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Don Swearer, Swarthmore College, has kindly given me permission to share his keynote address to the Payap University conference on religion and globalization, which was held at Payap earlier this year and featured in HeRB 7. It is particularly relevant to those interested in the Protestant story in Thailand, and I would like to thank Don for making the address available to readers of HeRB. A pdf version of this paper is available at http//:isrc.payap.ac.th.

Religious Identity and Globalization
(Would Jesus, Buddha, or Mohammed Drive a Sports Utility Vehicle?)

Donald K. Swearer

Globalization: Setting the Stage

The term, "globalization" has a distinctively modern resonance. In the arena of the global economy the word evokes the activities of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the global dominance of multinational corporations, and popular brand names the likes of Nike, Gucci, and Channel, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and CNN. In regard to globalization and nation states, we're apt to think in terms of "super-territoriality" (Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical Introduction. Macmillan, 2000), international and regional organizations and alliances, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO or ASEAN, the historical forces of colonial imperialism or post-cold war American hegemonic power. In regard to culture, one has only to stroll through the mega-shopping centers in Bangkok or Chiang Mai to observe the pervasive influence of Western styles, tastes, and mores in this country. Dr. Kritsadarat Wattanasuwan's (Faculty of Commerce and Accounting at Thammasat University) recent study of young Thai nouveau riche finds that owning popular Western brands is not a simple display of superficial materialism but represents a search for personal identity and a way of negotiating relationships (Karnjariya Sukrung, "Behind the Brands," Bangkok Post, April 29, 2003). Possessing luxury brands has become a modern talisman, replacing amulets and tattoos as a way of warding off evil, protecting the owner from uncertainty, and providing peace of mind. Even the world's religions have modern

The processes of globalization are not new, but the technological revolution of the past half century has greatly accelerated their impact on the lives of people the world over. This very conference, "Religion and Globalization," is itself an example of globalization. Conference papers will be reproduced on electronic and digital copy machines and made available on the Institute website, a technology almost unknown a decade or two ago but now spanning the world. Many of us were informed about this conference through the virtual reality of the internet and traveled here on jet planes from far distances in only a few hours. By way of contrast, my first trip to Thailand forty-six years ago on a Maersk line ship was a journey of six weeks. Needless to say, in 1957 I reached my destination considerably more rested than after my recent twenty-eight hour flight from Philadelphia!

Globalization affects religion in more profound ways than my trite reference to this conference, however. As current events the world over demonstrate, religion is imbedded in the fabric of individual and community identities threatened by the forces of globalization that seem to be creating a "runaway," out of control, world. Anthony Giddens, the influential Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, describes one of the fundamental tensions resulting from globalization in this way:

The battleground of the twenty-first century will pit fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance. In a globalising world where information and images are routinely transmitted across the globe, we are all regularly in contact with others who think differently, and live differently, form ourselves. Cosmopolitans welcome and embrace this cultural [and religious] complexity. Fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous. Whether in the areas of religion, ethnic identity or nationalism, they take refuge in a renewed and purified tradition--and quite often, violence. (Anthony Giddens, Runaway World. New York: Routledge, 2001, 22-23).

I believe our conference to be a gathering of cosmopolitans who welcome and embrace cultural and religious complexity!

The meaning and impact of globalization is hotly debated. Giddens views it as a complex set of processes that concern not only large economic and political

The sardonic subtitle I've appended to my remarks this evening points to the increasingly vigorous and critical response by representatives of the world's religions to globalization as itself a"religion" of market competiton and consumption. It's a religion that promotes an ecologically unsustainable lifestyle and has created a development gap between rich and poor which, in the words of Ameer Ali, "is morally obscene, economically unjust, socially intolerable, and…politically perilous."

Buddhism and Christianity in Thailand

This evening it is not my intention to talk about the responses of contemporary forms of socially engaged Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam to globalization. Many of our discussions during the next few days will center around this topic. Rather, with the purpose of introducing those of you who are unfamiliar with our host country's religious history, I want to look briefly and very selectively at two of Thailand's religions that I know best, Buddhism and Christianity, from a perspective on the concept of globalization rather different from my opening remarks. I use the term, globalization, in this context in a very loose sense as, for example, when we refer to Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam as a world or global religion. Such a designation suggests "global" in the sense of "world-wide." More specifically it implies that a world religion has a common founder, a core set of shared beliefs or doctrines, a common scripture and sacred language, and often common rituals and priesthood. Historically, wherever a world religion has taken root and flourished it has adapted to different cultures, that is to say it has contextualized.

Buddhism

In the early centuries of the Common Era, the Buddhism that filtered into the region that came to be known as Siam was diverse and eclectic. It was more a matter

At the state level, a mutually symbiotic relationship existed between Thai monarchs and the Buddhist Sangha. Royal patrons sponsored the construction of grand monasteries, reliquary monuments, and colossal Buddha images at Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. By the end of the fourteenth century kings sought to enforce religious and political unity by patronizing the Sinhala Theravada Mahaviihara monastic heritage. The state that Thai kings sought to create and enforce through monastic patronage, sectarian favoritism, and the creation of ritually legitimated political alliances was able to survive often in the face of severe outside threats and internal stresses and strains.

Equally important to the formation of Thai identity at the state level was a cosmological charter of Thai kingship, The Three Worlds of King Ruang (Traiphumphraruang) composed by King Lu' Tai (Lidaiya Mahadharmaraja) who ascended the throne of Sukhothai in 1347. Nearly 500 years later, King Rama I (1787-1809), who restored the fortunes of the Thai monarchy with its capital in Bangkok after the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya in 1767, commissioned a new recension of the Traiphum, a witness to its utility as a charter for order and stability during a period of political and social disruption at the beginning of Thailand's modern era.

The cosmology of the Traiphum and the central place it accorded the mythic cakkavattin king were soon to be challenged by the historical forces of colonial globalization--European and American missionaries, merchants, commercial and political treaties, government administrators, and travelers who came to Bangkok in the mid-nineteenth century. By 1850 Siam, as it then was known, had signed treaties with several Western nations. The Siamese royal elites led by King Mongkut, Rama IV, crowned king in 1851, were fascinated by Western science and technology. A

It was during the reign of King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, (1868-1910) that far-reaching steps were taken to transform Siam into a modern nation-state. He and his successor, King Wachirawut, Rama VI (1910-1925) looked primarily to European countries for political models to strengthen the infrastructure of the developing nation-state. This involved a shift away from a religiously grounded cosmology and mythologized conception of kingship to a national bureaucratic administrative structure that included the Buddhist Sangha. The king and his advisors changed the basic structure of the government by creating twelve national ministries and a framework of provincial government to link the outlying regions with the capital. Parallel with the implementation of reforms designed to integrate provincial areas politically into the emergent Thai nation-state, Rama V also initiated policies to incorporate all Buddhists within the kingdom into a single national organization. The principles that established the basis It incorporated all monks into a national structure, established a hierarchical principle of authority, and created a national system of clerical education with a standardized curriculum.

Buddhism was instrumental in the formation of the major Thai kingdoms in pre-modern Siam and later in the creation of the modern nation-state that today we know as Thailand. In both sets of historical circumstances, Buddhism served to "globalize" what it meant to be Thai. In the era of the classical states Buddhism not only legitimated kingship but through the Sangha and a network of relics, images, and other signs of the Buddha literally created a buddhadesa or "Buddha-land." To be Thai was to be part of a local history but also the universal history of Buddha and cakkavattin (world-monarch), and of India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. The 20th century political transformation of Siam brought another kind of globalization to Thai Buddhism. Local traditions and customs were gradually superceded by the dictates of Bangkok; local knowledge was replaced by a mandated monastic curriculum; and ecclesiastical appointment and privilege came to supercede the personal relationship networks of teacher-student, master-disciple.

Until recent years, this state controlled civil religion, although never monolithic, was the dominant feature of Thai Buddhism. Today, however, it faces a series of challenges linked to new forces of globalization quite different from those

Changes associated with globalization have led to several developments within the fabric of Thai Buddhism of which only a few can be mentioned here: the appearance of new movements such as Wat Dhammakaya and Santi Asok; the empowerment of lay leadership and emergence of Buddhist NGOs as a kind of "sangha" blurring distinctions between monk and laity; innovative, existential interpretations of the dhamma exemplified by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Phra Dhammapitaka (P.A. Payutto) ; the increasingly widespread practice of insight meditation and the formation of lay meditation groups and centers; the ordination of women and the possibility of the establishment of a Bhikkhuni Sangha with the next decade; the veneration of charismatic monks often identified with the forest tradition; and the popularity of the cult of images, relics, and the belief in their power to protect and guarantee material benefit and success. As this extraordinarily diverse list illustrates, Thai Buddhism has become increasingly pluralistic, some would say fragmented, over the past half-century. What does it mean to be a Thai Buddhist in today's globalized world? Recent interviews with young adults indicate that Buddhism plays a relatively unimportant role in most of their lives. Others identify with the teachings of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu or the socially engaged Buddhism of Ajaan Sulak, or are committed to Wat Dhammakaya or Santi Asok, or seek refuge in the veneration of icons and relics. There are, indeed, many Buddhist identities in today's Thailand.

In February 2002 the Ariyavinaya Conference held at the Wongsanit Ashram outside of Bangkok focused around the question, "What Is Buddhist Identity in the Modern World?" Included in the writings collected for the conference was an essay by Pracha Hutanuwatr, "To Be Buddhist In Contemporary Society." Pracha's story provides an insight into one facet of Buddhist identity in a globalized world, one particularly relevant to this conference. I am taking the liberty of sharing parts of it with you in somewhat modified form as one example of what it means to be a Thai Buddhist in a globalized world. (And, oh yes, I think you will understand why Pracha does not own a sports utility vehicle!)

Pracha relates that for the first 18 years of his life Buddhism was mainly a matter of ritual and magic, his main memories of monastic activities being big funerals and ordinations. At his school Buddhism was taught by old fashioned teachers who only succeeded in making Buddhism boring. His main interests and values were absorbed from radio, television, and advertising. He saw the good life as making a lot of money, and having a big house and car. But all this changed in the 60's and 70's when a wave of student activism swept into his school. He read Buddhadasa who challenged the Americanized version of success and prosperity. After entering university he joined the Marxist student movement but in 1975 because disheartened with it because more time was spent in internal bickering than fighting for social justice. Supported by Ajaan Sulak and others he ordained a Buddhist monk for eleven years. Seven of those he spent at Wat Suan Mokh with Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. Disrobing in 1986 he has been an important associate of S. Sivaraksa ever since. Pracha writes,

For me to be a Buddhist means to reject the aims of life promoted by the corporate globalization to have more power, wealth, recognition, and sensual pleasure. Our aim should be to reduce the existential suffering of others and ourselves by reducing our cravings in the form of greed, lust, hatred, and self-importance. For me a meaningful Buddhist life in this contemporary world needs to be based on the application of wisdom and compassion both for inner and outer work. Striving for inner change through insight meditation by itself risks escaping from social responsibility. On the other hand, working only for social change may become an escape from confronting negative aspects of consciousness and cultivating positive

Christianity

My discussion of Christianity in Thailand will be relatively brief, practically because of limited time but also for historical reasons since Christianity has had a much shorter history in this country. In the 17th century Roman Catholic missionaries brought Christianity to the Kingdom of Ayutthaya during the reign of King Narai (1656-1688) and it was not until 1828 that Protestant missionaries arrived in Bangkok. Like Buddhist monks, they brought with them a global or world religion, but the story of Christianity's contextualization differs significantly from that of Buddhism. While Buddhism became a key factor in the development of the early Tai monarchical states and subsequently in the formation of the modern Thai nation-state, and engaged and absorbed both Brahmanical and animistic religious beliefs and practices to form a unique religious synthesis, the Christian community was less directly associated with state formation, and in the early years it basically isolated itself from the religious underpinnings of Thai culture. In my remarks, I shall focus only on the chapter of the Christian story in Thailand that deals with the early years of the Presbyterian mission to Chiang Mai toward the latter half of the 19th century. The mission saw itself engaged in a battle between God and Satan, light and darkness, a view that impacted significantly on Thai Christians' self-perception within their wider cultural context during the formative period of the Christian community. Not surprisingly, for Buddhists Christianity was perceived as the "foreigners religion," and in many respects it was.

The contributions of Presbyterian missionaries to the modernization and, perforce, Westernization of Siam during the reigns of Rama IV and V from 1851 to 1910 has been well documented. The Rev. Dr. Daniel Beach Bradley is remembered as the father of modern medicine in Thailand; at the invitation and sponsorship of Rama V, the Rev. Samuel G. McFarland founded King's College, the first government school; his son, Dr. George McFarland, at age twenty-five beame the superintendent of the new Sirirat Hospital as well as the dean of its medical school and was decorated by the king with a royal title; his brother, Edwin, invented the first Thai typewriter and served as secretary to the distinguished H.R.H. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab, Minister of Interior; and another brother, William, was private secreatry to H.R.H.

The Presbyterian mission in Chiang Mai, known as the mission to the Lao, was begun by the Rev. Daniel McGilvary and his wife, Sophia who reached Chiang Mai on April 3, 1867, after an arduous three-month trip upriver and overland. One can only imagine the physical discomfort of their first year. Arriving at the peak of the hot season, attired in long, heavy, dark Victorian clothing, their first home was a twelve by twenty foot semi-open rest house near the central market area, where daily they were gawked at by curious crowds. While their cramped and exposed living conditions must have been stressful, at the same time their situation gave the McGilvarys an opportunity to teach and for Daniel to practice basic medical skills such as sewing up wounds, setting broken bones, and vaccinating against smallpox. From the outset the practice of medicine, especially dispensing quinine and smallpox vaccinations, proved to be a crucial aspect of the Presbyterian mission to the Lao as it was in many contemporaneous mission stations throughout other parts of the world. After living in Chiang Mai for ten months, the McGilvarys were joined by Jonathan Wilson and his wife in February, 1868. The events that transpired within the next five years offer a case study of late 19th century globalization in northern Thailand.

The McGilvarys began their work in Chiang Mai with high hopes and expectations. By August, 1869, there were seven Thai Christian converts. Four of the seven were people of some influence and included two former Buddhist monks. Furthermore, two daughters of the Prince of Chiang Mai, Chao Kawilorot, had shown more than a polite interest in the missionaries and their message. In and of themselves conversions to Christianity might not have distressed Chao Kawilorot, but the missionaries' zeal to convert, their total rejection of the Lao religious-cultural synthesis of Buddhism and animism, and their demand that baptism required an absolute loyalty to the church posed a dangerous threat to the traditional structure of political authority and the well-established socio-economic system of corvee labor.

By mid-1869 Chao Kawilorot had decided to banish the McGilvarys and Wilsons from Chiang Mai. He had little control over other forces beginning to transform his kingdom and challenge his authority. These included Chiang Mai's tributary subservience to Bangkok; lawsuits over British-Burmese teak concessions pending before the British Consul; and the military threat of Shan incursions from the north that could be exploited by the Siamese. However, the Prince thought he might be able to rid himself of the aggravation of those unwelcome "globalizers," the American missionaries who were creating a new pattern of patron-client relationship in which the mission rather than the traditional ruler was lord. He tried several stratagies to force the missionaries to leave including the execution of two Christians, but before he was able to realize his purpose, the Prince died.

For Chao Kawilorot the execution of two Christians was primarily an exercise in princely authority. He was the "Lord of Life" (chao chiwit) with absolute authority regarding the governance of the kingdom. He promulgated laws, levied taxes, and exacted labor for public works such as roads and irrigation canals. He conscripted able bodied men as soldiers, adjudicated cases ranging from small offenses to murder and levied punishments as he saw fit, including death. His was a declining power, however, that was being increasingly eroded by more global events beyond his control. By 1874 a treaty between Bangkok and Chiang Mai established a dual government in the northern kingdoms, that of the local lord and a Thai commissioner (kha luang) from Bangkok. By the turn of the century, the north was no longer a collection of semi-autonomous tributary states but a centralized region (monthon). The patronage system at the basis of the chaos' power and authority was gradually replaced by the political and economic structures of an early modern nation-state controlled from Bangkok. Wittingly or unwittingly, the missionaries and fledgling Christian community in Chiang Mai contributed to this transformation.

Paradoxically, the efforts of American Presbyterian missionaries to create a religious community protected from the religious and cultural ethos of northern Thailand and even traditional economic and political structures contributed to Thailand's late 19th century globalization. A key event was the Edict of Religious Toleration promulgated by Rama V in 1878 instigated in part by the first Christian marriage in Chiang Mai between the granddaughter of Nan Inta, the first convert, and one of McGilvary's students whose patron, Chao Tepawong, the brother of the

On September 29, 1878, the Thai commissioner notified McGilvary that he had been granted enlarged powers by Rama V, including the power to proclaim religious toleration in the Lao states. The Edict of Religious Toleration, as it was known, was a crucial turning point in the history of the Protestant church in the north. Protected by the authority of Bangkok's official sanction, the mission embarked on a decade of expansion that included establishing mission stations in Lamphun, Chiang Rai, Phrae, and Nan and several hospitals and schools. Through the establishment of schools where the language of instruction was Siamese and the propagation of a Christian literature in that language, Presbyterian missionaries became collaborators with Bangkok in the Siamization of the nation. Therefore, although in dissimilar ways, like the Buddhist Sangha, Christianity in Chiang Mai figured into Rama V's strategies for the creation of a unified state controlled from Bangkok.

While both Buddhism and Christianity were factors in Siam's globalization process in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were poles apart when it came to the matter of contextualization. In the eyes of the missionaries, to become a Christian demanded a complete separation from northern Thai culture. The missionary critique focused primarily but not exclusively on its religious dimensions, namely, Buddhism and animism. To the missionaries, moreover, becoming a Christian also meant adopting a lifestyle that more nearly approximated the habits of the West ranging from dress and cleanliness to monogamous marriage and a puritan ethic that prohibited alcohol, smoking, and chewing betel. Christian schools were perceived as a training ground in Christian virtues and habits, especially girls' schools.

The mandate to create a separate and distinctive Thai Christian culture was undergirded by a view of conversion as a passage from darkness to light, from untruth to truth. Lillian Curtis, a Presbyterian missionary in Lampang from 1885-1889 described the first Lao convert's decision to become a Christian in the following terms:

…the obstacles in the way of making an open confession seemed to him [Nan Inta] unsurmountable. He would be cut off from his own people and kindred, and would be branded as an outcast. An outcast amidst friends and loved ones! Ah! But it is a test of manhood, for Christianity, to see a man cut loose from every tie that binds him to the past and present, from family and organized society, and to step out upon an unknown future for conscience sake. It is a test. And so for this first believer in Christ among the Laos, the trial was a bitter, heart-searching one. Satan tempted him. Could he not be a secret believer? Thereby he could maintain his influence over his family, and before they were aware lead them to a knowledge of God. And so he struggled, the birth-throes of Light in the midst of a people of darkness, continued until the Holy Spirit revealed to him in a flash of light that duty was his, consequences God's.

With the passage of time, the rather militant, separatist ideology of the Presbyterian mission softened and what Richard Niebuhr termed the "Christ against culture" perspective was complimented if not superceded by "Christ the transformer of culture" and an even more accommodating "Christ with culture" attitude. Today churches are exploring new ways of contextualizing the Christian life in community that are more inclusive of their Buddhist neighbors and the cultural forms they share together as Thais.

This past April the Siriwattana Church at Ban Tho, a Chiang Mai suburb, celebrated Thai New Year with a tam hua or "paying respects to the elders" ritual identical in form with the tam hua ritual at the Ban Tho Buddhist temple, and an even more elaborate tam hua ceremony was part of the Easter service at First Church Chiang Mai. In addition to adopting and adapting indigenous architectural, artistic, musical, and other cultural idioms, in some cases church congregations participate in Buddhist festivals and rituals in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade or two ago. Herbert Swanson, one of our conference participants who moderates a panel later in the week, has written a fascinating account of the decision made by the church at Ban Dok Daeng to be part of a kathin festival at the local Buddhist temple. As attitudes have changed over the decades since the Protestant

Institutionally and individually Christian identities in Thailand are as varied as the Buddhist identities to which I referred earlier. The Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture at Payap University and its sponsored projects that include courses co-taught by a Buddhist and a Christian at the McGilvary School of Theology and at one of the universities for Buddhist monks represent part of this diversity and, it goes without saying, is a significant departure from McGilvary's day!

Globalization Revisioned

Philip Hughes, a Christian who has conducted extensive empirical research in northern Thailand on the values and beliefs of Christians and Buddhists, and from whom we'll hear later in the week, has observed that globalization is not only "the extent to which wars, trade, culture, and many other aspects of life are becoming globally interrelated. 'Globalization' also refers to a change in consciousness…. The core of globalization is increasing interdependence. What happens in one part of the world affects what happens elsewhere."

The Buddhist monk, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu echoes a similar sentiment in writing about the environment in a prose form that verges on the poetic: "The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees, and the earth. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise... then we can build a noble environment. If our lives are not based on this truth, then we shall perish."

The members of the churches in Chiang Mai, Ban Tho, and Ban Dok Daeng I have recently interviewed agree that love, above all, defines what it means to be a Christian. A typical sentiment goes something like the following: "'God so loved the

The identity of Thai Buddhists has been formed against the backdrop of a history that has evolved from loosely structured galactic polities to a modern, centralized nation-state competing in the global marketplace. Northern Thai Protestant identity reflects this second historical dynamic, but an even more definitive influence is its heritage of mid-19th century American Presbyterianism. However, while religious identities are forged within the crucible of history and culture, they cannot be reduced to these contexts. The normative principles of a religious faith test and challenge each and every contextual status quo and guide us through the maze of our moral dilemmas.

In the final analysis then, globalization in the deepest religious sense cannot be reduced to economic and political factors or the accidents of history. Therefore, as we join together at this Religion and Globalization conference let us affirm the following:

• the inter-becoming of all life forms;
• in mindful awareness of this truth, let us embrace the imperative to act empathetically and compassionately towards all beings;
• and, within the interdependent world we all inhabit, irregardless of our religious, ethnic, or political identities, let us commit ourselves to be agents of justice, equality, peace, reconciliation, and non-violence.

In contextualizing this global vision we offer Pracha Huntanuwatr's hope that we, too, may become, "small bodhisattvas."