Global Capitalism, Liberation Theology, and the Social Sciences: An Analysis of the Contradictions of Modernity at the Turn of the Millennium

by Muller, Andreas; Tausch, Arno; Zulehner, Paul M.; Wickens, Henry

• ISBN13: 9781560726791
• ISBN10: 1560726792
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-01
• Publisher: Nova Science Pub Inc

Summary

At a time of the profound crisis of the world capitalist system a group of social scientists and theologians takes up anew the issue of liberation theology. Having arisen out of the struggle of the poor Churches in the world's South, its pros and cons dominated the discourse of the Churches throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s. Then dependency theory was considered to be the analytical tool at the basis of liberation theology. But the world economy -- since the Fall of the Berlin Wall -- has dramatically changed to become a truly globalized capitalist system in the 1990s. Even in their wildest imaginations, social scientists from the dependency tradition and theologians alike would not have predicted for example the elementary force of the Asian and the Russian crisis of today. The Walls have gone, but poverty and social polarization spread to the center countries. After having initially rejected Marxist ideology in many of the liberation theology documents, the Vatican and many other Christian Church institutions moved forward in the 1980s 1990s to strongly

Author Biography

Samir Amin is Director of the Forum du Tiers Monde in Dakar, Senegal, and Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, France Steffen Flechsig is a writer and specialist on Latin American affairs coming from the Eastern part of Germany Jung Mo Sung is Professor of the Science of Religion at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo and at the Methodist University of Sao Paulo Alberto da Silva Moreira is Professor of Philosophy at Universidade Sao Francisco in Braganca Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil Andreas Muller OFM is a Franciscan Friar and Director of the Mission Center of the Order of Saint Francis in Bonn, Germany Mansoob Murshed is Lecturer in Economics at the University of Bradford, UK, and serves presently with the WIDER Development Research Institute of the United Nations in Helsinki Kunibert Raffer is Associate Professor of Economics at Vienna University, Austria Severin Renoldner is a social scientist working with the Catholic Church in Linz, Upper Austria, and was a member of Parliament for the Austrian Green Party. For several years, he also was assistant at the Department of Moral Philosophy and Christian Social Doctrine at the Theological Faculty at Innsbruck University Robert J. Ross is Professor of Sociology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA Arno Tausch is Associate Visiting Professor of Political Science at Innsbruck University, Austria Krystyna Tausch is a writer, Spanish teacher and specialist on Peruvian affairs, Vienna, Austria Luis Zambrano is a theologian, poet, and priest, working for the Dioceses de Puno in the Peruvian Andes Paul Michael Zulehner is Professor of Theology at Vienna University, Austria

Table of Contents

Biographical Sketches	vii
Part One Introduction	1	(26)
Introduction	3	(24)
Andreas Muller
Arno Tausch
Paul Michael Zulehner
Part Two Towards an Ecumenical view of Capitalism and the Religions `of the Book'	27	(18)
Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Introductory Approach to their Real or Supposed Specificities by a Non-Theologian	29	(16)
Samir Amin
Part Three Formulating a Liberation Theology Agenda of the 1990s and Beyond	45	(80)
Economics and Theology. Reflections on the Market, Globalization and the Kingdom of God	47	(14)
Jung Mo Sung
Saint Francis and Capitalist Modernity. A View from the South	61	(18)
Alberto Da Silva Moreira
Feminism in the Country of Liberation Theology: Peru	79	(12)
Krystyna Tausch
Ethical, Biblical and Theological Aspects of Foreign Debt	91	(12)
Aadreas Muller
Raul Prebisch's Contribution to a Humane World	103	(22)
Steffen Flechsig
Part Four The Lessons of `Critical' Development Research and the Contemporary Capitalist World System	125	(60)
Liberation Theology and the Social Sciences: Seven Hypotheses about the World Capitalist System in Our Age	127	(26)
Arno Tausch
Development in the Light of Recent Debates about Development Theory	153	(16)
S. Mansoob Murshed
New Forms of Dependence in the World System	169	(16)
Kunibert Raffer
Part Five The Challenges of Globalization and Transnational Integration	185	(56)
Towards a Theology of the Democratization of Europe	187	(12)
Severin Renoldner
The Race to the Bottom	199	(16)
Robert J. Ross
New Departures. On the Social Positioning of the Christian Churches Before and After Communism in Central and Eastern Europe	215	(16)
Paul Michael Zulehner
The Church of the Southern Andes in Peru: Its Committment in Favor of the Poor	231	(10)
Luis Zambrano
Statistical Appendix - Poverty, Dependency, Human Rights Violations and Economic Growth in the World System	241	(16)
Resources for Further Studies	257	(2)
An Attempt at an Ecumenical and Cross Cultural Bibliography	259	(66)
Index	325