Development... sustainable??

The story so far...

My study of sustainable development from God's perspective continues its embryonic phase. So far I've loosely outlined what is meant by sustainable and thrown out some thoughts on whether this is a biblical concept or how it might be redefined biblically.

At the end of that post, I briefly touched on a question which I'd like to look at more closely here and throw open to general debate. That question is; "can development ever be truly sustainable?!"

What Genesis has to say about Work

The third theme that I would like to pick out from my study of the opening chapters of Genesis is that of work. Specifically, I feel that there are two key principles that can be drawn out for further analysis. The first is work itself and the second is the opposite of work (i.e. not working, or resting).

And he shall reign... Hallelujah!

Here's a little aside from the heavy philosophising of the past couple of weeks...

The John & James Knight Foundation's programme, Knight Arts, has launched a season of Random Acts of Culture across the US.

Their most recent escapade involved the world's largest pipe organ and 650 classical singers launching, unannounced, into a recital of Handel's Messiah in the middle of a Macy's department store in Philadelphia.

Watch the video and be moved...

Response to the comment 'Aren't we already postmodern?'

This is a response to Stephen’s comment. I intended it to be another comment, but it got too long!...

Postmodernity and Christianity

This post introduces a new topic for discussion – Postmodernity and Christianity. I have tried to explain why I believe that engaging with a critique of our culture (whether late-modern or post-modern – or any other label you want to give it) is essential to gaining an understanding of our own views of the world as it is, and how it could be. I’m aware that it is a Herculean (perhaps Sisyphusian) labour to try to meaningfully think and write about a topic that is so nebulous, contentious and in flux. Also I know that even the vocabulary of post-modernism is (mis)heard very differently, particularly within the church – understood at once as something of a dirty word, and/or a shortcut for being ‘relevant’. Despite these pitfalls, I think the importance of informed, open discourse on this subject outweighs the dangers.

So below is a brief intro (as brief as I can manage) to situate this topic, and kick off some debate. If you’re up for wrestling this through, I look forward to your thoughts:

What Genesis has to say about Value

I spend a large proportion of my time at work evaluating things. As a specialist in economic impact assessment, these evaluations usually involve estimating the value of projects and initiatives in monetary terms. For example, how much has this business support programme benefited the regional economy? Or, have these youth work projects delivered value for money in terms of generating economic benefits for the young people or society in general that are higher than the costs involved?

As recorded in Genesis 1, God built an evaluation programme into his work of creation. He conducted a final evaluation at close of play on Day 6 (1:31) and interim evaluations on Day 1 (1:4), at lunchtime and close of play on Day 3 (1:10,12), close of play on Days 4 and 5 (1:18,21) and lunchtime on Day 6 (1:25). So what was the conclusion of his evaluation studies? At all the interim stages, he assessed his work as being “good” while at the final stage this assessment appears to have increased to “very good”. But what do these terms really mean? Perhaps a social researcher approached him with a clipboard and asked, “Excuse me, sir, could you spare five minutes to answer this short questionnaire? How would you rate your creation (so far)? Very good, good, satisfactory, poor or very poor? Thank you for your time.”

Define Your Terms - Part 1

In my previous post, Sustainable Community Development - the beginning, I outlined the themes that I want to study over the next year and how and why I came to be interested in them. Having introduced my subject, the key next step in any good piece of research is to define one's terms. That is (loosely) what this post is about - defining "Sustainable" and comparing how the world defines this term with how it might be defined biblically.

Sustainable Community Development - the beginning

The challenge:

So Andy has laid down the gauntlet by announcing his aim to study the biblical principles of economics over the coming year (see Why metanoia). I will take up that challenge by announcing here to all and sundry that it is my intention to study the bible over the coming year to glean the principles of sustainable community development.

There. I've said it. Now you can all hold me accountable to it.

This is something I got passionate about whilst studying Engineering (of all things) a couple of years ago. I signed up for a module in my final year on sustainable development and I found that a lot of the concepts and ideas that were talked about really resonated with what I was coming to understand about the way God's kingdom works.

I've started reading through the bible with this as my focus. Admittedly, I haven't got very far yet (Genesis 4!) but that's partly because there's so much in there to learn.

Click on 'Read more...' for a summary of why I've chosen this as my focus and why I think this is an important topic to engage with as a Christian.

Insights on the financial crisis

In the run up to the announcement of the Government's spending review on Wednesday I thought I'd share these youtube clips. Click on this link for the first of five parts, then select the remaining four parts from the 'suggestions'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSDGDerFst4

They are from a lecture by Prof David Harvey from City University New York which summarises his new book 'The Enigma of Capital'. The book and lecture seek to explain the structural causes of the recent financial crisis and as such they are the clearest and most eloquent attempt I've come across. Prof Harvey applies a distinctly Marxian analysis to this topic and unlocks a lot of really serious structural questions that I think need to be confronted if we are serious about reimaging the economy in the image of God.

Check it out. Measure it against the plumb-line. I'll post about a couple of specifics shortly and will try to refrain from shouting viva la Revolution since I'm in the library!

Nathan

At the city gate...

Recently some of the Metanoia team took part in a conference called CityGate near Manchester. The topic of the conference was biblical principles of Business and the keynote speaker was Landa Cope who is founding dean of the International College of Communcations within the University of the Nations (the training arm of YWAM) and who now runs the Template Institute.

The conference was great and I'll try and put together a summary of the key points at some stage soon. But first I want to take this opportunity, as we're just setting out on this venture, to introduce Landa Cope and acknowledge the significance of her teaching on my understanding of the importance and relevance of the bible to the whole of society.

What Genesis has to say about Property

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

If God created the universe, then either he is the current holder of its property rights or, at some point in history, those rights were transferred to somebody else. I think that the weight of biblical evidence (e.g. Deut 8:17-18, Psalm 24:1) points to the former hypothesis. Therefore it follows that nobody else owns anything.

Does this mean that God disapproves of private property? On the contrary, a large part of the law of Moses is concerned with establishing and protecting property rights. If God disapproved of property, at least two of the Ten Commandments (“Do not steal” and “Do not covet”) would be redundant. This is because God’s law is pragmatic, and designed for a fallen world. A system of property rights is an effective way of managing scarce resources. But this is a discussion for another time, so let’s get back to the more idealistic world of Genesis.

Reflections from Genesis

According to the Biblical worldview, one can think of there being four stages in the history of the universe – creation, fall, redemption and consummation. The first few chapters of Genesis cover the first three of these stages.

If we’re honest, the account of creation in Genesis can sometimes read a bit like a fairy story. The debate about how God created the universe and the extent to which the Genesis story can be taken literally is an important one. However, I don’t want to dwell on this here but rather draw out some of the fundamental principles that will help inform our worldview and hence the way we should live our lives.

Why Metanoia?

As this is my first post on our new blog, I would like to share a few thoughts about why I decided to be part of Metanoia and what I hope to achieve from participating in the discussions on this blog. For a long time now, I have been interested in exploring what God has to say about economics. It is often said that economics is the “dismal science”, a study of the perennial quest to satisfy mankind’s unlimited wants under the constraints of the earth’s scarce resources. However, somewhere inside of me is the hope and belief that “God’s economy” is an achievable place of peace, love and joy.

To discover God’s economy, I am starting with the Bible – Old and New Testaments. Within the next year or so, I am aiming to read the entire Bible, marking with a coloured pencil every reference that, in my view, pertains to the world of economics. So far, I have covered the first five books of the Old Testament plus Job.

Welcome to the launch of our blog. We are a group of people passionate about seeing God's kingdom come in all its fullness here on earth. We want to partner with God in this process and to imagine what every sphere of society could look like if renewed and reconceived to reflect the image of our maker. To this end we affirm the revelation and authority of the Bible and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as breathed through history and available to us now. Our aim for this blog is to be a space to dream big, to think radically, to challenge orthodoxy, and to do it together.

We've named this collective endeavor Metanoia. It is derived from the Greek words meta, meaning change or beyond, and noos, meaning mind. It conveys a dual aim; to effect a change of mind regarding our world and our society; and to invite the One who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or think, to take us beyond the limits of our human wisdom, towards His kingdom.

We invite you to join us.