Saving us from ourselves

I found it interesting in the discussion of religion and globalization in "The Paradox of a Global US" that there are missionaries from the third world seeking to enter the West for the purpose of proselytizing the gospel to save Westerners from their liberal non-orthodox ways.  The schism in the Anglican Church over the ordination of homosexual clergy has been especially interesting to me because my great aunt is Episcopalian.  Her bishop actually resides in Africa after her congregation and others decided to they no longer wished to associate with the American conference.  The church itself (Saint Luke's) was founded in 1833 in Georgetown, Pennsylvania.  The congregation probably has thirty people on a good day for services as the town's population is around 150.  While the town is not remote in a strict geographical since, it is fairly removed from the broader world of Beaver County by virtue of the fact that there are only two roads into town.  It fronts the Ohio River but no longer has any direct connection with that most august conduit of trade.  In some respects it represents the antithesis of globalization, the population is very insular and could scarcely care about what goes on in the wider world unless it directly affects the town.  Yet, that the bishop of the Episcopal Church resides in Africa and has fairly regular communication with the congregation is a testament to how thoroughly interconnected human society has become.  Religion is by no means divorced from this process and in some ways the missionary zeal of the nineteenth century combined with the advances in modern communication and transport technologies have made the situation of Saint Luke's possible.  Yet in some respects it has allowed the church to stay within the larger Anglican community while attempting to separate itself from what the congregation sees as the sins of a liberal agenda within the Episcopal Church.  In another age such an ideological schism would have likely resulted in the formation of a splinter organization or a totally new congregation.  I am sure from the African bishop's perspective, he is helping to save a congregation in America from the sins of a heretical ordination that is a result of the Episcopal Church's willingness to depart from orthodoxy.  Thus, while in earlier times the congregation of Saint Luke's would have thought it was the African that needed his soul saved, today quite the opposite has developed.  Africans think that those in the West are the ones in need of a help.  This will prove especially problematic for the Catholic Church in the future as it too will likely face a division between the Western bishops and those in the Third World.  Globalized religion has created just as many challenges to society as has the broader swath of Globalization.  Yet, perhaps while those peoples in the traditional Third World have had much to fear from the onset of globalization, with religion it seems probable that perhaps the institutions in the West have much to fear from the disciples their ancestors created in the broader world if they wish to hold onto their control of institutional hierarchies while also "changing with the times" in the West.