The phrase "new world order" has been in use at least since the aftermath of the first world war gave rise to the League of Nations, and post-WWII agreements formed the United Nations. After the first Gulf War President George H. Bush used the phrase in a speech lauding the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait.
What these 20th century new world orders represented however seemed to be neither new nor worldwide. While the maps were redrawn the world remained divided between east and west; between nations based on freedom and democracy (in politics and economy) and those not so. Even as the crashing surf changes the beach - it's still sand and water in the morning.
But what has, or is in the process of emerging in the wake of the recent global financial crisis seems to be genuinely something new; something genuinely worldwide in scope; and something which will order every life.
The response to this has been nearly universal with calls for worldwide coordination and strict regulation of the world's economic activity. As the crisis spread from America to Europe at the beginning of the month the EU's leaders "called for a global summit to draw up nothing less than a new international financial system" (Guardian.co.uk).
A week or so later we heard "On Tuesday [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown called for new international rules on trade, saying 'We must now create the right new financial architecture for the global age'" (Time.com).
The Christian Science Monitor reported analysts and government leaders saying, "'...the current crisis requires the kind of global regulatory reforms that have eluded major powers in the past ...there is urgency in the air,' says Simon Serfaty, an expert in US-Europe relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington..."
[French] President Sarkozy said, 'We cannot continue along the same lines,' he added, 'because the same problems will trigger the same disasters.'"
[European Union Commissioner President Jose Manuel] Barroso was more succinct: 'We need a new global financial order.'"
Although I'm not a prophecy or "end times" fanatic these developments have really got my attention. Especially recalling the prophet Daniel's vision of those gentile empires which will rule the world arising at a time when "the four winds of heaven [were] churning up the great sea" Dan.7:2.
The "great sea" is no doubt the Mediterranean - in contrast to the lesser seas of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Being the locus around which the gentile nations of the Biblical world clustered the great sea became a symbol of the world in opposition to God and His people; and its churning a contrast to that peace that God gives. So Daniel sees the arising of world dominating empires at times of great upheaval.
In the New Testament counterpart to Daniel, the book of Revelation,the author alludes to Daniel's vision seeing in ch.13 a beast (empire) whose rule of the earth will be total and unchallenged. Part of that control will be the imposition of a global economic structure.
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name" Rev.13:16-17.
Such a structure has been untenable in a world economy formed of loose and informal associations between nations who maintian individual sovereignty over their finances. This historic state of affairs seems to have run its course. Something is emerging on a scale which the world has not yet seen. Now you can say "New World Order."
