural life and bombardment of coqercial information and values and outright cultural repression due to the policy and mechanism of cultural control and manipulation. Arnold Toynbee once warned that the Western technology will be corrosive of the non-Western civilizations, creating effects like ultra voilet or red lights or alien virus in the body. Theodore van Leewen once insited that the technocracy creates the totalistic political culture in combination with the ontocratic pattern of the civilizations.

E)The stories of the people, who are forced to be alienated from their natural abode, whose environments are destroyed and polluted and poisoned by the industrial chemicals and atomic-radiation, whose lifeline is threatened by the deforestization and pollution of the fishery are countless. From the stories from the minamata victims to the victims of Bhophal one can know the corrosive and poisonous relation between the human life and the natural, which has been created by the technocracy.

The Above stories are not islated stories, but they are closely inter-connected; and therefore, it is our belief and assumption that the stories of the people reveal the historical reality of the world, as they experience them. This means that this section needs to be filled the stories of the people themselves. Without listening and hearing the stories of the people no one can truely understand the historical reality of the people's experiences in the world.

The technocracy in its inner nature and its external impact can be likened to the mythical beings. The economic manifestation of the technocracy, such as the transnational corporations, can be parabolized as the Dynasau, which eats up other living things to grow and grows without limit. It is said that the Dynasau does not exist today, because it had to everything else for its survival and limitless growth. In fact the TNCs expands its operation and power almost without limit in the logic of the profit maximization. In the process, it exploits human beings and the nature.

The modern states, that are characterized as the technocratic organization to survive in the competition and rivarly with the enemy state(s), can be parabolized as the Leviathan. The Leviathan subjugates every power and every being, including deities, to garranttee its survival in the logic of the survival of the strongest. The national security doctrine, that absolutizes the state authority and the military technocracy, is indeed the manifestation of the inner logic of the Leviathan, that is the survival of the fitest or the most powerful. Thus, military technocracy is to create military mega-machines to perfect the weapon systems that maximize destruction, even the total destruction of the whole humanity, in the name of the security.

The lambs are without shepherds in this jungle. Shepherds are replaced by the leopards and wolfs. In this jungle the political leaders are not protectors of the people, but they are imitators of the Dynasau and Leviathan, which do not know how to care for the living, but know how to make humans and the living as their

prey.

In this jungle where the Dynasau and the Leviathan symbiotically co-habit to reenforce the logic of profit maximization and the logic of the survival of the fitest, there can be blooming of no real flowers. The cultures are corroded and one-dimentionalized. Jungle brings wasteland and desert, where there is no plants and flowers and life. The values to care the human and the natural life are destroyed by the logics of the profit and survival at all costs. The style of life is the conflict, rivarly, war, exploitation, oppression, manipulatioin and domination.

The parabolic symbolization of the technocracy is not the exact discription or analyses of the reality of the power of the technocracy, but it is to reveal the dynamics of its power in history. The technocracy creates the historical dynamics that turns the whole creation into the jungle and the desert, where the life cannot prosper.

In the third world context the dynamics of the jungle and the desert is far more firece, for those monstrous beings are invaders from the outside. The penetration of the technocracy, in the form of the TNCs, the military or the media of information and coqunication, makes totally corrosive of the coqunities, and cynically totalitarian of the state. There are no means to tame these firece dynamics of technocratic power.

It is in this context of history we are to reflect upon what God is doing in the world today.

The story of God is the story to hear the cry of the people, who are victimized by the Leviathan, the Dynasau, and the Leopard in the Jungle and Desert. In the story of the Exodus there is the cry of the Hebrew slaves, who are victimized the construction projets of the Pharaoh. In the story of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, there is the cry of the captives and exiles in the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires. We see the dry bones in the valley of the political domination in the dream of Ezekiel(Ezekiel 37). We seen the scene of Daniel, who had been thrown into the cage of lions, which story symbolizes the fate of the people of God under the Greek Empire. We hear the lamentations of Rachel in the scene of the Herodian massacre of the innocent babes in Bethlehem uner the tyranny of the Roman Empire. The story of the crucifixtion of Jesus of Nazareth reveals the cry of humanity in the midst of the jungle. The vision of the Revelation 13 amplify the reality of the power of the Roman Empire.

The victims of the Leopards and Leviathans are the people, whom God cares. God created the Garden, and he is gardener and he made humans according to God's image, that is, as gardener. The God's saving work is to transform the jungle and desert into the garden, where there is full of justice, freedom, love and shalom. In the Divine Garden there is true integrity of creation, which includes justice and shalom.

The story of the creation, which center piece is the garden,is to overcome the chaos of the jungle. The vision of Isaiah the prophet(Isaiah 11:1-9) is none other than that of the garden. The vision of St. John(Rev. 21:1-4) is also the city garden. It is the garden where God dwells with the people of God. Gardening of life of justice and shalom is the very act of God to dwell with the people of God. The death and the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah is the overcoming of the jungle of death and recovering of the garden of life. The story of the creation is not the tale of the start of the world, bot it is the story of the victory of the God's Garden over the jungle of chaos and domination. The eschatological vision of the Revelation 21 is the very overcoming of the Leviathan and God's dwelling with the people of God in justice and peace and in harmony in the universe. It is the oppression of the Tower of the Babel in the center of the jungle that has been overthrown by the act of the Holy Spirit to create coqunion(koinonia) and coqunication. This is the great beginning of the Christian church -- the coqunion of the saints, which is the gardener of the love, justice and peace in the created order of God.

Christian coqunity as the Gardener of Life of justice and Shalom Christioan coqunity as the ecumenical movment for justice, peace and integrity of creation is a movement to garden the justice, koinonia and shalom in the universe. In this context we recognize that the subject of the gardening is the people of God, and at the same time the all the created, not merely human, are the participants in the Garden. It has been the sins of the Leviathan and Dynasau not only to make all humans as objects of exploitation and oppression, but it is also the sin to make the created things the object of the exploitation, for these sins are to turn the God's created garden into the jungle.

This theological perspective has a profound implications for the correction of the scientific epistemology, which tends to regard as the objective and objectifying process, although nowadays there are efforts to correct this situation among the scientists and philosophers of science. Perhaps the analytical methods needs to be corrected because they tend to be making fallacies to generalize the limited hypotheses beyond their proper scope. These fallacies also distort the integrated whole of the experiences in which the created order, the human and natural, is injvolved together as active participating agents in the drama of God's Gardening.

Now the technocracy should be consceived as a creative work to garden the justice, koinonia and shalom in the universe as God has created and been creating. It should not be instruments of the simple profit maximization and the logic of the survival of the mightiest. Perhaps this requires a radical reorganization of the human coqunity in which the coqunity of science and technology is an agent of gardening the universe.

In the context of the Asian civilization, we discern various religious and cultural resources for such gardening, which have been rising among the peoples' movments. The great Confucian vision of the great peace and prosperity has been appropriated by the people's strsuggle to overcome the domination by the powers that be, whether it is the Confucian autocracy or foreign colonial power. An example of this is found in the peasant movement of T'aiping in 19th century China. The other example is found in the Silhak(Realist) School of Korean Confucianism.

Then there is a Buddhist school, which envisions the Western Paradise, or the Pure Land for the suffering people. In the Pure Land there is the whole harmony for all the living and there will be no longer the suffering. Teh Buddhist tradition depicts the present as the sea of the susffering rising out of the greed, which cousin is the institutionalized greed of profit maximization. Particularly, the School of Maitreya Buddha has been very powerfyl religious and spiritual inspiration among the poor and oppressed, for this Buddha is the friend of the coqon people. Many of the peoples's movments in Asia had been related to this School of Buddhist thought.

Then, there is the Taoist tradition, which regards the perfect harmony between the human, the natural and supernatural. The Tao, which is the pervasive way of all the universe, is the principle of the natural, not artificial, harmony. Taoist vision of the world is truely that of the perfect garden, in which the human live with longevity, like an angelic being. Therefore, the world is the garden of angels. As Taoist sees the world, the present world is that of arbirary and artificial reality, in which the humans strsuggle afainst each other. The Taoist teachings are particularly influencial among the coqon the people to the point what in becomes mixed up with popular beliefs of shamism, animism and so on.

There are other religious and spiritual traditions, that hold the vision of the future as justice and peace in Asia. Here we cannot ennumerate them all. However, it is very clear that the Asian peoples have rich religious and cultural resources that have been nutured in the midst of their long sufferings.

In the light of the Biblical vision of the Garden of Justice, Shalom, and Harmony(Integrity) of Creation, these religious and cultural resources, particulary appropriated by the poor and oppressed, can be revitalized to be flowers, fruits and even roots of various elements in the Garden of God, in which humans are gardeners.

The Garden has been turned into the Jungle. Now the Dynasau and Leviathan have to be subjugated to the God the Gardener, and the injured human coqunity and natural order have to be healed and revitalized, and the Spirit of the life must be filled so that there may be true justice, koininia, and shalom in the Garden. This is the task of the people of God in God's Oikoumene, which is God's dwelling among the people in the created world.

In this garden the shepherd replaces the leopards to tend the sheep; and the servant replaces the masters, and Leviathan is replaced by the Lamb, who is the Sacrificial Lord. In this way the oppressive political order, unjust exploitation, war for security and survival, and harmony with the nature will be expelled from the created order of God, and justice, peace, and integrity of creation will be fulfilled in the Garden of God.