A Human Rights Approach to Globalization

Abstract

One Sunday in 2008 I visited Houston’s Lakewood Church, the institutional home of America’s popular televangelist Joel Osteen. A refurbished basketball stadium, the church has an average weekly attendance of forty-seven thousand followers. On the large speaker’s stage the most prominent fixture is not a big cross, as one might expect given Osteen’s commitment to the Christian faith. Instead, it is a giant, rotating globe. Once everybody had taken their seats, several rounds of rock music put the congregation into a celebratory mood. A few introductory remarks by Osteen’s wife Victoria followed, and then her husband, the celebrity pastor himself, stepped into the limelight. At that moment, eight cameras started to roll and tape the show. Once the message was recorded, it would flood into the homes of millions of Americans and to viewers in one hundred other countries who tuned in to hear Osteen speak. Followers anywhere in the world could watch the famous preacher by podcast. While they listened to his message of self-love and wealth creation, they saw faint outlines of the globe, which turned quietly in the background.