Religion and Politics: Verging on the Postmodern

For general assessment see e.g. Reding Andrew , “Seed of a New and Renewed Church: the ‘Ecclesiastical Insurrection’ in Nicaragua,” Monthly Review, July/August 1987, pp 24–55; also Reding, editor, Christianity and Revolution: Tomas Barge's Theology of Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987). Cf also statement by the National Directorate of the FSCN of October 7, 1980, “The Role of Religion in the New Nicaragua,” in Tomas Borge and others, Sandinistas Speak (New York, NY: Pathfinder Press, 1982); a useful first-hand account is Joll Millman, “Nicaragua's Social Revolution Rests Largely on Scripture and Christian Base Communities,” In These Times, February 24-March 8, 1988, pp 12–13, 22.

This focus is developed powerfully by Upendra Baxi, see his essay “Taking Suffering Seriously. Social Action Litigation Before the Supreme Court of India,” 8–9 Del. Law Review, Vol 91 (1979–80); cf Baxi, Courage, Craft and Contention: The Indian Supreme Court in the Eighties (Bombay, India; N.M. Tripathi: Private Ltd, 1985).

Cf Mojtabai A.G. , Blessed Assurance: At Home with the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).

Welch Sharon D. , Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985).

Both quotations from “Revolution in the Revolution in the Revolution,” in Regarding Wave (New York: New Direction Books, 1970), p 39.

For ethical and legal rationale see Stone Christopher , Earth and Other Ethics: The Case of Moral Pluralism (New York: Harper and Row, 1987).

Cf news report, New York Times, October 3, 1987, p A2.

See, for example, Kelly Petra , Fighting for Hope (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1984) with Rudolf Bahro, Building the Green Movement (Philadelphia, PA: New Society, 1986); cf also report of tension among the German greens, New York Times, October 11, 1987, p 22.

For convenient summary of the Green perspective see Spretnak Charlene , The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear and Co, 1986), pp 78–82.

An excellent source on India are the regularly published issues of the Lokoyan Bulletin published in Delhi, India and under the editorship of Smitu Kothari and Harsh Sethi.

Written communication with the author from Professor Catherine Keller of Drew Theological Seminary; also see the fine book by Richard Shaull entitled Naming the Idols: Biblical Alternatives for U.S. Foreign Policy (Bloomington, IN: Meyer Stone and Co., 1988).

See Hegedus Zsuzsa , “The Challenge of the Peace Movement: Civilian Security and Civilian Emancipation,” in Mendlovitz Saul H. Walker R.B.J. , (editors), Towards a Just World Peace: Perspectives from Social Movements (London: Butterworths, 1987), pp 191–210.

For intriguing speculations along these lines with some scientific foundations, see Lovelock J.E. , Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

Cf my earlier related paper, “In Pursuit of the Postmodern” (mimeo, 1987).

The fundamentalist option can be considered an inappropriate religious awakening that is quite likely to present a major challenge, in the years ahead, especially given the uncertainties associated with this multifaceted process of transition from modernism to postmodernism.

The practical and theoretical implications of this conjoined vision is explored in R.B.J. Walker's One World/Many Worlds (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1988).