I have been a corporate communications major for the past two years. One of the most popular "buzz" words in my field of study has been globalization. The concept globalization, like religion, is very difficult to define. Scholars have a hard time articulating exactly what globalization is.
Globalization (in its broadest sense) is the process whereby people and societies around the world are unified into a single "global village"; functioning together economically, politically and socially. Globalization seems to embody a certain degree of secular catholicity. For many corporate communication majors, globalization is the best thing since sliced bread. Organizations are able to host digital conference meetings in three different continents all at the same time. Many companies have pursued the economic advantages of globalization by "outsourcing" labor to various Eastern countries where the wage standards are minuscule. Popular American companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola have planted colonies and promoted their products across the globe. Unlike any other moment in history, it appears that globalization is bringing the most cultures together and creating the greatest number of economic opportunities. Not to mention the fact that globalization has facilitated the movement from mass communication to massive communication (the capacity to effectively communicate with and influence very large populations around the world).
For the past four years, I have been a Christian theology major and a religious studies minor. You have no idea how excited I get when I come across an interdisciplinary academic study that addresses corporate communications issues with religious studies resources (or vice versa). The other day I came a across Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh's article The World in a Wafer: A Geography of the Eucharist as Resistance to Globalization. I know, what a mouthful! William T. Cavanaugh teaches systematic theology at St. Thomas University in St. Paul Minnesota and has authored Torture and Eucharist and The Theopolitical Imagination (a book I hope to buy and read very soon). My thoughts below are heavily influenced by Cavanaugh's stimulating article (found here: http://www.jesusradicals.com/library/cavanaugh/wafer.pdf)
Globalization, in the end, embodies a counterfeit catholicity. True catholicity is not just the "universal" overshadowing the "particular"- flattening out the uniqueness and locality of the particular, but the universal mysteriously present in the particular. Many people believe that globalization is such a great thing because it brings so many different people together. However, what many don't realize is that while globalization has a mighty reach, it is quite uncharitable. While globalization breaks through various cultures across the world, it ends up squashing the "uniqueness" and "otherness" of those cultures. Unity that leads to a forced, tasteless homogeneity is an ugly thing. Instead of bringing a variety of different cultures together, globalization is really creating an alternate mass-culture that slowly disintegrates the smaller cultures it comes in contact with.
Cavanaugh contrasts the false secular catholicity of globalization with the true catholicity the Eucharist. The church's practice of the Eucharist is truly catholic because it is a communal event that both cherishes particularity/locality (a particular loaf of bread and a very localized church comprised of very different members) and universality (Christ by his Hoy Spirit is cosmically present around the globe among his various churches and his saints are mysteriously united with one another).
"By the same liturgical action , not part but the whole Body of Christ is present in each local Eucharistic assembly. In Romans 16:23 Paul refers to the local community as hole he ekklesia, the whole Church. Indeed, in the first three centuries the term "catholic Church" is most commonly used to identify the local Church gathered around the Eucharist. Each particular church is not an administrative division of a larger whole, but is in itself a "concentration" of the whole. The whole Catholic Church is qualiatatively present in the local assembly, becuase the whole Body of Christ is present there. Catholic space, therefore, is not a simple, universal space uniting individuals directly to a whole; theEucharist refracts space in such a way that one becomes more united to the whole the more tied one becomes to the local. The true gloal village is not simply a village writ large, but rather "where two or three are gathered in my name" (Mt. 18:20)"
Globalization promises a unity without diversity-a homogenous vision without any subtstanital concrete plurality. The true catholic ekklesia, made up of males and females, rich and poor, white and black, is the only community that offers a rich unity without the obliteration of diversity.
Neither the Eucharist or globalization are neutral. They both demand our attention and vye to shape our imagination. Will you be shaped by the massive culture of globalization that forces you to downplay localized particulairty for a homogeneous universality or will you be interrupted by the Eucharist where you are fed the cosmic Christ who "appears in the homless person asking for a cup of coffee...who appears in the person of the weakest, those hungry or thirsty, strangers or naked, sick or imprisoned (Mt.25-46)" ?
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