Journey between worlds: Economic globalization, and Luther's indwelling God as subversive moral agency (Martin Luther)

This constructive work in Christian Ethics first demystifies key dynamics whereby corporate-and-finance-driven globalization disables the moral agency required to see that form of globalization for what it is, resist it, and forge alternative forms of economic life more consistent with the norms of neighbor-love and regenerative Earth-human relations. The project next explores ways in which relationship with God “flowing and pouring into all things” may enable that moral agency in economically privileged North Americans. The latter venture takes seriously the ancient theological claim that God indwells creation as unquenchable love, and there works toward creation's flourishing. I explore that claim in one historical instance, Martin Luther, and use that exploration to think critically and constructively about how God's indwelling presence might issue in subversive moral agency in the current pervasive culture of economic globalization. In the process I lay groundwork for further inquiry into the immanent God as source of moral agency, and for drawing upon faith forebearers as guides toward that source. This “journey between worlds” recovers a sense of sacred relatedness as a root assumption of the Christian moral life, and reclaims the subversive moral power stemming from that root. That power works against complicity with global economic arrangements that thwart God's gift of abundant life for all, and toward economic ways more likely to support planetary flourishing and enable all people to have the necessities for life with dignity.