Power in the Context of Globalization:
A Biblical and Theological Perspective

Kim Yong Bock1

Trajectories of power in the Bible are manifold. One is the local community, which is a socio-economic trajectory. Another is the political community (kingdom), which is political trajectory. There is the empire or imperial trajectory. We also find cosmic trajectory. All these are closely interrelated.

The imperial trajectory in the Bible is constituted by a series of reigns – of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Macedonia and Rome. Biblical struggles of the people of God are for liberation from imperial powers. The Exodus and Mosaic struggles are to set up the covenant community. The Davidic rule and the prophetic struggles are to establish God’s justice in the political community. Some of the prophets are directly witnessing to justice, peace and life of God against imperial powers.

Paradigm of Empire as Context of Jesus’ Ministry

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 (KJV Mark 10:42). So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them (NRS Mark 10:42).

And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all (KJV Mark 10:44) and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. / Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all (NRS Mark 10:44).2

The empire is the ‘kairotic’ context in which we are to read the text and the Bible. This is my sober assessment of the present world.

Jesus and the Roman Empire

The context of the Roman Empire defines and determines the shapes of Jesus’ life and ministry, even the meaning of Jesus’ faith in God. The centrality of the reign of God in Jesus’ teaching and praxis can only be truly understood against the background of the Roman domination. This basic truth is revealed by the historic fact that Jesus was executed by the Roman Empire by crucifixion – a method of terror reserved for rebellious insurgents (e.g. bandits rebelling against the empire).

Jesus was born under the regime of King Herod, who was appointed by the Roman senate (B.C. 40). Herod massacred the infants of Bethlehem to kill the infant Jesus, who was regarded as a challenge to the Roman regime. Jesus was under the constant threat of Herod (Luke 13:31). Luke explicitly marks Jesus’ birth under the regime of Caesar Augustus. The census and registration for imperial taxation was the context of Jesus’ birth. His birthplace was depicted as Bethlehem, the city of David. Jesus’ birth specifically put against the backdrop of the rule of Caesar Augustus and his so-called Pax Romana, and against the census for the imposition of taxes payable to the Emperor. The purpose of the census was to determine the number of people who were obliged to pay the tax.

Tacitus famously quotes a Caledonian chieftain:

The Romans are the plunderers of the world… if the enemy is rich, they are rapacious, if poor they lust for dominion… they rob, pillage and call it Empire and where they make a desolation they call it peace.

But Jesus’ birth meant a messianic rule. The message was:

“Do not be afraid, for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, the messiah, the Lord… then suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth Peace, good will among all people.’”

Here Pax Jesus stands in stark contrast to Pax Romana. The two are incompatible. The latter is a false peace only of benefit to the powerful and privileged at the expense of the poor, vulnerable and oppressed. The former, Peace of God through Christ, is for all people and comes especially from below represented by a poor and vulnerable peasant child and revealed to homeless shepherds.

The Roman tax was regarded as a question of allegiance to God or to Caesar. For Jesus, Roman tax is not a simple question of administration, but a matter of faith in God against the Emperor, who claims to be a god (Matthew 22:17-21). Jesus stood in the tradition of Galileans who resisted the paying of tribute to the Emperor. In paying tribute to Caesar there were some intertwined issues at stake.

Tribute paid to Rome meant an explicit acknowledgement of the Emperor as a god. It explicitly accepted Roman political domination. The tax, based on the head or poll tax (not on production or land use), acknowledged the Emperor’s claim to own their beings. Jesus was challenged with a question if one should pay the tax to Roman Caesar. Those that came to Jesus knew full well the answer to the question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes?” The question presupposed the inseparability of religion and politics. The question was to trap Jesus to put him in an explicit position of defying the Roman authority. There is a contradiction between God’s rule and tribute to Caesar. The graven image and titles like Lord and Savior adorned the coin. This is against the prohibition of graven images. But Jesus goes on to say, ‘Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and give to God that which is God’s. Here he escapes the trap but makes his point.

Political collusion of Pilate and Herod was made to kill Jesus. Jesus was charged with treason against the empire, i.e. perverting the nation, and forbidding the giving of tribute to Caesar, while saying that he himself was Christ and king. Jesus was charged as a heretic to Judaism and a rebel to the Roman Empire. But the fate of Jesus was decided by the power of the Roman Empire. The Roman execution of Jesus on the cross was in the name of treason against the Empire.

In the context of the Roman Empire, the Jesus movement of the reign of God was the practice of jubilee. Jesus prayed for debt cancellation and announced the movement of jubilee:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised… (KJV Luke 4:18)

The sermon on the mount is a jubilee movement and in it we see solidarity and compassion, taking sides with the poor and oppressed, children and women. His feeding thousands and healing the sick and his whole ministry constitute the movement of the reign of God, which is against the reign of the Roman Empire.

For the present situation of the Empire, the Power of Jesus against the power of the Roman Empire is the key to understanding the power of empire today. The exousia (authority) of Jesus is not the same as the religious power of the Pharisees, high priests and the Roman Empire. We are seeking to discern the nature of the power of Jesus in the Bible and today. This is what I have named DOULARCHY.

The geopolitical orbit of Jesus movement is two-fold: one is the geopolitics of Galilee against Rome, of the margin to the centre of power. Jesus’ geopolitical perspective is from Galilee to Rome. The other is the geopolitics of Kairos, the geo-politics of the reign of God, which transforms the imperial geo-politics.

Power in the Context of Globalization

The reality of power is complex. It is multidimensional, and its use and misuse in all human, social and political relations and interactions has been a question of utmost importance for all peoples and their communities. Questioning power realities is a fundamental task in liberation movements and in sustaining life on earth. The question is not only in terms of use or misuse, but also in terms of the very nature of power.

Power has to do with relationship, structural and functional, between all living beings in and between their communities. Today, global power politics is a fundamental question for our reflection, along with all dimensions of power. Politically speaking, globalization, the breakdown of socialist states, the crisis of modern liberal nation states, and upheavals in traditional or semi-traditional despotic and authoritarian states, raises new questions about power. The nation state structures are to be questioned radically for they are the unit structures of political powers that have been most powerful. The global market agencies are emerging as the most powerful agencies of power, which determine global power structures and power relations on a global scale. These agencies supercede nation states in power terms. As human history moves towards the 21st century, the reality of power is being formed in the context of the global market. It takes the emerging form of Empire on the global scene.

In post-Cold War situation and post-modernization process, the breakdown of modern social philosophies and political ideologies, as well as traditional social thoughts, led to a great confusion in social thinking among Asian peoples and to a lack of clear 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 and social movements around the world. This demands fresh initiatives in theological and social thinking for the ecumenical query on the issue of power.

Signs of the Times: Fundamental Trends and Changes on Earth

1. The world has become one global market. All life on earth is now condemned to the global market. They say there is no realistic option for life outside of the market. But while the neo-liberal market has become an absolute reality, some question whether this is the case, at least, in theoretical terms. The power in the global market is manifested in the form of transnational corporations and global economic political regimes such as IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization and their sub-structures. These corporate economic entities are claiming to be a most “creative and efficient” technocracy and, therefore, most powerful in controlling modern science and technology as well as information and communication in the global market, seeking to knock down all cultural, national, or political barriers in order to open high ways for their market plays. What are unique in this market globalization as the Asian socialist countries, which have also embraced the market economy or are in the process of doing so. Calling 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.

The economic victimization of the people continues, deepening the gap between the rich and the poor – i.e. the minjung, poor communities and consumers – due to absolute and limitless growth and competition in the neo-liberal global market. It is dominated by the mammonism of giant corporate entities and led by the global financial corporate powers. The financial victimization of people will be noiseless and bloodless but extremely destructive. 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 exist, 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. Structural adjustment programs are forced upon the national economies by the global market regimes. Traditional communities are likewise more vulnerable under the pressures of the global market forces, which are destroying life everywhere. This is paradoxically 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.

2. The geo-political change and concomitant 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. In this new nexus of relations, global geo-politics are determined by the global military hegemony of the Empire, which seeks to secure the global market through its global military strategy with the omnicidal wars and its monopolar formation of hegemonic domination. The US war on terror is a global war without limits, a manifestation of the global domination of the Empire.

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, ecological and spiritual violence. Life will no longer be secure but 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 ethnic groups, and caste and religious communities, 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 peace question to be reduced merely to 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, ecological and spiritual levels as well as on the social and political levels.

3. In the context of globalization, nation states are being subjugated to the Empire and to the global market. The democratic dimension of national sovereignty is dramatically eroded and subverted. The symbiotic centers of the power nexus, controlled by the hegemonic power and neo-liberal global market, have shifted substantially from the nation state structures to the global corporate entities, deeply affecting the life of the people and their communities. Democracy is understood and advocated to create conditions for free market both in the national and international levels of governance.

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. 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 nation states.

Life contains a politically living subject at its core, which 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.

4. Socio-political relations in the globalized market are not merely structural but also dynamically relational; and therefore, contradictions and conflicts in the global market are dynamically relational. Likewise, conflict and contradictory power relations characterize the struggles, negotiations and cooperation and even solidarity among peoples in the global market across classes, castes, races, genders and all other contradictory camps among groups, communities and ecosystems. The social doctrines of the survival of the fittest and of the unlimited competition have made contradictions infinitely complex and intensely violent.

5. Globalization enforces cultural one-dimensionalization or homogenization, undermining the cultural identity and richness of peoples and communities. Electronic information and communication, with its hi-tech multimedia, 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 participatory agency of life in all its dimensions is subjugated under thisnew post-industrial global information order. This may be named as colonization of consciousness. The aesthetic world of beauty and spiritual world of mystery is destroyed by the commercialization and commodification of cultural heritages and creation. The market dominates the cultural powers.

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 battleground 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 consciousness itself is being subjugated and colonized by the Empire and the global market.

6. Globalization affects world religions in a negative way, causing religious fundamentalism as they react to the culture of the greedy market. Empire misuses religions for its power. Global market exploits the religious and cultural rituals for propagation of market values and advertisement. The market subverts religion, and it becomes symbiotic with the powers of capital. It creates the mammonism, which is the religion of the market.

The global market powers will do battle against the peoples’ 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. Religious communities, it is our hope, will emerge as counter-veiling centers of life, giving identity, values and meaning. Initially they will feel the crisis posed by the global market, but world religions will be great reservoirs of spiritual energy for the life and struggle of the people.

7. 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. Global market penetrates the microcosmic world through the biotechnology and its industry. Biotech industries modify, manipulate and control the micro-cosmic world as well as pollute and degrade the biosphere of life.

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.

Doularchy (Servanthood) as the Power of Jesus against the Empire

In the context of this globalization and this Empire we are seeking to understand the power of Jesus.

1. 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 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.

2. 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 (see I Samuel 8:10-18).

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 rule 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.

Political power (Exousia = 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 calls this oriental despotism, which has the distinct political economy of the hydraulic civilization while T. Van Leeuwen 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 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 ruler that directly resists 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 earthly authorities do not recognize the Sovereignty of God, the powers become sovereign by themselves, and thus ultimately deny the sovereignty of the Minjung and Saengmyung, suppressing and subjugating them.

3. 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).3 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 against the dominant, oppressive and destructive power of the Empire in the global market. The following constitute the phases of Doularchy in the Bible.

Phase 1: 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 and Saengmyung. The meaning of the Covenant is that God has established a relationship of partnership with the slaves and all creation in God’s sovereign rule. Thus, the event of the Exodus is an original paradigm of the political economy of God, in which the servants are lords and subjects.

The Covenenat 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). 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 2: 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 kingdom were established according to the model of despotic rule, the people would be turned into 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 is to 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 Kings 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 3: The EBED YAHWEH under the imperial rule of Babylon is envisioned as the king of the peoples of God. The Suffering Servant appears on the scene as one who would reveal the Justice (of God) to all nations and 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 and Saengmyung would be vindicated (Isaiah 50: 4-9). This does not mean that the Suffering Servant will become the despotic ruler but that the oppressive rule will end and be replaced by the rule of the Shepherd, who gives his life for the sheep (Ezekiel 34).

Phase 4: 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 referred to the Suffering Servant and the Shepherd who serves and dies for the sheep (Mark 9:35; Mark 10:42-45). Jesus’ practice of servanthood in John 13:1ff (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 servant, as expressed in Philippians 2:7 (morphe doulou).

Jesus’ doularchy is a direct transgression of the Roman political economy of slavery and the Roman exousia of the Caesar. His doularchy is being the servant of all, against all oppressive politics. It is to make all people, Minjung and Saengmyung the sovereign partners of God in the messianic reign. In the doularchy, politics means making the Minjung and Saengmyung the political subjects.

Phase 5: Participation under doularchy in common bond is the connection between koinonia and diakonia. Doularchy and koinonia (bond) are closely connected. The Minjung and Saengmyung in corporate bond become subjects to serve each other so that the Minjung and Saengmyung become sovereigns and sovereign servants. In Galatians 5:13, “Serve each other through agape” is the order of the One Body of 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

The Empire claims universal and absolute authority over all beings in the cosmos. It does not tolerate any authority, which challenges the Empire. It claims that its head is a god and the Empire is the body of the god. It is religious and spiritual. The Empire enslaves all beings. The empire makes everyone servants and vassal under its authority. Against this Empire, God’s sovereignty is for the sovereignty of the Minjung and Saengmyung, debunking the arche of the imperial diabolos. Power does not have any independent ontological status; it is non-being. Only the Minjung and Saengmyung can erect the authority to rule; the Minjung and Saengmyung are sovereigns; and the Arche is Doulos. Doulos makes Arche. [Servant makes master.] The Doulos are in common bond to establish true Exousia.

What is the polity of feminist politics? What is the polity of liberation politics in the belly of the Empire? How should the theologies of liberation seek a common political order in this coming 21st century?

The Doularchy of Jesus makes the Minjung and all living beings as subjects of their life. This is the being and ministry of Jesus against the Empire. In Jesus’ faith in God, the creator creates life as subjects, and makes all living beings partners of the covenant, which means the bond of justice, peace, love and life. The political economy of the Minjung is mutual servanthood and mutual bond (community) that makes them sovereign and turns Doulous into Arche: 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 and Saengmyung 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 mutually serving community for the enhancement of all life. It means the covenant solidarity of all Minjung and all living beings on earth.

Minjung and all living beings have become the subject of the Oikonomia (economy) of life. They are convivial subjects, living together for fullness of their life. They are peacemakers according to geo-politics of justice, overcoming the military hegemony of the Empire. They are participants in the politics (polis) of life together in solidarity. When Jesus said, ‘I am the Good Shepherd’, he speaks in the tradition of Doularchy in Ezekiel 34 and 37, Psalm 23, Isaiah 53 as well as Exodus 21. The Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Here the ARCHE is transformed into DOULARCHY. They are workers of justice in social, economic and political relations. They are creative subjects and artists who make beauty blossom, and they form cultural identities and values for meaning of life. Here all living beings find the locus of the feast of life. They are gardeners of life for conviviality. They are partners of God to whom they sing praise and glorify forever. Their subjects cannot be eradicated by the powers that be even if it is the power of the Empire.

NOTES:

1 Rev. Dr. Kim Yong Bock, Korean minjung theologian, is chancellor of the Advance Institute for the Study of Life in South Korea.
2 See also Philippians 2.
3 See also Mark 10:42-45 and Isaiah 53:1-11.